Smart Europe’s vice-president of r&d shares some of his insights into developing the company’s distinctive battery EVs. By Rory Jackson
While automotive OEMs might now agree that electric powertrains are effectively the future of all mobility, it should be remembered that only 20 years ago, many of them saw electrifying vehicles as a peculiarity at best, and a waste of resources at worst. Read more…

US start-up Grounded has developed a modular electric recreation vehicle (RV) with a range of 250 miles (writes Nick Flaherty).
The G2 increases the range from the 100 miles of the original version, the G1, by using a larger and more efficient battery pack. Read more…

Battery anodes and cathodes are typically made from slurries of active chemical powders and supporting substances such as binders and solvents applied to foil substrates, before being dried, cut and combined into ‘jelly rolls’ or laminates to form the core components of cells (writes Peter Donaldson).
The process inevitably generates dust and vapours that are variously toxic, explosive or polluting. Along with other contaminants, they can also degrade battery safety, performance, reliability and cycle life. Read more…

Following a breakthrough in technology, Northvolt adds sodium-ion to its cell portfolio, enabling the expansion of cost-efficient and sustainable energy storage systems worldwide.
The cell has been validated for a best-in-class energy density of over 160 watt-hours per kilogram at the company’s R&D and industrialization campus, Northvolt Labs, in Västerås, Sweden. Read more…

Peter Donaldson canvasses expert opinions on the decisions to be made on whether to choose an axial flux motor for a given application
Axial flux (AF) motors are attracting a great deal of attention and engineering effort in the e-mobility arena, and for good reasons. Different motor topologies – such as radial and axial flux – are best suited to different applications, and each comes with its own set of pros, cons and development challenges. Read more…

A start-up is working in Africa to electrify fishing boats (writes Nick Flaherty).
VoltaViewAfrica was set up by a professor from the Fraunhofer research institute in Germany. Photovoltaics generate electricity, which is stored in mobile, portable lithium batteries that local residents can use as an individual power source which includes powering local fishing boats. Read more…

Battery recycling business Recyclus Group has developed a solution for the safe storage and transportation of lithium-ion batteries, the LiBox.
It is a pallet-sized, steel fabricated box, UN-certified and ADR-compliant. It is rated to a 20 kWh power rating, and can control thermal conditions of up to 2000 ºC. Read more…

Wevo-Chemie has developed potting compounds and gap fillers for inverters that provide targeted heat removal and mechanical stability. Due to their low ion content, these epoxy resin and silicone-based materials protect against electrochemical corrosion as well as providing provide reliable electrical insulation. Read more…

Unlike road EVs, off-highway vehicles need different battery solutions but in only small batches. Rory Jackson looks at how this company addresses that For on-highway vehicles, electrification is now seen as the way to go, but the future for electrified off-highway ones such as construction dozers, mining trucks and so on is less clear.
Off-highway mobile machines are often larger than the biggest on-road trucks, and vary widely in their size, power, cost, environmental harshness, and weight. For example, there are 0.5 t mini-excavators and 400 t haul trucks, and if you include non-terrestrial vehicles, there are 500 t aircraft and 55,000 t container ships in need of electrification. They are also usually supplied in tens of units or even single ones, even to major industrial operators. Read more…

Scania has shown a prototype of an electric truck that uses solar panels to provide additional power for propulsion (writes Nick Flaherty).
The truck is a regular 100 kWh Scania plug-in hybrid connected to a trailer with 200 kWh of additional batteries as a power bank. These are connected to the solar panels.
“When we first began thinking about this, our starting point was the lithium-ion batteries used in battery-electric trucks,” said Eric Falkgrim, a technology leader at Scania’s Research and Innovation department and the project manager for the truck. “In the time that Scania has been working with that technology, we’ve seen the batteries become lighter, cheaper and more energy-dense.” Read more…

Impact Clean Power Technology has unveiled battery systems tailored to the next generation of Alexander Dennis buses, the Enviro100EV and the double-decker Enviro400EV. Production of both vehicles has already stared, with deliveries to customers in the UK and Ireland planned for early next year. More…

Autocraft EV Solutions now offers its highly automated and guided Revive battery repair and remanufacture system in service in both static and mobile versions (writes Peter Donaldson). We recently took the chance to discuss the system with Dr Sara Ridley, engineering & quality director of Autocraft Solutions Group, who has seen it through its development and early deployment.
Dr Ridley explained what happens when a dealer needs a replacement for a battery in a customer’s car. “They log on to their web portal, which patches them through to ours. They tell us which battery they have a problem with, and we dispatch a replacement with all the packaging and paperwork they need,” she says. More…

As an extension of the HV Breakout Module (HV BM) product portfolio, CSM GmbH presents the HV Breakout Module 3.1 OBC for worldwide analyses of the AC charging processes of electric and hybrid vehicles. For this reason, the module is designed for currents of up to 88 Arms (±125 A). Due to the integrated star connection, one- to three-phase measurements are possible with this HV-safe (per EN 61010) measurement module. A high sampling rate also provides precise measurements during switch-on and switch-off processes. More…

Fires aboard the car carriers Felicity Ace and Freemantle Highway, which were transporting battery EVs, should concentrate minds in governments, regulators and industry – regardless of whether the fires were caused or sustained by thermal runaways in the batteries (writes Peter Donaldson). More…

Researchers at Samsung have developed a design for a liquid-cooled thermal management system (TMS) for large lithium-ion battery packs (writes Nick Flaherty).
They first built a coupled 3D electrochemical/thermal model of a battery pack that avoids the use of materials such as graphene. Simulation showed that it is the contact resistance that has the greatest impact on the pack’s thermal performance, and the temperature performance across the pack could be determined from a single cell. More…

Developments in motors for e-aircraft are becoming intertwined with issues of energy storage and certification. Nick Flaherty reports
There are many different designs for motors being developed for a variety of electric aircraft platforms, from vertical take-off air taxis to 100-seaters with a flying time of an hour or so for regional flights. This is leading to a range of design architectures to reach and exceed the 13 kW/kg power density needed for flight. More…

LG Chem has announced that, together with LX Hausys, it has developed a material that delays battery thermal runaways.
Their Special Flame Retardant Continuous Fibre Thermoplastic (CFT) can withstand flames and high pressure for more than 14 times longer than existing thermoplastics. More…

Materials firm Sabic has successfully moulded an EV battery pack top cover using low-pressure injection moulding (writes Nick Flaherty).
The trial of the process is part of Sabic’s Bluehero initiative to show the manufacturability of large EV battery components using thermoplastic injection moulding.
This specific form of injection moulding caters to the large size and functionality of the top cover, and is a new approach for the high-volume production needs of the future for EVs. More…

The CTO at Verge Motorcycles tells Rory Jackson why rider comfort is more important than aesthetics in its hubless direct-drive e-bike
The riding experience is important in consumer EVs, especially electric motorbikes. Persuading veteran riders to go electric is far more than a matter of mitigating range anxiety, as the bikes are ridden for recreation as much if not more than commuting. Engineering for factors such as control response, weight distribution, and rider comfort is therefore of even higher priority for two-wheeled EVs than their four-wheeled cousins. More…

Toyota has developed a fuel cell (FC ) module with an output of 50kW, which can be installed in lift trucks, agricultural machinery and construction equipment, among others. More…