Autonomy, the nation’s largest electric vehicle subscription company, placed an order for 23,000 electric vehicles with 17 global automakers to expand and diversify its subscription fleet beyond Tesla. The fleet order is valued at $1.2 billion. The 23,000-unit order represents 1.2% of the projected US electric vehicle production through the... Read more →

Bloom Energy announced the initial results of its ongoing demonstration with Idaho National Laboratory (INL). With nearly 500 hours of full-load operation completed at the laboratory, Bloom’s high-temperature electrolyzer is producing hydrogen more efficiently than other commercially available electrolyzers, including PEM and alkaline. Researchers at INL have been conducting a... Read more →

The commercial application of silicon-based electrode materials—which offer excellent energy capacity—is often hindered due to two major reasons: 1) lack of mechanical stability arising from uncontrolled volume expansion upon lithiation, the process of combining with a lithium-ion, and 2) rapid energy fading caused by the formation of unstable solid-electrode interface... Read more →

A team from the German research institute ZSW (Zentrum für Sonnenenergie- und Wasserstoff-Forschung Baden-Württemberg) and advanced materials company E-magy have shown a less than 1% battery cell expansion in a silicon-dominant lithium-ion battery for the first time. An open-access paper describing the findings is published in the Journal of The... Read more →

The US Department of Energy (DOE) issued a Request for Information (RFI) (DE-FOA-0002794) on the development and implementation of a $675-million Critical Materials Research, Development, Demonstration, and Commercialization Program. The program will address vulnerabilities in the domestic critical materials supply chain. Critical materials, which include rare-earth elements, lithium, nickel, and... Read more →

Volvo Cars, in cooperation with Starbucks Corporation, announced the first Starbucks stores where new electric vehicle (EV) chargers, powered by ChargePoint, will be available to customers and members of the public. Four chargers at the first Starbucks location in Provo, Utah (East Bay – University & 9th, 979 S University... Read more →

FedEx Office, in collaboration with Ford Pro, is piloting 10 Ford E-Transit vans across its FedEx SameDay City network as part of the goal to transition its entire pickup and delivery fleet to zero tailpipe emission vehicles by 2040. FedEx SameDay City is the company’s local shipping option, which offers... Read more →

Ford is reopening order banks for the next wave of reservation holders of the popular F-150 Lightning electric pickup truck, adding new improvements including boosting its standard range battery models to an EPA-estimated targeted range of 240 miles and adding Pro Trailer Hitch Assist technology. Pro Trailer Hitch Assist automatically... Read more →

The US Energy Information Administration (EIA) expects US electricity consumption this year to increase 2.4% over 2021, resulting primarily from increased economic activity but also from hot summer weather throughout most of the country. According to the agency’s August 2022 Short-Term Energy Outlook (STEO), growth in renewable energy will meet... Read more →

The Kaohsiung City (Taiwan) government has teamed up with Taiwan-based Hon Hai Technology Group (Foxconn) to work on projects such as smart electric buses and smart city development, with the aim of becoming an arena that offers a comprehensive business and service model to attract global manufacturers to invest in... Read more →

Researchers at the Université catholique de Louvain in Belgium have designed and synthesized a new class of electrically conducting anionic coordination polymers for all practically relevant alkali-cation storage. Coordination compounds are molecules that possess a metal center bound to ligands (atoms, ions or molecules that donate electrons to the metal);... Read more →

A team from Central South University in China has developed a new type of deep eutectic solvent (DES) that can efficiently leach metal elements from spent Ni-Co-Mn lithium-ion batteries (LNCM). The leaching rates of Ni, Co, Mn, and Li can all reach 99% under the conditions of T=140°C, t=10 min... Read more →

The Inflation Reduction Act, which the Senate passed last week, revamps the electric vehicle Federal tax credit of $7,500 (earlier post). Among the changes are an extension of the tax credit through 2032, the removal of the unit-sales cap of 200,000 per OEM, and a new mandate for qualified cars... Read more →

Baidu, Inc., a leading AI company with strong internet foundation, has secured the first permits in China to offer commercial fully driverless robotaxi services to the public on open roads. Apollo Go, Baidu’s autonomous ride-hailing service, is now authorized to collect fares for robotaxi rides—completely without human drivers in the... Read more →

Queensland University of Technology (QUT) robotics researchers working with Ford Motor Company have found a way to tell an autonomous vehicle which cameras to use when navigating. Professor Michael Milford, Joint Director of the QUT Center for Robotics and Australian Research Council Laureate Fellow and senior author, said the research... Read more →

