Spain has been hit especially hard by the COVID-19 virus. Now SEAT, the Spanish subsidiary of the Volkswagen Group, has adapted an auto assembly line to manufacture ventilators.
Since the emergence of the pandemic, SEAT has launched several initiatives to produce material and devices in high demand by hospitals, including ventilators. A team of engineers designed some 13 prototypes before settling on a definitive model. The result is the OxyGEN, designed in collaboration with Protofy, a Barcelona-based provider of fast prototyping solutions.
The company’s plant in Martorell, Spain, is now producing automated ventilators, using gears printed at SEAT, gearbox shafts and a motor adapted from a windshield wiper. 150 employees from different areas have shifted from their usual workstations to assemble the ventilators on a production line that used to build parts for the SEAT Leon.
Each ventilator has more than 80 electronic and mechanical components, and undergoes a thorough quality control with ultraviolet light sterilization.
“Taking an assembly line that manufactures subframes, a car part, and adapting it to make ventilators has been a lengthy, difficult job involving many areas of the company, and we managed to do it in the record time of one week,” said Sergio Arreciado of SEAT Process Engineering.
The debate over hydrogen fuel cells refuses to go away. The founders of Tesla considered hydrogen and other energy storage media before deciding that batteries were the best choice for electric powertrains, and have explained their reasoning in great detail several times since. Toyota, on the other hand, continues to insist that fuel cell vehicles (FCVs) will someday overtake battery-electric vehicles (BEVs). Other automakers, including Hyundai and BMW, continue to research both powertrain options.
Now Volkswagen, which at the moment has the most promising electrification strategy of the legacy automakers, has released an article explaining in detail why it has abandoned hydrogen in favor of batteries.
Battery or fuel cell, that is the question includes easy-to-understand charts illustrating how a fuel cell vehicle works, and how the well-to-wheels energy storage cycle of hydrogen compares to that of batteries. It cites several recent studies in support of its conclusion that BEV is the right powertrain choice for passenger vehicles.
VW presents three main arguments against FCVs (there are others): hydrogen is less efficient as an energy storage medium; fueling a vehicle with hydrogen will remain more expensive for the foreseeable future; and hydrogen will not be an ecologically sound alternative until methods for generating it using renewable energy come into widespread use (currently, most hydrogen is made from natural gas).
The efficiencies in comparison.
“Science is largely in agreement on this issue, as several recent studies have shown,” write VW’s authors. “The [German] Federal Ministry for the Environment, for example, assumes that hydrogen and synthetic fuels, so-called e-fuels, will remain more expensive than an electric drive, as more energy is required for their production. The Agora Verkehrswende (traffic transformation) initiative also points out that hydrogen and e-fuels do not offer ecologically sound alternatives without the use of 100 percent renewable energies, and that, given the current and foreseeable electricity mix, the e-car has by far the best energy balance.”
The tragic flaw of hydrogen vis a vis batteries is its far lower efficiency. Citing a study by Horváth & Partners, VW’s paper explains:
With battery-powered e-cars, only eight percent of the energy is lost during transport before the electricity is stored in the vehicle’s batteries. When the electrical energy is converted to drive the electric motor, another 18 percent is lost. Depending on the model, the battery-powered e-car thus achieves an efficiency of between 70 to 80 percent.
In the case of the hydrogen-powered e-car, the losses are much greater: 45 percent of the energy is already lost during the production of hydrogen through electrolysis. Of this remaining 55 percent of the original energy, another 55 percent is lost when converting hydrogen into electricity within the vehicle. This means that the hydrogen-powered e-car only achieves an efficiency of between 25 to 35 percent, depending on the model.
In concrete terms this means that a hydrogen car consumes two to three times more electricity for the same distance than a battery car. But we cannot afford this kind of energy waste. The scarce green electricity must be used as efficiently as possible in the future. Hydrogen would therefore be a serious mistake for passenger cars.
However, as many experts agree, hydrogen does have a promising future as an energy storage medium for industrial processes and for certain heavy-duty vehicles. “We believe that there is great potential if green hydrogen is pushed into applications where it can really establish itself in the long term,” write Horváth & Partners. “Above all in industry, but also in heavy-duty transport, aviation and shipping.”
The Fraunhofer Institute agrees that hydrogen has a role to play: “not so much in the passenger car sector, but rather in long-distance and heavy-duty traffic, as well as in rail, air and sea transport. These segments will only be converted in later phases of the energy turnaround, i.e. beyond the year 2030, and closely linked to the expansion of renewable energies.”
The conclusion of Volkswagen’s paper: “From every angle of the environmental balance sheet, everything speaks for the battery-powered e-car. The technology is mature and ready for the mass market. The number of models is growing steadily. And with the battery-powered e-car, driving remains affordable. Current e-models are already at the price level of comparable combustion engine models. In contrast, the hydrogen car will always remain more expensive than the battery car, due to the complex technology and high fuel costs.”
“No sustainable economy can afford to use twice the amount of renewable energy to drive with fuel cell passenger cars rather than battery-powered vehicles,” says study leader Dietmar Voggenreiter. Fortunately, the market has already spoken. According to VW, there are already more than 130,000 BEVs on the road In Germany compared to a little over 500 fuel cell vehicles.
Lane Transit District (LTD) in Oregon has ordered 11 New Flyer Xcelsior CHARGE forty-foot electric buses, along with 7 ABB depot chargers. The purchase was supported by Federal Transit Administration Low or No- Emission funding.
