Power management company Eaton’s eMobility business has been awarded a contract to supply a 24-to-12-volt DC-DC converter for use in a commercial heavy-duty battery electric vehicle (BEV) that will power accessories, such as antilock brakes and lighting. The BEV will be sold in the North American and China markets beginning... Read more →

Nano One Materials Corp. is a clean technology company with a patented low-carbon-intensity process for the production of low-cost, high-performance cathode materials used in lithium-ion batteries. (Earlier post.) Nano One now has entered into an advanced lithium-ion battery cathode materials coating development agreement with CBMM, the global leader in the... Read more →

Ultium Cells LLC, a joint venture between General Motors and LG Energy Solution, announced an agreement with Li-Cycle to recycle up to 100% of the material scrap from battery cell manufacturing. The new recycling process will allow Ultium Cells to recycle battery materials, including cobalt, nickel, lithium, graphite, copper, manganese... Read more →

Subaru will name its new full-electric SUV Solterra. Designed as a joint venture between Subaru and Toyota, the Solterra features a new, dedicated all-electric platform named the e-SUBARU Global Platform. The joint venture combines Subaru’s expertise in all-wheel drive technology with Toyota’s vehicle electrification technology. To create the all-new e-SUBARU... Read more →

Vietnam-based e-bike start-up MODMO began delivering its flagship model, Saigon+, in Europe earlier this year; MSRP is €2,499 (US$3,041). MODMO plans to bring the e-bike to the US market soon. Developed in Ireland, and produced in Vietnam, MODMO was founded by 24-year-old company CEO Jack O’Sullivan. The Saigon+, named after... Read more →

MAHLE Powertrain is developing the first demonstrator vehicle for a novel new hydrogen fuel cell technology. As integration partner to hydrogen fuel cell specialist Bramble Energy (earlier post), MAHLE Powertrain is helping to optimize the integration of the company’s Printed Circuit Board Fuel Cell (PCBFC) technology within the powertrain of... Read more →

SAKOR Technologies Inc., a leading provider of high-performance dynamometer systems, has developed a series of dynamometer systems for customers required to test and verify the level of efficiency of electric motors in accordance with a variety of national and international standards, including IEC 60034-2-1; IEEE 112B; and Canadian standard C390-93.... Read more →

Mercedes-Benz Vans unveiled the Concept EQT—the first premium vehicle in the small electric van segment for families and private customers keen on leisure activities. The Concept EQT (length/width/height: 4,945/1,863/1,826 millimeters) features sliding doors on both sides with a particularly large opening so that both full-sized individual seats in the third... Read more →

The all-electric Porsche Macan is ready to be tested on the road: after initial testing and development on the proving grounds of the Porsche Development Center in Weissach, the highly-camouflaged next-generation prototypes of the compact SUV are now leaving the Porsche premises for the first time. By the time the... Read more →

Ford announced that it will reveal the new battery-electric F-150 Lightning pickup—a revival of the name of the old Ford SVT Lightning performance truck—in 19 May in a livestreamed event at Ford World Headquarters in Dearborn. The reveal takes place at 9:30 p.m. EDT and will be broadcast live with... Read more →

Supported by a $50,000-grant from the Colorado Energy Office, 16 low-income workers in Durango, Colorado will receive e-bikes through a pilot program of the 4 Corners Office of Resource Efficiency (4CORE). The nonprofit received the grant funding from the state’s “Can Do Colorado Community Challenge.” The bikes, manufactured by Seattle-based... Read more →

Texas Mineral Resources Corp. (TMRC), an exploration company targeting the heavy rare earths and a variety of other high-value critical elements and industrial minerals, announced that the Department of Energy’s (DOE) National Energy Technical Laboratory (NETL) has selected a TMRC-led consortium to continue a contract targeting the production of rare... Read more →

Antelope Valley Transit Authority (AVTA) is growing its battery-electric fleet with the purchase of 10 K11M 60-foot articulated buses and six K7M 30-foot buses. AVTA, which serves northern Los Angeles County and portions of southern Kern County, was the first transit agency in North America to make the decision to... Read more →

MAN Truck & Bus and Sono Motors have signed a Letter of Intent to investigate the technical and economic feasibility of integrating Sono Solar technology into MAN’s eTGE electric transporter. Sono Motors is developing its own electric car that is suitable for daily use, with integrated solar cells and innovative... Read more →

An additional $30 million is now available through New York State’s Drive Clean Rebate program to encourage more consumers to lease or purchase an all-electric car or plug-in hybrid electric vehicle. More than 37,000 EV rebates, totaling more than $54 million, have already been provided under the Drive Clean Rebate... Read more →

Canada-based Lion Electric Company, a leading manufacturer of all-electric medium- and heavy-duty urban vehicles, has selected Joliet, Ill., for the construction of its US manufacturing facility. The new facility will represent the largest dedicated production site for all-electric medium- and heavy-duty vehicles in the US and Lion’s biggest footprint in... Read more →

