China-based Gochin has approached the Afghanistan Ministry of Mines and Petroleum with a proposal to invest $10 billion in Afghanistan’s lithium mining sector. The Chinese company suggested that if it is awarded the lithium mining contract, it will invest in several significant Afghan infrastructure projects, including tunnels, a power dam and highways, according to the… Read more »
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ZeBeyond launches EV manufacturing simulation technology
ZeBeyond, a new UK-based software company, has released its Electrified Propulsion Optimisation Process (ePOP) platform to help manufacturers and suppliers make data-driven decisions in developing EV designs. At the 2023 European Automotive Decarbonization & Sustainability Summit, ZeBeyond demonstrated its software as a service simulation platform, which is designed to “allow users to solve the performance,… Read more »
Alternatives to permanent magnet motors in EV traction applications
In my very first article for Charged over 10 years ago, I opined that the Switched Reluctance Motor, or SRM, would eventually come to dominate the EV traction market, if for no other reason than the fact that it is almost as cheap as dirt to manufacture. I won’t sprain my shoulder patting myself on… Read more »
Volt Carbon stakes mining claims in Ontario
Volt Carbon Technologies recently announced the acquisition of the Abamasagi Lake Lithium Project, located northwest of Nakina, Ontario. The company registered a total of 150 mining claim cells covering a total area of 3,100 hectares. The Ontario Ministry of Northern Development has recommended the area as a “grassroots exploration property” for lithium, based on lake… Read more »
ZF reaches milestone: two million EV motors produced
This year, automotive supplier ZF reached the milestone of two million electric motors produced. To keep pace with the global increase in demand for EVs, the company has been continuously accelerating production at its lead plant in Schweinfurt, Germany. It has also commissioned major production lines in Serbia and China. Another plant in North America… Read more »
ZF’s new e-drives feature multiple innovations
ZF has introduced new electric drives with a modular and compact design for electric passenger cars and light commercial vehicles. The new e-drives, which incorporate an electric motor, gearbox, power electronics and DC-DC converters, will be available on the market as a complete system starting in 2025, but the company will bring individual components into… Read more »
Prototype interior permanent magnet synchronous motor achieves 100,000 rpm
A team at the University of New South Wales (UNSW) Sydney in Australia has built a new high-speed motor which can be used in EVs, large HVAC systems, high-precision CNC machines and the integrated drive generators in aircraft engines. Using its own optimization program, the team has built a prototype IPMSM motor with a patented… Read more »
CorePower Magnetics raises $2.5 million to develop proprietary magnetic materials
Soft magnetics technology startup CorePower Magnetics has raised $2.5 million in pre-seed funding from Volta Energy Technologies, Innovation Works and Evergreen Climate Innovations. The funding will be used to scale up development of CorePower Magnetics’s proprietary magnetic materials. “CorePower’s technology not only promises step-change performance benefits to EVs and the grid, but it is also… Read more »
The EV raw materials crunch: How bad, how long, how to solve it?
This article originally appeared in Issue 60: April-June 2022 Subscribe now Every new technology must overcome a series of temporary constraints on its way to widespread adoption. Since modern EVs appeared a decade ago, they’ve motored past many of these bottlenecks, (or hurdles, or roadblocks—pick your preferred metaphor). Range has increased, access to charging infrastructure has expanded,… Read more »
A closer look at brushed AC motors in EVs
Everything old is new again: BMW’s fifth-generation eDrive features a wound-field synchronous AC motor Brushed DC (and AC/DC universal) motors are much maligned for a number of reasons, but one of the chief—if, perhaps, somewhat exaggerated—complaints is that the graphite brushes, and the segmented copper commutator they ride on, wear out over time, all the while producing… Read more »