6K, a leading developer of microwave plasma technology for the production of advanced materials, has entered the energy storage market with a new division called 6K ENERGY dedicated to energy storage materials. The move follows three years of internal development supported by commercial customers and the US Department of Energy... Read more →

The BMW Group provided some technical insights into the powertrain system for the planned BMW i Hydrogen NEXT and also reaffirmed its commitment to following a carefully considered and systematic route to emission-free mobility. The BMW Group has been working with Toyota on fuel cell technology since 2013. The two... Read more →

BYD launched the Blade Battery, a development intended to mitigate concerns about battery safety in electric vehicles. The Blade Battery has been developed by BYD over the past several years. The individual cells are arranged together in an array and then inserted into a battery pack. Due to its optimized... Read more →

Researchers at the Graduate School of Engineering and Graduate School of Science at the University of Tokyo have designed and synthesized a fluorinated cyclic phosphate solvent, 2-(2,2,2-trifluoroethoxy)-1,3,2-dioxaphospholane 2-oxide (TFEP), for use in lithium-ion batteries. The solvent molecule has a fused chemical structure of cyclic carbonates that can form a stable... Read more →

NASA has released a series of concept images of the all-electric X-57 Maxwell airplane (earlier post), showcasing aspects of its final Mod IV configuration during different flight modes. The artist’s concept image shows NASA’s first all-electric X-plane, the X-57 Maxwell, flying shortly after takeoff in its final configuration over NASA’s... Read more →

When searching through theoretical lists of possible new materials for particular applications, such as batteries or other energy-related devices, there are often millions of potential materials that could be considered, and multiple criteria that need to be met and optimized at once. Now, researchers at MIT have found a way... Read more →

Advanced battery management and intelligence systems provider ION Energy has entered into a strategic partnership with European battery pack manufacturer Wamtechnik to facilitate the deployment of a prototype electric excavator for a leading European construction equipment maker. Wamtechnik undertakes the design and production of dedicated rechargeable and non-rechargeable battery packs... Read more →

A team of scientists led by the US Department of Energy’s (DOE) Brookhaven National Laboratory and Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory has captured in real time how lithium ions move in lithium titanate (LTO), a fast-charging battery electrode material made of lithium, titanium, and oxygen. They discovered that distorted arrangements of... Read more →

Researchers at Aalto University (Finland), with colleagues at the University of Vienna (Austria), CNRS (France) and Nikolaev Institute of Inorganic Chemistry (Russia), have developed a highly graphitized graphene nanoflake (GF)–carbon nanotube (CNT) hybrid catalyst doped simultaneously with single atoms of N, Co, and Mo (N-Co-Mo-GF/CNT). This high surface area material... Read more →

As a response to the growing time and cost pressures facing vehicle manufacturers seeking to develop latest generation automotive electrification technologies, MAHLE Powertrain has opened a new, dedicated facility for the extensive testing of battery modules. The facility, based at the powertrain specialist’s Northampton (UK) technical center, enables the strip-down... Read more →

Toshiba Corporation announced that Nissan Motor Corporation has selected its innovative SCiB lithium-ion rechargeable battery for the latest generation of its ROOX and ROOX Highway STAR cars and that Mitsubishi Motors Corporation has selected the SCiB battery for the latest generation of its eK X space and eK space cars.... Read more →

Showa Denko Packaging Co., Ltd. (SPA), a consolidated subsidiary of Showa Denko K.K. (SDK), has developed a new product to be added to the lineup of SPALF aluminum laminate film used as packaging material for pouch-type lithium-ion batteries (LIBs), and will mass-produce the new product. This new product is specialized... Read more →

Li-Cycle Corp., a North-America-based lithium-ion battery resource recovery company, recently completed its first shipment of commercially recycled battery material, containing energy metals concentrate. (Earlier post.) The shipped product was processed at Li-Cycle’s facility in Ontario, Canada and contained key energy metals—such as cobalt, nickel and lithium—used in lithium-ion batteries. Li-Cycle... Read more →

European battery manufacturer Northvolt has delivered its largest order of lithium-ion battery systems to date to mining and infrastructure industries supplier Epiroc. Epiroc Boltec M Battery rock bolting rig, right side view. Source: Epiroc. Northvolt has partnered with Epiroc for more than two years and has developed a platform of... Read more →

The Thailand Board of Investment announced that Thailand has received more foreign direct investment supporting the country’s growing electric vehicle production ecosystem. According to the Electric Vehicle Association of Thailand, the number of companies that are part of Thailand’s electric vehicle industry has risen significantly since 2015, from 76 to... Read more →

Metal-Air Batteries (MABs), which use oxygen from ambient air as recourses to store and convert energy, have received considerable attention for their potential use in electric vehicles (EVs) owing to their large storage capacity, lightweight, and affordability. Researchers at Ulsan National Institute of Science and Technology (UNIST) in S. Korea... Read more →

