Volkswagen is taking a further step in the direction of fully networked factories. A local 5G campus network is now available at its main plant in Wolfsburg that initially covers the main production development center and the pilot hall. The pilot project will test whether the 5G technology meets the... Read more →

Automotive Tier 1 supplier Gestamp has signed an agreement with ArcelorMittal to start using XCarb green steel certificates for the production of automotive components, as part of a sustainability strategy aimed at achieving decarbonization in all of its operations. Gestamp products cover the areas of body-in-white, chassis and mechanisms. With... Read more →

One potential solution for enhancing capacity and production efficiency of lithium-ion batteries is to subdivide electrodes into dedicated functional layers. For example, a thin primer layer below the actual active anode helps to improve adhesion performance. At the same time, the overall binder content is reduced, resulting in higher energy... Read more →

Foxconn (Hon Hai Technology Group), a global leader in smart manufacturing, unveiled three electric vehicles in has developed in-house: the Model C recreational vehicle; the Model E sedan; and the Model T electric bus. The announcement was made during the livestreamed Hon Hai Tech Day 2021 (HHTD21) event, underlining Hon... Read more →

Toyota Motor Manufacturing, Alabama (TMMAL) held an event to mark the first of Toyota’s latest engine products for the all-new 2022 Tundra (earlier post) to come off the production line. These new engines, a hybrid electric powered twin-turbo V6 engine and the gas-powered twin-turbo V6 engine, usher in the next... Read more →

Ford announced that it intends to invest up to £230 million (US$316 million) at its Halewood vehicle transmission facility to transform it to build electric power units for future Ford all-electric passenger and commercial vehicles sold in Europe. Halewood will be Ford’s first electric vehicle component in-house assembly site in... Read more →

Toyota will invest approximately $3.4 billion (¥380 billion) in automotive batteries in the United States through 2030. Specifically, the investment is for developing and localizing automotive battery production, including those for battery electric vehicles, and is part of the global total of approximately $13.5 billion (¥1.5 trillion) set aside for... Read more →

Lithium developer Vulcan Energy Resources has signed a binding lithium hydroxide offtake agreement with Umicore, a leader in cathode materials production used in lithium-ion batteries for electrified transportation, as part of Vulcan’s Zero Carbon Lithium Project. (Earlier post.) In Nysa, Poland, Umicore has built the first cathode materials plant in... Read more →

Volvo Group revealed what it said was the world’s first vehicle made of fossil-free steel from SSAB (earlier post)—made in Volvo Construction Equipment’s facility in Braås, Sweden. More vehicles will follow in 2022 in what will be a series of concept vehicles and components using fossil-free steel from SSAB. The... Read more →

Rio Tinto is progressing new technology to deliver low-carbon steel, using sustainable biomass in place of coking coal in the steelmaking process, in a potentially cost-effective option to cut industry carbon emissions. Over the past decade, Rio Tinto has developed a laboratory-proven process that combines the use of raw, sustainable... Read more →

Lightsource bp, together with Xcel Energy and EVRAZ North America, launched its new 300-megawatt Bighorn Solar project. Lightsource bp, a 50:50 joint venture with bp, unveiled the solar project that will help reduce emissions and support more than 1,000 jobs at EVRAZ’s Pueblo steel mill—the world’s first steel mill to... Read more →

Italvolt Spa has selected ABB for Front End Engineering and Design (FEED) for its planned 45 GWh gigafactory in Italy. The two companies will also jointly explore how automation, electrification and digitalization solutions can fast-track production processes for battery manufacturing. More specifically, the technology partnership with ABB will bring Italvolt:... Read more →

Norway-based FREYR Battery has formed a 50:50 joint venture in the United States with Koch Strategic Platforms (KSP) to develop an initial 50 GWh of Gigafactory-scale battery cell manufacturing capacity in the US based on 24M Technologies (24M) SemiSolid platform technology (earlier post). The scale and scope of the targeted... Read more →

Alumobility, a non-profit organization focused on technical studies to advance the adoption of aluminum automotive body sheet, revealed the results of its newest study demonstrating that an aluminum automotive top hat—the upper structure of a vehicle’s Body-in-White—can save significant weight compared to steel while meeting or exceeding automakers’ performance criteria.... Read more →

Scientists at Argonne National Laboratory are hosting a 15-minute open-access webinar on 28 October about how to block threats to supplies of rare earth minerals using supercomputers. A wide range of devices and machines rely on rare earth elements that are mined and refined largely in China. But supplies are... Read more →

Rock Tech Lithium intends to build Europe’s first lithium converter—a production plant for battery-grade lithium hydroxide—in Guben, Brandenburg, Germany. The company intends to locate all production steps of lithium refining in one overall plant at the Guben site. The converter is scheduled to start operations in 2024. Location at the... Read more →

Hyundai Mobis will invest US$1.1 billion (KRW 1.3 trillion) in two new fuel cell plants in Korea to accelerate the hydrogen economy and to secure broader global market dominance. The new plants will start mass production in the second half of 2023. When fully operational, the facilities are expected to... Read more →

