Here’s why oil and gas companies are racing to invest billions in EV charging

As regular Charged readers know, oil companies have been on an EVSE spending spree. They’re getting into public charging in a big way, and it goes far beyond just installing chargers at their gas stations. Oil majors including bp, Shell and Total have been buying up companies at all points along the charging value chain, from equipment manufacturers to network operators to makers of “solutions”—those nebulous mixes of product and service that make the whole system work better.

Why is Big Oil going big on charging? The optimist sees the obvious motivation—these companies want to do the right thing for the planet and for themselves, transitioning to a new and cleaner technology. The skeptic suspects that their real aim is to cripple that new technology, if not by shutting down innovators in the field, then by controlling the market, and making sure that public EV charging is at least as expensive as pumping gas, and less convenient. “Public chargers, some of which are operated by oil companies, always seem to be out of order. Coincidence?”

Arcady Sosinov, the founder and CEO of FreeWire Technologies, is in as good a position as anyone to understand the relationship between oil and charging—his company is working with several major oil retailers, including Chevron, Phillips 66 and service station chain Parkland, to help them deploy fast charging at their gas stations.

Sosinov recently conducted a webinar for Charged, which is well worth watching in its entirety. In a nutshell, FreeWire’s value prop has to do with the fact that DC fast charging requires gobs of power, and many sites simply don’t have the required capacity on their grid connections. FreeWire’s Boost Charger uses an integrated battery as a buffer to deliver high power output from an existing low-voltage utility service. This enables fast charging to be installed at sites where it would otherwise be prohibitively expensive, or impossible—sites like convenience stores and gas stations.

When it comes to Big Oil’s motivation for charging into charging, Mr. Sosinov sees no nefarious conspiracy, but he does offer an interesting insight. The dealers in dinosaur wine have been printing money over the past couple of years, and they arguably have no good place to put it.

What’s the only sector of the S&P 500 that overperformed in 2022? Energy. As of the date of our recent webinar, the S&P 500 was down 19% for the year, but the S&P Energy index was up 57%, buoyed by $80-per-barrel crude oil.

“Chevron and Exxon alone printed $200 billion in EBITDA [earnings] in the last three quarters,” says Sosinov. “These are record margins, record profits, but guess what? They’re not spending money building new oil rigs or drilling new wells. And that’s a self-fulfilling prophecy—if they’re not drilling new wells, it’s going to keep the price of oil high for an extended period of time…so they’re going to see these profit margins for years to come. Where are they going to spend all that cash?”

Some of it is sloshing around in the EV infrastructure industry. Sosinov lists just a few recent announcements—plans to invest billions of dollars, and to build tens of thousands of charging stations.

As readers of industry media outlets like OilPrice.com know, savvy industry observers don’t have their heads  in the sand (at least not very deep). They know that their industry is facing an existential threat. For the oil leviathans, investing a few of their billions in EV charging is the only logical thing to do.

Sosinov also believes that quick-service restaurants will soon launch another wave of EVSE investment. “As soon as the Starbucks, the 7-11s and the McDonalds start offering charging en masse, you’re going to see charging rollouts all over the country. Right now, Chevron, Phillips, bp and Shell, they’re competing against each other, but in this new landscape, they’ll be competing with Starbucks and McDonalds. Not for dispensing actual fuel or electrons, but for the other share of the wallet. When a person charges their vehicle, are they spending on car washes and Red Bull in a convenience store, or on a latté and a muffin at Starbucks?”

There’s a new Gold Rush on, and FreeWire will be happily selling picks and shovels to the miners.

Watch the full webinar now available on-demand here.

Hyundai IONIQ 5 puts ‘V2L to the ultimate test’ by powering an isolated reindeer farm

Hyundai’s IONIQ 5 is a sleek electric vehicle featuring advanced technology like vehicle-to-load (V2L), allowing the EV to essentially serve as a mobile generator. To prove its capabilities, Hyundai used its IONIQ 5 V2L function to serve as the sole power source on a remote reindeer farm in Northern Norway.

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The post Hyundai IONIQ 5 puts ‘V2L to the ultimate test’ by powering an isolated reindeer farm appeared first on Electrek.


