As we noted yesterday, the USA has only 8% of the worlds lithium battery manufacturing capacity, and China has over 75% of that capacity. Since there is an over-arching need to electrify transportation and the entire energy system, lithium batteries are a key product, and China is currently in charge…
Seeking to have a strong impact on the climate change crisis, the Biden Administration has an agenda of transforming the energy economy and achieving carbon-pollution-free electricity by 2035. That’s an aggressive goal, and if you think about it the fastest path requires installing lots of solar panels and wind turbines…
The Trump Administration has been taking all kinds of actions to undermine environmental regulations, coddle polluters, and support fossil fuels, but at the same time the Administration continues to fund research into clean energy technologies. In January, the Dept of Energy announced a funding opportunity for up to $133 million…
When introduced to the world the 2011 Leaf had a 72 mile driving range thanks to a 24 kiloWatt-hour battery pack (equating to 115 kilometers). While this was good enough for typical daily driving, humans of course want more driving range on our electric cars. Today it’s relatively easy to…
The SeekingAlpha website isn’t exactly known for highly accurate investing prognostication. We should therefore take the suggestion that Tesla Motors is doomed because of the Gigafactory with a suitably large chunk of salt. According to conventional thinking, the Gigafactory (Gigafactories, actually) is what will propel Tesla Motors into a huge…
It’s clear that Toyota has for a couple years now downplayed battery electric cars in favor of Fuel Cell vehicles. Rather than stay invested in Tesla Motors, Toyota sold off their stake, they’ve buried the Toyota Prius Plug-in, did not produce any more of the Gen2 Toyota RAV4 EV, and have…
Hoverboards have been catching fire, airlines have banned them from luggage, some retailers have stopped selling them, and the fires are starting to show up in the press. These vehicles, “Self-balancing two-wheeled scooter” is a better phrase than Hoverboard, are an interesting new way to get around. They’re pure electric,…
Ford is expanding its global battery research and development footprint for electrified vehicles this year, adding research and engineering capabilities in Europe and Asia to take advantage of new market opportunities The company has invested in a world-class battery research and development facility at the University of Michigan to…
The quest for long range electric cars is heading towards lithium metal batteries, according to two companies who presented at the IDtechEx battery technology conference last week in Santa Clara. The companies, Sion Power and Solid Energy, both claim the lithium-ion battery won’t supply the needed energy density and cost improvements to implement…
http://www.faqs.org/patents/app/20120312615 Abstract: An improved protection system for a battery pack mounted between the passenger cabin floor panel of an electric vehicle and the driving surface is provided, the system utilizing a ballistic shield mounted under the electric vehicle and interposed between the battery pack enclosure and the driving surface, where…
Tesla Motors’ primary battery supplier is Panasonic, but they’ve been working with everyone else as well. Since collecting all this back in 2013, Tesla Motors announced plans to develop the Gigafactory. As of this moment it is September 2015 and the Gigafactory is under construction, due to go into production…
Along with details on the 2016 Nissan Leaf, Nissan published a video showing us details of the battery pack factory in Smyrna Tennessee. This video happens to show construction of the new 30 kiloWatt-hour battery pack, which we know simply because of the shape of each module. And it happens to…
At yesterday’s REFUEL race there was a conspicuous missing participant who had shown up to the previous four REFUEL’s, and holds the track record for electric race cars. Namely, Kleenspeed. It was largely because Kleenspeed was absent that Brammo’s Eric Bostrom was able to win the event outright with a…
Is Formula E’s plan to have two cars per driver a super-extravagence? This is a question raised in comments on a posting on another site (see link below) reporting on the Formula E 2014 season calendar. Because the Formula E cars have battery packs that support only 15-20 minutes of…
Enginer, maker of a Plug-in Prius conversion kit, has developed an add-on battery pack for the Nissan Leaf to extend its driving range. In the gasoline cars market there is a large industry supplying add-on parts and accessories for a wide range of purposes. In the due course of time…
