BMW is having a banner year. Sales for July, and for the first half of 2016, set new records. While that isn’t surprising – automakers around the world are logging record sales – the interesting bit is that sales of BMW’s electrified models are exceeding expectations, especially in Europe. In Western Europe in July, 4%… Read more »
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Researchers developing improved method for lithium recovery from brine
Demand for lithium is on the rise, and the rush is on for new sources of the light white stuff. Researchers in Finland are developing new methods to extract lithium from natural brine that promise more efficiency and greater purity. Most lithium is produced from salt lake deposits. Brine is pumped up and concentrated by… Read more »
Complete Coach Works offers a remanufactured electric bus for the cost of a new diesel
Urban transit buses represent a prime opportunity for electrification. Their typical duty cycles allow them to be conveniently recharged at terminals, and the savings on fuel and maintenance can be enormous. Furthermore, cities around the world are revitalizing and beautifying their downtown districts, so getting rid of noise and diesel smoke is a welcome benefit…. Read more »
Nissan and Eaton collaborate on second-life EV battery applications
Nissan and Eaton have announced a partnership that will use their respective expertise in lithium-ion batteries and power electronics to create commercially viable energy storage and control centers that offer a productive second life for Nissan’s EV batteries after their days on the road. The two companies will deploy a module that combines retired LEAF… Read more »
Daimler uses smart EV battery packs in German electricity balancing market
Daimler, together with partners The Mobility House and GETEC, has built what it says is the world’s largest second-life battery storage unit. The stationary storage unit is to go into service at the beginning of 2016 at the site of REMONDIS, a recycling, service and water company in the German town of Lünen. It uses… Read more »
Scrap tires transformed into supercapacitor electrodes
Some of the 300 million tires discarded each year in the US could be recycled and used in electrodes for supercapacitors, using a new technology developed at Oak Ridge National Laboratory and Drexel University. The process is described in a paper published in ChemSusChem, titled “Waste Tire Derived Carbon-Polymer Composite Paper as Pseudocapacitive Electrode with… Read more »
New process recycles rare earth element from scrap magnets
Rare earth elements, prized for their magnetic properties, are used in a wide range of modern technology, including advanced electric motors. Unfortunately, they are expensive, and some are available only from problematic parts of the world. To make it easier to recover and recycle rare earth minerals, the DOE’s Critical Materials Institute (CMI) has developed… Read more »
New report from Germany assesses over 500 EV models
A new study from the German Aerospace Center (DLR), in partnership with the Wuppertal Institute for Climate, Environment and Energy, aims to present a comprehensive picture of current progress in electromobility, and to assess the position of German companies in the rapidly developing market. The DLR scientists developed a database of every known electric passenger… Read more »
DOE study: Battery second use offsets EV expenses, improves grid stability
A recent analysis from the DOE’s National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) has confirmed the value of something that several automakers are already investigating: repurposing used EV batteries for stationary storage applications. The NREL found that battery second use (B2U) strategies are capable of offsetting the costs of recycling vehicles at the end of their lives,… Read more »
Los Angeles mayor’s environmental plan calls for 1,000 new public chargers
Los Angeles Mayor Eric Garcetti has set out his vision for the city’s environmental goals in an upbeat report entitled “the pLAn.” It covers a wide range of topics, from water conservation to energy-efficient buildings to renewable energy to recycling to public transit. Many of the goals are very modest, such as the call for… Read more »