In an open-access review paper published in Nature Nanotechnology, researchers at the University of California San Diego offer a research roadmap that includes four challenges that need to be addressed in order to advance all-solid-state batteries to commercialization. The article summarizes the team’s work to tackle these challenges over the... Read more →

Sion Power, a developer of high-energy, lithium-metal rechargeable batteries, said that its Licerion EV technology will have energy capacities of 420 Wh/kg and 700 Wh/L when scaled to commercial design. Licerion EV is specifically designed for electric vehicle applications, focusing on high energy density, increased cycle life, and fast charging... Read more →

Commercial fast-charging stations subject electric car batteries to high temperatures and high resistance that can cause them to crack, leak, and lose their storage capacity, according to researchers at the University of California, Riverside (UCR) in a new open-access study published in the journal Energy Storage. To remedy this, the... Read more →

BloombergNEF has issued a research note highlighting some of the likely effects of the coronavirus COVID-19 outbreak over the next year on the transition to a clean economy: including renewable power, energy storage, electric vehicles, heating, cooling and the circular economy. The global auto market is very sensitive to macroeconomic... Read more →

Researchers at the University of California San Diego have developed a safety feature that prevents lithium metal batteries from rapidly heating up and catching fire in case of an internal short circuit. The team modified the separator so that it slows down the flow of energy (and thus heat) that... Read more →

Researchers from the Samsung Advanced Institute of Technology (SAIT) and the Samsung R&D Institute Japan (SRJ) have developed a new high-performance all-solid-state lithium metal battery that uses, for the first time, a silver-carbon (Ag-C) composite layer as the anode with no excess Li. The team found that incorporating an Ag-C... Read more →

Batteries for electric cars require both pressure compensation during normal operation and emergency ventilation. Freudenberg Sealing Technologies’ DIAvent component combines these two functions in a single, advanced design. ABT e-line, an electromobility company developing and producing electrified variants of the Volkswagen Caddy and Transporter, has selected this solution to help... Read more →

Fortum, BASF, and Nornickel have signed a letter of intent to plan a Li-ion battery recycling cluster in Harjavalta, Finland, serving the electric vehicle market. This would enable a successful “closed loop” cycle to re-use the critical metals present in used batteries. In March 2019, Fortum announced that it had... Read more →

In 2019, the market share of lithium-iron-phosphate (LFP) cathode chemistry fell to 6% in global passenger EV batteries by watt-hours deployed (i.e. installed in newly-sold EVs), down from 13% the year prior, according to data from Adamas Intelligence’s EV Battery Capacity and Battery Metals Tracker. This drop in LFP usage... Read more →

Volvo Cars formally inaugurated a new battery assembly line at its Belgian manufacturing plant in Ghent, where it will start building its first fully electric car, the XC40 Recharge P8, later this year. Volvo XC40 Recharge powertrain The XC40 Recharge P8 is the first of a family of fully electric... Read more →

Chevrolet, Cadillac, GMC and Buick will all be launching new EVs starting this year, GM announced at an event at its Tech Center in Warren, Michigan, where it also unveiled its new Ultium batteries and flexible globale EV architecture. (Earlier post.) GM’s new modular platform and battery system, Ultium. The... Read more →

At an event in the GM Tech Center campus in Warren, Michigan, General Motors unveiled the core of its new strategy to grow the company’s EV sales quickly, efficiently and profitably. The heart of GM’s strategy is a modular propulsion system and a highly flexible, third-generation global EV platform powered... Read more →

In their most recent collaboration, Henkel and Covestro have developed a solution enabling the efficient fixation of cylindrical li-ion battery cells inside a plastic cell holder. The solution is based on a UV-curing adhesive from Henkel and a UV-transparent polycarbonate blend from Covestro. With a strong consumer push to reduce... Read more →

In Germany, the DeMoBat collaborative project is developing a robot-assisted dismantling factory for traction batteries and electric motors for EVs. These processes would constitute and important element of a resource-efficient and sustainable circular economy for electromobility. The traction battery in particular represents a central cost factor of electromobility and also... Read more →

A joint research team led by Professor Nam-Soon Choi and Professor Sang Kyu Kwak in the School of Energy and Chemical Engineering at Ulsan National Institute of Science and Technology (UNIST) has developed an ion concentrate electrolyte using a solvent containing fluorine atoms. The electrolyte evenly formed a protective film... Read more →

Nouryon has begun the first deliveries of AkuPure, a carboxymethyl cellulose (CMC) polymer targeted specifically at lithium-ion batteries, a market that is growing quickly due to increased demand for electric vehicles. CMC is a sustainable, bio-based water-soluble polymer used as a thickener, binder, stabilizer and film former. AkuPure CMCs are... Read more →

In 2019, more than 14,400 tonnes of cobalt were deployed globally in batteries of newly sold passenger battery electric vehicles (BEVs), plug-in hybrid electric vehicles (PHEVs) and hybrid electric vehicles (HEVs), an increase of 34% over the year prior, according to data from Adamas Intelligence’s EV Battery Capacity and Battery... Read more →

