Montgomery County, Maryland, is on a roll. Earlier this month, it deployed the single largest electric school bus fleet – 86 – in the US. Now 70 of the county’s electric buses will be powered at a solar-powered, microgrid energy storage depot in Brookville.
The post This solar + microgrid storage depot can charge 70 electric buses appeared first on Electrek.
Source: Charge Forward
When we spoke with TeraWatt Infrastructure CEO Neha Palmer back in 2021, we were impressed by her company’s comprehensive approach. Charging hubs for fleet vehicles need to incorporate not only charging stations, but energy management systems, and possibly energy storage and on-site generation. Charging providers need to work closely with local electrical utilities, and they need to be involved in financing, project development and whatever else it takes to ease fleet operators’ transitions to EVs.
Now the company has taken a big step toward realizing its vision—it recently raised more than $1 billion in institutional capital, which it will use to develop a network of charging centers for heavy-duty and medium-duty electric trucks along I-10 from the Ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach to El Paso.
The I-10 Electric Corridor will consist of multiple TeraWatt Charging Centers in California, Arizona and New Mexico. Each will feature “dozens” of high-power DC fast chargers, pull-through charging stalls and on-site driver amenities. The sites will be available both to long-haul truckers and local, last-mile delivery operations.
The Charging Centers will be located approximately 150 miles apart, a distance that supports the range of currently available electric trucks. Each site is located less than one mile from the nearest highway exit, and they range in size between 4 and 100 acres.
TeraWatt will manage all charging operations at the sites, and will incorporate advanced technology such as battery storage, on-site renewable energy generation and megawatt charging stations “as commercially appropriate. The company will partner with local and state governments and utilities, and take advantage of whatever grants and incentives are available.
“Long-haul trucking electrification represents a significant opportunity to reduce transportation sector emissions, but hinges on the rapid scale-up of specialized charging infrastructure,” says CEO Neha Palmer. “Our real estate and energy infrastructure development platform uniquely positions TeraWatt to solve the ‘charging problem’ for trucking operators, making freight electrification achievable within their operations. There will have to be a lot of collaboration between stakeholders, including grid owners, operators, utilities, regulators and end users, to ensure that the grid can evolve alongside the shift to electric transportation.”
Sources: TeraWatt Infrastructure, CleanTechnica
Source: Electric Vehicles Magazine
The company doesn’t simply want to make an electric version of the Seven, because it would be too heavy.
Source: Electric Vehicle News
Mary Barra estimates that’s how long it will take the carmaker to meet all battery sourcing and manufacturing requirements.
Source: Electric Vehicle News
Months after announcing plans to terminate its Jeep joint venture in China with GAC Group, the Stellantis JV has officially filed for bankruptcy. Following the approval by GAC, Stellantis’ Jeep production overseas will cease, putting an end to a joint venture that began in 2010.
The post Stellantis’ Jeep joint venture files for bankruptcy, setting expiry in China appeared first on Electrek.
Source: Charge Forward
Fermata Energy, a specialist in vehicle-to-everything (V2X) charging systems, has successfully deployed its FE-15 bidirectional charger on multiple commercial projects. Now the company has added a second commercial V2X-capable bidirectional charger to its lineup, the FE-20.
The FE-20 is a DC fast charger that can both charge and discharge the battery of a bidirectionally-enabled EV, creating opportunities for fleet owners to earn revenue, while supporting grid resilience.
The FE-20 is made exclusively for Fermata Energy by Heliox. It’s available in ADA-compliant pedestal and wall-mount versions. The power level is 20 kW for both charging and discharging. UL certification is pending.
“Companies are facing increasing pressure to electrify their fleets. Yet, at the same time they are looking for ways to manage costs,” said David Slutzky, CEO and founder of Fermata Energy. “V2X bidirectional charging actually allows them to both electrify their fleet and earn revenue while their EVs are parked. Fermata Energy has pioneered bidirectional charging and now, along with our proprietary cloud-based software platform, we are introducing our second commercial bidirectional charger—the FE-20.”
Fermata Energy is taking pre-orders for the FE-20 from fleet owners and operators for Q1 2023 delivery on its web site.
Source: Fermata Energy
Source: Electric Vehicles Magazine
A team of researchers has fabricated thick electrodes from two-dimensional materials in order to design an electrode for faster charging and higher energy capacity in lithium-ion batteries.
“Two-dimensional materials are commonly believed [to be] a promising candidate for high-rate energy storage applications because it only needs to be several nanometers thick for rapid charge transport,” says research team member Guihua Yu. “However, for thick-electrode-design-based next-generation, high-energy batteries, the restacking of nanosheets as building blocks can cause significant bottlenecks in charge transport, leading to difficulty in achieving both high energy and fast charging.”
