CHARGED Electric Vehicles Magazine - Issue 31 MAY/JUN 2017

ELECTRIC VEHICLES MAGAZINE

ISSUE 31 | MAY/JUNE 2017 | CHARGEDEVS.COM

WORKHORSE UNVEILS ITS PLUG-IN PICKUP TRUCK p. 52

PRACTICAL FAST CHARGING CONSIDERATIONS

AN ELECTRIC DIRT BIKE WITH WORLDCLASS ENERGY DENSITY

QUIET ALUMINUM REDUCES NOISE AND VIBRATION

WATTZILLA LAUNCHES EVSE TRADE-IN PROGRAM

p. 24

p. 32

p. 40

p. 74

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THE TECH CONTENTS

24 | Practical charging considerations

The technical reasons Tesla would limit supercharging speed, and other charging considerations

24

32 | A dirt bike with world-class energy density

Alta Motors claims that its dirt bikes have a battery pack with energy density that’s among the highest of any production vehicle

40 | Quiet Aluminum

Reduce noise and vibration while cutting mass

32

current events 12

40

Microvast Power Systems raises $400 million in new funding

13 14 15 16

Nexperia’s new compact automotive power MOSFET package

Visedo and TECO partner to disrupt heavy EV motor industry Mkango is developing new rare earth alloys for 3D-printed magnets Wrightspeed partners with AxleTech to meet demand for heavy-duty vehicles Littelfuse introduces new resettable PPTC devices for automotive applications Monolithically integrated GaN half bridge enables powerful voltage converters

17 Delta-Q Technologies’ new lithium battery charger 18 Mersen stack reference designs beat DOE power density targets

18

Prelithiation shortens costly battery formation time

19 Eaton’s new high-current power inductors 20 Novelis to provide aluminum for NIO EVs 21 Quartz powder shown to slow capacity loss in Li-S battery 22 Umicore invests €300 million to boost capacity in cathode materials

Rogers introduces new materials for high-power circuits

THE VEHICLES CONTENTS

52 | Workhorse unveils

plug-in hybrid pickup truck

52

CEO Steve Burns on the market for electrified commercial trucks, and his company’s expansive plans for the future

86 | Rethinking transportation

New report: The transport and energy revolution will all be over by 2030

current events

44

44 Audi to launch 3 new electric models

Motiv Power Systems to power 13 electric school buses

45 All-new 2017 smart fortwo electric drive will start at $23,800 46 Volt launched in China as Buick Velite

Tampa transit authority leases 4 Model X for ride-sharing service

47 Will Ford’s new CEO emphasize EVs? 48 BYD Introduces Class 8 electric refuse truck

Five London fleets to test new Ford plug-in hybrid van

48

49 Oregon legislators consider sales incentive for EVs 50 Volkswagen to invest €10 billion in advanced powertrains

Knapheide installs XL Hybrids’ plug-in powertrain in Ford F-150 pickups

51

BMW putting the fear of Tesla into its employees

IDENTIFICATION STATEMENT CHARGED Electric Vehicles Magazine (ISSN: 24742341) May/June 2017, Issue #31 is published bi-monthly by Electric Vehicles Magazine LLC, 4121 52nd Ave S, Saint Petersburg, FL 33711-4735. Periodicals Postage Paid at Saint Petersburg, FL and additional mailing offices. POSTMASTER: Send address changes to CHARGED Electric Vehicles Magazine, Electric Vehicles Magazine LLC at 4121 52nd Ave S, Saint Petersburg, FL 33711-4735.

50

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74 | Big power, small

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WattZilla’s Black Mamba and Wall Wattz receive UL safety certification as the company launches a new EVSE trade-in program

80 | The US is generating plenty of power for EVs

DOE’s Electricity Advisory Committee meets for the first time since the new administration took office

80

66 German utility connects charging stations to Ethereum blockchain

Energica unveils fast charging station in Italy’s Dolomites

67 ClipperCreek’s Universal Pedestal Extension Kit

Qualcomm demonstrates 20 kW dynamic charging at highway speeds

68 ChargePoint expands into Europe with InstaVolt partnership

67

Groupe PSA and partners launch GridMotion smart charging project

69 Nissan and EVgo to build I-95 fast charging corridor

Report: EVs can make the power grid more efficient and affordable

71

Fleet of 8 Volvo electric buses to use ABB’s OppCharge infrastructure Atlanta airport to deploy 102 AeroVironment TurboDocks

73 Fastned expands into Germany with highway fast charging stations

Con Edison offers rewards for smart EV charging

69

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Unfolding opportunities If the future of transportation is all-electric as many predict, it’s clear that there will be a few key catalysts of that revolution. Three of the biggest drivers of EV momentum continue to unfold before our eyes. Most are still trending towards a more electric future, but a lot of hard work remains to be done.

Dieselgate fallout continues GM recently became the latest automaker accused of cheating on diesel truck emissions testing in a class-action lawsuit (other lawsuits and probes have targeted Fiat Chrysler, Daimler, Renault, PSA Group and, of course, Volkswagen). GM says the claims are baseless, but guilty or not, one thing is clear: if you’re making diesel vehicles, prepare for a continued avalanche of scrutiny. The sheer abundance of global claims makes being in the diesel business less and less appealing, particularly when compared to the advantages of investing in electric and hybrid technology to meet future emission standards.

Tesla’s next steps The scale of Tesla’s success in changing the image of EVs is matched only by the boldness of its future plans. It’s no exaggeration to say that the company has had an enormous effect on the world’s perception of what’s possible with electric drive. However, with big plans come big risks, and the upcoming launch of Model 3 production is as big as it gets in the auto industry. The internet is filled with articles calling this “Tesla’s iPhone moment.” With the bar set this high, how Tesla performs in the next 12 months will likely set another major milestone in the history of EVs, one way or the other.

ZEV mandates and tax credits Government support (or opposition) may be the least predictable factor for any industry. Overall, the political pendulum tends to swing back and forth at relatively predictable intervals, but sometimes it changes direction so quickly it can be crippling. It’s unclear whether the Trump administration will successfully roll back fuel efficiency targets and continue to go after California’s ZEV mandate as it has indicated it would. Is the EV industry mature enough to sustain its momentum without these driving forces? The federal EV tax credit is also in question. Setting aside the uncertainty of the current federal budgeting process, the tax credit is designed to “sunset” once a particular automaker reaches 200,000 in EV sales. As Tesla starts Model 3 deliveries, it will approach that limit quickly. Will that have a large effect on demand? Is it possible to rally continued political support for an extension to the tax credit? It does, after all, benefit US manufacturing growth and our auto industry’s competitiveness. In this environment it may be hard, but we should try. The future of the EV industry looks more promising than ever, but it’s far from certain.

Christian Ruoff | Publisher

EVs are here. Try to keep up.

