Some EVs employ regenerative braking to recover energy whenever the accelerator pedal is released, while others simply allow the vehicle to coast. For the new ID.4 electric compact SUV, Volkswagen decided that coasting will take priority because energy conversion inevitably leads to losses. This applies to the Drive position, which is activated by default upon… Read more »
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Truck-maker Scania favors battery-electric over hydrogen vehicles
Swedish commercial vehicle manufacturer Scania, a subsidiary of the Volkswagen Group, says it will “gradually” electrify its heavy-duty vehicles, and that “battery-electric vehicles will be the main tool to drive this shift.” “By 2025, Scania expects that electrified vehicles will account for around 10 percent or our total vehicle sales volumes in Europe and by… Read more »
Tesla’s Advanced Battery Research group gets new leadership, Jeff Dahn to become advisor for Novonix
Professor Jeff Dahn is a star researcher in the battery field—he has co-authored 730 papers and holds some 73 patents. Professor Dahn and his research group at Dalhousie University in Halifax, Nova Scotia have had an exclusive research partnership with Tesla since 2016. Now Professor Dahn is stepping down from his leadership role at Tesla’s… Read more »
New magnetic material could improve EV motor efficiency
Toshiba has developed a new magnetic material with characteristics that could improve motor efficiency at low cost. Motors account for approximately half of the world’s electric power consumption. Toshiba says its new material boosts energy conversion efficiency when used as the wedges in motors, particularly in medium-to-large induction motors. The material can be installed at… Read more »
Harvey Gulf orders Wärtsilä energy storage for four LNG-powered supply vessels
Wärtsilä, a provider of marine industry LNG solutions and services, will supply its Energy Storage System (ESS) to Louisiana-based Harvey Gulf, which will retrofit the system to four Harvey Energy-class LNG-fueled Platform Supply Vessels (PSVs). A fifth vessel in this class was previously fitted with a Wärtsilä ESS. When the upgrade project is completed, all… Read more »
A closer look at the DC Link
The term DC link has traditionally referred to the junction between two power conversion stages where an energy storage element (almost always a capacitor) acts as a buffer for each. A classic example is the capacitor placed between the rectifier and the voltage source inverter in a mains-supplied variable frequency drive (see Fig. 1). This… Read more »
The technical challenges of bidirectional chargers
For years, we’ve been hearing about an EV technology that promises to be a game-changer: Vehicle-to-Grid (V2G) bidirectional charging. My recent work with one V2G charger developer, Fermata Energy, has convinced me that V2G has found its proverbial killer app: load peak shaving for commercial/industrial energy customers. This article is going to concentrate on the… Read more »
Lonestar Specialty Vehicles partners with In-Charge Energy to offer turnkey fleet charging solutions
Lonestar Specialty Vehicles has partnered with Los Angeles-based In-Charge Energy to offer customers turnkey energy and charging solutions for fleet conversion to EVs. Texas-based Lonestar is a supplier of fully electric remanufactured commercial vehicles. The company has deployed more than 3,000 Class 8 trucks and tractors. Its mission is to provide an alternative to internal… Read more »
Lightning Systems triples size of Colorado EV facility
Commercial EV supplier Lightning Systems is tripling the size of its facility in Loveland, Colorado. Lightning moved its headquarters, manufacturing and R&D into the former Hewlett-Packard/Agilent campus in southwest Loveland three years ago. The company recently took over the entire building, expanding its square footage from 45,000 to 142,000. “Our mission is to provide commercial… Read more »
The sun-to-car connection: SolarEdge provides the missing link from solar panels to EV charging
Q&A with SolarEdge Founder and VP of Marketing and Product Strategy Lior Handelsman An EV is a fine thing on its own—but it becomes truly transformative as part of a local system that also includes solar panels, battery storage and smart charging. SolarEdge Technologies provides hardware and software to bring these elements together, including solar… Read more »