Groupe PSA/Opel and Total/Saft have signed an agreement for the creation of the joint venture Automotive Cells Company (ACC). Yann Vincent has been appointed Chief Executive in order to implement and develop it. Ghislain Lescuyer has been appointed Chairman of the Board. With this partnership, the parties are setting up... Read more →

The new EPIC project coordinated by Karlsruhe Institute of Technology (KIT) is aimed at accelerating the drying of high-quality electrodes for lithium-ion batteries, increasing the energy efficiency of this process and, hence, reducing the cost of production. Innovative drying management of electrodes reduces costs of battery production, improves the environmental... Read more →

A Tier-2 supplier headquartered in Belgium, BMT Drive Solutions—acting under the brand name of VCST—is involved in the mass-production of gears & shafts (from 20,000 up to 2 million parts/year.pgm) for major OEMs (such as VW, Ford, Porsche, DAF or Cummins) & Tier 1s. Although the main applications covered by... Read more →

BASF’s Coatings division is presenting a new advanced refinish product line. By increasing the efficiency and significantly lowering the environmental impact, the products are designed to meet the highest expectations of modern body shops. During the development of the waterborne basecoat line, the focus was put on sustainable aspects: The... Read more →

Nissan reports developing a new process that speeds up the development of car parts made from carbon fiber reinforced plastics (CFRP). Lightweight yet extremely strong, the material can be used to make cars that are safer and more fuel efficient. It can also lower a car’s center of gravity when... Read more →

General Motors and Honda today signed a non-binding memorandum of understanding (MoU) following extensive preliminary discussions toward establishing a North American automotive alliance. The scope of the proposed alliance includes a range of vehicles to be sold under each company’s distinct brands, as well as cooperation in purchasing, research and... Read more →

As magnet rare earth prices rise and supplies become increasingly scarce through the second half of the decade, cerium, lanthanum and terbium will help fill the gap, according to Adamas Intelligence. As Adamas details in a new report, over the past decade, there have been numerous studies demonstrating the potential... Read more →

Valmet Automotive expects sales from its battery business for electric vehicles (EV) to reach or exceed the level of contract manufacturing of vehicles in just a few years. The growth will focus primarily on the EV Systems business line with its services for the development and manufacture of battery systems.... Read more →

Hyundai Mobis is building its third core parts plant for electric vehicles in Pyeongtaek, Gyeonggi-do, Korea, following plants in Chungju and Ulsan. The new factory in Pyeongtaek is located in Poseung District (BIX) in Pyeongtaek within the Yellow Sea Free Economic Zone, and the site is 16,726 m2 ; Hyundai... Read more →

Sunfire has successfully delivered the world’s most powerful High-Temperature Electrolyzer (HTE) for highly energy-efficient hydrogen production to Salzgitter Flachstahl GmbH. Within the GrInHy2.0 project, Sunfire’s HTE system with a rated electrical output of 720 kilowatts will be deployed in an industrial environment for the first time. GrInHy2.0 is another step... Read more →

Mafic USA and The Materials Group (TMG) have allied to increase the use of basalt fiber compounded into injection molded thermoplastics within the automotive industry. Mafic recently began operations at the world’s largest basalt fiber production facility in Shelby, NC. TMG, located in Rockford, MI, is a thermoplastics manufacturer, distributor... Read more →

The US Department of Energy (DOE) selected 13 projects through a Battery Manufacturing Lab Call with combined funding of almost $15 million over three years. The call sought proposals from National Laboratories to establish public-private partnerships that address engineering challenges for advanced battery materials and devices, with a focus on... Read more →

In a study published in the journal Joule, a team from the US Naval Research Laboratory find that of the two main approaches to designing structural batteries—monofunctional materials with de-coupled functions vs. multifunctional materials with coupled functions—decoupled structural batteries (relying on monofunctional materials) generally achieve higher elastic moduli and specific-energy... Read more →

Volkswagen has begun series production of the brand’s first all-electric SUV, the ID.4, in Zwickau. The world premiere of the ID.4 follows at the end of September. With the ID.4, Volkswagen is adding an all-electric vehicle to its offering in the compact SUV class, the world’s largest growth segment. Following... Read more →

The US Department of Energy’s (DOE’s) Reducing EMbodied-Energy and Decreasing Emissions (REMADE) Manufacturing Institute announced approximately $35 million to support research and development (R&D) that will enable US manufacturers to increase the recovery, recycling, reuse, and remanufacturing of plastics, metals, electronic waste, and fibers. The funding opportunity announcement (FOA) is... Read more →

PPG is partnering with the US Department of Energy (DOE) Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (LBNL) in a research initiative aimed at developing energy-efficient coatings systems for the automotive industry. The PPG project—“Modeling Coating Flow and Dynamics during Drying”—was selected to receive funding through the DOE High Performance Computing for Energy... Read more →

