Search Results Found For: "second life"

StoreDot says its battery tech charges 10 times faster

Put this one in the “If it can do what they claim, it really will be revolutionary” category. Israeli battery developer StoreDot says its EV FlashBattery can charge a 300-mile battery in 5 minutes – almost 10 times faster than today’s state of the art. In 2014, StoreDot demonstrated the FlashBattery, which it says can… Read more »

BMW pilot pays drivers to delay charging, helping to stabilize the grid

BMW has partnered with Pacific Gas and Electric (PG&E) for an 18-month demand response pilot in the San Francisco Bay Area. The ChargeForward Program has two parts: the first is a managed charging program, in which 100 i3 owners will allow BMW to delay the charging of their vehicles by up to an hour, based… Read more »

New paper: Cost of hybrid systems will be halved by 2025

For those of us who are puzzled and discouraged by the recent decline in sales of hybrid vehicles, a new paper from the International Council on Clean Transportation (ICCT) offers plenty of hope for the future. According to “Hybrid Vehicles: Technology Development and Cost Reduction,” the costs of full-function hybrid systems are likely to drop… Read more »

Gaining traction at last: Efacec instals over 600 DC fast chargers worldwide

If we’ve heard it once, we’ve heard it a thousand times: EVs and charging infrastructure present a chicken-and-egg problem. This thesis has been the topic of countless EV industry conference panels over the past decade. In recent years, many experts have attempted to declare the issue settled. Back in January 2013, European Union Climate Commissioner… Read more »

Proterra CEO on the economics of the electric bus business

Venture capitalists assume a large amount of risk when they invest in early-stage companies. They do so because of the potential for huge returns. To ensure that a portfolio of investments delivers the greatest return with the least risk, VCs spend a considerable amount of time evaluating companies, looking for the key ingredients of success…. Read more »

Dana kicks copper to the curb in favor of all-aluminum cooling products for EVs

In 1982, the US Mint made the practical decision to change the composition of the penny coin from 95% copper/5% zinc – an alloy you know as brass – to 97.5% zinc with copper plating. Inflation had pushed the price of copper in a penny above one cent, and zinc was significantly less expensive and… Read more »

Nissan, GM and Toyota repurpose used EV batteries for stationary storage

Tesla may have made it trendy, but the California company is far from the only automaker exploring the commercial energy storage market, which is expected to grow from $200 million in 2012 to $19 billion in 2017, according to research firm IHS CERA. Nissan has joined forces with Green Charge Networks to deploy second-life EV… Read more »

LG Chem Power CEO: We’re the Li-ion leader for PEVs because of material science

Q&A with LG Chem Power’s CEO: Dr. Prabhakar Patil on how the company became a Li-ion battery front-runner, the economics of building batteries, and why it spends little energy on what comes after lithium. Among Tier 1 automotive suppliers of lithium-ion cells, LG Chem is off to a clear lead, based on the number of announced… Read more »

PATHION’s superionic solid-state electrolytes point to more powerful and safer batteries

Solid-state electrolytes are the talk of the town these days. California-based PATHION has been working to commercialize solid electrolytes since its founding in 2012, building on its exclusive license from Los Alamos National Laboratories for a promising material called Lithium-Rich Anti-Perovskite (LiRAP). At the recent Materials Research Conference, PATHION presented two new superionic solid-state electrolytes built upon… Read more »

Wrightspeed introduces new Fulcrum turbine generator for range-extended EV architecture

Wrightspeed, the startup led by Tesla co-founder Ian Wright, has identified a promising target for electrification – it retrofits plug-in powertrains to urban service trucks, the most inefficient and polluting of commercial vehicles. Customers include FedEx, which recently ordered an additional 25 of the company’s powertrains.           Now Wrightspeed has unveiled the Fulcrum, a new turbine… Read more »