Batteries

Over the next few months, the Chevrolet Volt will get just that little bit more American--as its battery cells are now produced in the U.S. Korean battery maker LG Chem opened a plant in Holland, Michigan two years ago, and production of lithium-ion cells for Chevy's range-extended plug-in Volt is...

When companies like Tesla Motors start talking battery-swapping technology, you get the feeling Israeli firm Better Place just hit the market too soon. Although Better Place (BP) filed for bankruptcy back in May, some companies have shown an interest in keeping its battery-swapping stations...

Tesla Motors has surprised a lot of skeptics in its decade of existence. But last month's announcement of battery swapping for Model S cars traveling long distances deserves some additional context. It adds a new and quicker way for some Model S drivers to cover distances beyond the battery range...

There's a fairly good chance that, over the next decade or so, an increasing proportion of cars will use micro and mild hybrid technology. That means sourcing batteries with good energy density, lifespan and potential for recycling will become ever more important--and a battery consortium aims to...

As predicted last month, and tweeted and teased by CEO Elon Musk, Tesla Motors showed off battery swapping for its Model S electric car at a press event last night. Held at Tesla's design studio in Hawthorne, California, the demonstration itself was simple: A Tesla Model S drove onto the stage and...

Tesla Motors CEO Elon Musk confirmed that a press event to be held this Thursday evening will demonstrate battery-swapping for the Tesla Model S. The mode of communication was his favorite medium: a tweet. "Seeing is believing," wrote Musk, saying that the company will do a live demonstration of...

Electric cars aren't cut much slack in the mainstream media, and any issues are usually jumped upon before facts have time to surface. Recent high-profile battery failures have been seized with zeal whether automobile-related or not, but one product safety company is aiming to curtail that with...

Reporters interview CEOs all the time, but it's rare for those CEOs to end interviews abruptly. Which is what makes an article in Barron's about Tesla Motors [NSDQ:TSLA] and its current high stock price so entertaining. In "Recharge Now!", author Bill Alpert opens with a comparison between Tesla...

If it wasn't so important for the future of electric cars, it could almost get tiresome: Just how do you improve batteries for longer life, quicker charging and a greater range? It's a question being investigated by great minds all around the world, and has turned up some surprising and exciting...

Mitsubishi has recalled 4,313 of its Outlander Plug-In Hybrids in Japan to fix a potential defect that it identified last month. The company resumed production of the plug-in hybrid Outlander after discovering the cause of a fire in one lithium-ion battery pack at a dealership in Japan. The first...

Battery-swapping Israeli-based electric car network Better Place might have found a buyer, following its bankruptcy filings last week. Solar entrepreneur Yosef Abramowitz hinted on his Facebook profile that his company had offered to assume Better Place's assets from the liquidator. He wrote on...

Better Place, the electric-car service that pioneered battery swapping for passenger cars, filed for bankruptcy yesterday in Israel. A statement on the Better Place website said it had applied to a court for an orderly dissolution of the company to protect "the rights of its employees, customers...

Today marks my first anniversary driving a Better Place Renault Fluence ZE battery-electric car. So it seemed appropriate to summarize my experience to date with the Better Place service, which has had some challenges but is still very much in operation. I paid around $45,000 upfront for my car and...

Making a battery for an electric car is more like assembling microelectronics than the kind of auto-plant scenes we think of, involving huge steel stamping presses and battalions of automated welding robots. Last month, in addition to driving a 2013 Nissan Leaf through the Tennessee countryside, we...

Toyota is one of few automakers still using nickel-metal hydride batteries in its hybrid vehicles, but that could change for its next generation vehicles. Reuters reports that the company aims to boost production of more common lithium-ion technology by six times for its future products. Toyota has...

To the untrained eye, the Renault Fluence Z.E. is a fairly unremarkable vehicle--a compact sedan not unlike other compact sedans sold all around the world. What makes it different is its electric drivetrain, but what separates it even more is the fact its battery can be swapped out for a new one in...

Battery swapping was once hailed as the miracle cure for short-range electric cars, but the trials and tribulations of Better Place have shown that isn't necessarily the case. It's not a bad idea though--it just needs the correct application. That could be in the commercial vehicle world, as...

Most of us, sadly, can't afford a brand new Tesla Model S electric sedan. Even less so, a Tesla Model S with the latest metal-air battery technology, hinted for use in the company's future products. But fret not, dear reader: There is another way to get your hands on metal-air battery technology...

Most advocates and industry analysts expect lithium-ion batteries to dominate electric-car energy storage for the rest of this decade. But is Silicon Valley startup carmaker Tesla Motors [NSDQ:TSLA] planning to add a new type of battery to increase the range of its electric cars? The high-end 2013...

While the number of plug-in electric cars built in the U.S. is steadily increasing, the lithium-ion cells in their batteries have mostly come from overseas. But this turns out to be the year that cell production largely moves onshore as well. The 2013 Nissan Leaf, now coming off the assembly line...