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Publisher Christian Ruoff Associate Publisher Laurel Zimmer Senior Editor Charles Morris Associate Editor Markkus Rovito Account Executive Jeremy Ewald Technology Editor Jeffrey Jenkins Graphic Designers Caroline Mackay Mary Rose Robinson Tome Vrdoljak Andy Windy

Contributing Writers Michael Alba Tom Ewing Jeffrey Jenkins Charles Morris Christian Ruoff

For Letters to the Editor, Article Submissions, & Advertising Inquiries Contact: Info@ChargedEVs.com

Contributing Photographers Kārlis Dambrāns Jakob Härter Nathania Johnson Charles Morris Christian Ruoff Cover Image Courtesy of Workhorse Special Thanks to Kelly Ruoff Sebastien Bourgeois

ETHICS STATEMENT AND COVERAGE POLICY AS THE LEADING EV INDUSTRY PUBLICATION, CHARGED ELECTRIC VEHICLES MAGAZINE OFTEN COVERS, AND ACCEPTS CONTRIBUTIONS FROM, COMPANIES THAT ADVERTISE IN OUR MEDIA PORTFOLIO. HOWEVER, THE CONTENT WE CHOOSE TO PUBLISH PASSES ONLY TWO TESTS: (1) TO THE BEST OF OUR KNOWLEDGE THE INFORMATION IS ACCURATE, AND (2) IT MEETS THE INTERESTS OF OUR READERSHIP. WE DO NOT ACCEPT PAYMENT FOR EDITORIAL CONTENT, AND THE OPINIONS EXPRESSED BY OUR EDITORS AND WRITERS ARE IN NO WAY AFFECTED BY A COMPANY’S PAST, CURRENT, OR POTENTIAL ADVERTISEMENTS. FURTHERMORE, WE OFTEN ACCEPT ARTICLES AUTHORED BY “INDUSTRY INSIDERS,” IN WHICH CASE THE AUTHOR’S CURRENT EMPLOYMENT, OR RELATIONSHIP TO THE EV INDUSTRY, IS CLEARLY CITED. IF YOU DISAGREE WITH ANY OPINION EXPRESSED IN THE CHARGED MEDIA PORTFOLIO AND/OR WISH TO WRITE ABOUT YOUR PARTICULAR VIEW OF THE INDUSTRY, PLEASE CONTACT US AT CONTENT@CHARGEDEVS. COM. REPRINTING IN WHOLE OR PART IS FORBIDDEN EXPECT BY PERMISSION OF CHARGED ELECTRIC VEHICLES MAGAZINE.

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Photo courtesy of Nexperia

Nexperia is offering its automotive power MOSFETs in a new thermally-enhanced, loss-free package with a footprint that it says is 80% smaller than industry-standard devices.

LFPAK33 MOSFETs enable the infrastructure that powers contemporary automotive subsystems such as radar and ADAS technology. In the industry, pressure is growing to reduce the size of modules in the car while continuing to improve energy efficiency and reliability.

The Nexperia LFPAK33 package uses a copper clip design to reduce resistance and inductance, which in turn reduces the RDS(on) and losses of the MOSFET. The package has a footprint of only 10.9 sq mm, and because no glue or wires are used internally, operating temperatures of up to 175˚ C are possible. The devices can handle up to 70 A, and the product portfolio includes versions that range between 30 V and 100 V, with an RDS(on) as low as 6.3 mΩ.

“As more subsystems are crammed into cars the need for rugged, compact power systems is becoming ever greater,” said Richard Ogden, International Product Marketing Engineer at Nexperia. “This extension of our LFPAK portfolio provides designers with more product choices than anywhere else on the market today.”

12

Photo courtesy of Microvast

Microvast Power Systems raises $400 million in new funding

Nexperia’s new compact automotive power MOSFET package

Microvast Power Systems (MPS) has received $400 million in a funding round led by CITIC Securities. MPS is a vertically integrated battery system manufacturer.

Its battery systems are currently powering over 15,000 electric and hybrid public transport vehicles in over 140 cities.

MPS plans to launch a next-generation product line this year, and began construction on a new production facility in Huzhou, China, in March. The plant is scheduled to be in operation by 2019, and will have a total production capacity of 15 GWh. “We established ‘fast charging, long life, and non-flammable’ as our battery R&D goal back in 2008,” said Microvast CEO Yang Wu. “Our products are now widely used in the public transport sector, will gradually be implemented in electric taxis, and eventually in electric cars. The funding we received will be used for continued research and development, as well as scaling production capacity.”

“The fast-charging approach is becoming an industry trend,” said a CITIC Securities spokesman. “Microvast is committed to a high level of investment in R&D to maintain its advantage in advanced battery technologies.

The company is also accelerating the commercialization of those technologies, which makes us very confident in its potential.”

THE TECH

Photo courtesy of Visedo

Visedo and TECO collaborate to disrupt heavy EV motor industry Visedo, a Finnish manufacturer of electric drivetrains for heavy vehicles, has signed a production agreement with Asian motor producer TECO Electric & Machinery.

Visedo hopes to benefit from TECO’s production capacity, particularly in Asia. Visedo recently opened a new office in Hong Kong, and signed a letter of intent with the VC firm Beijing Capital Investment, to help the company access China’s booming EV market.

TECO will gain access to Visedo’s expertise in developing synchronous reluctance assisted permanent magnet (SRPM) technology, which Visedo says delivers more efficiency than power systems based on induction machines or standard permanent magnet motors.

Visedo’s technology is powering electric buses in the Finnish capital Helsinki and in the Swedish city of Umeå, as well as electric ferries in Finland, Denmark and Taiwan.

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“The revolution to electrify the world’s transport is underway, but until now the industry producing powertrains for heavy-duty electric vehicles and machines has been dominated by AC induction,” said Visedo CEO Kimmo Rauma. “Our SRPM technology allows Visedo to deliver the market’s most efficient hybrid and fully electric solutions that are also smaller and lighter than our competitors. Our partnership with TECO will allow Visedo to compete at the scale and volume of our Tier 1 OEM rivals.”

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Mkango is developing new rare earth alloys for 3D-printed magnets Canada-based Mkango Resources has teamed with UK-based Metalysis to develop and commercialize novel rare earth metal alloys for use in 3D-printed permanent magnets.

The two companies envisage a comprehensive R&D program, taking advantage of Mkango’s knowledge about the performance characteristics and demand outlook for rare earth magnets and Metalysis’s solid-state process, which it says can generate high margins from the manufacture of metal powders.

Rare earth permanent magnets are a critical component of many EVs. China currently dominates the rare earth permanent magnet industry, and Mkango has one of the few rare earths projects outside China to have ad-

vanced beyond the pre-feasibility stage. The company is exploring for rare earth elements and associated minerals in the African nation of Malawi, where it hopes to exploit deposits of carbonatite-hosted rare earths, niobium and tantalum.

Metalysis has a patented process, which has been proven at industrial scale, for producing titanium, tantalum, other metals and innovative alloy powders for markets including 3D printing.

“It is a core part of Mkango’s strategy to be at the forefront of research and technology in every step of the rare earths supply chain; positioning the company as a future low-cost, sustainable supplier of rare earths used in electric vehicles,” said Mkango CEO William Dawes.

THE TECH

Photo courtesy of Wrightspeed

Wrightspeed partners with AxleTech to meet demand for heavy-duty vehicles Business is picking up for Wrightspeed, the manufacturer of plug-in powertrains for heavy-duty vehicles headed

by Tesla founder Ian Wright. The company is expanding its supply chain team, bringing on experts with experience at Tesla, Ford, Cummins and others, and scaling up operations to meet demand from customers such as New Zealand bus operator NZB and California recycler The Ratto Group.

Now Wrightspeed has partnered with AxleTech International, a manufacturer of heavy-duty specialty drivetrain systems. Wrightspeed plans to leverage AxleTech’s expertise in engineering and manufacturing to accelerate commercial deployment of its multimodal REV Route powertrain. Wrightspeed’s Geared Traction Drive pairs with a custom axle from AxleTech, designed to accommodate Wrightspeed’s final drive gear.

“Our strategy at Wrightspeed leverages worldclass suppliers for components that we’ve designed and specified for our integrated powertrain technology,” said Ian Wright.

“AxleTech is a proven leader in developing axles for vehicles with the most challenging drive cycles in the world, and, by partnering with them, we get proven quality components and manufacturing expertise, while keeping our team focused on innovation.”

16

Germany’s Fraunhofer Institute for Applied Solid State Physics has demonstrated what it calls the world’s first monolithically integrated GaN half bridge for the 600 volt class. Half bridge circuits are the centerpiece of many voltage converters.

Monolithic integration combines several components on a single GaN chip, enabling small, powerful systems to be created. Monolithically integrated half bridge circuits also have better electronic properties. For example, the switching frequency can be improved by a factor of around 10 in comparison with conventional voltage converters.

“A switching frequency of up to 3 MHz allows us to achieve a much greater power density,” said Fraunhofer Research Associate Richard Reiner. “This is very important in areas such as e-mobility, where many converters which are as efficient as possible have to be fitted in very little space.”

