Micromobility America returned to the San Francisco Bay Area earlier this month to showcase the latest micromobility products, highlight new releases, offer test rides, hear from insightful company leaders and politicians, and basically nerd out about electric mobility.
The post The coolest e-bikes, e-scooters, electric micro-cars, and more that we saw at Micromobility America appeared first on Electrek.
Source: Charge Forward
Ford F-150 Lightning and Ford E-Transit are the leaders of their segments: respectively electric pickup trucks and vans.
Source: Electric Vehicle News
Tesla was granted a 500,000 square foot expansion to the original plans, giving it a green light for the promised park.
Source: Electric Vehicle News
Pressure-sensitive adhesive tapes are a reliable solution for a range of EV battery pack applications. These include bonding, flame retardance and dielectric insulation, and protection of sensitive materials. However, EV battery applications represent just a fraction of the many ways these tapes can support the electrification of modern vehicles.
In this free webinar at our Fall Virtual Conference, experts from Avery Dennison Performance Tapes discuss the use of pressure-sensitive adhesive tapes in areas such as advanced driver assistance systems (ADAS), noise/vibration/harshness (NVH) mitigation, charging stations, durable labels, and more. They’ll conclude with an overview of the Avery Dennison Performance Tapes portfolio, including the company’s newest adhesive technologies.
Other sessions at our Fall Virtual Conference include:
Accurate measurement of voltages and currents in high voltage systems is essential to proper feedback and operation of electric and hybrid vehicle subsystems.
In this session, Skyworks will survey applications for current and voltage sensors integrated with galvanic isolation in chargers, dc/dc converters, battery management, and propulsion inverters. Skyworks’ John Wilson will highlight components that offer excellent technical specifications for accomplishing these critical measurements.
Register here to learn more—it’s free!
The efficiency of electric vehicles has become a challenge for todays’ OEMs. After having achieved market entry, next generations of EVs must prominently be more efficient. It is not only better for energy consumption and environmental concerns, but also a strong key differentiator as dozens of new EV models are introduced every year.
With lower switching losses, the SiC power devices are now going mainstream and enabling a significant leap in energy efficiency compared to conventional IGBT devices. But how do we make sure to unleash the full potential of the SiC power devices? How do we make optimal use of SiC devices so that it not only enhances the efficiency and reduces e-motor losses, but improves the total Harmonics Distortion (THD), lowers the Noise Vibration and Harshness (NVH), and keeps the BoM minute?
During this session, Silicon Mobility will present OLEA®, a high-performance control technology. OLEA® technology enables more efficiently electric powertrains using advanced control and modulation algorithms, wide band-gap power transistors combined with higher switching frequencies, advanced converter architectures, higher revving, 3-or-multi-phase electric HV, and motors with increased energy densities.
Register here to learn more—it’s free!
See the full session list for the Fall Virtual Conference on EV Engineering here.
Broadcast live October 17 – 720, 2022, the conference content will span the EV engineering supply chain and ecosystem, including motor and power electronics design and manufacturing, cell development, battery systems, testing, powertrains, thermal management, circuit protection, wire and cable, EMI/EMC and more.
As EV adoption grows, it’s plain that more EV raw materials will need to be mined and processed in North America (and Europe). But bringing a new mine into production is a lengthy process with many potential pitfalls along the way.
A lithium mine in the pine forests northwest of Montreal provides an example of the challenges, as reported by the New York Times. The facility, which is operated by Australia-based Sayona Mining, is scheduled to open early next year.
At Sayona’s La Corne mine, lithium-containing rock is blasted loose and crushed, then processed in several stages to remove waste material. Jets of compressed air separate the lithium ore, which is then refined in vats of detergent, where the lithium floats to the surface and is skimmed off. The end product, which contains about 6 percent lithium, will be sent to refineries, most of them in China, for further purification.
As the Times reports, dozens of lithium mines are in various stages of development in Canada and the US, but most of these projects are years away from production, and some could fail to reach their potential for various reasons.
The La Corne mine provides some examples of what could go wrong. Over the years, it has had several owners, some of whom have gone bankrupt. Funding for the years-long process of developing a mine is linked to the gyrations of commodities markets. A decline in lithium prices between 2017 to 2020 caused the mine’s previous owner, Chinese battery maker CATL, to shut down operations.
Most observers believe that demand for lithium and other battery raw materials is set to soar. (A certain CEO of a certain automaker called Tesla recently called lithium mining and processing “a license to print money.”)
Others are not so sure. Sayona’s stock, which trades on the Australian Securities Exchange, has bobbed up and down like a cork over the past few months.
“Those of us in the industry are quite confident that lithium will be in short supply for the next decade,” Keith Phillips, CEO of Piedmont Lithium, which owns 25 percent of Sayona’s Quebec project, told the Times. “Others are taking a contrarian view.”