LTD has long been committed to sustainability. After receiving a silver level certification for the American Public Transportation Association’s sustainability commitment in 2014, the agency hired a Sustainability Program Manager and conducted a carbon footprint analysis of its operations, and found the two greatest opportunities to reduce community greenhouse gas emissions lay in ridership increases and reduction of fleet vehicle emissions.
In 2019, over 59,000 tons of nickel and 14,400 tons of cobalt were deployed globally in passenger EV batteries, a one-year increase of 39% and 34%, respectively, according to data from Adamas Intelligence’s EV Battery Capacity and Battery Metals Tracker. Panasonic used 51% of the global market share of nickel (down from 56% in 2018), followed by CATL and LG Chem, with market shares of 15% and 12%, respectively. Rounding off the top five were BYD and Envision AESC with market shares of 7% and 3%, respectively.
60% of Panasonic’s nickel deployment in 2019 went into nickel-rich Li-ion cells used by Tesla EVs, and 39% went into NiMH cells and Li-ion cells used by Toyota hybrids. The remaining 1% was deployed in PHEVs.
When it comes to cobalt, CATL took the lead in 2019 with a 21% global market share, followed by last year’s leaders LG Chem and Panasonic with 20% and 17%, respectively. Filling out the top five were BYD and Samsung with market shares of 11% and 9%, respectively.
Overall, the aforementioned 5 cell suppliers were collectively responsible for 78% of all cobalt deployed globally in passenger vehicle batteries in 2019, up from 69% occupied by the top 5 in 2018.
The race is on to develop batteries that are less expensive, safer, longer-lasting, more energy-dense, and easily recyclable. All-solid-state batteries show promise, but obstacles to their wide-scale adoption remain. In a review article published in Nature Nanotechnology, nanoengineers at the University of California San Diego (UCSD) offer a research roadmap that discusses four challenges of commercializing this technology:
1) Stable solid electrolyte chemical interfaces
2) New tools for in-operando diagnosis and characterization
3) Scalable and cost-effective manufacturability
4) Batteries designed for recyclability
“It’s critical that we step back and think about how to address these challenges simultaneously, because they are all interrelated,” said Shirley Meng, a nanoengineering professor at UCSD.
The researchers focused on inorganic solid electrolytes such as ceramic oxides or sulfide glasses. Inorganic solid electrolytes are a relatively new class of solid electrolytes for all-solid-state batteries (in contrast to organic solid electrolytes, which have been more extensively researched.) “At this point, we should shift our focus away from chasing higher ionic conductivity,” said Meng. “Instead, we should focus on stability between solid-state electrolytes and electrodes.”
The process of understanding what goes on inside a battery requires real-time nanoscale characterization. “We have a much easier time observing today’s lithium-ion batteries. But in all-solid-state batteries, everything is solid or buried. If you try the same techniques for all-solid-state batteries, it’s like trying to see through a brick wall,” said Darren Tan, a nanoengineering Ph.D. candidate at UCSD. One way researchers are overcoming these challenges is using cryogenic methods to keep battery materials cool, mitigating their decomposition under the electron microscope probe.
To overcome scalability issues, researchers are combining ceramics used in traditional material sciences with polymers used in organic chemistry to develop flexible and stable solid electrolytes that are compatible with scalable manufacturing processes. To address problems of material synthesis, the team also reports how solid electrolyte materials can be scalably produced using single-step fabrication without the need for additional annealing steps.
Today’s battery recycling methods are expensive, energy- and time-intensive, and include toxic chemicals for processing. Moreover, these methods only recover a small fraction of the battery materials, mainly because today’s batteries have not been designed with recyclability in mind. “Cost-effective reusability and recyclability must be baked into the future advances that are needed to develop all-solid-state batteries that provide high energy densities,” said UCSD nanoengineering professor Zheng Chen. “It’s critical that we don’t make the same recyclability mistakes that were made with lithium-ion batteries.”
Daimler Trucks has launched six heavy-duty Freightliner eCascadia and two medium-duty Freightliner eM2 106 as part of its Customer Experience (CX) fleet. Fourteen customers from a variety of sectors will operate the test vehicles over a period of 22 months.
The eCascadia is designed for local and regional distribution and drayage. At the start of series production, Daimler expects the eCascadia to have a peak horsepower of 730, battery capacity of 550 kWh, and range of 250 miles. The vehicle will charge up to 80 percent in about 90 minutes, according to the company.
The eM2 106 is designed for local distribution and last-mile delivery. Daimler expects the eM2 to have a peak horsepower of 480, battery capacity of 325 kWh, and range of 230 miles. The vehicle will charge to 80 percent in 60 minutes.
Both vehicles are scheduled for market launch in late 2021.
EV batteries require pressure compensation both under normal operation and during emergency ventilation. Freudenberg Sealing Technologies’ DIAvent component combines these two functions into a single design, which will be used in the ABT e-Caddy and ABT e-Transporter, two Volkswagen vans that are popular in Europe and Mexico.
To reduce battery weight and size, ABT uses a steel housing with a very thin wall. The pressure compensation system ensures that the housing does not deform when the air pressure changes during uphill and downhill driving. In addition, every traction battery must have an emergency ventilation system. If a lithium-ion cell is damaged, it can get very hot in a short period of time, producing hot gases that must be vented quickly. Freudenberg’s DIAvent pressure compensation element manages both functions with a single component.
