News

Q&A with LG Chem Power’s CEO: Dr. Prabhakar Patil on how the company became a Li-ion battery front-runner, the economics of building batteries, and why it spends little energy on what comes after lithium. Among Tier 1 automotive suppliers of lithium-ion cells, LG Chem is off to a clear lead, based […]

think one of the lessons of the day is to trust Elon Musk. When he said approximately a month ago that Tesla would be announcing a “major new product line” on April 30, he wasn’t using the term “major” in a light way. [Full Disclosure: I’m long (very long) TSLA.] […]

Tesla may have some competition in the residential storage market. Battery giant LG Chem has partnered with Eguana Technologies to develop a modular energy storage system called AC Battery. AC Battery is targeted at homeowners who want to store electricity from solar panels for later use. However it could also […]

While batteries and motors tend to get most of the press, a vehicle’s power electronics is just as important to the overall efficiency of a powertrain, and thus to its range and performance. International automotive supplier Continental, which produces power electronics components for five European automakers, has announced that its next-generation […]

Tesla’s new residential and utility-scale batteries, which have the potential to revolutionize the energy market, are expected to be publicly unveiled this week. Invitations to the April 30th event teased the new product line as “the missing piece.” The company has been quietly installing systems for a while now – […]

As every truck driver or heavy equipment operator knows, diesel engines can be difficult to start in low temperatures, or after not being started for long periods. Maxwell Technologies’ Engine Start Module (ESM) is an ultracapacitor-based system that takes over the engine cranking function and remains fully charged, even if […]

Branding is one thing Tesla has absolutely nailed. Well, one of many things. This week (or month) provided a rather obvious example of that for me. But first, a little background: As I think anyone who follows Tesla rather closely knows, Panasonic is Tesla’s big battery partner. That makes it the top […]

“Iron fluoride has the potential to triple the amount of energy a conventional lithium-ion battery can store,” says Song Jin, a Professor of Chemistry at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. “However, we have yet to tap its true potential.” Jin and his colleagues have been using a novel X-ray imaging technique […]

Since battery-maker A123 was acquired by China’s Wanxiang Group, it has shifted its focus to concentrate on starter batteries, and has big plans to produce batteries for microhybrids, aka start-stop systems. A quarter of the company’s revenue still comes from EV battery packs – its factory in Hangzhou is running […]

Chinese automaker BYD aims to be a major player in the battery business, adding 6 gigawatt-hours of global production in each of the next three years, company spokesman Matthew Jurjevich told Reuters recently. If it continues at that pace, BYD’s capacity will be some 34 GWh of batteries by the beginning […]

Solid-state electrolytes are the talk of the town these days. California-based PATHION has been working to commercialize solid electrolytes since its founding in 2012, building on its exclusive license from Los Alamos National Laboratories for a promising material called Lithium-Rich Anti-Perovskite (LiRAP). At the recent Materials Research Conference, PATHION presented two new […]

EV heating and cooling presents a dilemma: how to keep a vehicle’s occupants comfortable without draining the battery? Engineers are working on various solutions, from heat pumps and adsorption chillers to passenger-focused AC and heat. A group of researchers from the University of Utah, HRL Laboratories and GM Global R&D […]