Large corporate and government vehicle fleets are increasingly turning to plug-in vehicles to take advantage of dramatically lower fuel, operating and maintenance costs. For the fleet manager, however, the EV infrastructure world is a lot more complicated than it is for gas or CNG vehicles, which can use a single refueling depot. In spite of… Read more »
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London Black Cabs raises $400 Million to develop PHEV taxi
London’s famous red buses are slowly but steadily going electric, and its iconic black cabs could eventually follow suit. Zhejiang Geely, owner of the London Taxi Company, which builds the boxy black beauties, has raised $400 million to finance the development of the TX5, a plug-in hybrid version of the classic 1958 FX4, according to… Read more »
Infineon’s HybridPACK DSC power modules for hybrid and electric vehicles
Infineon Technologies’ latest power module family features extremely small dimensions (42 x 42.4 x 4.77 mm). These modules are designed for applications such as main inverters and generators with a typical power range of 40 to 50 kW, and can be used in parallel configurations to support higher power levels. An inverter is typically placed… Read more »
Tesla bulking up on workers and real estate as production gets ready to rocket
The Model 3 launch, which Tesla calls “the biggest consumer product launch ever,” is to be followed by what must be the biggest and fastest production ramp-up ever (those of little faith might prefer such adjectives as “quixotic” or “impossible”), Tangible evidence of this massive mobilization is beginning to appear. Tesla recently leased a million… Read more »
Tesla to promote Chinese national charging standard
China has ambitious electrification plans, but a lack of common charging standards has been a major roadblock. In September the State Council announced a major infrastructure initiative that called for deploying 4.5 million charging points. Now the country has developed a new charging standard that supports both DC fast charging and Level 2 charging. No… Read more »
Tesla first quarter earnings overshadowed by questions about production ramp-up
Tesla’s earnings report for the first quarter of 2016 revealed that the company fell just short of its projected deliveries, and that revenue and loss figures came in fairly close to analysts’ forecasts. The company reached a new quarterly production record of 15,510 vehicles, up 10% from Q4 2015. It shipped 14,820 units, fewer than… Read more »
A closer look at wire bonding
Wire bonding technology – widely utilized in the microelectronics and power electronics industries since the 1970s – is finding its way into interesting new applications in the growing EV industry – in particular, battery connections. We’re quite certain that a few EVs are using wire-bonding technology for production battery pack connections, but Charged was unable… Read more »
Seaward’s new handheld charge point tester will help bring quality control to a new level
There is no doubt that the early days of charging infrastructure rollout had some bumps in the road. Plug-in vehicles interact with the outside world in a much more complicated way than legacy gas-guzzlers do, which led to early interoperability issues. The automakers needed to quickly learn how to work with many infrastructure and hardware… Read more »
Musk: Probability of accidents 50% lower with Autopilot
It’s generally expected that autonomous vehicles will prove to be safer than those driven by fallible humans, but hard figures will be needed to convince regulators and a skeptical public. During a talk in Norway, Elon Musk said that Tesla is beginning to amass some statistics on the safety of its Autopilot-equipped vehicles. “The probability… Read more »
Companies scramble to secure lithium supplies as “white petroleum” prices soar
The hottest commodity on the planet right now is not oil or coffee but lithium, according to a recent article on OilPrice.com. The ballooning battery market is expected to drive demand for the light white metal, and mining companies, battery producers and automakers are scrambling to secure supplies. Goldman Sachs predicts that for every 1%… Read more »