The combination of pressure compensation during normal operation and emergency gas release in case of an emergency is challenging, because the air volume differs greatly in these two cases. There is also a conflict of objectives between high air permeability and sealing against spray water. In response, Freudenberg has combined two nonwovens with different properties in DIAvent. The water-repellent nonwoven element on the outer side enables air exchange of around 21 liters per minute at 100 millibar differential pressure, and is water-tight up to a water column of 100 mm. If the water pressure rises above this, the outer layer is temporarily penetrated by water so that the second nonwoven layer retains a water column of up to two meters by experiencing a reversible swelling effect. In these situations, no water can enter the housing. In an emergency, degassing is enabled by an umbrella valve arranged in a ring around the nonwoven. It opens as soon as the pressure in the housing exceeds atmospheric pressure by more than around 50 millibars, and can then drain off 18 liters of gas per second at 300 millibars, after which the umbrella valve closes. In practical terms, this facilitates the safe removal of a damaged battery. Bursting foils and discs, on the other hand, which were frequently used in the past, are permanently destroyed after the release.
“The pressure compensation element is a small component that is invisible to most customers,” explains Christoph Bergmann, Managing Director of ABT e-Line. “Nevertheless, its flawless function is extremely important to us. Therefore, we are pleased to have found a supplier that works as flexibly and professionally as Freudenberg Sealing Technologies.”
Tesla plans to drastically reduce staffing at its Nevada Gigafactory due to the coronavirus crisis, the local county manager said on Thursday. “Tesla has informed us that the Gigafactory in Storey County is reducing on-site staff by roughly 75% in the coming days,” Austin Osborne said in a post on the county’s web site.
A week ago, battery partner Panasonic said it would pull its 3,500 employees from the Gigafactory for 14 days.
Meanwhile, Tesla is speeding ahead with plans to manufacture medical ventilators at its solar roof tile factory in Buffalo, New York. “Giga New York will reopen for ventilator production as soon as humanly possible,” Elon Musk tweeted. “We will do anything in our power to help the citizens of New York.”
Tesla will be making the ventilators in partnership with medical device manufacturer Medtronic. “We’re opening up with other partners who’ve come forward,” Medtronic CEO Omar Ishrak said in an interview with CNBC. “Tesla is one that I think people have heard about. One of our ventilators will be made by them, and they’re fast on track to try to make them.”
The emphasis is on getting ventilators into production as quickly as possible. Tesla will build ventilators based on Medtronic’s established design rather than trying to design one from scratch, because high reliability is critical, and because new designs would require FDA approval, which would consume valuable time.
Ishrak added that Medtronic will open-source one of its lower-end ventilators, which are easier to produce because there are fewer components, so that others can build them as quickly as possible.
KEMET Electronics Corporation has launched a new family of metal composite power inductors for the automotive market. The inductors are designed for switching power supplies in Electronic Control Units (ECUs). Available in various industry-standard SMD footprints, MPXV inductors can operate at temperatures up to 155° C, and can be used in all areas of the vehicle. A metal composite material molded around the inductor coil core shields neighboring electronics from EMI. These devices meet AEC-Q200 requirements.
“Our experience and expertise in high-permeability inductor material development and production allow us to introduce devices with differentiated performance to meet and exceed the needs of the latest applications in sectors such as automotive,” said Dr. Philip Lessner, KEMET Senior VP and CTO. “With their robust performance, high reliability and energy-saving features, MPXV inductors provide a dependable, easy-to-design-in solution.”
Bollinger Motors has unveiled its patent-pending E-Chassis, a Class 3 electric platform designed for commercial applications. “When we first built our Class 3 B1, we knew there was a commercial aspect to the platform,” says CEO Robert Bollinger. “Not only cab-on-chassis, but entirely new truck bodies can fit on our E-Chassis, and help propel the world to all-electric that much faster.”
The E-Chassis is the same platform shared by the B1 Sport Utility Truck and the B2 Pickup, and will accommodate future Bollinger models. Among other features, the E-Chassis includes:
120 kWh battery pack, expandable to 180 kWh
All-wheel drive and all-terrain capabilities
Dual motors
Portal gear hubs
5,000 lb payload
5-15 kW onboard charger/inverter
Integrated thermal management system
The E-Chassis can be configured for a variety of uses, including front- or rear-wheel drive, with or without portal gear hubs, and with a battery pack size of up to 180 kWh.
Finish utility company Fortum, German chemical company BASF, and Russian mining company Nornickel have signed a letter of intent to develop a battery recycling cluster in Harjavalta, Finland. The companies aim to promote the production and use of recycled raw materials in the EV battery market. BASF will use the recycled materials in its planned battery materials precursor plant in Harjavalta.
Tim Ingle, VP of Precious Metals Refining, Chemicals & Battery Recycling at BASF, said, “The combination of battery materials production and recycling enables the circular economy by closing the loop. To drive electrification, we are focused on bringing solutions for high-energy-density cathode active materials and high-efficiency lithium extraction for battery recycling.”
Tero Holländer, Head of Business Development at Fortum Recycling and Waste, said, “By recycling valuable metals in lithium-ion batteries, we reduce the environmental impact of electric car batteries by complementing the supply of cobalt, nickel, and other critical metals from primary sources.”
The US Army has been tentatively testing EV technology for some time. Electrification offers opportunities to streamline the military’s logistics tail and to improve its mobility and reach, and the process needs to move faster, a general with Army Futures Command told Defense News in a recent interview.
“Let’s be clear. We’re behind. We’re late to meet on this thing,” said Lt. Gen. Eric Wesley, the Director of the Army’s Futures and Concepts Center. “All of the various nations that we work with, they’re all going to electric power with their automotive fleet, and right now, although…we’ve got some research and development going on and we can build prototypes, in terms of a transition plan, we are not there.”