Stellantis will invest a total of $229 million in three of its Kokomo, Indiana, plants to help the company reach its goal of achieving 40% low-emission vehicle sales in the US by 2030. This announcement, which will retain 662 jobs, comes three months after the company laid out its long-term... Read more →

The Mercedes-Benz powertrain plants in Germany are starting production of key components for the battery-powered eActros heavy-duty truck. These include the electric axle and the battery packs, which are produced and assembled at the plants in Gaggenau, Kassel and Mannheim. These components will be used for the series production of... Read more →

Eighteen months after start of construction of its intelligent satellite production and testing center in Taizhou, China, Geely Technology Group has begun mass production of commercial satellites. The first set of low-orbit satellites rolled off the production line, marking a new milestone in Geely’s advancement into the commercial aerospace sector.... Read more →

A new report from RMI (Rocky Mountain Institute) finds that it is technically and economically feasible for China’s steel industry to decarbonize by 2050 through demand reduction, steel recycling and switching to green routes. China produces and consumes more than half of the world’s steel, accounting for about 17% of... Read more →

Albemarle Corporation’s subsidiary, Albemarle Lithium UK Limited, has signed a definitive agreement to acquire all of the outstanding equity of Guangxi Tianyuan New Energy Materials Co., Ltd. ("Tianyuan"), a lithium converter located in Guangxi, China. Under the terms of the agreement, Albemarle will acquire all outstanding equity from Tianyuan’s shareholders... Read more →

thyssenkrupp’s Automotive Technology segment is pressing on with the transformation of its powertrain business. The current Camshafts business unit is being aligned to stronger growth in e-mobility. The unit is currently one of the world’s leading suppliers of components for internal combustion, hybrid and electric powertrains. The product spectrum mainly... Read more →

Vulcan Energy Resources signed an agreement with chemical park management company Infraserv to secure a site for its planned Central Lithium Plant (CLP) of its Zero Carbon Lithium Project, at the Höchst Chemical Park (Industriepark Höchst), located just outside of Frankfurt. Höchst is one of Europe’s largest chemical sites and... Read more →

Lucid Group has begun production of the Lucid Air electric luxury sedan at Advanced Manufacturing Plant (AMP-1). Lucid expects reservation holders of Lucid Air Dream Edition models will begin receiving their vehicles in late October, with customer deliveries ramping up thereafter. Grand Touring, Touring, and Air Pure model deliveries are... Read more →

Ford Motor Company will build two new massive, environmentally and technologically advanced campuses in Tennessee and Kentucky that will produce the next generation of electric F-Series trucks and the batteries to power future electric Ford and Lincoln vehicles. Three new BlueOvalSK battery plants—two at the Kentucky mega-site and one in... Read more →

Vulcan Energy Resources’ chemical engineering team has successfully produced its first battery-quality lithium hydroxide monohydrate (LHM) from piloting operations. The LHM was produced from Vulcan’s sorption pilot plant, located at a geothermal renewable energy plant in the Upper Rhine Valley in Germany, with downstream electrolysis processing offsite, as per Vulcan’s... Read more →

INEOS will invest an additional £1 billion (US$1.4 billion) in Grangemouth, its integrated refinery and petrochemicals complex in Scotland, in the next phase of reducing greenhouse gas emissions to net zero by 2045. Grangemouth Grangemouth, one of Scotland’s largest manufacturing sites, is owned and operated by INEOS and Petroineos, a... Read more →

Long-lasting protection from corrosion is essential for materials used for vehicles and aircraft to ensure structural integrity amid extreme operating conditions. Two chemical pre-treatment processes are widely used in industrial settings to prepare for coating adhesion and protect aluminum alloy surfaces against corrosion. While highly regulated, both processes use large... Read more →

Ultium Cells LLC, a joint venture between LG Energy Solution and General Motors (GM), will use Honeywell’s Quality Control System (QCS) to ensure the quality and integrity of the lithium-ion batteries produced at its new manufacturing plant in Lordstown, Ohio. Due to be completed in 2022, the 2.8 million square-foot... Read more →

Mercedes-Benz is taking an equity stake in European battery cell manufacturer Automotive Cells Company (ACC) to scale up development and production of next-generation high-performance battery cells and modules. Mercedes-Benz announced in July that it will be ready to go fully electric by the end of the decade wherever market conditions... Read more →

Volkswagen Group China is commencing construction of a battery system production factory in Hefei (Anhui province). VW Anhui Components Company is the first battery system plant to be wholly owned by the Group in China. The initial annual capacity will be 150,000 to 180,000 high-voltage battery systems for Volkswagen Anhui’s... Read more →

Constellium SE will supply aluminum structural components for the recently introduced all-electric Ford F-150 Lightning that is expected to be available Spring 2022. The F-150 Lightning, and all F-Series pickup trucks, extensively use high-strength aluminum alloys. Constellium-supplied structural components for the F-150 Lightning include the windshield header, rocker, radiator support,... Read more →

6K, a developer of microwave plasma technology for the production of advanced materials for energy storage and additive manufacturing powders (earlier post), closed a $51M Series C financing round. With this investment, 6K will complete its Battery Development Center of Excellence, adding 33,000 sq ft of state-of-the-art product development space... Read more →

