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 »
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Novel current collector is designed to stop battery thermal runaway
Researchers from Renmin and Tsinghua Universities in China have developed a novel shape-memory current collector (SMCC) that they say can stop battery thermal runaway in an overheated battery. Their paper, Early Braking of Overwarmed Lithium-Ion Batteries by Shape-Memorized Current Collectors, is published in the ACS journal Nano Letters. Unlike traditional current collectors made of copper… Read more »
Amping-up EV batteries with a materials mindset
Sponsored by DupontSponsored by Dupont Before this decade is over, even conservative estimates indicate that at least two out of three cars produced in the world will be electrically powered. This figure accounts for both fully battery-powered and hybrid propulsion system vehicles. There are some hard truths involved in engineering mobility for the future. Systems,… Read more »
6 tips for creating high-throughput battery production in record time
Batteries represent nearly one third of the total price of a typical EV, and there’s a push to get that down to 20% or less by the end of this decade. In an effort to lower costs and accelerate production, the EV industry has been searching for ways to make the assembly process more efficient… Read more »
A closer look at high-power interconnects and disconnects
In the electrical/electronic world, the terms interconnect and disconnect both refer to a means of joining two sides of a circuit together. The subtle—and entirely informal—difference is that an interconnect is directly or manually operated (inserting a plug into a jack, for example) while a disconnect is indirectly or automatically operated, for example the moving… Read more »
European Battery Alliance says European battery industry is in “crisis,” calls for billions in “emergency” investments
The US Inflation Reduction Act was intended to boost investment in US battery manufacturing, and it appears to be working—so well, in fact, that European battery producers are becoming alarmed. The European Battery Alliance (EBA), a group of around 800 industry stakeholders that was founded in 2017, has presented what it calls a “crisis proposal”… Read more »
Charging lithium-ion cells at different rates boosts EV battery pack life, per Stanford study
Stanford University researchers have found a way to make lithium-ion battery packs last longer and suffer less deterioration from fast charging. In “Extending Life of Lithium-Ion Battery Systems by Embracing Heterogeneities via an Optimal Control-Based Active Balancing Strategy,” published in IEEE Xplore, the researchers explain how actively managing the amount of current flowing to each… Read more »
Envision AESC to build 30 GWh gigafactory in South Carolina
Japanese battery player Envision AESC plans to invest some $810 million to build a battery gigafactory in Florence, South Carolina. The 1.5 million-square-foot plant will produce batteries to power the BMW Group’s next-generation EVs. By 2030, BMW plans to produce at least six fully electric models at its plant in Spartanburg. The investment marks the… Read more »
Improving speed to market: Navigating EV assembly challenges
Sponsored by Bosch Rexroth:The electric vehicle (EV) revolution gains more momentum every day, driving change to automotive manufacturing in unprecedented ways. With rapidly growing demand comes the need to rapidly scale assembly operations — and that can create significant challenges. Vehicle manufacturers constantly seek new, more productive automation technologies to boost their quality and productivity…. 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 »