Fraunhofer’s half bridge circuit comprises two GaN high electron mobility transistors (HEMT) and two integrated freewheeling diodes. The HEMTs have a breakdown voltage of more than 600 volts and an on-state resistance of 120 mΩ.

A folded chip layout enables the DC link capacitance to be tightly connected between the supply voltage and ground. This design creates an optimized power path and allows for clean, stable switching at high frequencies.

Even more complex circuits, such as a monolithically integrated multilevel inverter, have also been produced.

Up to ten GaN power devices can be placed on one chip with an area of 2 x 3 square mm.

Photo courtesy of Fraunhofer Institute

Circuit protection specialist Littelfuse has introduced three series of PolySwitch AEC-Q200 qualified resettable Polymeric Positive Temperature Coefficient (PPTC) devices. These surface-mount devices are designed for robust overcurrent protection in harsh automotive environments. Unlike fuses, resettable PPTCs do not require replacement after a fault event - they allow a circuit to return to its normal operating condition after the power has been removed and/or the overcurrent condition is eliminated.

The largest of the new devices, the 2920-size ASMDC Series, has a low profile compared to existing alternatives, and no heavy metal terminals. It offers the highest holding current and voltage rating of the three. The two smallest models, the 0603-size femtoASMD Series and the 0805-size picoASMD Series, are designed for applications in crowded automotive electronics boards.

Typical applications for the new resettable PPTCs include automotive infotainment, communications, network, body electronics, security, driver assistance and climate control systems.

“The choice of compact footprint or low-profile packaging combined with AEC-Q200 qualification make these SMD resettable PPTCs ideal for overcurrent and short-circuit protection under the hood,” said Yong Zhang, Product Manager, PPTC Devices at Littelfuse.

“Together, they extend the wide range of form factors, operating currents, and voltage ranges Littelfuse offers, and give automotive electronics designers greater design flexibility.”

Photo courtesy of Littelfuse

Monolithically integrated GaN half bridge enables Littelfuse introduces new more powerful resettable PPTC devices for smaller, voltage converters automotive applications

THE TECH

Photo courtesy of Delta-Q Technologies

Delta-Q Technologies’ new lithium battery charger Vancouver-based Delta-Q Technologies provides battery charging solutions for less-glamorous but essential electric vehicles such as forklifts, aerial work platforms, floor care machines, scooters and golf carts. In this world, the old trusty lead-acid battery is just in the process of being superseded by lithium-ion chemistries, and Delta-Q recently released its first lithium-specific battery charger.

The new ICL1200 is a 1,200-watt charger, designed to optimally charge batteries based on any lithium-ion chemistry (LCO, NCA, NMC, LMO, LFP, LTO, etc.). It is suitable for use with any electric machine, and can be installed as either an on- or off-board charger.

Featuring a wide AC input range, the ICL1200 can operate on any single-phase electrical grid around the world. Its customizable, field-replaceable cable design is meant to offer OEMs maximum flexibility.

The ICL1200 uses CAN bus communications, and

carries a comprehensive set of global regulatory approvals, including touch-safe requirements for the European EV market.

Delta-Q is now accepting sample requests.

“Our products are designed to meet the evolving needs of our customers while providing reliability and long-term performance,” says Delta-Q VP Trent Punnett. “The new ICL1200 is a perfect complement to our OEM customers as they incorporate lithium technologies into their products.”

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THE TECH

Prelithiation shortens costly battery formation time

Photo courtesy of Mersen

Mersen beats nextgeneration DOE power density targets through stack reference designs

Mersen has partnered with AgileSwitch and FTCAP to develop two high-performance 3-phase inverter power stack reference designs. The SiC MOSFET version uses Wolfspeed SiC modules to deliver 150 kVA at a power density of 16 kVA/l, exceeding the DOE’s 2020 roadmap for EV applications.

The IGBT version - designed in the frame of Infineon’s Industrial Power Partner Network - uses Infineon IGBT5 modules with .XT technology to deliver up to 500 kVA, and is targeted at Electrical Energy Storage applications.

This reference design achieves a power density of 25 kVA/L. “Mersen, Infineon, AgileSwitch and FTCAP have gathered together the latest technical innovations that can be offered to our inverter manufacturer clients,” said Philippe Roussel, VP of Strategic Marketing at Mersen.

Mersen claims this integrated architecture approach allows inverter designers to save time and confusion in selecting individual components with a solution that is optimally pre-designed for specific applications. Power semiconductor modules, busbar assemblies, cooling, gate drivers and capacitors are optimally integrated together in one step to address the electrical, mechanical and thermal challenges of the system.

18

Before a lithium-ion battery is installed in a vehicle, it must undergo a lengthy process called formation, in which it is charged and discharged to control the initial chemical reactions with lithium. Many of these reactions are irreversible and permanently decrease the battery’s available energy. The process requires expensive lithium to be part of the cathode, and it significantly increases manufacturing time. Finding a way to reduce or eliminate this process could substantially reduce the overall cost of Li-ion batteries.

Researchers have tried to eliminate the formation process by adding extra lithium to the battery anode in a procedure called prelithiation. Ideally, prelithiation must be compatible with aqueous slurry processing and not introduce additional steps.

Paraclete Energy has introduced new methods that are designed to ensure aqueous compatibility by preventing the violent chemical reactions typically seen with prelithiated materials. Also, electrochemical cycling can be improved by using Paraclete’s SM-Silicon surface-modified products, which act as an artificial solid electrolyte interphase (SEI) to limit undesirable side reactions.

According to Paraclete, its technology is fully compatible with aqueous slurries and does not add additional processing.

Paraclete Energy has now released a prelithiated SM-Silicon product, SM-Silicon/PL, which has a proprietary surface modifier that acts as a protective shell from air and moisture, as well as an artificial SEI for cycle stability.

“Prelithiation is very appealing,” said Paraclete CEO Jeff Norris, “because, unlike many standard battery improvement techniques, which fight for a fraction-ofa-percent performance increase, any percentage gain from prelithiation is gained as a 1:1 ratio towards overall battery energy density. With adequate prelithiation, minimal formation cycles will be required, cutting the time to manufacture batteries significantly, which [will reduce costs and increase] the manufacturing capacity of a facility. Prelithiation should bring about a cost-reduction shift across the entire industry.”

Photo courtesy of Eaton

Eaton’s new high-current power inductors

Enhanced torque or improved fuel efficiency?

Pick two.

Power management company Eaton has launched a new line of automotive-grade high-current power inductors for DC/ DC converters, voltage regulators, battery-powered systems, multi-phase regulators and point of load modules.

Automotive manufacturers require components that endure a wide temperature range, corrosive conditions, noise, electromagnetic interference (EMI) and shock. HCM1A inductors are compliant with AEC-Q200 Automotive Grade 1, which specifies an operating range of -40° to 125° C. The materials used in Eaton’s HCM1A inductors are designed to withstand the effects of thermal aging and protect against corrosion.

The HCM1A product line offers surface-mount packaging in a range of sizes and compact heights beginning at 3 mm.

Free samples can be ordered from Eaton, or purchased from Digi-Key and Mouser.

eBooster ® technology adds big-engine boost to small-engine fuel economy.

Finally, you can get everything you want from an engine. BorgWarner’s eBooster® electrically-driven compressor allows a 6-cylinder engine to deliver the same exhilarating, fun-to-drive experience as a much larger conventional V8. The result? Better performance and increased fuel efficiency for both combustion and hybrid vehicle applications. All of which makes BorgWarner’s eBooster® technology one very easy choice.

borgwarner.com

THE TECH

Novelis to provide aluminum for NIO EVs Aluminum supplier Novelis has agreed to provide aluminum for NextEV’s line of NIO EVs. NIO will use Novelis Advanz aluminum alloys to create a range of structural components and parts for its electric SUV models, which it plans to launch over the next five years.

The aluminum for NIO will come from Novelis’s new $100-million Changzhou plant, which the company says is China’s first facility for manufacturing heat-treated automotive sheet.

