research and development
-
The main impediment to mass electric-car adoption is price, and the driving force behind that is the cost of lithium-ion battery cells. The performance of those cells improves at about 7 percent a year, give or take: Either the same cell costs 7 percent less after a year, or a carmaker gets 7 percent more energy capacity for the same price. Those improvements come from a combination of economies of scale, tweaks to the battery chemistry, fabrication improvements, and higher yields. DON'T MISS: Electric-car batteries: $100 per kwh before 2020, $80 soon after? (Feb 2017) Now, however, battery...
-
Carbon fiber from plants close to carbon-neutral? Scientists hopeful
When it comes to materials with the most promise in automotive applications, carbon fiber and graphene each rank high on the list. Unlike graphene, however, real-world carbon fiber applications exist today—and they're helping automakers reduce the weight of cars coming tomorrow. There's one...
Mark Stevenson -
BMW partners with Solid Power to develop solid-state cells for electric cars
While lithium-ion cells have powered all but a handful of plug-in electric cars since 2008, carmakers have looked further down the road toward solid-state battery cells with an eye toward launching them sometime during the 2020s. On Monday, BMW Group and Solid Power announced that the two companies...
John Voelcker -
Why better-battery startups fail in the US and how to fix it: report
Over the past decade, advances in battery technology have progressed steadily, but not quite as quickly as impatient electric-car advocates might like. With electric cars and plug-in hybrids fast becoming part of every carmaker's lineup, durable, less expensive, and higher-capacity batteries are...
Sean Szymkowski -
Better alkaline batteries, made rechargeable, to power electric cars?
Alkaline batteries have been a staple energy source for decades, but their potential has been capped by their chemical properties. Notably, alkaline batteries cannot be recharged, which means their application is often limited to single uses in small devices such as flashlights and remote controls...
Sean Szymkowski -
Could water be the secret to faster electric-car battery technology?
Electric vehicles aren't always associated with speed and performance, but researchers at North Carolina State University may have discovered a breakthrough to change those qualities inside their batteries. Of all things, water may hold the key to faster electric-car battery technology. Researchers...
Sean Szymkowski -
The promise of flying cars has been around for decades, and companies continues to show off their interpretations of what the public may expect in the future. Lilium is one of many companies promising a world of efficient, speedy, and personal air transportation—and now the project has officially gone airborne. The company's VTOL (vertical take-off and landing) jet made its inaugural test flight, which you can see in the accompanying video above. DON'T MISS: Which Is Greener: Flying Or Driving To Your Destination? A VTOL is able to take off like a helicopter, eliminating the need for...
-
Is Toyota's hydrogen fuel-cell fervor foolish, or foresighted? (with charts)
Toyota's staunch, unswerving support for hydrogen fuel cells has astonished and aggravated many in the electric vehicle community. For some of them, the technology is at best an inferior solution—and at worst is fossil fuel-friendly vaporware, a Judas in Jesus's clothing, if you will. With...
Matthew Klippenstein -
Dyson walks away from (three) Sakti3 solid-state battery patents: updated
Just 18 months after its $90m acquisition of Sakti3, the British consumer-products company Dyson is taking a step back. Dyson has chosen to relinquish its rights to three patents co-owned by the company that were part of the core intellectual property of the Michigan based start-up company. Its...
Green Car Reports -
GM, Honda set up joint fuel-cell manufacturing plant, 2020 production goal
Battery-electric cars are being delivered in volume today, but planned hydrogen fuel-cell vehicles from major automakers are on a more gradual timeframe. This morning, General Motors and Honda jointly announced that the two companies would establish a joint venture to produce hydrogen fuel-cell...
John Voelcker -
Toyota battery R&D will allow all-electric car in 'a few years,' likely 2020
The signals are now unmistakable: Toyota will offer a battery-electric car for sale in 2020. After a decade of condemning electric cars as suitable only for the smallest vehicles in around-town use, the world's largest car company is changing its tune. Yet another news story out of Japan has...
