Redwood Materials, the battery recycling firm run by Tesla alum JB Straubel, recently broke ground on a new facility near Charleston, South Carolina. The plant will complement the company’s Nevada materials location, and will be used to recycle, refine and remanufacture anode and cathode components. Also like Redwood’s Nevada site, the new Battery Materials Campus… Read more »
Search Results Found For: "Volkswagen"
EnviroSpark has installed over 7,800 charging plugs. Here’s what the company has learned.
EnviroSpark runs its own EV charging network and helps others with installations, including Tesla, Volkswagen and Ford. The parlous state of public charging reliability has emerged as a major roadblock to wider EV adoption, and the entire industry is going through a soul-searching phase, trying to identify the roots of the problems and correct them…. Read more »
Is it true that only 13 EVs currently qualify for a US tax credit?
Sometimes public policy gets skewered on the horns of a dilemma. The Buy American provisions of the Inflation Reduction Act are aimed at protecting US jobs (and national security) by making EVs with substantial amounts of battery components from “nations of concern”—namely China—ineligible for tax credits. That’s a worthy goal, but to a certain extent… Read more »
The heavy-duty electric truck market could break out in 2024
Electrifying heavy-duty trucks is essential if we’re to fight climate change and air pollution, but the pace of the transition has been painfully slow—many, many pilots, but few truly large-scale orders. For example, shipping giant Schneider acquired 92 Freightliner eCascadias in 2023—a good start, but only that, considering that the company currently operates over 10,000… Read more »
QuantumScape’s solid-state battery cell achieves milestone in testing: 1,000 charging cycles
In recent A-sample tests at the laboratories of PowerCo, the Volkswagen Group’s battery company, a solid-state battery from QuantumScape achieved more than 1,000 charging cycles while retaining more than 95 percent capacity. This translates to a potential battery life of 500,000 km with no significant loss of vehicle range. Solid-state battery technology promises longer ranges,… Read more »
GM’s rosy year-end figures obscure the fact that legacy automakers are in deep trouble
Duplicitous doublespeak has become de rigueur dialect in the auto industry. “We remain committed to an all-electric future,” says GM as it announces a rollback of its electrification plans. “We strongly believe in EVs,” say auto dealers as they support efforts to slow the EV transition. “The greatest responsibility for us as a company is… Read more »
IoTecha’s IoT.ON platform enables both AC and DC bidirectional charging
Smart charging specialist IoTecha has developed a verticalized platform including hardware, embedded software and cloud services, that’s designed to power turnkey EV charging solutions. The IoT.ON platform was recently upgraded with a new processor (the brain of a Smart Charger) that includes the STMicroelectronics STM32MP1 MPU along with the ST33 Trusted Platform Module. Key features… Read more »
EVs with sodium-ion batteries are rolling off production lines in China
Sodium-ion batteries have long been touted as a possible successor to the lithium-ion kind—they may have lower energy density, but they rely on more abundant sodium rather than lithium, perform better in cold temperatures, and above all, tend to be cheaper. Now, after years of anticipation, cars equipped with sodium-ion batteries have begun rolling off… Read more »
New report: automakers have secured less than a fifth of battery metals required for 2030 EV production
When it comes to electrifying by the magic date of 2030, automakers talk a great game—but if you want to know which companies are serious about electrification, look into which ones are lining up supplies of critical battery minerals. According to a recent report from Transport & Environment (T&E), automakers in the European market have… Read more »
Cummins to pay $1.6-billion fine for installing VW-style emissions cheating devices
Here we go again. The scandal that we dubbed VW’s Dirty Diesel Debacle opened a lot of folks’ eyes to the true priorities of automakers and other corporations. As reported in these pages, VW was truly sorry that it got caught, and performed several acts of contrition—it bought back a fraction of the defective cars,… Read more »