Novelis, a subsidiary of Hindalco Industries, has production capabilities in all three major auto-producing regions - Asia, Europe and North America. Its products are featured in over 180 vehicle models.

“This relationship with NIO is pushing the limits of what is possible with electric vehicles from both a performance and design standpoint,” said Novelis VP Pierre

Labat. “It underscores that Novelis is more than just a material supplier, we are collaborators and problem solvers working closely with design teams to help ensure vehicles are built to maximize the unique attributes of aluminum.”

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Quartz powder shown to slow capacity loss in Li-S battery Researchers at the Paul Scherrer Institute (PSI) in Switpowder. The researchers found that the quartz binds zerland and the Université Grenoble Alpes in France the polysulfides the way soap binds dirt, Villevieille have developed a simple method that they say can explained. The positive effect of the quartz was revealed improve the performance of lithium-sulfur batteries by when the researchers examined the chemical processes 25-30%. within the battery using operando X-ray diffraction.

In “Direct observation of lithium polysulfides in lithium-sulfur batteries using operando X-ray diffraction,” published in Nature Energy, Joanna Conder and colleagues reported that the addition of silicon dioxide (aka silica or quartz) powder to a liquid electrolyte slows the rapid capacity loss that can plague lithium-sulfur batteries.

Electrochemistry researchers at PSI used X-rays to track the chemical reactions that take place within the battery. They made directly visible, for the first time, the way lithium-sulfur compounds change and how this leads to the loss of capacity.

The team also observed how quartz powder (SiO2) improves the lithium-sulfur battery. “With this additive, a lithium-sulfur Safety for vehicles battery’s performance is improved by 25 to 30 percent,” said study Bender’s ground fault detector, the ISOMETER® IR155-3204 and co-author Claire Villevieille. iso165C, provide safety in hybrid and electric vehicles as well as During the operation of a lithium-sulfur battery, polysulin Formula 1.

Safety for vehicles Safety for vehicles fides form, and a portion of these The IR155-3204 and iso165C monitor the will be lost to the electrolyte and Bender’s ground fault detector, Bender’s theground ISOMETER® fault detector, IR155-3204 the ISOMETER® and IR155-3204 and complete vehicle electrical drive system and travel back and forth between t iso165C, provide safety iniso165C, hybrid and provide electric safety vehicles in hybrid as well andaselectric vehicles assuwell ppoasr provide effective protection against electric the two electrodes with every We la in Formula 1. in Formula 1. ormu charging and discharging cycle shocks and fire hazards. the F ms id Tea - the polysulfide shuttle effect.

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www.bender.org

THE TECH

Rogers introduces new materials for high-power circuits

Photo courtesy of Umicore

Photo courtesy of Rogers Corporation

Umicore invests €300 million to boost capacity in cathode materials

Materials technology specialist Umicore plans to invest €300 million ($328 million) between 2017 and 2019 to further increase its production of nickel-manganese-cobalt (NMC) cathode materials.

NMC is one of the most popular cathode materials for EV batteries, and global demand is growing fast. The increased capacity will enable Umicore to respond to a surge in customer orders.

This program includes further investments in Cheonan, South Korea, and Jiangmen, China. The first new production lines are to be commissioned in late 2018. Combined with a €160-million investment announced last year, Umicore will be increasing its total capacity six-fold by 2020 compared to 2015.

“The scale and scope of the investments underscore Umicore’s leadership in clean mobility materials and our commitment to support the rapid growth of our customers,” said Marc Grynberg, CEO of Umicore.

22

Rogers Corporation (NYSE:ROG) has introduced curamik ADVANTAGE, a family of features and process enhancements for its curamik ceramic circuit substrate materials. curamik ADVANTAGE materials are designed to enable circuit designers to optimize the performance of high-power circuits through an assortment of services and processes, including several plating options for improved copper surface finish, two different treatments for minimizing PCB surface roughness, selective etching and precise laser drilling of small-diameter through holes.

The curamik line of circuit materials offers a range of thermal conductivities from 24 to 170 W/m-K. The materials are formulated to effectively disperse heat in power electronics circuits with heat-generating, high-power active devices, such as IGBTs and MOSFETs. curamik ADVANTAGE includes a number of plating options, including nickel, nickel-gold and silver plating.

A feature that the company is especially proud of is optimization for silver sintering, an alternative to conventional soldering for interconnections and device attachments. The silver sintering process forms strong bonds by applying heat to a paste containing miniature silver particles. Silver exhibits excellent thermal conductivity (240 W/m-K) and by controlling the size of the silver particles in the paste, silver sintering can provide strong bonds with different grades of thermal performance.

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The technical reasons Tesla would limit supercharging speed, and other practical EV charging considerations

By Jeffrey Jenkins

R

ecently, a bit of a kerfuffle kicked up when a Tesla Model S owner noticed that the maximum charge rate for his car on the Supercharger network had suddenly been cut from 120 kW down to 90 kW, apparently the result of too many fast charge cycles. Tesla’s explanation was, essentially, that many things can conspire to reduce the lifespan of the battery pack, including charging at a high C rate (a measure of the discharged rate relative to a battery’s maximum capacity) a “very large number” of times. That’s certainly true of most lithium-ion

24

Image courtesy of Jakob Härter (CC BY-SA 2.0)

THE TECH

Many things can conspire to reduce the lifespan of the battery pack, including charging at a high C rate a “very large number” of times.

cell types, including the “modified” NMC chemistry apparently used in the Tesla Model S, but it doesn’t tell the whole story when it comes to fast charging an EV’s battery.

The primary considerations which affect the rate at which a lithium-ion cell can be charged or discharged are its temperature and how fast lithium ions can move into or out of its anode by a process called intercalation.

In 1889 the Swedish scientist Svante Arrhenius codi-

fied in equation form a useful rule that we use to this day: the rate of a chemical reaction changes by a factor of 2 for every 10-11 degree C change in temperature.

One counter-intuitive effect of the Arrhenius equation is that the internal resistance of a battery actually declines as its temperature increases - that’s the exact opposite of what happens in a metal conductor. These days, quantum mechanics has supplanted the Arrhenius equation in many instances, but it is still an incredibly useful

rule of thumb, because so many physical processes have a similar dependency on temperature: for example, semiconductor lifespan also changes by a factor of 2 for every 10-11 degree C change in temperature.

Another insidious effect which occurs as temperature declines is that the lithium ions that are supposed to be in solution to form the electrolyte will have a greater tendency to come out of solution and deposit onto the electrodes - a process called “plating out� in the argot.

MAY/JUN 2017

25

This is about the worst thing that can happen to a lithium-ion cell, because it permanently decreases capacity - lithium is what stores the energy in a the cell, after all - and can eventually cause internal shorts, usually with exciting (read: disastrous) results.

The tendency for lithium to plate out is also more pronounced at higher charge/discharge rates, so one potential solution is to limit current at low temperatures (what is considered “low� depends on the composition of the electrolyte and the cell construction) to encourage self-heating from the higher internal resistance, but not inhibit charging completely until the battery is in danger of actually freezing. While this might sound good on paper, it can be a royal pain to implement in practice because there must be lots of temperature sensors sprinkled throughout the pack to have a good chance of identifying the coldest (and hottest) cells. If you are the manufacturer of both the vehicle and the fast charger, then this is not so much of problem, as you can put as many temperature sensors inside the pack as necessary and make sure your fast charger acts upon that information. It is when the driver of the vehicle wants to use a third-party fast charger that the headaches begin - can the charger even read the temperature sensor data, and, if so, will it act upon that data in an appropriate fashion?

The next factors to consider center around the charger

26

The tendency for lithium to plate out is also more pronounced at higher charge/discharge rates. itself, including how it operates and the wiring that connects it to a source of power as well as to the vehicle. A dodgy connection in the charging circuit at 1 A or even 10 A of current might not ever be noticed, but cram 100 A to 250 A through it and things will start lighting up like the Fourth of July. In 2016, a Tesla Model S in Norway caught fire within minutes of being plugged into a Supercharger, and the most likely cause was determined to be a bad connection inside the car. Interestingly, the Supercharger did eventually detect a problem and shut off, but whether that problem was an inability to deliver the expected amount of current, or from monitoring the voltage drop along the entire charging circuit, is unknown.