For example, the Army tested a hybrid Chevy Colorado that was equipped with a hydrogen fuel cell and electric drive, but nothing came of the effort.
Buying a Tesla vehicle is easy, but “the Army has to think about it much bigger,” Wesley said. “What is the cost of replacing your entire fleet? We know we can’t do that. There’s got to be a steady transition.”
Wesley’s command is currently preparing a proposal that will address how the service might electrify its logistics and sustainment tails. The proposal will make a business case for electrification, discuss the technical feasibility and describe a transition process.
The entire automotive industry is going electric, Wesley told Defense News, so the Army will have to do the same or risk problems with resources and supply chains down the line.
Electrifying also offers several advantages. For one, it would make it easier to supply power to the array of high-tech devices that a modern army depends on. “We have to operate distributed, which means you have to have organic power that is readily available,” Wesley said. “A lot of technology is being distributed at lower and lower echelons, and the question is always: ‘How are we going to power these [highly technical] tools that we use in operations?’ Electrification allows you to have access to readily available power to distribute not only for the vehicle but for all those different systems.”
Dealing with fewer parts would also be a benefit. The general noted that a Tesla has only a few dozen moving parts, while an ICE vehicle may have thousands. He added that EVs’ silence and low heat signature could make them less likely to be detected by enemy forces.
Global electrical equipment giant ABB has completed its acquisition of Chinese EV charging provider Chargedot. Chargedot supplies AC and DC charging stations and software platforms to EV manufacturers, EV charging network operators, and real estate developers. Chargedot has around 205 employees.
As auto plants around the world shut down or shift to producing ventilators, Polestar, the performance EV brand owned by Volvo (which is in turned owned by Geely), announced that production of the Polestar 2 would begin this week at its plant in Luqiao, China.
The company is taking stringent health precautions: at the factory, work spaces are disinfected frequently, and workers are required to wear masks and undergo regular temperature screenings. Polestar says none of its workers in China has tested positive for COVID-19.
The global crisis has forced Polestar to alter its timeline. The company will sell its vehicles only online, and will offer customer subscriptions. It had planned to open 60 standalone showrooms in cities including Oslo, Los Angeles and Shanghai this year. That plan will now be delayed, but Polestar told TechCrunch that it will open some pop-up stores as soon as the situation improves.
The Polestar 2 electric fastback features all-wheel drive, 408 hp, 487 lb-ft of torque, a 78 kWh battery pack and a range of 292 miles (WLTP). It also sports an Android-powered infotainment system. Deliveries are to begin this summer, starting in Europe and followed by China and North America.
Polestar told TechCrunch that production will be in the “tens of thousands” of cars per year.
“We start production now under these challenging circumstances with a strong focus on the health and safety of our people,” said Polestar CEO Thomas Ingenlath. “This is a great achievement and the result of huge efforts from the staff in the factory and the team securing the supply chain.”
Power Integrations has announced that its SIC118xKQ SCALE-iDriver, a single-channel gate driver for silicon carbide (SiC) MOSFETs, is now certified to AEC-Q100 for automotive use. The drivers, which include safety and protection features, can be configured to support gate-drive voltage requirements of commonly used SiC MOSFETs.
The SIC1182KQ (1,200 V) and SIC1181KQ (750 V) SCALE-iDriver devices are optimized for driving SiC MOSFETs in automotive applications, exhibiting rail-to-rail output, fast gate switching speed, unipolar supply voltage supporting positive and negative output voltages, integrated power and voltage management and reinforced isolation.
Critical safety features include Drain to Source Voltage (VDS) monitoring, SENSE readout, primary and secondary Undervoltage Lock-out (UVLO), current-limited gate drive and Advanced Active Clamping (AAC), which facilitates safe operation and soft turn-off under fault conditions. AAC in combination with VDS monitoring ensures safe turn-off in less than 2 µs during short-circuit conditions. Gate-drive control and AAC features allow gate resistance to be minimized; this reduces switching losses, maximizing inverter efficiency.
Michael Hornkamp, Power Integrations’ Director of Marketing, said, “Silicon carbide MOSFET technology opens the door for smaller, lighter automotive inverter systems. Switching speeds and operating frequencies are increasing; our low gate resistor values maintain switching efficiency, while our fast short-circuit response quickly protects the system in the event of a fault.”
Underwriters Laboratories (UL) has announced that Fermata Energy’s bidirectional EV charging system is the first in the world to be certified to a new North American safety standard, UL 9741. The standard covers bidirectional equipment that charges EVs from an electric power system (EPS) and also allows the vehicle to export power to an EPS, potentially enabling EV owners to earn money by helping to stabilize the electric power grid when the vehicles are parked.
“By unlocking the full potential of electric vehicles, Fermata Energy is helping to accelerate the shift to more electric vehicle usage,” said Fermata founder and CEO David Slutzky. “We believe bidirectional energy solutions such as Fermata Energy’s V2G system will play an important role in reducing energy costs, improving grid resilience and combating climate change.”
Nissan was an early EV pioneer, but although the LEAF is still a common sight on the streets, sales have been flat in the US. In Japan, however, things look different. According to Nikkei, the LEAF and Nissan’s hybrid models accounted for 25% of sales in fiscal 2018, and the company aims to expand this share to 50% by 2022.
Now Nissan has announced that it will soon offer pure electric versions of all new and redesigned models on the Japanese market.