Opposition from environmental groups or nearby residents can slow or stop projects. There are lots of mines in the area around La Corne—iron, nickel, copper, zinc, gold—and according to the Times, most locals support the lithium mine, but a significant minority oppose it. A green group called MiningWatch Canada is pushing to ensure that the Sayona mine undergoes stringent environmental reviews. Long Point First Nation, an Indigenous group, says the mine is on its ancestral territory, and wants to conduct its own environmental impact study.
Sébastien Lemire, who represents the region in Canada’s Parliament, is an EV driver, and supports the mine. “If we don’t do it, we’re missing the opportunity of the electrification of transport,” he told the Times. However, he praised activists for being “vigilant” about environmental standards, and noted that he wants to make sure that the income from lithium mining stays in Quebec.
Source: New York Times
Source: Electric Vehicles Magazine
Michigan-based test system company SAKOR Technologies has delivered a new dynamometer test system to Carpenter Technology. The system will be used to test the effectiveness of new alloys in inverters and electric motor parts.
The system is composed of an AccuDyne 250 kW four-quadrant AC dynamometer, an AccuDyne 12 kW four-quadrant AC dynamometer, a 250 kW / 800 VDC battery simulator, two universal inverters, SAKOR’s DynoLAB test automation controller and a cooling system for air- and water-cooled motors and inverters.
“The AccuDyne four-quadrant dynamometers are capable of full bidirectional loading and motoring of the device under test,” says SAKOR. “They can also provide full rated torque at stall. Each dynamometer, as well as the battery simulator, provides regenerative power recapture. This makes the test system itself extremely power-efficient and greatly reduces operating costs.”
“The customer needed a machine that could test a very broad range of motor sizes and powers, and this new system allows them to test new motor technology with or without customer inverters, making it extremely versatile,” says SAKOR President Randal Beattie. “This single system will take the place of as many as four independent test stands.”
Source: SAKOR Technologies
Source: Electric Vehicles Magazine
Battery materials producer 6K has signed a joint development agreement with Michigan-based energy storage company Our Next Energy (ONE) to develop and produce a battery material that ONE will use in its dual-chemistry Gemini battery and LFP Aries battery pack.
The companies will develop two chemistries that include iron phosphate and manganese. “Early collaboration will start in 6K Energy’s Battery Center of Excellence located in North Andover, Massachusetts where both teams will work jointly on qualification and performance targets,” says 6K.
The companies also agreed to use 6K’s UniMelt technology—a proprietary microwave plasma production system—to process cathode materials at ONE’s plant in the US.
“By onshoring our cell manufacturing and battery materials and implementing a localized supply chain, ONE will be able to reduce our product’s carbon emissions by 34%,” says ONE’s VP of Strategy and Government Relations Dr. Deena Ahmed. “Implementing 6K’s UniMelt technology will help ONE further drive down our emissions.”
“6K’s UniMelt system replaces a lengthy, multi-step, high-waste chemical process with one that is ultra-clean and ultra-fast (as low as 2 seconds), and powered by a 6,000-degree microwave plasma,” according to 6K. “Compared to state-of-the-art cathode active material (CAM) plants today, 6K Energy uses half the footprint, [and has] substantially lower CapEx and lower conversion costs. Implementing a 6K Energy solution for CAM production in the US has the potential to save billions of dollars and eliminate solid and liquid hazardous waste while reducing water usage by 90%.”
Source: 6K
Source: Electric Vehicles Magazine
Punch Powertrain and Stellantis have agreed to expand their existing manufacturing partnership by adding another manufacturing site.
The 50/50 joint venture, called Punch Powertrain PSA e-Transmissions Assembly, manufactures electrified dual-clutch transmissions (eDCT/DT2) for Stellantis’s next generation of mild hybrid and plug-in hybrid models.
A manufacturing site in Metz, France began producing electrified transmissions in late 2022. Now the companies have agreed to build another manufacturing facility in Mirafiori, Italy. Punch says it expects the site to begin production in the second half of 2024.
“Extending our existing collaboration with Punch Powertrain to produce electrified dual-clutch transmissions in Italy as part of the e-Transmissions Assembly team is another step forward to helping us achieve our aggressive decarbonization plans,” says Stellantis CEO Carlos Tavares.
Source: Punch Powertrain
Source: Electric Vehicles Magazine
ChargePoint, a leading EV charging company, is launching a new charging solution aimed at businesses looking to become a part of the future of clean transportation. The company’s CP6000 charger is ChargePoint’s “most flexible and serviceable global AC EV charging solution” for all types of electric vehicles.
The post ChargePoint launches CP6000 charger to help businesses transitioning to EVs appeared first on Electrek.
Source: Charge Forward
A member of the vintage Scout community claims he saw early prototypes and learned more about them at a Scout Motors event.
Source: Electric Vehicle News