THE TECH plug is 400 V while the voltage after the charge port inlet is 399.5 V, then the voltage drop across the charger connection is 0.5 V, and if the charging current is 100 A, then the resistance is 0.5 V / 100 A = 5 mΩ, or 5 thousandths of an Ohm. That doesn’t sound like much, but the power lost as heat across this resistance would be 100 A * 0.5 V = 50 W. However, detecting the voltage drops between various points of the charger-battery circuit is yet another example of an idea which sounds good on paper but which can be difficult to implement in the real world: after all, measuring a 0.5 V change out of 400 V requires better than 0.06% accuracy. One common solution is to make true differential measurement between points, and, ideally, float or isolate the measurement circuit from the charger, battery pack and even earth ground.

For similar reasons, the voltage drop along the AC mains wiring that supplies the charger needs to be monitored as well. In 2013 a Tesla owner’s garage caught fire while the vehicle was charging via the onboard Level 2 charger, and while a final cause was not identified in

Cram 100 A to 250 A through a dodgy connection and things will start lighting up like the Fourth of July.

The surest way to protect against this kind of problem - which, by the way, is a very common cause of failure in high-power electronics - is to measure the voltage drop at various points along the entire current pathway from inside the charger to the final connections at the battery pack (and even between cells, ideally). If the voltage drop between two points is too high for the amount of current flowing, then there is too high a resistance present. For example, if the voltage before the charger

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San Diego, CA +1 (858) 550-1980

THE TECH

the legal sense of the word, there was plenty of circumstantial evidence pointing to the AC wiring or the outlet overheating from‌you guessed it, excessive voltage drop. As a consequence of that incident, Tesla modified the charger firmware to shut down if the AC mains voltage drops too much with respect to the amount of current being demanded. This is a much more variable situation however, because the voltage drop could be the result of relatively benign causes, such as the distribution transformer being heavily loaded (usually one transformer supplies several houses) or the wiring run between the load panel and charger outlet being a bit longer than is ideal (in this case, while a lot of wattage

28

Image courtesy of Jakob Härter (CC BY-SA 2.0)

Be aware that electric utilities often assume an average demand of 10 kVA per house and size their distribution transformers accordingly.

might be wasted in an absolute sense, the heat generated is spread out over a long run of cable, so the temperature rise is barely noticeable).

Then there is the charger itself. The primary consideration for the charger is how much power is available to supply it; if all you have is the standard residential 120/240 V electrical service in North America, then be aware that electric utilities often assume an average demand of 10 kVA per house and size their distribution transformers accordingly. In other words, that 200 A load center installed in many new homes can’t really be used to supply 200 A continuously, nor even the 160 A supposedly possible if one were to follow the NEC rule

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THE TECH

The modular approach will generally cost more for a given power output, and at some point adding more modules to get more power turns absurd. that no circuit shall be loaded to more than 80% of its wiring ampacity. Thus, to accommodate a charger rated for 10 kW or more (assuming it has power factor correction) you will either need industrial 3-phase service or a solar panel array and a battery bank; with just a common 240 V/50 A “range” outlet in the garage you will be limited to 10 kW (again, assuming a unity power factor).

And while few utilities will upgrade a distribution transformer just because you asked them to, they will upgrade it if it fails from chronic overloading. Of course, you’ll probably have to suffer without power for a day or

30

two before they send a truck out, so plan accordingly!

The other consideration with the charger is whether to go with a modular design - that is, many smaller chargers operating in parallel - or a single high-power design.

The modular approach can offer some level of redundancy, and it is relatively easy to scale up output power by adding more modules. However, it will generally cost more for a given power output, and at some point adding more modules to get more power turns absurd.

So an intelligent choice of power for each module is required; after all, you don’t really want to make a 60 kW CHAdeMO charger out of 1 kW modules. It’s worth noting that Nissan and Tesla both take the modular approach: Nissan uses two 3.3 kW chargers for its on-board 6.6 kW charger in the LEAF, and Tesla uses twelve of the same 10 kW Model S chargers in each 120 kW Supercharger.

Finally, at the risk of pointing out the obvious, you either need a high-power AC input charger on board or a DC inlet such as the SAE J1772 Combo Charging System (CCS), CHAdeMO or Tesla’s proprietary connector to safely charge an EV; let’s leave the Anderson connectors to the forklifts and pallet jacks of the world!

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AN ELECTRIC DIRT BIKE WITH WORLDCLASS ENERGY DENSITY

By Christian Ruoff

32

Alta Motors claims that its dirt bikes have a battery pack with energy density that’s among the highest of any production vehicle. With help from Scheugenpflug’s custom production equipment and WevoChemie materials, the motorcycle builder says its thermal design was the key to achieving that.

THE TECH

even years ago, a group of motorcycle and off-road dirt bike enthusiasts starting thinking about the advantages of an electric off-road two-wheeler: constant power output, tunability, great control and responsiveness. Fast-forward a couple of years, and Alta Motors is manufacturing electric motorcycles at its California facility at a rate of up to 10 bikes per day.

Alta calls its first production model the Redshift MX. With a water-cooled 14,000 RPM motor and a 5.8 kWh battery pack, the company describes it as the electric equivalent of a modern 250 that’s as capable on trails as any MX2/Lites class motocrosser.

Images courtesy of Alta Motors

S

MAY/JUN 2017

33

Images courtesy of Alta Motors

The main driver was to really optimize for this application.

That included the robustness requirements of an off-road motorcycle.

What really caught our eye at Charged was the company’s claim that its battery design had one of the highest energy densities at the pack level of any production vehicle.

One of Alta’s production equipment suppliers, a company called Scheugenpflug, introduced Charged to the motorcycle builder’s innovative designs. Scheugenpflug helps many companies around the world set up adhesive bonding dispensing equipment in production lines for battery systems (and many other applications), so they know innovation when they see it.

To learn more, we chatted with the engineering teams at Alta Motors and Scheugenpflug.

Charged: Does Alta Motors design its drivetrains in-house?

34

Rob Sweney, Alta Motors’ Director of Advanced Powertrain: Yes, early on we took a strategy of doing as much in-house as we could. I joined Alta to lead the battery design, but also had a hand in the powertrain and chassis design. We really wanted to respect the traditions of motorcycling and not change things like chassis geometry and suspension, so in those areas our designs are intended to match the performance of any other gas-powered products. We make careful efforts not to reinvent the 70 years of motorcycle chassis and suspension evolution. We focus on all of the new EVspecific aspects of the vehicle in order to have control over their integration and optimization.

My personal focus when I joined was to lead the battery pack design and build it up from scratch. The main driver was to really optimize for this application. That included the robustness requirements of an off-road motorcycle. The energy density is important not only for getting to a competitive weight in a race vehicle, but also to get the center of mass where we wanted it to meet packaging design and handling goals, making it a very nice motorcycle overall.

The cells we use are an 18650 form factor from a top supplier. Similar to Tesla, we started with the small form factor cells that grew out of the consumer elec-

THE TECH

We’re right around

180

Wh/kg

tronics industry, and then did everything ourselves to integrate them into a larger pack. We designed all the BMS, safety and packaging.

The result is what we believe to be the highest energy-density pack that’s currently in production in a vehicle. We’re right around 180 Wh/kg, which is about 20-30% higher than the current Tesla Model S. We believe the Model 3 will probably be on par with where we are today, although they haven’t announced numbers yet, so we can’t calculate it.

Charged: What were some of the design features that allowed you to achieve that?

Rob Sweney: As a battery designer, I tend to think of everything as overhead. You have a cell with a certain

It’s really trying to whittle away at everything around the cell to reduce that to the minimum necessary set of things in order to meet all of your system-level requirements. weight, cost, output and volume associated with it.

