Elon Musk wants Tesla to focus on profits or warns that TSLA will fall like ‘soufflé under a sledgehammer’

In a new email to Tesla employees obtained by Electrek, CEO Elon Musk says that he wants the automaker to focus on profits and cost-saving.

If not, the CEO warns that Tesla’s stock (TSLA) could fall drastically.

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Source: Charge Forward

EGEB: World’s first hydrogen fuel cell train is approved in Austria

In today’s Electrek Green Energy Brief (EGEB):

  • Alstom’s Coradia iLint has completed test operation in Austria and is ready for production.
  • A huge cash investment at Aurora Solar enables the growth of remote, accurate installations.
  • It’s #GivingTuesday — here are three ways to give that benefit our environment.
  • UnderstandSolar is a free service that links you to top-rated solar installers in your region for personalized solar estimates. Tesla now offers price matching, so it’s important to shop for the best quotes. Click here to learn more and get your quotes. — *ad.

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The post EGEB: World’s first hydrogen fuel cell train is approved in Austria appeared first on Electrek.


Source: Charge Forward

MAHLE opens new test bench facility for electric drives

MAHLE has commissioned a test bench for electric drives near Stuttgart, Germany. This equipment will be used to develop and test e-axles and e-drive units for a wide range of EVs. The company has invested around €3 million in the new facility. 

“With the commissioning of the test bench, MAHLE continues the targeted expansion of its global range of services for e-mobility,” said VP Martin Berger. “Our customers and our developers can now benefit from an ultramodern facility, which is one of only very few in Germany.”

In the future, the new e-test bench in Fellbach will be used on behalf of international customers to carry out functional development work, simulate highly dynamic, transient modes of operation, perform efficiency measurements and torque vectoring, and simulate wheel slip scenarios. Operating map application and data population, testing of high- and low-voltage systems, and the investigation of thermal influences are also among the scope of services.

The test facility includes an e-axle unit consisting of two oppositely mounted load machines equipped with permanent-magnet synchronous electric motors. MAHLE says the bench has a nominal power handling capacity of 350 kW per dynamometer and a peak torque capacity of 8,400 Nm (7,000 Nm continuous). Separate battery simulators for applications ranging from 48 V to 1,000 V and a high-speed power analyzer system allow for performance mapping, performance characterization and efficiency studies to be carried out.

The new facility has a high-performance thermal conditioning system that provides a temperature range from -30° to +130° C for the accurate simulation of vehicle operating conditions. This ensures that the drives tested in the facility will function reliably under the widest variety of climatic conditions around the world. The time an e-drive spends on the test bench depends on specific customer requirements, and ranges from around 200 hours to test individual functions to a whole year when endurance testing is required.

Hyundai to expand electrified line-up to 10 models by 2022

Automakers often issue very different, even contradictory, press releases for different audiences—for us EV journalists, they play up their plans for plug-in vehicles, while for the car mags they celebrate ever-more-gigantic SUVs.

Hyundai recently announced plans for 12 new or updated SUVs, and vaguely hinted that one of them might be an electrified model. This sounded more than a little behind the times to us, and we might have been a little hard on Hyundai (but just a little).

Now the Korean carmaker has clarified that it has not one, but two “product blitzes” in the offing. The first blitz was the 12 SUVs, and the second is a plan to expand its existing electrified line-up to 10 models by 2022. By the end of 2022, Hyundai’s green team will include: the Elantra and Sonata hybrids; new hybrid and PHEV versions of the Tucson and Santa Fe SUVs; the existing Nexo fuel cell vehicle; the existing electric version of the Kona; and 2 new battery-electric models, the Ioniq 5 and Ioniq 6.

Oddly, Hyundai’s latest announcement did not mention the existing Ioniq (which is currently available in hybrid, PHEV and EV versions), or the Ioniq 7 (which was previously announced with a 2024 launch date). So, we’re still a little confused about the exact line-up (perhaps the company is too?). However, it’s certain that Hyundai has several electrified models in the pipeline, and that these will cover all the powertrain possibilities, from hybrid to pure electric.

“Hybrid and plug-in hybrid powertrains accommodate a variety of vehicle sizes, but battery electric is a better match for smaller vehicles,” said Hyundai North America VP Olabisi Boyle.

Momentum Technologies licenses ORNL process to recover metals from batteries

Momentum Technologies, a Dallas-based materials science company focused on extracting critical metals from electronic waste, has licensed a process developed by the Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL) for recovering cobalt and other metals from spent Li-ion batteries.

Several critical elements, such as cobalt, nickel, lithium and manganese, are used in EV batteries. Using ORNL’s Membrane Solvent Extraction (MSX) process, these elements can be recovered in a pure form that can be reformulated into new devices. After removing recyclable plastics and metals from end-of-life batteries, a sludgy mix of mostly Li-ion battery elements known as “black mass” is left. 

“There is an urgent need for having a domestic resource for some of these elements. There is little to no mining, downstream refining or recycling in the US for these elements, and the traditional technology is quite complex and generates a lot of waste,” said lead researcher Ramesh Bhave. “Our technology contributes to a circular economy. We completely recycle end-of-life products without generating hazardous waste.”

ORNL’s Ramesh Bhave poses in his lab in March 2019. Bhave developed the Membrane Solvent Extraction process, which can be used to recover cobalt and other metals from spent lithium-ion batteries. Credit: Carlos Jones/ORNL, U.S. Dept. of Energy

“Half of the costs in lithium-ion battery recycling are in the logistics of shipping that material to processors,” said Momentum CEO Preston Bryant. “The MSX breakthrough allows us to build processing plants at the sources of the waste, eliminating logistics hurdles while increasing material recovery rates as compared to traditional smelters.”

ORNL says MSX processing uses a limited amount of energy, labor and chemical solvents, and can be applied to a variety of critical material recovery efforts.

“This technology recovers 99.9% pure lithium, nickel, cobalt and manganese oxides or sulfates depending on battery materials manufacturers’ preferences and requirements,” Bryant said. “MSX is a closed-loop process; it is cheap, modular, energy-efficient, and produces nearly zero waste.”

Momentum has licensed similar ORNL technologies for the recovery of other rare earth elements. A facility equipped for MSX can recover a range of elements from magnets, batteries and other devices.