Nissan hopes that higher volumes of electrified vehicles will help reduce battery costs.
The automaker plans to launch an electric SUV later in 2020, and an electric version of its Dayz minicar in 2021. Several new hybrids are also planned for the Japanese market.
The company’s longer-term plans include more electrified models for Europe and China—it hopes to make EVs and hybrids 50% of sales in Europe and 30% in China by 2022.
Ohio is one of several US states that impose taxes on EVs that are far higher than the amount paid in gas taxes by a typical driver of a legacy vehicle. A recently introduced bill aims to change that.
Ohio’s current EV tax, which was enacted in 2019, imposes an annual fee of $200 on electric drivers. The new bill (HB546) would reduce the fee to $100 for EVs and $50 for PHEVs.
According to a recent analysis from Consumer Reports, Ohio’s existing EV tax is considerably higher than the annual gas tax for a typical new gas-burning car.
Ohio’s punitive fee is particularly ironic considering that the state is counting on a growing EV industry to replace jobs lost when a major GM plant in Lordstown closed in 2019.
“The tax is terrible policy in a state like Ohio, which is looking to EV manufacturing and associated battery and auto supply industries to create the skilled, middle-class jobs that our state sorely needs,” wrote the NRDC’s Mark Nabong. “Our focus ought to be on how we can help Ohio startups like Workhorse Trucks and Lordstown Motors become the next Tesla and to ensure that our state is the kind of place that companies like GM, BASF and Dana want to grow their EV businesses.”
Ohio residents can find contact information for their state Representatives on the Ohio Legislature’s web site.
With the electric vehicle market driving a surge in demand for lithium-ion batteries, research is intensifying to develop new electrolytes that not only ensure battery performance, lifetime, and safety, but also enable high-energy anode materials, such as silicon, and cathode materials, such as NMC 811. High purity electrolyte components are crucial to mitigate both side reactions and premature degradation of the battery. Arkema’s new electrolyte additive, LiTDI, not only increases battery lifetime and fast charging performance but also addresses these issues of purity and stability with high capacity battery materials, necessary for EV batteries.
LiTDI, Lithium 4,5-dicyano-2-(trifluoromethyl)imidazole, was first discovered at Warsaw University of Technology (WUT). Its synthesis and purification have been the scope of collaboration between WUT, CRNS (French National Center for Scientific Research) and University of Amiens, France. As a member of Michel Armand’s team at the University of Amiens, Dr. Gregory Schmidt started to investigate the benefits of this lithium salt in lithium-ion batteries. Dr. Schmidt’s research focused on both synthesis and electrolyte formulation, demonstrating that this lithium salt would add great value to electrolytes, if used as an additive. After two years of application research and development in Amiens, he then returned to Arkema to incorporate this molecule into Arkema’s strong platform of battery and renewable energy solutions.
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Lithium TDI combines multiple benefits. Its molecular structure is specifically tailored to bring a great electrochemical stability as well as a good ion dissociation. First, the imidazole ring facilitates the negative charge delocalization via resonance effect. Second, the two nitrile groups have an optimized electronegativity/weight ratio that further helps the positive charge dissociate. Lastly, the CF3 group attached to the imidazole ring brings the electrochemical stability. Cyclic voltammetry studies show no reactivity of the molecule before 4.6 ~ 4.7V. Additionally, the molecule is extremely thermally stable, degrading only at temperatures above 250°C, as illustrated by DSC studies. As a result, this makes the molecule a great choice for long-lasting lithium-ion batteries operating at high voltage and high temperature.
Scavenging moisture impurities to increase electrolyte stability
Structures of LiTDI·H2O obtained from DFT calculations Xu and all, Chem. Mater.2017.29.5.2254-2263
In addition to its inherent stability, LiTDI acts as a great moisture scavenger within the electrolyte: the lithium-ion and carbonitrile groups interact with water molecules to trap them via hydrogen bonding as emphasized by Xu’s team in a paper published in 2017 (Xu and all, Chem. Mater.2017.29.5.2254-2263). This interaction with water molecules would efficiently suppress the hydrolysis of LiPF5, a decomposition product of LiPF6 on the anode which is a strong Lewis acid, known as a primary source of electrolyte solvent degradations. Moreover, the carbonitrile groups interact with HF molecules, also resulting from LiPF6 degradation, to mitigate further parasitic reactions on the cathode side. By reducing the impact of impurities on the different electrolyte components, the addition of just 1% of LiTDI enhances the stability of the electrolyte, and thus battery lifetime.
Another significant impact of LiTDI on battery performance is its contribution to forming a passivation layer on the aluminum current collector. While researchers are trying to find alternatives to LiPF6 for high voltage applications, corrosion on the cathode current collector appears to be an issue, thus increasing the internal resistivity and reducing the cathode capacity. This stable aluminum protection formed by LiTDI (Paillet and all, J. Power Sources, 2015, 299, 309) increases the life of batteries containing new electrolytes based on alternative salts such as LiFSI, supporting the adoption of high voltage electrodes, such as NMC 622.
Decreased resistivity for fast charging
Lastly, the list of LiTDI properties would not be exhaustive without highlighting the important role it plays in the formation and stabilization of the Solid Electrolyte Interface (SEI), protecting the anode from degradation reactions with the organic solvents. In combination with traditional SEI additives, like FEC or VC, LiTDI helps grow the LiF mineral phase by defluorination of the CF3 group while fostering the formation of the polymeric phase (Shkrob and all, J. Phys. Chem. C 2016, 120, 50, 28463-28471). The resulting SEI is thinner, more cross-linked, and more robust, which translates into lower resistivity and a reduction in the initial capacity loss. Such phenomena have not only been observed on graphitic anodes but also on silicon-based anodes, where the role of SEI additives is even more crucial for battery life and battery internal resistance.