Then it’s really trying to whittle away at everything around the cell to reduce that to the minimum necessary set of things in order to meet all of your systemlevel requirements. Doing more with less, or using the least amount of stuff possible.

Overall, there are 3 or 4 key aspects that we improved above the state of the art. It’s packaged well. I would say that interconnect technology - how you connect cells to each other - is a major challenge of battery design, and we have some innovation there. Then there’s our thermal system - how we cool and manage

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Images courtesy of Alta Motors

THE TECH

We have a few key designs for thermal management and interconnect that allow us to package cells as tightly as possible and really come up with a dense highly-curated design that reduces the amount of overhead. heat between cells. And also how we absorb or disperse heat from the cell in a safety-critical thermal runaway.

So, we have a few key designs for thermal management and interconnect that allow us to package cells as tightly as possible and really come up with a dense highly-curated design that reduces the amount of overhead.

Charged: Could you tell us how your interconnect technology works?

Kevin Kim, Alta Motors’ Mechanical Engineer: Unfortunately we can’t disclose too many details about

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Passive cooling means that the thermal conductivity of the materials that surround the cells is very important. the interconnect system because it’s proprietary. I will say that the system allows us to very effectively cool the battery using passive (air-cooled) methods, with no need for liquid cooling. We describe it as being passively air-cooled, and it helps keep the weight down significantly.

Passive cooling means that the thermal conductivity of the materials that surround the cells is very important. After some testing, we found that a twopart polyurethane from Wevo-Chemie (a German company for tailormade casting, bonding and sealing resin solutions) had the highest thermal performance, so it became a critical component in our system as an adhesive.

For any battery pack, you have to balance the need to take away heat from the system while dealing with the high-voltage electrical challenge. Usually things that are good at conducting heat are also good at conducting electricity. Optimizing for those two goals is a fundamental challenge of any battery pack design, so this implementation with the Wevo-Chemie material is part of our solution to improve that tradeoff, because it conducts heat extremely well and at the same time has a high dielectric strength - so it’s also electrically insulating.

It has good mechanical properties and is rated as flame retardant. It’s not super-stiff when it is cured, so it has mechanical give. And it was also cost-effective.

All of these things made that a very desirable material.

Rob Sweney: The Wevo mixture we chose contains special inorganic fillers. Many thermally conductive adhesives have slivers of aluminum filler, however aluminum works against the dielectric barrier. A thermally conductive ceramic, on the other hand, can help achieve both goals. So we found a great material, but then ran into some challenges working with it in a production environment.

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In fact, [Scheugenpflug was] the only company we found that had successfully dispensed this material before.

Kevin Kim: Basically, the resin has the consistency of peanut butter - it’s extremely viscous or thick. Also, the hardener component of the two-part mixture has a very low viscosity, about the consistency of water. That, [together with the challenging 100:8 mixing ratio of the material] makes it difficult to dispense.

So it was a pretty unique material that we wanted to use and, thankfully, Scheugenpflug was able to help by customizing its dispensing equipment specifically for this material. In fact, they were the only company we found that had successfully dispensed this material before. And they were the only company that was willing to tackle trying to build up a production machine for us to dispense it.

They provided things like the material storage tank, the CNC dispensing robot, and a metering head which accurately measures the two components and is able to withstand the viscosity and the abrasiveness of the filler in the resin and the low viscosity of the hardener at the same time.

Charged: What exactly were the technical challenges for the adhesive bonding dispensing equipment?

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Scheugenpflug's Lean CNCell dispensing system

Christian Geier, GM at Scheugenpflug USA: When an adhesive contains a lot of filler material, in this case inorganic fillers, it can increase the complexity of the production equipment. For instance, the inorganic fillers can be incredibly abrasive and quickly wear out dispensing machine components. Depending on the material, each system is designed based on the needed application.

Images courtesy of Scheugenpflug

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You also have to constantly recirculate the material to prevent the microspheres from settling. And to achieve a homogeneous mixture, it’s important to recirculate all the way down to the final valve right before it dispenses. In other words, you have to fight gravity, which is always forcing the filler to settle on the bottom. The less material you dispense the longer it takes to get fresh material in the material hoses, and that’s why material is continuously recirculated.

A uniquely viscous material will also require some reprogramming.

The fillers can get caught in the head, which causes issues with the mix ratio and the dosing amount because it will start to dispense less filler out of that head. So it requires careful programming to flush the head appropriately. It depends on the cycle time, the dosing amount and length of the material hoses.

In a vehicle production environment, it’s also really important to minimize equipment downtime. We’ve seen cases where other dispensing equipment runs for a very short period - less than an hour - before you need to break it down and clean it. We aim to have production equipment that could run for months, like a tank.

This application and collaboration effort with Alta Motors is also quite different from most battery pack adhesive dispensing equipment needs.

It’s a very specific kind of thermal insulating material-containing battery pack. In general, most vehicles have a large, flatter surface area. Alta’s pack is more 3-dimensional, and the adhesive material is supporting it in multiple directions. In an off-road motorcycle, things are being knocked around like crazy.

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Materials Science Corporation has developed laminated steel and aluminum that it says will reduce noise and vibration while cutting mass.

hen it comes to EVs, every pound matters.

There is a direct relationship between a vehicle’s weight and the requirements of its expensive battery back, so automotive engineers will explore every possible measure to reduce vehicle mass.

However, one of the ways that engineers have traditionally achieved desirable properties in the domain of Noise, Vibration, and Harshness (NVH) is to increase the mass of structural components and body panels. This leaves EV designers with a trade-off between reducing mass and attaining the best NVH characteristics in the vehicle body.

“Mass is good for reducing noise, for quieting vehicles,” explained Matt Murphy, VP of Engineered Solutions at Materials Science Corporation (MSC). “There’s an equation in noise and vibration called the mass law, and it’s for airborne noise, which is the higher-frequency sounds that come through into the cabin. It shows that

W

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Mass is good for reducing noise, for quieting vehicles. the thicker the panel, the heavier the panel, the better those sounds will be blocked or damped out.”

MSC is a Michigan-based provider of laminated materials that offers products with a dual focus on lightweighting and NVH optimization, recognizing the tradeoff faced by EV designers and striving to eliminate it.

Reducing noise with less Instead of using thicker steel or aluminum, one alternative solution to damp out airborne noise to is to use add-on treatments such as spray-on deadener or butyl patches. These products are essentially band-aids, and

Images courtesy of Materials Science Corporation

Removing the noise and vibrat band-aids

THE TECH

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are often found on aluminum panels that don’t weigh enough on their own to provide the necessary NVH characteristics.

“If you take a Tesla, pull the carpet out and get down to the body only, you’re going to see these patches all over the car,” says Murphy. “Those are to damp the aluminum.

And they need more of them, and they need thicker ones than they’d need if they used steel, because the aluminum doesn’t have the mass.”

To give auto engineers better options, MSC developed two products called Quiet Steel and Quiet Aluminum, which it says are alternatives to standard body-in-white materials that can eliminate the need for these add-on

Pretreat Aluminum Skin Equal Density as Aluminum

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If you take a Tesla, pull the carpet out and get down to the body only, you’re going to see these patches all over the car. treatments. Murphy describes the products as a holistic solution for stamped automotive parts in applications with NVH requirements.

MAY/JUN 2017

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Images courtesy of Materials Science Corporation

Quiet Aluminum “For example, I have a part that we stamped and tested in our lab,” says Murphy. “It has a 46% weight reduction over the same monolithic aluminum part with a bake-on mastic for NVH. So, you can remove that mastic, save weight and we get improved NVH results.”

In addition to saving mass and improving NVH management, MSC says that Quiet Aluminum offers EV manufacturers another advantage: more packaging space. Add-on treatments take up valuable real estate and ultimately decrease the space available to passengers. For EV-makers wanting to offer the best possible experience for customers, every inch saved makes a difference.

