’60’s café racers and surfing beach cruisers have left an indelible mark on the psyche of a few generations, especially with The Beach Boys grooving on Fender Jaguars and hybrid Norton and Triumph sleekly going from one end of the avenue to the other. We’re not talking about a Harley Chopper here. We’re talking about British bikes rearranged for more cafe cruising efficiency.
Volkswagen says it has committed to purchasing $25 billion worth of batteries for electric cars from Samsung SDI, LG Chem, and Contemporary Amperex. It plans to expand the number of factories where it builds electric cars from 3 today to 16 by 2022.
Around $754 million in new lithium industry investments have been approved by the development agency of Chile, Corfo, as revealed in an announcement from the authority.
Battery sources are critical for any companies trying to to keep up in the race to field compelling long-range electric vehicles, and the competitors are already jostling for position.
Volkswagen will begin increasing the production capacity of the e-Golf at its facilities in Europe starting in March 2018, company spokespersons recently revealed. The plan is reportedly for the daily production capacity to be increased from 35 to 70 cars a day. Assuming that’s an average with no days off, that’s 25,550 Volkswagen e-Golfs per year — a bit more than the planned weekly production of the Tesla Model 3.
Deutsche Post DHL’s all-electric delivery vehicles — developed and manufactured by the wholly owned subsidiary Streetscooter GmbH — are now utilizing BMW i3 battery packs, according to a new press release from BMW itself.
Everyone knows that electric vehicles (EVs) are going to replace internal combustion engine vehicles (ICEVs) in the long run. Many of us are excited about this key transition away from fossil fuels and hope that it comes sooner rather than later, yet are not sure exactly when the big breakthroughs in market share are going to happen. It is often stated that at battery prices of $100/kWh, EVs will successfully compete with ICEVs, but mainstream predictions about how and when this happens vary widely. In this in-depth article, we are going to look in more detail at the figures relevant to different vehicle segments, estimate the most probable timeline for feature and price parity in these segments, and offer a counterpoint to the more conservative timelines that we see from both incumbents (OPEC) and progressives (BNEF) alike. We know the EV disruption is real, since it is already well underway in the premium sedan segment.
Has Samsung SDI finally cracked the puzzle of how to commercialize graphene batteries? A new study published in the journal Nature raises some interesting questions on that count.
Despite its close relationship with Panasonic, Tesla will actually be utilizing Samsung SDI lithium-ion battery cells at the facility in South Australia that’s now under construction, the company has revealed.
It’s one of the hottest debates in the EV enthusiast community these days: what’s the best battery approach for automakers — vertical integration or simply buying batteries from top battery producers? Either approach could end up with lower costs and more advanced battery tech, depending on how the future rolls out*.