NMC111 cycling at 45C
As a consequence of all the electrochemical benefits illustrated above, cells containing LiTDI as an additive, in synergy with traditional SEI additives, exhibit significant improvements in fast charge and discharge performance thanks to the reduced cell impedance. Additionally, the electrolyte purity and stability facilitated by this salt enables high-temperature cycling (>45°C) of traditional electrolytes. Finally, LiTDI is a great electrolyte additive to significantly extend battery life not only for graphitic anodes but also for silicon-based anodes.
Vishay Intertechnology recently introduced a line of high power resistors that meet the AEC-Q200 automotive qualification. Designed for direct mounting on a heatsink, the Vishay Sfernice LPSA 300, LPSA 600, and LPSA 800 deliver high power dissipation and pulse handling capabilities intended to reduce component counts and lower costs in automotive applications.
With power ratings of 300 W, 600 W, and 800 W, the devices can serve as precharge or discharge resistors for EV inverters. In addition, their pulse capability from 400 J to 1500 J for pulses from 0.05 s to 0.5 s allows them to replace larger wire-wound resistors.
The resistors offer high-temperature operation to +175 °C and resistance values from 0.03 Ω to 900 kΩ. They also have dielectric strengths up to 12 kV RMS. The RoHS-compliant devices offer a non-inductive design and tolerances down to ± 1 %. Vishay’s testing includes temperature cycling at 1,000 cycles and 1,000 hours of operational life.
Samples and production quantities of the new resistors are available now, with lead times of 10 to 12 weeks.
New York State’s Department of Environmental Conservation (DEC) and the New York State Energy Research and Development Authority (NYSERDA) have announced that over $24 million is available to replace diesel-powered transit buses with new all-electric buses. As part of the state’s $128-million allocation from the federal Volkswagen Settlement, NYSERDA will invest $18.4 million to fund electric buses through the Truck Voucher Incentive Program, and the New York Power Authority (NYPA) will manage $6 million for associated charging infrastructure.
Funding is available to replace existing diesel buses with model year 2009 and older engines, which must be removed from service and scrapped. Replacements are targeted at state government-owned bus fleets that serve Environmental Justice communities—low-income communities that experience a disproportionate share of environmental harms such as air pollution.
The state’s Truck Voucher Incentive Program provides point-of-sale rebates. The rebate will initially reduce the incremental cost of purchasing all-electric transit buses by up to 100 percent.
“Supporting a statewide effort to increase the use of all-electric busses and ramping up electric vehicle charging stations gives fleet owners the confidence they need to go greener and cleaner with their vehicles and hastens our ability to ultimately eliminate New York State’s carbon footprint,” said NYSERDA CEO Alicia Barton.
“The greening of public buses, with their high mileage and extensive travel in populated urban areas, is a key element in New York State’s strategy for making significant air quality improvements and meeting established carbon reduction goals,” said NYPA CEO Gil C. Quiniones. “NYPA’s expertise with the deployment of fast chargers, particularly under our EVolveNY program, directly applies to the electrification of heavy-duty fleets.”
The BMZ Group, an international company headquartered in Germany, produces Li-ion batteries for everything from power tools to stationary storage to industrial vehicles such as forklifts.
Now the company is seeing a surge in demand for its batteries from makers of a wide variety of medical equipment, especially ventilators. In some cases, the volume of inquiries has risen by 50%. The company plans to ramp up production of batteries in response.
“We are all going through an unplanned stress test at the moment,” said founder and CEO Sven Bauer. “We didn’t hesitate for a moment when we received a distressed call from manufacturers of urgently needed ventilators. We are in the fortunate situation of having access to an extensive inventory, allowing us to increase the number of batteries we produce for use in medical technology. BMZ immediately assembled a team to ramp up production.”
Meanwhile, automakers, including GM, Ford and Tesla, are looking into the possibility of sending workers back to recently idled plants to make ventilators. “We are looking at ways we could help during this crisis, including potentially supporting production of medical equipment such as ventilators,” a GM spokeswoman told The Guardian.
Cold weather poses a challenge for EVs (though hardly a deal-breaker, as thousands of Norwegian drivers can attest). Not only does battery performance take a hit in low temperatures, but the resistance heating systems used in most EVs consume power, reducing range.
Tesla has addressed that issue with the design of the Model Y, which will be the company’s first vehicle to use a heat pump in place of a resistance heater.
A heat pump works like an air conditioner in reverse. It takes advantage of the low boiling point of a refrigerant to transfer heat in the desired direction—in this case, moving warm air into the passenger cabin. Because they basically transfer heat instead of generating it, heat pumps are very efficient.
Tesla enthusiast and YouTuber Andy Slye has produced a video (via Teslarati) that explains how resistance heaters and heat pumps work, and explains the advantages of Model Y’s new heating system. Other EVs tend to see a dramatic drop in range in cold temperatures—sometimes as much as 40%. However, Model Y, with its efficient heat pump, is expected to deliver something close to its normal range even in freezing conditions.
Teslas are already known for their good wintertime performance. Model Y’s improved heating system may just make it the ultimate winter vehicle.