Quiet Aluminum is made of two sheets of monolithic aluminum laminated together with an engineered viscoelastic polymer core. This core, which is about 0.025 mm thick, is chemically tuned to the exact application needed - depending on the placement in the vehicle, the Quiet Aluminum will face different temperatures and frequencies. The chemists at MSC must take these factors into account when designing the core.

“The chemistry is designed to provide the damping at the right operating temperature,” describes Murphy.

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You can remove that mastic, save weight and we get improved NVH results.

“When we design the product, the first question we ask the engineers is: where in the vehicle are you going to use this? In an internal combustion engine, you have different levels of heat. You might have an exhaust in one area, or the engine upfront. With EVs it’s different, because they don’t have these typical heat sources. So, we design the core around the operating temperature and the frequencies that are most important in solving their acoustic problem.”

The Quiet Aluminum damps noise by shearing at the micro-level, according to Murphy. “The panels actually move against each other when you impact them. You’ll never see it - we’re talking tiny, tiny amounts, which allow it to damp. This is the key to providing structur-

THE TECH

al damping at the temperature that the application is seeing. So, we select a specific chemistry for the polymer core that has those characteristics.”

A premium on pounds Because of the benefits of reducing vehicle mass, manufacturers are willing to pay more to lose pounds. For example, one automaker is reported to offer two dollars extra for everyone pound of weight that a solution will save.

This willingness to pay more for less bodes well for Quiet Aluminum, which does cost more than standard aluminum because of the extra steps involved in its production. However, Murphy goes on to describe how this additional upfront cost is offset: “The overall system cost is typically lower, because you’re eliminating these patches, and you’re eliminating all the labor to put them in. When we look at the system, it’s usually equal or lower cost.” The benefits to the overall system explain why manufacturers are willing to pay extra for lightweighting solutions like Quiet Aluminum.

Customized lightweighting MSC says that is it currently working with EV-builders and gearing up for the release of the first EV designed with Quiet Aluminum, although they can’t tell us which one. Murphy says that the automaker chose to use Quiet Aluminum from the beginning of the design process, before building a single car. “We engineered Quiet Aluminum for their specific applications, and the several body-in-white applications are designed for Quiet Aluminum,” said Murphy.

According to Murphy, the space-saving advantage was one of the main reasons for the choice to use Quiet Aluminum, as the automaker aims to maximize passenger comfort. “They told us they want spaciousness. So we enable them to keep that packaging space to an absolute minimum,” says Murphy. In the same interest of comfort, Quiet Aluminum was picked for its noise-damping capabilities, as it comfortably separates a relaxing passenger from motor and tire noise.

Mainstream auto manufacturers have also been taking advantage of MSC’s technology for years. Quiet Steel has been used in several vehicles, including the new Alfa Romeo Giulia and the Ford F-150.

EV manufacturers looking for customized lightweighting solutions can find them at MSC’s Application Research Center in Canton, Michigan. This facility employs chemists and noise and vibration engineers to develop MSC’s tailored technology.

“Using our technical and NVH testing resources in Canton, we work very closely with all of the automakers developing EVs,” said Murphy. “They provide us with the CAD models of the body-in-white and NVH package, and we perform a predictive mathematical analysis of mass and NVH performance of their baseline system and a system utilizing Quiet Aluminum. We typically break it down into different bandwidths for the frequency range. And usually, it’s a winner for mass reduction and performance.”

With their NVH improvement and weight reduction, these products offer clear advantages to the EV industry.

So, keep your eyes - and ears - on the road to check out Quiet Aluminum in action.

MAY/JUN 2017

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Motiv Power Systems to power 13 electric school buses

Photo courtesy of Audi

Photo courtesy of Motiv Power Systems

Audi to launch 3 new electric models, says plugins will be a third of sales by 2025

Audi Chairman of the Board Rupert Stadler said at the company’s recent annual meeting that Audi plans to launch three new electric models by 2020, after which the brand will gradually electrify models in each of its core series. The first to go into production will be the e-tron quattro SUV, due next year.

Audi recently agreed with its sister brand Porsche on a shared architecture for electrification, a move designed to enhance the competitiveness of EVs. Audi expects that plug-in models will account for a third of its sales by 2025.

Audi will take the leading role within the Volkswagen Group in the development of autonomous driving.

A subsidiary called Autonomous Intelligent Driving is working on autonomous technology to be applied to models of various brands. The company hopes to apply the new tech in a small series of cars early in the next decade.

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Motiv Power Systems, in partnership with school bus manufacturer Trans Tech, will build 13 zero-emission school buses for two school districts in the Sacramento region. The project is supported by a $7.5-million grant from the California Air Resources Board.

The Trans Tech eSeries buses will be built on the Ford E-450 chassis, and powered by Motiv’s all-electric powertrains, which are manufactured in California. They will be distributed by First Priority GreenFleet.

Diesel-powered vehicles produce not only carbon emissions, but also particulate matter, which contributes to respiratory and cardiovascular illnesses. Research has found that children see improved lung function and have fewer sick days when schools implement cleaner fuel technologies.

“Motiv Power Systems’ all-electric powertrain kits are increasing the number of students who are transported in zero-emission vehicles,” said State Senator Bob Wieckowski. “This is especially beneficial to disadvantaged communities where poor air quality has severe health impacts for many residents.”

“The eSeries is a tremendous complement to our proven lineup of fuel-efficient conventional school buses,” said Trans Tech President John Phraner. “Combining our signature aerodynamic design with the Motiv Power Systems powertrain and Ford E-450 chassis provides customers interested in an all-electric Type-A school bus the best choice on the market.”

THE VEHICLES

Photo courtesy of Daimler

All-new 2017 smart fortwo electric drive will start at $23,800 The all-new 2017 smart electric drive will be $1,200 less expensive than the outgoing model, starting at $23,800 for the coupe and $28,000 for the cabrio (not including a $750 destination charge and federal and state incentives).

Arriving at US dealers this summer, the next-generation smart electric drive will have improved range, more power, more space and additional standard features.

Daimler has recently announced that it will stop selling gas-powered smarts in the US and Canada and only offer electric drive, making smart one of two companies that sell only EVs in North America.

For 2017, the smart electric drive features a more powerful electric motor, a higher top speed and faster AC charging time with a higher-power onboard charger, as well as a modest estimated range of approximately 7080 miles. Additional standard features of the new model now include cruise control and a battery warranty.

All models have a new 7 kW on-board charger as a

standard feature. Charging time is an estimated 2.5 hours – about twice as fast as the predecessor (0-80% charge on 240 V wallbox).

An 80 hp electric motor is situated at the rear, and transmits its power via a constant ratio to the rear wheels, producing torque of 118 lb-ft, a 23% increase over the 96 lb-ft offered by the previous generation.

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THE VEHICLES

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Volt launched in China as Buick Velite

Like musicians, car brands of middling stature in their home markets sometimes become big stars in other regions, and such is the case with Buick in China. The Middle Kingdom is by far the largest market for Buicks in the world, supposedly due to the fact that it was the favored brand of Pu Yi, the last Emperor of China (his personal Buick survived the Japanese occupation and World War II, to end up in the hands of Communist car guy Chou En-lai).

So the Chevrolet Volt has become a Buick in China, just as it previously became an Opel Ampera in Europe, a Vauxhall Ampera in the UK and a Holden Volt Down Under. Launched at the Shanghai auto show, the 2018 Buick Velite 5 is a second-generation Chevy Volt with a nose job and some new badging. (Buick has used the name Velite for two earlier concept cars.)

The new Buick’s electric range on the Chinese test cycle is estimated at 62 miles (the US EPA rating is 53 miles). According to Matt Tsien, President of GM China, it will be built locally, and is the first of 10 new hybrid and plug-in vehicles the company plans to launch in China by 2020.

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Photo courtesy of Nathania Johnson (CC-BY-2.0)

Tampa transit authority leases 4 Model X for ridesharing service

Hillsborough Area Regional Transit (HART), which serves the Tampa, Florida metro area, has leased 4 Tesla Model X for a new ride-sharing service.