Just weeks after Lotus confirmed it will be launching a new family of EV performance cars, it has revealed the new lightweight chassis technology that will underpin the electric sports car in the range. The new structure has been developed through Project LEVA (Lightweight Electric Vehicle Architecture), announced last October... Read more →

Automotive and industrial supplier Schaeffler has opened a new production facility at its Szombathely location in the west of Hungary. The facility is Schaeffler’s first production plant fully dedicated to electro-mobility and gives the group a new center of excellence for the production of components and systems for electrified powertrains.... Read more →

Germany’s Federal Ministry of Transport and Digital Infrastructure (BMVI) is awarding €80 million to the Fraunhofer-Gesellschaft’s National Action Plan for Fuel Cell Production. Financing is provided by the future fund of the “Concerted Action Mobility” and is intended to promote the transformation of the automotive industry—in particular the supplier industry.... Read more →

Hyundai Motor Group introduced Factory Safety Service Robot, a robot for industrial site safety, and announced its pilot operation at Kia’s plant in South Korea. The Robot is based on Boston Dynamics’ quadruped robot, Spot, with applied artificial intelligence (AI), autonomous navigation, teleoperation technologies, and computing payload (AI Processing Service... Read more →

The first Ford F-150 Lightning electric pickup truck pre-production units have begun leaving the Rouge Electric Vehicle Center; the all-electric F-150 Lightning goes on sale next spring. With 150,000 reservations for F-150 Lightning to date, Ford said it is investing an additional $250 million in the Rouge Electric Vehicle Center,... Read more →

Hyundai Motor Group and LG Energy Solution have begun construction of an electric vehicle (EV) battery cell plant in Indonesia to secure leadership in the global battery electric vehicle (BEV) market. Hyundai and LG Energy Solution announced that they held a virtual groundbreaking ceremony with the Government of Indonesia at... Read more →

A new Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) program— Environmental Microbes as a BioEngineering Resource (EMBER) (HR001121S0035)—seeks to develop novel, bio-based technologies to overcome key challenges facing domestic supply of Rare Earth Elements (REEs) critical to the US and Department of Defense (DoD). Although the US has domestic REE resources,... Read more →

Solid Power, Inc., an industry-leading developer of all-solid-state battery cells for electric vehicles, is adding a second Denver-area production facility in Thornton, Colorado. The new facility will greatly expand Solid Power’s capacity to produce key materials for its all-solid-state battery cells, including the ability to produce up to 30 metric... Read more →

Conventional processes for manufacturing battery electrodes involve mostly toxic solvents and require a lot of space and energy. As an alternative, the Fraunhofer Institute for Material and Beam Technology IWS has developed a new dry-coating process: DRYtraec. The technology is environmentally friendly and cost-effective and can be used on a... Read more →

Thee is a growing disconnect between battery demand and raw material supply that could derail Europe’s and North America’s electrification plans, according to Benchmark Mineral Intelligence. Outside of China, Europe and North America are the key regions developing significant lithium-ion cell production capacity. Europe now has 778 GWh of capacity... Read more →

Johnson Matthey, a global leader in sustainable technologies, has entered into an agreement with OnTo Technology, a developer of advanced battery recycling solutions, to scale up OnTo’s patented process for the direct recycling of lithium-ion battery scrap. The partners will collaborate with the UK Battery Industrialization Center (UKBIC), the newly... Read more →

Nikola Corporation, a developer of heavy-duty commercial battery-electric vehicles (BEV), fuel-cell electric vehicles (FCEV) and energy infrastructure solutions, announced agreements with the Bosch Group for Nikola Class 7 and 8 fuel-cell electric vehicles (FCEV) which will enable Nikola to build the Bosch fuel-cell power modules at its Coolidge, Arizona facility.... Read more →

Mercedes-Benz has launched a partnership with the Swedish steel manufacturer SSAB for CO2-free steel. (Earlier post.) The first prototype parts for body shells made of CO2-free steel are already being planned for next year. SSAB Oxelösund rolled its first steel produced using HYBRIT technology—i.e., reduced by 100% fossil-free hydrogen instead... Read more →

Following the approval of all relevant authorities, BASF and Shanshan have formed the joint venture “BASF Shanshan Battery Materials Co., Ltd.”. The new entity will be majority owned by BASF (BASF 51% and Shanshan 49%). The newly formed company has four sites in Hunan and Ningxia, China, with more than... Read more →

Following a series of major expansion announcements in 2021, China’s cathode industry is moving closer to having its first producer with a capacity of one million tonnes per annum (tpa), according to Benchmark Mineral Intelligence. With battery cell producers worldwide undertaking massive expansion plans and with battery capacity in the... Read more →

Australia-based Walkabout Resources, an Africa-focused energy minerals developer, announced that its Tanzania Lindi Jumbo flake graphite project had progressed into the construction phase, with the CRDB-approved Independent Project Manager completing site visits and bulk earthmoving contractor TNR commencing mobilization. Walkabout Resources signed a US$20-million loan agreement with Tanzania’s CRDB bank... Read more →