Electric powertrain manufacturer Equipmake has teamed up with additive manufacturing company HiETA Technologies to develop a next-generation motor, codenamed AMPERE. The project is the group’s attempt to produce a lightweight, efficient, low-cost electric motor with peak power density of more than 20 kW per kg. AMPERE is made using additive manufacturing, which allows its metal structure to be 3D printed rather than milled from a solid billet. This approach minimizes the amount of high-strength alloys and expensive materials needed for the magnets.
Equipmake and HiETA are targeting a peak power of 220 kW at 30,000 rpm and a weight of less than 10 kg. By comparison, Equipmake’s APM 125, which uses the company’s spoke architecture to maximize cooling capability, offers peak power of 125 kW at 12,000 rpm and a weight of 14 kg, giving it a power density of just under 9 kW per kg.
Ian Foley, Managing Director of Equipmake, said, “Additive manufacturing is the key to unlocking the next step change, and we are delighted to be partnering with HiETA on AMPERE. This exciting project has the potential to totally change our concept of what an electric motor can offer—and with such a huge amount of performance in such a small package at as low a cost as possible.”
The first AMPERE prototypes are set to be up and running in 12 months’ time.
In a paper published in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, researchers from Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute demonstrated how they can overcome the dendrite problem to create a metal battery that performs nearly as well as a lithium-ion battery but relies on potassium, which the researchers say is a more abundant and less expensive element. “In terms of performance, this could rival a lithium-ion battery,” said Professor Nikhil Koratkar, the paper’s lead author.
By operating the battery at a relatively high charge and discharge rate, the researchers were able to raise the internal temperature in a controlled manner, and encourage the anode’s dendrites to self-heal. While the temperature increase within the battery won’t melt the potassium metal, the researchers say that it helps to activate surface diffusion so the potassium atoms move laterally off the pile they’ve created, effectively smoothing the dendrite out.
In the paper, Koratkar and his team explain how their solution to the dendrite problem paves the way for practical consumer use. “With this approach, the idea is that at night or whenever you’re not using the battery, you would have a battery management system that would apply this local heat that would cause the dendrites to self-heal,” Koratkar said.
BorgWarner´s latest coolant heaters are expected to appear in 2021 on the next generation of passenger electric cars produced by global OEMs. The company has been chosen as a supplier for cabin heating and battery conditioning solutions for several high-volume vehicle programs.
“Our Battery and Cabin Heater has become the technology of choice for some of the most important electric and hybrid vehicle manufacturers in Europe, North America and Asia, helping them to reduce battery consumption while increasing passenger comfort,” said Joe Fadool, President and General Manager, BorgWarner Emissions, Thermal and Turbo Systems.
BorgWarner has engineered two different devices—single-plate and dual-plate. Single-plate devices are responsible for thermal management of either the battery or cabin heating, while dual-plate versions manage both tasks at the same time. Both are integrated into aluminum housings that provide electromagnetic shielding. The designs include power electronics that prevent overheating. As soon as the system detects an error, it switches off automatically.
Yellow-machine builder Case has unveiled a new all-electric backhoe, which it claims performs as well as a diesel while saving up to 90% in operating costs.
“The CASE 580 EV (electric vehicle) delivers backhoe power and performance equivalent to its diesel counterpart while also providing instant torque, lower jobsite noise, lower daily and lifetime operating costs, reduced maintenance demands and absolutely zero emissions,” says Case.
The 580 EV features a 90 kWh battery pack. According to Case, battery capacity is sufficient for “a typical 8-hour work day,” and the machine saves “as much as 90 percent in annual vehicle, fuel and maintenance costs.”
The battery separately powers the drivetrain and hydraulic motors, resulting in improved performance during simultaneous loader and drivetrain operation.
Case has not announced a price, but says it has it has already sold units to several US electric utilities.
“The backhoe loader is perfectly suited for electrification, as the varied use cycles, from heavy to light work, provide an excellent opportunity to convert wasted diesel engine hours into zero-consumption battery time—yet provide the operator with instantaneous torque response when needed,” said Eric Zieser, Director of Case’s Global Compact Equipment product line. “At low idle, a diesel engine has reduced torque and requires time for the engine to ramp up to meet the load demands. Electric motors, on the other hand, have instantaneous torque and peak torque available at every operating speed.”
Beneath California’s Salton Sea lies a vast pool of super-heated fluid that’s long been exploited as a source of geothermal power. The underground reservoir is also rich in lithium, but over the years, so many companies have tried, and failed, to economically extract the light white stuff, that the area has been called a “graveyard for lithium-extraction technologies.” One famous failure was Simbol Materials, which attracted a buyout bid from Tesla before going belly-up in 2015.
As the Los Angeles Times reports, David Snydacker, a materials engineer and battery expert, believes he has found the magic formula. His Oakland-based startup, Lilac Solutions, recently announced a $20-million funding round led by Breakthrough Energy Ventures, which counts famous names such as Bill Gates, Jeff Bezos and Michael Bloomberg among its investors.
Lilac’s technological secret sauce is an ion-exchange process that forces mineral-rich brine through a container filled with lithium-absorbing beads. Once the beads are saturated, acid is used to flush out the lithium.
Lilac has partnered with the Australian firm Controlled Thermal Resources to develop a geothermal power plant and lithium-extraction facility at the Salton Sea. The company is also working with Warren Buffett’s Berkshire Hathaway Energy, which wants to build a pilot lithium-extraction plant using Lilac’s technology.