A new survey conducted by DuckerFrontier finds that aluminum, already the fastest growing automotive material, is expected to grow to content levels of 514 pounds per vehicle (PPV) by 2026, up 12% from 2020 levels. Aluminum applications are classified into 2 categories (platform and component) and 13 groups. Platform Parts... Read more →

Switzerland-based Blackstone Resources AG announced that it has achieved a series of important milestones for producing any kind of printed battery cells. The company has been investing in the next generation of battery technology through its German subsidiary Blackstone Technology GmbH. This includes patented 3D-printing techniques and research into the... Read more →

Mercedes-Benz and CATL (Contemporary Amperex Technology Co., Limited) announced an enhanced partnership in the field of battery technology. The electric luxury sedan Mercedes-Benz EQS will launch next year equipped with CATL cell modules, delivering a WLTP range of more than 700 km (435 miles). Mercedes-Benz and CATL (Contemporary Amperex Technology... Read more →

In the UK, the competition for the first £10 million (US$13 million) of a new £1-billion (US$1.3 billion) Automotive Transformation Fund has begun. The overall program will offer a share of up to £1 billion of funding for industrial research and capital projects. The aim is to support the industrialization... Read more →

The BMW Group has set itself the goal of creating a closed and sustainable material cycle for battery cells. With a new pilot plant that will produce lithium-ion battery cells, the company is taking the next step in addressing all aspects of the battery cell value chain: from selection of... Read more →

Tuesday marked the beginning of steel construction at the all-new Ultium Cells LLC battery cell manufacturing facility in Lordstown. Ultium Cells LLC is a joint venture that will mass-produce Ultium battery cells for electric vehicles (earlier post) and create more than 1,100 new jobs in Northeast Ohio. Since May 2020,... Read more →

Octillion Power Systems, a provider of advanced lithium-ion storage systems for electric mobility, announced it has reached two milestones: 100,000 electric vehicles worldwide powered by its batteries and 2 billion kilometers driven. Octillion has seen rapid growth in production capacity, experience, and partnerships over the last decade. With operations in... Read more →

The BMW Group is making sustainability and resource efficiency central to the company’s strategic direction. Chairman of the Board of Management Oliver Zipse announced initial details of this strategic direction in Munich on Monday and presented the targets the company has set itself for the phase up to 2030. The... Read more →

A short poll by the Chartered Institute of Procurement & Supply (CIPS) has found that the disruption caused by COVID-19 will lead to permanent changes in global supply chains, as businesses look to adapt to new ways of working and managing the varying stages of lockdown around the world. This... Read more →

Ford is using two four-legged robots leased from Boston Dynamics at its Van Dyke Transmission Plant in early August to laser-scan the plant, helping engineers update the original computer-aided design. The robots can be deployed into tough-to-reach areas within the plant to scan the area with laser scanners and high-definition... Read more →

Volkswagen, together with Amazon Web Services (AWS) and integration partner Siemens, is opening up the Industrial Cloud (earlier post) to other manufacturing and technology companies. New partner companies will be able to connect with Volkswagen plants and to contribute their own software applications for optimizing production processes to the Industrial... Read more →

The US Department of Energy’s (DOE) Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy (EERE) will fund 49 new Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) and Small Business Technology Transfer (STTR) research and development projects across 23 states, totaling nearly $53.4 million in funding. Of these projects, the Advanced Manufacturing Office (AMO)... Read more →

In preparation for production of the fully-electric BMW i4, BMW Group Plant Munich will pause vehicle production for six weeks this summer. No cars will be produced between the end of the late shift on 23 July and the start of the early shift on 7 September. Plant Munich will... Read more →

Global chemical company BASF and IntelliSense.io, a leading industrial artificial intelligence (AI) company, announced an exclusive partnership which will combine their expertise in mineral processing, ore beneficiation chemistry and industrial AI technology. The joint offering is called the ‘BASF Intelligent Mine powered by IntelliSense.io’ and delivers AI solutions embedded with... Read more →

Borealis, a supplier of polyolefin plastic materials for engineering applications in the automotive industry, announced the availability of Fibremod, its innovative carbon and glass fiber-reinforced polypropylene (PP) technology, for the North American automotive market. The Fibremod family of products enables automotive manufacturers to achieve weight-saving and process cost-saving targets. In... Read more →

LeydenJar Technologies, a Dutch spin-out of the applied research institute TNO, has developed a new,100% silicon anode for lithium-ion batteries. This breakthrough offers two key benefits: batteries with a 70% higher energy density (1350 Wh/L) and 62% less CO2 emissions. The anode is ready for production and LeydenJar is preparing... Read more →

The United States Advanced Battery Consortium LLC (USABC), a subsidiary of the United States Council for Automotive Research LLC (USCAR), and a collaborative organization of FCA US LLC, Ford Motor Company and General Motors, has awarded a $2.4-million contract to Worcester Polytechnic Institute (WPI) to lead a program to develop... Read more →