John Voelcker -
Tesla Model X 'Falcon Door': Lawsuit Against German Supplier Over Failed Development
Even Tesla CEO Elon Musk has conceded that the company's electric Model X crossover utility vehicle ended up a more complicated vehicle than may have been necessary. Now, a lawsuit by Tesla Motors against German supplier Hoerbiger Automotive Comfort Systems describes the difficulties of developing...
John Voelcker -
Lithium-ion batteries may eventually be supplanted by other technologies.
-
Nissan's 60-kWh, 200-Mile Battery Pack: What We Know So Far
Will the next-generation 2018 Nissan Leaf offer an option that could provide 200 miles or more of real-world driving range? Based on the concept car and prototype battery pack that officially bowed this past week, coinciding with the Tokyo Motor Show, it’s increasingly likely. Nissan’s...
Bengt Halvorson -
From Sunlight To Electricity: First Optical Rectenna Created In Lab
Researchers claim to have created the first "rectenna" to operate on optical wavelengths.
Stephen Edelstein -
BMW Hydrogen Fuel-Cell Prototypes Now Testing, Production "Sometime After 2020"
As the cost of advanced technologies to reduce the carbon footprint of vehicle travel rises, car companies have increasingly partnered to share those technologies and their costs. Now BMW has shown the first hydrogen fuel-cell vehicle prototypes from its partnership of several years with Toyota...
John Voelcker -
Aluminum-Ion Battery Cell Is Durable, Fast-Charging, Bendable: Stanford Inventors (Video)
Researchers at Stanford University demonstrated a new type of aluminum-ion battery cell last week that is flexible enough to be bent without damaging it. The chemistry team claims its design charges faster, and is both safer and more durable, than today's lithium-ion cells. It could recharge a...
John Voelcker -
Patent Fight Erupts Over Next-Generation Electric-Car Battery Chemistry
Companies are engaged in a legal battle over different versions of a battery-cathode chemistry.
Stephen Edelstein -
The division is pretty clear: nickel-metal-hydride batteries are for use only in hybrids--at least those from Toyota, which has used more of the batteries than any other maker by far. Lithium-ion cells, on the other hands, are the only ones with sufficient energy density to be used in the much larger packs of battery-electric and plug-in hybrid vehicles. That's how it's been for most of a decade. DON'T MISS: Tesla Gigafactory: New Photos Show Progress On Battery Plant In Nevada But suppose researchers could radically boost the energy density of old-fashioned nickel-metal-hydride cells? That...
-
Hyundai Plans Hybrids, Electric Cars & More: 5 Questions With Green R&D Head Ki-Sang Lee
The Hyundai Motor Group, encompassing both the Hyundai and Kia brands, is known as one of the most aggressive competitors in the global auto business. And the company has big plans for expanding its lineup of green vehicles, as we learned in an interview last week with Ki-Sang Lee, a senior vice...
John Voelcker -
Ford To Partner With University Of Michigan On Electric-Car Battery Lab
To launch its Chevrolet Volt range-extended electric car, General Motors chose to build and expand its very own battery lab. Crosstown rival Ford is taking a different route. According to the Detroit News, it will partner with the University of Michigan by helping to fund a laboratory where car...
John Voelcker -
'Father Of The Prius' Stresses: Hybrids More Important To Toyota Than Electric Cars
Toyota will continue to concentrate on hybrids despite other car makers' interest in electric cars, the Toyota chairman said.
Stephen Edelstein -
'Flow Cells' May Let Electric Cars Recharge With Liquid Refills
Just two months ago, we published an April Fool's piece about a fictional new BP cell research project that would allow battery packs to be refilled at fuel station pumps. Truth is stranger than fiction, truly. Yesterday, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology described a nascent research...
John Voelcker -
New Chrysler Engine To Burn Gas And Diesel--At The Same Time
You probably drive a gasoline car. And surely you've heard of cars with diesel engines. But how about a car with an engine that burns both fuels, at the same time? That's what Chrysler is working on, it turns out, funded in part with research dollars from the U.S. Department of Energy. Author Mike...
John Voelcker