German manufacturer Ubitricity will make at least 1,000 portable car-charging devices as a first production run. The new unit, which is capable of acting as a mobile charging station, could have a significant impact on the current state of electric vehicle infrastructure. Rather than using a large, expensive charging unit to deliver electricity to an [...]
The technology behind hybrid and electric vehicles continues to be a growing subject as new technologies are being developed and some are already in vehicles or soon will be. The tenth anniversary of this event will take a unique, comprehensive examination of the rapidly growing fields – past, present and future – and focus on [...]
Toyota has announced that it will begin selling electricity systems that use recycled Prius batteries for power. The units will work in conjunction with overall electrical management systems in buildings, solar generating stations, and lighting circuits The recycled nickel-metal hydride batteries will allow for storage of significant amounts of electricity, to the tune of about [...]
Momentum Dynamics Corporation has developed an inductive charging system that can completely fill the battery of a Chevy Volt hybrid-electric vehicle. MDC’s system is capable of delivering more than 20,000 watts via a transmitting pad on the ground, which sends power to a receiving pad on the underside of the vehicle. Even a Level 2 [...]
London will be the host city for the seventh “EV Battery Tech: Global Cost Reduction” series, which runs for two days beginning on April 24. The conference brings together some of the top minds in the industry to develop realistic cost-cutting methods for battery production, development, and processing. In addition, several presentations will focus on [...]
Most models of lithium-ion batteries follow the one-dimensional analysis approach. The major drawback of this is that the porosity and liquid-phase salt transport and solid-phase electronic conductivity are not explicitly resolved and the diffusion of lithium into and out of solid is modeled using representative spherical particles assuming perfect symmetry. These modeling assumptions limit the achievable [...]
Ford Motor Company announced this week that it would use a new, high-stress method to test its electric battery systems. The method simulates ten years’ worth of usage in about ten months’ actual time. What Ford calls the “key life test” will put the equivalent of 150,000 miles of driving on the batteries to see [...]
Nissan Motor Co. is marking two years of selling the Leaf all-electric car by announcing activation of the largest lithium battery plant in the U.S. Sitting directly next to its Smyrna, Tenn., assembly plant for the Leaf, Nissan will use the battery components in its ramped-up production of the popular EV. The battery facility is [...]
General Motors and ABB Group displayed an electrical backup system for private homes this week. The mechanism can provide enough energy to power three residences for approximately two hours, and is powered by used EV batteries from Chevy Volt automobiles. With a maximum output of 50 kWh of energy, the system was the result of [...]
Recent developments in the electric battery industry point to a growing importance of smaller, less expensive EV battery packs. Several new companies are testing solid-state batteries for electric cars, which could decrease the overall size of the packs as well as their cost. Several studies have concluded that EV battery prices need to come down [...]
Better Place, the infrastructure firm that operates a network of EV battery switching stations in Denmark and Israel, announced this week that it has raised an additional $100 million. The funds will be used primarily to sign up more subscribers for the service. Financial giants HSBC, General Electric, and others have already invested more than [...]
The Charging Infrastructure Expo, a free event that shows off the freshest technology in the automotive charging business, will be held in Novi (Detroit), Michigan from Nov. 13 through Nov. 15. The event draws a wide demographic from the transportation industry, including utilities, vehicle manufacturers, and anyone who wants to know more about how to [...]