Source: Charge Forward

Planning permission granted for lithium hydroxide refinery in Teesside, UK

Tees Valley Lithium (TVL), a subsidiary of Alkemy Capital Investments, has received planning permission to build a lithium hydroxide refinery at  the Wilton International Chemicals Park in Teesside, UK, following an environmental impact assessment and local consultation over an 18-month period.

Construction on the $300-million facility, which will supply the EV battery industry, will begin in 2023, and production is expected to commence in 2025. TVL claims the plant will be powered by 100% certified green energy, and will produce zero net waste.

Once in full production, the new plant is expected to have a capacity of 96,000 tons per year of battery-grade lithium hydroxide—equivalent to 15% of projected European demand.

TVL is currently in discussions with offtake customers including European gigafactories and EV OEMs. The company plans to import high-grade lithium feedstock in the form of technical-grade lithium carbonate and lithium sulphate from spodumene producers in Australia and elsewhere.

Process engineering specialist Wave International has completed a Class 4 feasibility study for TVL. As part of the study, metallurgical tests yielded ultra-pure lithium hydroxide that exceeds industry standards, and was validated by two third-party cathode active material manufacturers.

“The burgeoning demand from electric vehicle OEMs highlights the urgent need for significant lithium refinery capacity in Europe, which currently does not exist,” said Alkemy Director Sam Quinn. “Our strategic decision to locate in the Wilton Park, with direct access to comprehensive infrastructure and services, enables us to get into first production by 2025 and begin supplying our low-carbon battery-grade lithium to customers spanning the UK and Europe.”

FreeWire acquires Mobilyze.ai to enhance charging station siting recommendations

FreeWire Technologies, a provider of battery-integrated EV charging stations and energy management solutions, has acquired Mobilyze.ai, a platform that uses artificial intelligence to help site hosts strategically place fast charging stations.

FreeWire says Mobilyze.ai’s charging analytics and prediction platform will provide powerful capabilities to help site hosts make data-driven decisions regarding charging station deployment.

Site hosts often lack the resources to know where to place fast chargers in order to maximize utilization and achieve the necessary return on investment. With the Mobilyze.ai integration, FreeWire customers will have access to data-driven recommendations on charger placement.

As part of the acquisition, Mobilyze.ai’s founders, David Keith and James Long, will join FreeWire’s product management team. Keith and Long have worked with Urban-X, Mini, Toyota, BGE and NYSERDA to advise on EV charging station deployment.

“This acquisition will give FreeWire customers an important tool in their decision-making process regarding infrastructure placement, which ultimately has a big impact on their ROI,” said Nate Rosenbloom, Senior Director of Product Management at FreeWire. “FreeWire and the Mobilyze.ai team share a common vision to facilitate the quick and efficient deployment of Boost Chargers.”

“Determining optimal locations for public EV charging stations to ensure profitability is extremely difficult today,” said David Keith, co-founder of Mobilyze.ai. “Bringing Mobilyze.ai into FreeWire’s suite of services will make it easier for site hosts to forecast site utilization in this rapidly changing transportation market.”

Charging lithium-ion cells at different rates boosts EV battery pack life, per Stanford study

Stanford University researchers have found a way to make lithium-ion battery packs last longer and suffer less deterioration from fast charging. 

In “Extending Life of Lithium-Ion Battery Systems by Embracing Heterogeneities via an Optimal Control-Based Active Balancing Strategy,” published in IEEE Xplore, the researchers explain how actively managing the amount of current flowing to each cell in a pack, rather than delivering charge to all cells uniformly, can minimize degradation. 

The research team started by creating a high-fidelity computer model of battery behavior that represents the physical and chemical changes that occur inside a battery during its operational life. 

“If not properly tackled, cell-to-cell heterogeneities can compromise the longevity, health and safety of a battery pack and induce an early malfunction,” said senior study author Simona Onori. “Our approach equalizes the energy in each cell in the pack, bringing all cells to the final targeted state of charge in a balanced manner and improving the longevity of the pack.”

Initial simulations suggest that batteries using the new technology could handle at least 20% more charge-discharge cycles, Onori said—even with frequent fast charging, which puts extra strain on the battery.