13,896 new plug-in vehicles hit the roads of Scandinavia in the first quarter of 2016. Both Norway and Finland had their best-selling quarters to date. However, sales in Denmark stalled as the government phased out tax breaks. As reported by auto industry publication Insero Quarterly, EVs are still outselling PHEVs, but the latter are closing… Read more »
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Finnish firm develops lightweight stainless steel battery pack for EVs
Finland-based Outokumpu is working on lightweight stainless steel solutions for EVs in cooperation with Germany’s Fraunhofer Institute. Their latest innovation is a new battery pack that combines several lightweight engineering technologies as well as new types of cooling and structural strategies. Because EV batteries are mainly installed in the underfloor area, their casings have high… Read more »
German government announces 1 billion euro EV and PHEV subsidy program
Several European nations, notably Norway and the Netherlands, offer generous incentive programs to support e-mobility. Germany, the continent’s largest auto market, has been a conspicuous exception until now. This week, the German government announced a new incentive scheme worth about 1 billion euros ($1.13 billion). The costs are to be shared equally between the government… Read more »
WAVE wireless charging helps transit agencies save money by going electric
Wireless charging technology is almost ready for the big stage. Qualcomm has demonstrated its Halo system in various vehicles, including the Drayson B12/69 electric race car. Evatran’s Plugless aftermarket system is now commercially available for the Volt and the LEAF, and a Model S-compatible version is coming soon. Several major automakers have indicated that they’re… Read more »
New study identifies one culprit behind Li-sulfur battery capacity fade
Lithium-sulfur batteries theoretically offer high energy density, and are widely seen as a promising next-generation energy storage system. However – you guessed it – they have several drawbacks. Among other issues, capacity tends to fade quickly. Researchers at the DOE’s Pacific Northwest National Laboratory (PNNL) have identified one of the reasons behind this problem, and found… Read more »
Chinese researchers develop aluminum-graphite dual-ion battery
A team from the Shenzhen Institutes of Advanced Technology of the Chinese Academy of Sciences has developed a novel, environmentally friendly low-cost battery. In “A Novel Aluminum-Graphite Dual-Ion Battery,” published in Advanced Energy Materials, Yongbing Tang and colleagues present a new aluminum-graphite dual-ion battery (AGDIB) that they say offers higher energy density than conventional LIBs, as… Read more »
True Super-Hero Tales: Can Tesla survive the new Valley of Death?
Whatever happens next, Tesla made automotive history last week. At last count, the Disruptors of Detroit had received over 325,000 reservations for their new super-vehicle. That’s nearly three times the total number of plug-in vehicles sold in the US last year (116,099), and it’s similar to the annual sales of some of the country’s top-selling… Read more »
Which US cities are the most EV-friendly?
Portland, Oregon is the most plugged-in city in the US, according to researchers at the Indiana University School of Public and Environmental Affairs. In “Plug-in electric vehicle readiness: Rating cities in the United States,” published in Electricity Journal, the researchers ranked 36 cities, including the nation’s 25 largest, in terms of the policies they have… Read more »
A closer look at electrolytes in advanced batteries
The electrolytes in advanced batteries are based on incredibly complicated formulations. If you calculated all of the possible combinations of solvents, salts and additives while trying to find the optimal ratios for just one electrolyte formulation, it would add up to an extraordinary number of possibilities. Because it plays such a critical role in battery… Read more »
Greenlots and Hawaiian Electric demonstrate fast charger with storage and vehicle-grid integration
Greenlots and Hawaiian Electric Company have collaborated to demonstrate a fast charger that incorporates Greenlots’ SKY vehicle-grid integration (VGI) platform, as well as stationary storage. The Greenlots SKY Smart Charging platform, which uses OpenADR and the Open Charge Point Protocol (OCPP), can respond to demand response load modification requests and allow Hawaiian Electric to remotely… Read more »