The battery pack is not only one of the most expensive components in an EV—it’s also incredibly complex, in some cases comprising thousands of individual cells. The tasks of preserving a battery’s efficiency, lifespan, thermal stability and safety rest upon the battery management system (BMS), an embedded controller that regulates the flow and distribution of… Read more »
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Audi to invest $109 million in charging infrastructure at German plants
Audi will invest around €100 million ($109 million) to electrify one in ten parking spaces at its German plants by mid-2022. The German carmaker will install 4,500 charging points in Germany, including 3,500 at its main plant in Ingolstadt and 1,000 at its plant in Neckarsulm, and almost 100 each at plants in Brussels, Belgium… Read more »
Tesla to buy batteries from CATL for China market
Recently, Tesla has indicated that it plans to diversify its battery supply for the Asian market, moving away from its near-total reliance on Panasonic. Now Contemporary Amperex Technology (CATL), China’s largest EV battery-maker, has confirmed the signing of a two-year supplier agreement with Tesla. The agreement does not specify the volume of cells to be… Read more »
Accell’s new AxFAST 3202 portable Level 2 charger
Accell is an electronics manufacturer that’s based in Silicon Valley, and also has facilities in Mexico, Malaysia, and China. The company’s new AxFAST 3202 32-amp Level 2 charger is a higher-current version of its 16-amp AxFAST Level 2 charger. The new AxFAST 3202 offers a maximum charging level of 7.68 kW at 32 amps. It… Read more »
Tesla on a roll, shorts in the hole as record earnings and Model Y news send stock soaring
Should we pity the poor short sellers, who just lost a cool billion bucks in one day, and over 5 billion so far this year, according to S3 Analytics (via CNBC)? Nah – they should have heeded the old adage about repeatedly doing the same thing and expecting different results. Tesla announced a second straight… Read more »
Rice researchers find inserting detours within a battery cathode improves charge/discharge rate
We have all heard the comforting bromide about our imperfections being our greatest strengths. Rice University researchers have recently proven this platitude in the context of battery charging cycles with the discovery that defects purposely inserted into the crystalline lattice of a lithium iron phosphate cathode actually cause the battery to work more, not less,… Read more »
Is IONITY’s prodigious price increase designed to steer customers to “mobility services?”
EV advocates cheered the advent of IONITY, a European charging network owned by a joint venture of BMW, Daimler, Ford, and the Volkswagen Group. The network currently includes 205 DC fast charging stations in 18 European countries, and aims to have 400 in service by the end of 2020. However, the applause has recently been… Read more »
Sandy Munro says the Tesla Cybertruck’s unorthodox design makes it cheap to manufacture
Sandy Munro, the auto manufacturing expert who delivered some detailed insights about Tesla’s manufacturing strengths and weaknesses after tearing down a Tesla Model 3, recently made some comments about the upcoming Cybertruck. Of course, Munro hasn’t gotten his hands on an actual Cybertruck (as far as we know, Jay Leno is the first non-employee to… Read more »
Battery pack prices continue plummeting towards price parity with ICE vehicles
If you drove an EV back in 2010, it’s likely that you paid an average of about $1,100 per kilowatt-hour for your battery pack. By the end of 2019 this figure had fallen a full 87%, to $156 per kWh. According to BloombergNEF’s 2019 Battery Price Survey, the average price by 2023 will be approximately… Read more »
Wallbox’s bidirectional DC home charger turns heads at CES
Bidirectional charging encompasses several applications that can be collectively referred to as V2x (vehicle-to-grid, vehicle-to-home, maybe someday vehicle-to-brain). It’s expected to play an important role in tomorrow’s electrified, connected transportation ecosystem, but to date it exists only in pilots, most of them involving commercial fleets. So the new Quasar bidirectional EV charger from Barcelona-based Wallbox,… Read more »