Electrify America is investing $2 million in solar-powered electric vehicle (EV) charging stations in rural California that are not tied to the electrical grid. The investment will expand access to sustainable EV charging to drivers in rural areas, including the Central, Coachella, and Imperial Valleys. Electrify America is sourcing the... Read more →

The total energy storage market is expected to grow to $546 billion in annual revenue by 2035, according to a report released by Lux Research. In a new report, “Global Energy Storage Market 2019,” Lux estimates that the three main drivers of energy storage—mobility applications, electronic devices, and stationary storage—will... Read more →

At the Bosch Connected World 2020 (BCW) conference in Berlin, Human Horizons initiated an agreement with Bosch Connected Mobility Solutions for further cooperation on Bosch’s Battery in the Cloud technology. (Earlier post.) This technology connects electric-vehicle batteries with the cloud to extend battery life, substantially improve the battery’s performance and... Read more →

Lucid Motors announced a long-term partnership with leading EV battery supplier LG Chem for the Lucid Air electric sedan. Lucid Motors said that it selected LG Chem for a long-term partnership because its batteries provide the ideal level of efficiency, with those batteries further optimized by Lucid to meet or... Read more →

Eurasian Resources Group (ERG), a leading diversified natural resources group, is assessing the construction of a battery material plant to produce nickel-cobalt-manganese (NCM) precursor materials for batteries for electric vehicles (EVs). The Group is evaluating technical solutions offered by engineering firms BGRIMM Technology Group from China and Outotec from Finland,... Read more →

Enevate, a pioneer in advanced silicon-dominant lithium-ion (Li-ion) battery technology capable of high energy density and fast charging for electric vehicles (EV), is applying its battery solutions to advanced power cells for the power tool market and other high power applications. For example, in a 21700 cylindrical power cell, 5.9Ah... Read more →

Toyota Motor Corporation and Toyota Industries Corporation announced that they have jointly developed a new battery for hybrid electric vehicles (HEV) in anticipation of the further development and market introduction of HEVs, which are forecasted to expand rapidly in the future. The companies said they will release information such as... Read more →

A study by a team from MIT, with colleagues from Alfred University, UC Berkeley, and RIT, has found that supplies of cobalt—a critical material in some battery chemistries—is adequate in the short-term (up to 2030), but that the industry needs to invest in additional efficient refining and recycling capacity, so... Read more →

At every stage of the battery development process, new technologies must be tested for months or even years to determine how long they will last. Now, a team led by Stanford professors Stefano Ermon and William Chueh has developed a machine learning-based method that slashes these testing times by 98%.... Read more →

Global Power Synergy PLC (GPSC) is building a battery manufacturing facility in Thailand using 24M’s novel SemiSolid lithium-ion technology (earlier post). GPSC is the main power and utility company of PTT Group. GPSC is a long-time partner of 24M. (Earlier post.) In May 2019, 24M delivered 40 grid-scale, 110 Amp-Hour... Read more →

Researchers from the Karlsruhe Institute of Technology (KIT), together with partners at the Center for Solar Energy and Hydrogen Research Baden-Württemberg (ZSW) and the Fraunhofer Institute for Chemical Technology (ICT) are developing an agile production system for batteries. The German Ministry of Science, Research and Art Baden-Württemberg (MWK) is funding... Read more →

Atlis Motor Vehicles, an electric vehicle technology startup designing an electric pickup truck (Atlis XT pickup), announced the first Atlis Battery Day event, where it will showcase early prototypes of its proprietary ultra-fast charging battery technology and 100% electric XP Platform. If you’re going to change the world, you have... Read more →

In 2019, 95.6 GWh of battery capacity was deployed globally in newly sold passenger EVs, an increase of 30% over the year prior, according to Adamas Intelligence’s web-based EV Battery Capacity and Battery Metals Tracker. Asia Pacific led with 50.9 GWh deployed, an increase of 27% over the year prior,... Read more →

Niobium is a metal primarily used by the steel industry as a ferroalloy strengthening element. High Strength Low Alloy (HSLA) steel accounts for about 90% of niobium usage with an average content of about 0.03% Nb. Adding niobium reduces the amount and weight of steel required, an important feature for... Read more →

Rio Tinto approved a $98-million investment in a new solar plant at the new Koodaideri mine in the Pilbara, Australia, as well as a lithium-ion battery energy storage system to help power its entire Pilbara power network. The $2.6-billion Koodaideri mine was approved in November last year with construction commencing... Read more →

In 2019, global deployment of nickel in passenger EV batteries amounted to 59,271 tonnes, an increase of 39% over the amount deployed in 2018, according to Adamas Intelligence’s web-based EV Battery Capacity and Battery Metals Tracker. By EV type, battery electric vehicles (BEVs) were responsible for 76% of all passenger... Read more →

Voltabox AG secured a long-term framework contract with e-troFit GmbH as the preferred supplier of high-performance battery systems for e-troFit’s conversion solutions for diesel buses. e-troFit is individually adapted to the customer’s requirements: Based on an analysis of the route profile, the company determines the actual battery capacity requirement and... Read more →