In an article published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, the researchers write: “Here, we develop a method of controlling nanosheet assembly via the combination of an external magnetic field and drying-based densification to prepare high-density, low-tortuosity electrodes. The vertically interconnected nanosheet network provides efficient pathways for mass transport, delivering both high areal and volumetric capacities far beyond those of commercial electrodes.”
According to the researchers, “This dense and thick electrode is capable of delivering a high volumetric capacity >1,600 mAh cm−3, with an areal capacity up to 32 mAh cm−2, which is among the best reported in the literature.”
The researchers also found that a horizontally arranged electrode built with the same materials reached its 50% energy level in 2 hours and 30 minutes compared to 30 minutes for a vertical electrode, according to UT News.
“Our electrode shows superior electrochemical performance partially due to the high mechanical strength, high electrical conductivity and facilitated lithium-ion transport thanks to the unique architecture we designed,” says research team leader Zhengyu Ju.
Source: UT News
Source: Electric Vehicles Magazine
It’s a massive 2-ton vehicle with a huge drone strapped to the roof that just successfully completed its maiden flight.
Source: Electric Vehicle News
The DOE may get more replies than it bargained for to its recent Request for Information (DE-FOA-0002797, PDF) regarding “the prevalence of and solutions to electric vehicle no-charge events.”
As every frequent user of public charging knows, the uptime performance of public chargers can be abysmal—the doggone things seem to be out of order a good third of the time.
The DOE’s Vehicle Technologies Office (VTO) is interested in “no-charge events,” including “interoperability issues between EVs and [chargers] and other parts of the charging ecosystem.”
“The VTO is developing plans to implement the Vehicle Grid Integration (VGI) Research, Development, and Demonstration Program as directed by the Energy Act of 2020 and one of the barriers to VGI to be addressed is the issue of some EVs failing to charge satisfactorily when connected to electric vehicle supply equipment (EVSE or chargers). These no-charge events either fail to start charging or fail to complete the charge without interruption.”
The purpose of the Request for Information is to solicit input from industry (EV manufacturers, EVSE manufacturers, charge network operators) and other stakeholders on “issues related to EVs failing to charge properly when connected to chargers.”
Alas, this is merely a Request for Information (RFI) and not a Funding Opportunity Announcement (FOA), so there’s no money involved. However, it’s possible that the agency will issue an FOA based on the input received from this RFI.
If you just have a list of complaints about non-working chargers, we’d advise you to hold your peace, lest the VTO become overwhelmed with responses within hours. However, if you’ve got some information about why public chargers so often fail to charge, or better yet, suggestions about how to alleviate the problem, you could do a great public service by responding to the RFI, and you might just earn yourself some FOA.
Source: DOE via Green Car Congress
Source: Electric Vehicles Magazine
Battery recycler Li-Cycle has announced that its Alabama Spoke plant in Tuscaloosa has started commercial operations.
The Alabama Spoke uses Li-Cycle’s patented technology to recycle and directly process full EV battery packs without any dismantling through a submerged shredding process that produces no wastewater. Li-Cycle says its full pack processing capability improves efficiency, and can process the growing variety of EV battery architectures, including cell-to-pack formats that have limited options for dismantling.
The Alabama Spoke is strategically located to support the recycling needs of the company’s growing battery supply customer base in the southeastern US, where several battery and automotive manufacturers are establishing operations. This growth is expected to produce a significant amount of battery production scrap and end-of life batteries that will require recycling.
“This facility enhances our ability to support the recycling needs of our diverse and growing customer base in North America to ensure lithium-ion battery material is recycled in an environmentally friendly and safe manner,” said Ajay Kochhar, co-founder and CEO of Li-Cycle. “Li-Cycle is creating an essential domestic supply of recycled material to support EV production and assist automakers in meeting their domestic production content requirements.”
The Alabama Spoke has a total input processing capacity of 10,000 tons of lithium-ion battery materials per year, and has the flexibility to expand processing capacity in the future. It features the same design as Li-Cycle’s Arizona Spoke, which opened earlier this year and is currently operating near target throughput.
Together with its two other North American spokes—located in Kingston, Ontario and Rochester, New York—Li-Cycle now has a total input processing capacity of 30,000 tons per year, or the equivalent of batteries from approximately 60,000 EVs. By the end of 2023, the company expects to have a total of 65,000 tons per year of processing capacity across its Spoke network in North America and Europe.
The primary output product of Li-Cycle’s Spokes is black mass, consisting of valuable metals, including lithium, cobalt and nickel, which the company will convert into battery-grade materials at its first Hub facility, which is under construction in Rochester. Li-Cycle expects the Hub to be capable of processing 35,000 tons of black mass annually, with battery materials equivalent to approximately 225,000 EVs. Li-Cycle aims to begin commissioning the Rochester Hub in 2023.
Source: Li-Cycle Holdings
Source: Electric Vehicles Magazine