Despite the clickbait scare stories, there’s no shortage of lithium on the global market. However, much battery-grade lithium comes from environmentally dodgy sites in South America, and there’s also pressure to develop sources for the strategic mineral here in the US. The Salton Sea could potentially produce loads of lithium, with the added benefit of more geothermal power.
Controlled Thermal plans to drill preliminary wells over the next three months. Lilac will then spend several weeks testing its technology, after which a full-scale facility will be built. Controlled Thermal hopes to produce over 17,000 tons of lithium carbonate by 2023, and double that amount by 2025. The California Energy Commission estimates that the Salton Sea geothermal area could someday supply up to 200,000 tons.
“You really want to compete in the global lithium market, which I think the Imperial Valley can,” said Controlled Thermal CEO Rod Colwell. “We firmly believe that the Imperial Valley is in the first quartile of production costs globally.”
Just a day after Tesla said its Fremont factory would remain open despite the “shelter in place” order currently in effect in the San Francisco Bay Area, the Alameda County Sheriff’s office said the company would have to stop building cars at the plant.
“Tesla is not an essential business as defined in the Alameda County Health Order,” said the sheriff. “Tesla can maintain minimum basic operations per the Alameda County Health Order.”
Tesla: @Tesla is not an essential business as defined in the Alameda County Health Order. Tesla can maintain minimum basic operations per the Alameda County Health Order.
According to the Alameda County Health Order, “Minimum Basic Operations” include “the minimum necessary activities to maintain the value of the business’s inventory, ensure security, process payroll and employee benefits, or for related functions,” and “the minimum necessary activities to facilitate employees of the business being able to continue to work remotely from their residences.”
The timing of the shutdown could hardly be worse. Tesla is just beginning deliveries of Model Y, and was surely hoping for a big media splash and a smooth ramp-up to volume production. The debacle also coincides with the end of Tesla’s fiscal quarter (the quarter ends March 31, and the shelter in place order is to expire April 7).
Tesla has long been in the habit of producing batches of cars for overseas markets at the beginning of each quarter, then batches for local deliveries at the end. This results in a frenzied production push at the end of each quarter, in order to beat or equal the previous quarter’s production figures and keep the predatory pundits happy.
This batching policy is plainly not the most efficient way to run a production line, and Electrek’s Jameson Dow believes that it’s now making a bad situation worse. “Tesla needs to realize that they’ve made a mistake by not planning ahead,” Dow writes. “When you batch your operations like this, you open yourself up to disruptions that are more painful than they need to be.”
US states have been on an EV-taxing spree over the last couple of years. Many states have established or increased annual taxes on EV ownership—including supposedly EV-friendly states like Oregon and Washington. Proponents of the tax increases invariably argue that they’re needed to make up for a growing shortfall in gas tax revenues (in an earlier article, we explained why such arguments are disingenuous).
In a recent article published on LinkedIn, Joy Kramer points out that, in several ways, EV owners contribute more to state revenues than legacy vehicle owners, not less.
Prior to 2015, Georgia was one of the fastest-growing EV markets in the country. However, as Ms. Kramer writes, “Legislators were so upset about the ever-growing population of electric vehicles…that they wiped away the state vehicle tax credit and tacked on a $200 annual EV user fee.” (The annual fee is now $213 for private vehicles, and $319 for commercial vehicles, plus a special tag fee of $35.)
Kramer cites data from the DOE’s Alternative Fuels Data Center to show that an average passenger vehicle is driven 11,244 miles per year, consuming about $470 worth of fuel annually, which would translate to $122 in Georgia gasoline tax. The $248 paid by an EV owner is a little over double that amount.
However, EVs generate income for the state in several other ways. An EV driving the average number of miles in a year would pay $19 in state sales tax on the electricity used. New EVs also generate more revenue from the state’s Title Ad Valorem Tax (TAVT) because of their higher upfront costs. For example, a base Nissan LEAF costs $31,600, compared to $23,170 for a Ford Fusion, so at the TAVT rate of 6.6%, the LEAF buyer would add an additional $556 to the Peach State’s coffers.
Ms. Kramer also points out that dinosaur drivers are buying non-locally produced fuel. At $2.00 per gallon, Georgia drivers are spending over $11 billion per year on gas, and 87% of that goes to out-of-state fuel producers. If more drivers would switch to powering their cars on Georgia-produced electricity, more of that money would stay in the state—and so would the taxes collected on the gas or electricity consumed.
Blink Charging has announced the installation of four EV charging stations utilizing local load management, which the company says is the first deployment of its kind. The configuration allows up to 20 charging stations to be deployed on a single circuit.
The design provides equal output to each charger based on the number of stations being used at one time. When one EV is charging, the EV will receive the maximum output of nearly 20 kW. When others connect, the load will be equally shared among them. The system automatically redistributes the output when one vehicle completes its charge, even if it’s still plugged into the station. Future upgrades will allow up to 20 EVs to be plugged in and queued to charge overnight in sequence.
“We are incredibly excited to be deploying anywhere from two to 20 chargers with local load management,” stated Blink founder and CEO Michael D. Farkas. “It will change the conversation from ‘Can our community afford to install them?’ to ‘How soon can we have them?’ The future-proof design of the IQ 200 contemplated this advanced capability, and it was intentionally built into the initial product design. The advanced charger intelligence supports multiple charging ports while delivering the fastest Level 2 charge possible. When installed on a single electric circuit, it can help minimize installation costs.”
Blink expects its local load management feature to be especially useful for multifamily and residential locations. Using the local load management installation configuration, the company says it can maximize the number of charging stations available at any given time on a single 100-amp circuit.