Building upon the success of the Volta Zero—a purpose-built full-electric 16-tonne commercial vehicle designed for inner-city last mile deliveries (earlier post)—Volta Trucks plans to expand its product portfolio with three additional variants within the medium- to lower end of the heavy-duty class. With Volta Zero models available in the 7.5-tonne,... Read more →

United Natural Foods, Inc. is adding 53 all-electric transport refrigerated trailer units (TRUs) to its fleet located at the company’s Riverside, Calif. distribution center. The company is one of the first wholesalers to utilize the technology and comes as the California Air Resources Board (CARB) announced plans in January to... Read more →

Wright Electric, a company developing an electric single aisle commerical aircraft comparable to the Boeing 737 or Airbus 320 (earlier post), has begun testing and has demonstrated a megawatt-class high-performance inverter. Whether a future airplane is battery-electric or powered by a hydrogen fuel cell, an inverter is a key component... Read more →

FLO | AddEnergie has begun shipping 120 EV chargers out of its factory in Shawinigan, Québec, destined for FLO network’s first deployment in New York City. Of the total, 100 chargers will be installed at 34 public curbside locations over the coming months across all of New York’s five boroughs.... Read more →

A team of engineers at the University of California San Diego (UCSD) recommends expanding fast-charging stations for electric vehicles as campuses and businesses start planning for a post-pandemic world. Their recommendation is based on their study of charging patterns for electric vehicles on the UCSD campus from early January to... Read more →

South Korea’s POSCO, one of the world’s top steel producers, is carrying forward a transition of its business structure to focus on “Green & Mobility”, based on various automotive capabilities in the group. In the transition phase of the megatrend represented by low-carbon and eco-friendly environment, POSCO group should go... Read more →

In a new report produced at the request of Senator Chuck Schumer (D-NY) and Senator Sherrod Brown (D-OH), the Center for Transportation and the Environment (CTE) concluded that a the entire US transit fleet could transition to zero-emission vehicles (ZEVs) by 2035 at a cost of between $56.22 billion and... Read more →

Stockton Unified School District in Stockton, Calif., has partnered with The Mobility House to deploy smart charging strategy and management solutions for the district’s zero-emission fleet project, which is now operational and scheduled to transport students to schools throughout the district. Completed in less than one year, the electric school... Read more →

Thomas Built Buses (TBB), a leading manufacturer of school buses in North America; its exclusive Virginia dealer, Sonny Merryman Inc.; and Proterra celebrated the delivery of the 50th Saf-T-Liner C2 Jouley battery-electric school bus. The milestone delivery went to Loudon County Public Schools in Virginia as part of phase one... Read more →

Supplies of critical minerals essential for key clean energy technologies such as electric vehicles and wind turbines need to pick up sharply over the coming decades to meet the world’s climate goals, creating potential energy security hazards that governments must act now to address, according to a new report by... Read more →

The California Energy Commission’s (CEC) latest annual report on the Electric Program Investment Charge (EPIC) program highlights how public-interest research is helping California meet its goal of decarbonizing the electrical system by 2045. EPIC is California’s premier clean energy research and development program. Each year, more than $130 million in... Read more →

Volkswagen officially inaugurated the press shop expansion in its electric car plant in Zwickau. As of now, the complete outer skin for the six electric models produced in Zwickau will be pressed on site. The €74-million investment will enable further gains to be made in reducing the carbon footprint of... Read more →

Electrify America plans to invest $200 million in California Zero Emission Vehicle (ZEV) infrastructure and education programs over the next 30 months. This represents the third of four investment phases as part of its 10-year commitment of $800 million in the state. Additionally, the company will direct $25 million of... Read more →

Commercial electric vehicle company Arrival is partnering with Uber to develop an affordable, purpose-built electric vehicle (EV) for ride-hailing drivers. The Arrival Car is expected to enter production in Q3 2023. Arrival went public in March; the Arrival Car is the realization of the Small Vehicle Platform (SVP) referenced in... Read more →

In 2020, Tesla deployed 18,700 tonnes of LCE onto roads globally in the batteries of its newly sold passenger EVs, more than the next four EV makers (BYD, VW, Renault and Audi) combined, according to data from Adamas Intelligence’s EV Battery Capacity and Battery Metals Tracker. In total, 67% of... Read more →

A new report from IDTechEx forecasts that the shift to electric vehicles and autonomy will drive the printed electronics automotive market to $12.7 billion by 2031. The technological transitions towards electric vehicles and increased autonomy are creating extensive opportunities for many new technologies, including printed/flexible electronics. For example, the ability... Read more →

NFI Group subsidiary Motor Coach Industries (MCI) has unveiled the new zero-emission, battery-electric J4500 CHARGE coach. An all-electric version of the industry’s best-selling J series tour and charter luxury coaches, the J4500 CHARGE leverages EV technology from New Flyer and delivers more than 200 miles of range, while also delivering... Read more →