Britishvolt has signed an MOU with the Welsh Government as both parties work together on plans to develop a commercially viable 30 GWh battery manufacturing plant, and supplementary 200MW solar plant, at the former RAF base at Bro Tathan, Vale of Glamorgan, South Wales. After six months of careful analysis,... Read more →

Geomega Resources Inc., a rare earth clean technologies developer for mining and recycling, and USA Rare Earth, LLC, the funding and development partner of the Round Top Heavy Rare Earth and Critical Minerals Project in West Texas, have entered into a Letter of Intent (LOI) to recycle rare earth-containing production... Read more →

EIT InnoEnergy, the European innovation engine for sustainable energy, announced a partnership with Vulcan Energy Resources Limited (Vulcan), a start-up lithium exploration company, to produce the world’s first completely carbon-neutral lithium in Germany. The partnership is part of Europe’s strategic industry initiative, the European Battery Alliance, aimed at building an... Read more →

Mullen Technologies Inc., a Southern California-based licensed electric vehicle manufacturer, executed an LOI with Axiom Financial for $135 million in funding to acquire and build out an electric vehicle manufacturing plant. Mullen also has extended the exclusivity period for the pending merger with Net Element. The parties amended the originally... Read more →

Scientists at KIT have developed and patented a process for minimally invasive technology to mine lithium in geothermal plants. The plan is to extract lithium using a minimally invasive process from the deep waters in geothermal plants of the Upper Rhine Graben—an area that has particularly favorable geological conditions for... Read more →

Groupe Renault and Google Cloud announced a new industrial and technology partnership to accelerate the digitization of Groupe Renault’s industrial system and of Industry 4.0 transformation. A recognized contributor to Industry 4.0, Groupe Renault has been developing its own digital platform since 2016 to connect and to aggregate industrial data... Read more →

Volkswagen has begun conversion of its Emden, Germany plant to support the production of Evs; the first electric cars are to roll off the production line there from 2022. With the conversion of our plant at Emden into a production location for electric vehicles, Volkswagen is forcing the pace of... Read more →

Rheinmetall Automotive AG, part of technology group Rheinmetall AG, has received a major order from an international OEM for electrical vacuum pumps. The order extends to a lifetime volume of €250 million. The components will be manufactured by Pierburg Huayu Pump Technology (PHP), a Shanghai-based joint venture company of Rheinmetall... Read more →

International technology company Semcon is currently deepening its collaboration with fuel cell manufacturer PowerCell (earlier post) through a new framework agreement and by developing and deploying an entirely new robotic cell for testing new fuel cell production technology with the aim of making the fuel cells more efficient. This new... Read more →

Demand for raw materials used in the production of electric car batteries is set to soar, prompting the UN trade body, UNCTAD (United Nations Conference on Trade and Development), to call for the social and environmental impacts of the extraction of raw materials, which include human rights abuses, to be... Read more →

Mercedes-Benz AG has taken numerous measures to sustainably improve its cost structure and become significantly more efficient. An important lever for this is the adjustment and realignment of capacity within its global production network. Against this backdrop, the company intends to start talks on the sale of its car plant... Read more →

Ballard Power Systems has received a $7.7-million purchase order for membrane electrode assemblies (MEAs) for use in manufacturing FCvelocity-9SSL fuel cell stacks from Guangdong Synergy Ballard Hydrogen Power Co., Ltd. (Synergy-Ballard JVCo), a joint venture in which Ballard holds a 10% ownership interest. Ballard FCvelocity-9SSL fuel cell stacks (CNW Group/Ballard... Read more →

Mercedes-Benz has entered a far-reaching strategic partnership with the Chinese battery cell manufacturer Farasis Energy (Ganzhou) Co., Ltd., including taking an equity stake. Key elements of the agreement include the development and industrialization of advanced cell technologies, accompanied by ambitious goals for cost competitiveness. The technological focus is on significant... Read more →

Daimler Truck AG is pushing forward with series production of fuel cells with Daimler Truck Fuel Cell GmbH & Co. KG. Over the past ten years, experts from Daimler have built up extensive know-how in this field and have developed production methods and processes. In close cooperation with their colleagues... Read more →

BASF is launching an engineering plastic that is particularly suited for automotive parts that come into contact with hot oil. The new polyethersulfone (PESU) Ultrason E0510 C2TR shows very good tribological properties, high oil resistance and excellent dimensional stability also with broad ranges of temperature fluctuations. The injection-molding grade with... Read more →

Toyota Motor Corporation has developed a world’s stamping-type plating technology that uses a polymer membrane (solid electrolyte membrane), through which metal ions can pass, to apply plating, like a stamp, only to areas requiring plating. The technology is used in the plating process for forming copper, nickel, and other metal... Read more →

The BMW Group now has a contractual agreement with it cell manufacturers so that they will use only green power to produce BMW’s fifth-generation battery cells, according to BMW AG Management Board Chairman Oliver Zipse. The production of high-voltage batteries is energy-intensive, and accounts for up to 40% of a... Read more →