Newly founded Rheinmetall subsidiary MIRA GmbH is pooling the expertise of multiple Group companies in offer a modular, scalable system of certified hardware and software for teleoperated driving—the remote-control of vehicles on public roads. MIRA is aalready able to meet the challenges facing local public transport, logistics and industry by... Read more →

As 5G networks start coming online, there is an expected associated increase in the scale of the Internet of Things network. With so many devices on the network, there is a growing need to make wirelessly powered devices that can work with 5G signals. The production of such devices has... Read more →

At Prawaas 3.0 in Hyderabad (India) earlier this month, Eberspaecher presented its new all-electric air-conditioning system AC135 AE, especially developed for hybrid and battery-electric driven buses in the Asia-Pacific region. Market forecasts show that by 2030, 40% of the bus fleet in India will consist of BEVs. In this context,... Read more →

Researchers in the Transport Technologies Division of Saudi Aramco have used using computational fluid dynamics (CFD) and advanced machine learning (ML) techniques to co-optimize the piston bowl and the injector design of a gasoline compression ignition (GCI) engine. The optimum ML design provided similar performance at mid-load but a 3.8%... Read more →

The US Senate has passed the Inflation Reduction Act, with nearly $400 billion in funding over 10 years for climate- and energy-related programs; among the myriad provisions in the 755-page bill are changes to the electric vehicle Federal tax credit of $7,500. The bill renews the credit starting in January... Read more →

by Michael Sivak, Sivak Applied Research. This post examines the distances that the average American traveled by passenger road vehicle and by plane in 2021. In both instances, the distances to be compared are person miles. The derivation of person miles traveled by air is straightforward from the available monthly... Read more →

Starting August 9, 2022, applications will be accepted in California for replacement of eligible Class 8 trucks with zero-emission technology. Approximately $9 million is available on a first-come, first-served basis to eligible applicants throughout California from the Volkswagen Environmental Mitigation Trust for Class 8 zero-emission freight and port drayage trucks,... Read more →

The US Department of Energy’s (DOE) Office of Fossil Energy and Carbon Management (FECM) has announced up to $6 million available (DE-FOA-0002620) for research and development (R&D) projects that will repurpose domestic coal resources for products that can be employed in clean energy technologies such as batteries and advanced manufacturing.... Read more →

The US Department of Energy (DOE) announced up to $32 million in funding (DE-FOA-0002616) toward the research and development of new monitoring, measurement, and mitigation technologies to help detect, quantify, and reduce methane emissions across oil and natural gas producing regions of the United States. The United States has more... Read more →

Michigan will enable four new mobility services to help address challenges across the state related to sustainable transit, roadway safety, parking and staffing shortages in the service industry. In partnership with key universities, four companies—Bluecity, GEKOT Inc., Mouvit and Nimbus—will receive $285,000 in total funding through the Michigan Mobility Funding... Read more →

Africa could overtake China as the world’s largest producer of natural graphite for lithium ion batteries as soon as 2026, according to Benchmark Mineral Intelligence, in a sign of the continent’s growing importance to the electric vehicle supply chain. Benchmark forecasts Africa to increase its share of global graphite production... Read more →

Based on new business awards and actions announced to date, BorgWarner believes it is already on track to achieve approximately $3.7 billion of electric vehicle revenue by 2025. The company now expects its 2022 electric vehicle revenue to grow to approximately $850 million—more than double what it was in 2021.... Read more →

MAN Energy Solutions will provide a methanation unit for a wastewater treatment plant in Pau, France. A public call for tenders by the urban community of Pau Bearn, Pyrénées —related to the construction of a new sludge-treatment unit for a wastewater treatment plant—has been won by a temporary consortium of... Read more →

Argonne National Laboratory has published a new cradle-to-grave (C2G) lifecycle analysis (LCA) of US LDV vehicle-fuel pathways. The report was prepared by Argonne researchers and members of the US Drive Integrated Systems Analysis Technical Team. This analysis builds on a previous comprehensive life cycle analysis, updating that study’s 2016 assumptions... Read more →

Autocar, a leading manufacturer of specialized severe-duty vocational trucks, has built its first two alpha units that feature an all-electric powertrain. The two E-ACX battery-electric cabover refuse trucks are going through a strict validation testing process to ensure the trucks are built to handle the same challenges and requirements as... Read more →