Transit bus giant GILLIG has announced a new five-year contract with King County Metro, which serves the greater Seattle area. GILLIG will deliver an initial order of 89 GILLIG Low Floor Battery Electric buses, with the option to purchase up to 306 more units. Built on GILLIG’s Low-Floor platform, the GILLIG Battery Electric Bus features… Read more…

The California Energy Commission (CEC) has awarded a $3-million grant to BorgWarner, Fermata Energy and Lion Electric to bring grid-supporting and cost-saving vehicle-to-grid (V2G) solutions to electric school buses. The companies will deploy V2G technology for the Conejo Valley Unified School District and the Los Angeles County Office of Education, in cooperation with school bus… Read more…

Vietnamese automaker VinFast has been on a roll lately—the company plans to expand to 50 countries in 2024, and is working on EV manufacturing plants in the US, India and Indonesia. Some boosters are calling the upstart “the next Hyundai.” Now VinFast founder Pham Nhat Vuong has announced the establishment of V-Green, a new company… Read more…

US truck maker Mack Trucks, a subsidiary of Volvo, has delivered a Mack LR Electric refuse vehicle to Florida-based Coastal Waste & Recycling.  Nextran Truck Centers will provide service and support. Coastal Waste & Recycling is also piloting Volvo Construction Equipment’s CE EC230 Electric 23-ton excavator. The Mack LR Electric features two-stage regenerative braking and… Read more…

INFICON, a manufacturer of leak testing solutions, introduces the ELT Vmax—a leak detector specifically designed for integration into leak testing systems for the industrial high-speed mass production of lithium-ion and sodium-ion battery cells. The ELT Vmax tests the leak tightness of all battery cells filled with liquid electrolyte—lithium-ion or sodium-ion—in all formats, including prismatic, round… Read more…

Freight mobility company Einride has opened a charging hub for heavy-duty EVs in Lynwood, California. Einride’s Smartcharger Station has 65 chargers, and can charge up to 200 vehicles a day. The site was built in collaboration with charging infrastructure developer Voltera. The charging station, which is strategically located near the Ports of Los Angeles and… Read more…

As regular Charged readers know, when it comes to EVs, legacy automakers tend to follow two tracks—while preparing for the transition, and telling the media about how committed they are to electrification, they simultaneously participate in trade groups that actively lobby against emissions standards and other pro-EV regulations. Volkswagen Australia has broken with this trend—the… Read more…

Oil giant Shell has announced plans to divest 1,000 retail sites over the next two years, and also says it plans to expand its public EV charging business. Is Shell shutting down gas stations in order to replace them with EV charging hubs? Well, that’s what several media reports implied, but that’s not quite what… Read more…

US-based EV charging consultancy and infrastructure supplier Blue Whale EV recently opened its new 10,000-square-foot headquarters building in Hanover, Maryland.  The facility serves as the company’s corporate HQ as well as a hub for sales, storage and service of EV charging infrastructure in the mid-Atlantic region and throughout the US. It will also serve as… Read more…

UK-based electric fleet software developer FPS and UK commercial vehicle dealership HTC Group have partnered to deliver end-to-end electrification services designed to allow HTC’s DAF Trucks customers to benefit from seamless EV transitions.  FPS’s services encompass EV fleet feasibility, cost and transition planning using big data and simulation; ensuring that chargers are fit for purpose… Read more…

Dutch developer of maritime battery systems EST-Floattech has received an investment of €3 million from Energy Transition Fund Rotterdam and a joint investment of €1 million from existing shareholders Rotterdam Port Fund, PDENH, Ponooc and Yard Energy. The investment will allow the company to continue growing nationally and internationally.  EST-Floattech develops and produces lithium-ion battery… Read more…

ION Storage Systems, a Maryland-based manufacturer of solid-state batteries, has announced that its anodeless and compressionless SSB achieved a key threshold with its first market deployment with the US military. ION says its SSB successfully exceeded 125 cycles with less than 5% capacity degradation in performance, offering the potential for more than 1,000 cycles in… Read more…

EV component suppliers Schaeffler and Vitesco Technologies Group have entered into a merger agreement. The transaction is expected to be completed in the fourth quarter of 2024. The two companies make components such as e-drives, power modules, BMS, control units, motors, steering systems and much more. Schaeffler recently built an electric version of the Ford… Read more…

Optiphase Drive Systems and OPAL-RT, a specialist in simulation and hardware-in-the-loop testing, have formed a strategic alliance to offer real-time simulation capabilities for vehicle designers that integrate Optiphase’s 5-phase electric motor and drive system. Optiphase says it developed its 5-phase electric power and control technologies to overcome the limitations and workarounds inherent to 3-phase systems…. Read more…

British hotel multinational IHG has an agreement with US EV charging infrastructure company EnviroSpark to make its EV chargers available to the more than 4,100 IHG-branded hotels in the US and Canada, each of which can partner with EnviroSpark to meet its individual needs. The agreement will expand on the number of IHG locations worldwide… Read more…

Munich-headquartered Lilium, developer of an eVTOL jet, has partnered with Singapore-based charging infrastructure producer Star Charge to develop and provide charging systems for the Lilium Jet.  The aircraft went into production in late 2023 following Design Organisation Approval by the European Union Aviation Safety Agency (EASA). It is expected to enter service in 2026. Lilium… Read more…

Volvo Cars has partnered with UK-based EV charging management software developer Breathe to become the first automaker to access the latest version of its Breathe Charge software, for use in its new generation of electric cars. Volvo will integrate the software with its own in-house-developed battery management platform to optimize performance and reduce charging times…. Read more…

US school bus manufacturer Thomas Built Buses, a brand of the Daimler Group, has delivered its 1,000th Saf-T-Liner C2 Jouley battery-electric school bus as part of an order for eight of the buses placed by Meriwether County School System (MCSS) in Georgia. The new buses are fully funded through the EPA’s Clean School Bus grant… Read more…

Spark connections: Fuel your automotive applications Adhesives & Bonding Expo, the largest, free-to-attend trade fair and conference for industrial bonding products and manufacturing in North America, is returning for its fourth edition from June 25-27, 2024, in Novi, MI. Register to attend and you’ll gain easy access to the co-located Foam Expo taking place in… Read more…

Electrical equipment giant Leviton has launched a plug-in version of its EV Series Smart Home charging station. Originally launched in January 2023 in a hard-wired version, the EV Series Smart Home station is designed to be part of a smart home system that also incorporates lighting and load centers such as heating/AC, refrigerators and other… Read more…