Germany is adding another €100 million to its successful promotion of private charging stations for electric cars in residential buildings, bringing the total to €500 million. Purchase and installation of the wallboxes are supported with a grant of €900. So far, around 385,000 applications for around 470,000 charging points have... Read more →

Ford is opening an E-Transit registration site today for commercial customers ahead of order banks opening by July. Along with the registration site, the E-Transit electric vans have updated pricing, with a targeted starting MSRP of $43,295 for the cutaway—lower than originally announced—to $52,690 for the high-roof extended-wheelbase cargo van.... Read more →

Solid Power, a developer of all solid-state batteries for electric vehicles, announced a $130-million Series B investment round led by the BMW Group, Ford Motor Company and Volta Energy Technologies. Ford and the BMW Group have also expanded existing joint development agreements with Solid Power to secure all solid-state batteries... Read more →

According to figures from the US Department of Energy (DOE), as of March 2021, there are 25 states that have at least 1,000 non-residential electric vehicle (EV) charging units (public and private). California has by far the greatest number of non-residential EV chargers with nearly 37,000 units. New York, Florida,... Read more →

The US Department of Energy (DOE) awarded $19 million for 13 projects in traditionally fossil-fuel-producing communities across the country to support production of rare earth elements and critical minerals essential to the manufacturing of batteries, magnets, and other components important to the clean energy economy. Facing persistent shortages in domestic... Read more →

Discontinuance is the term applied to the abandoning of a new technology by someone who was once an adopter or user. A new study by Scott Hardman and Gil Tal at the University of California, Davis has found that discontinuance occurs at a rate of 21% for California plug-in hybrid... Read more →

Williams Advanced Engineering (WAE) and Italdesign are parterning to provide the upper premium automotive sector with a complete high-performance EV production solution. Combining a composite electric vehicle rolling chassis from WAE with turn-key vehicle development services from Italy’s world-famous Italdesign, the joint venture will enable both newcomers and established OEMs... Read more →

Materials supply chain intelligence company Roskill expects Indonesia to become the world’s largest producer of refined nickel this year, pushing China to second place. As recently as 2014, Indonesia produced only 24kt of refined nickel. In 2020, Indonesia produced 636kt of refined nickel, most of which was nickel pig iron... Read more →

The BMW Group is launching production of battery components at its plants in Leipzig and Regensburg and expanding its e-drive production network. It has been less than a year since the decision was made to expand production capacity for e-drives in Germany. BMW Group Plant Leipzig will launch series production... Read more →

The price of copper on the London Metal Exchange (LME) rose to $9,990/t on 29 April, marking a ten-year high and closing in on the record high LME price of $10,147.50/t on 14 February 2011. In its new Copper Monthly Insights, Roskill said that the ongoing surge in copper pricing... Read more →

Baidu will open fully driverless robotaxi services to the public in Beijing starting tomorrow. This will be China’s first paid autonomous vehicle service where users can hail a robotaxi without a safety driver behind the steering wheel. The fully driverless Apollo Go Robotaxi service will first be launched in Beijing’s... Read more →

Tula Technology, Inc., the developer of Dynamic Skip Fire (DSF) and diesel DSF cylinder deactivation technology for combustion engines, reported at the International Vienna Motor Symposium that its product Dynamic Motor Drive (DMD) (earlier post) mitigates efficiency losses of electric motors while significantly reducing reliance on rare-earth materials. DMD’s application... Read more →

Test and measurement systems company HORIBA Automotive has introduced its electrification offering, incorporating solutions for the different stages of vehicle development and evaluation, including material characterization, component, system and full vehicle testing. Solutions are available for the full range of vehicle types, from light- to heavy-duty vehicles and off-highway equipment.... Read more →

SABIC, a global leader in the chemical industry, introduced its new 5-micron ELCRES HTV150 dielectric film for high-temperature, high-voltage, professional-grade capacitor applications, such as traction inverters for hybrid, plug-in hybrid and battery electric vehicles (xEV). This new film, featuring high-heat performance up to 150 °C, surpasses the temperature and voltage... Read more →

In Berlin, Volkswagen presented its first fully electric high-performance model: the ID.4 GTX. (Earlier post.) The ID.4 GTX is the first model based on the modular electric drive matrix (MEB) to feature dual-motor all-wheel drive. The Volkswagen ID.4 GTX is the European offer for an ID.4 with all-wheel-drive. While the... Read more →

Volkswagen Group China has begun construction of an all-new MEB plant at Volkswagen Anhui. The third of the Group’s pure-electric vehicle manufacturing facilities in China, following completion of the Anting (SAIC VW) and Foshan (FAW-VW) plants, the Volkswagen Anhui plant will be powered by green energy from day one. Due... Read more →

General Motors introduced Ultium Charge 360, a holistic charging approach that integrates charging networks, GM vehicle mobile apps, and other products and services to simplify the overall charging experience for GM electric vehicle owners. Ultium Charge 360 builds on GM’s existing charging efforts to provide GM EV owners more confidence... Read more →