The purchase was funded through donations from local businesses in the University of South Florida area, where the service will be offered. The new Teslas will be part of HART’s HyperLink program, which connects riders with bus stops in the congested area around the university. People can order the vehicles using a smartphone app.

HART’s Model X apparently don’t have the Enhanced Autopilot or Fully Self-Driving options, but, autonomous driving will surely be an attractive feature for last-mile services like this one, once the technology becomes available. This could be a lucrative new line of business for Tesla, which (read the fine print) prohibits vehicle owners from operating an autonomous commercial ride-sharing service except as part of the as-yet theoretical Tesla Network. “[The vehicles] are like little spaceships,” Cesar Hernandez, Government Affairs Specialist for HART, told Tampa Bay Business Journal. “Even when you get into them, you feel like you’re in a cockpit.”

Will Ford’s new CEO emphasize EVs? Ford has replaced CEO Mark Fields with Jim Hackett, the head of the company’s Smart Mobility division. The company also appointed a new executive in charge of “strategy and business model development for electrified vehicles and autonomous vehicles.”

The buzz in the media is that the new regime will put more emphasis on electric and autonomous vehicles, an area where Ford has been a laggard.

Its two plug-in hybrid models, the Focus Energi and C-MAX Energi, have enjoyed respectable sales, but the Focus Electric wasn’t updated until its sixth year, and it has fallen far behind competitors such as the Nissan LEAF and the new Chevrolet Bolt.

In January, Ford announced plans to launch an electric SUV with 300 miles of range, along with hybrid versions of the F-150 pickup and the Mustang, but it has released no details. The company’s most aggressive plug-in push so far is taking place in China, where it says 70 percent of its vehicles will be hybrid or electric by 2025.

Ford’s market share and stock price have both eroded since Fields took over from Alan Mulally in 2014, but a lack of EV sales is unlikely to be the cause. Many in the media seem to believe that Fields was replaced partly because he was moving too slowly on electrification and autonomy, but others aren’t so sure.

“Ford has no plausible approach towards mobility and e-vehicles yet and lags behind GM in that respect,” said Professor Christian Stadler of the Warwick Business School, “but changing the CEO is not likely to change this.”

However, the “Fields out, EVs in” narrative is not idle speculation – it comes straight from the source. In an interview, Ford Executive Chairman Bill Ford told Bloomberg that the CEO switch “is about EVs, and it’s about AVs.” Mr. Ford did not announce any specific plans, but outlined a gradual, profit-driven transition to the new order.

Bloomberg’s presenter pointed out the problem that Ford and the other legacy automakers face: they’re raking in money on trucks, and will find it hard to invest in EVs, which currently generate little or no profit. “Wherever we go, we have to make sure that the returns are great for our shareholders,” Ford acknowledged. When asked if he could foresee a future in which EVs would generate the kind of margins the company makes on the F-150, Ford thought silently for a moment, then changed the subject.

And there, dear readers, is the classic Innovator’s Dilemma. Leaders of incumbent industries aren’t blind - Bill Ford can see the handwriting on the garage wall as well as the rest of us - but they struggle to keep up with disruptive technological changes, because their shareholders demand quarterly profits. That means investing in proven profit centers, not money-losing new markets. Meanwhile, startups (Tesla) lose millions every quarter, but their investors don’t care, because they’re building a market that may eventually squeeze the incumbents out.

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THE VEHICLES

Photo courtesy of BYD

Even the humble garbage truck is going electric. BYD introduced its Class 8 electric refuse truck at the recent ACT Expo in Long Beach.

The truck is a cab-and-chassis platform, which includes the batteries, high-voltage control system, electric propulsion system, and an electric power take-off (ePTO) which powers the hydraulic system that operates the refuse truck body. It has a 10-ton payload and 76 miles of range, and can charge at 40, 80, 100, or 200 kW. BYD projects that the battery pack will retain 80 percent capacity after 5,000 cycles or 14 years, if charged every day.

The platform is designed to integrate with all the major refuse truck body builders in North America, and can be configured as a side loader, automated side loader, front loader, rear loader, or roll-off.

According to BYD, fleet managers can expect to save $13,000 in fuel and maintenance costs per year (based on service routes of 60 miles per day/5 days a week).

“BYD’s medium- and heavy-duty battery electric vehicles have a lower total cost of ownership and can be a one-for-one replacement with fossil fueled vehicles in fleet operations,” said Stella Li, President of BYD Motors.

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Photo courtesy of Ford

Five London fleets to test new Ford plug-in hybrid van

BYD introduces Class 8 electric refuse truck

Five fleet operators in London will participate in a pilot program to evaluate Ford’s new Transit Custom plug-in hybrid van, starting this fall. The project, supported by Transport for London, features a 12-month test of 20 new Ford Transit Custom plug-in hybrid vans.

London’s Metropolitan Police will deploy 5 of the vans: one marked for second response to traffic accidents, one unmarked as a forensic support unit, and 3 for freight duties.

The other fleets participating in the pilot are Transport for London, Clancy Plant, Addison Lee and British Gas. Using a Ford telematics system, each van will collect data on the vehicles’ financial, operational and environmental performance to help understand how to maximize the benefits of plug-in vehicles.

“Over the past 50 years, the Ford Transit has been the UK’s favourite commercial vehicle,” said Andy Barratt, Chairman and Managing Director, Ford of Britain. “Our customers have always been at the centre of our development, so working directly with our fleets is vital in delivering an electrified CV that adds value to the many different businesses going in and out of our cities every day.”

The Transit Custom plug-in hybrid van is planned for commercial introduction in 2019.

Oregon legislators consider sales incentive for EVs Oregon legislators are considering a bill that would establish a $1-million fund to provide a $250 incentive to automobile sales staff who sell EVs to Oregon residents (it exempts sales at exclusively electric dealerships).

The bill (HB 2514) addresses two interrelated issues, according to its sponsor, Representative Phil Barnhart. First, $250 would be a nice incentive for auto sales staff, who don’t fare particularly well on most sales. According to Barnhart, they make an average of $100 to $150 per car, and sell about 11 cars per month. Second, the bill would “provide experience in selling, leasing or exchanging electric motor vehicles.”

In testimony to the House Committee on Energy and Environment, Barnhart said that dealerships’ sales playbooks are stacked against EV sales, and that the “art of the sale” gives an advantage to ICE vehicles. A chance to make more money on e-cars - say, a Volt instead of a Cruze - would redirect salespersons’ attention.

At a House hearing, Oregon’s Global Warming Commission showed that from 2014 to 2016, US plug-in vehicle sales did increase by 30%, to 144,000 vehicles, for a 0.82% market share. However, sales of trucks and SUVs increased by 26%, to 11.1 million vehicles, for a 63% market share. That’s up from 50% in 2014.

Rep. Barnhart emphasizes, however, that this numerical imbalance is not the whole story. In committee testimony, he focused on the 0.82% market statistic, explaining that when plug-in vehicles get to a 1% share, that level will become a tipping point, with its own beneficial momentum and dynamics.

The new bill could help complete the incremental shift towards that self-sustaining market, a goal with policy outcomes far different, and more achievable, than just looking for a 1:1 match with sales of gas and diesel vehicles.

HR 2514 passed its first legislative step in March, when the Committee on Energy and Environment voted 6-3 for approval, sending the bill to the Joint Committee on Ways and Means, which is likely to be a more contentious setting. The bill, as introduced, did not specify where the $1-million sales subsidy should come from – a tough decision left for others to make.

One million dollars may not sound like much considering Oregon’s general revenue budget of about $9 billion per year. However, state lawmakers face difficult money decisions. Even Barnhart’s web site, for example, references challenges paying for “the most basic services: schools, health care and public safety.”

At a February committee hearing, a speaker from Tax Fairness Oregon called HB 2514 “another example of a clever idea in need of state revenues.

If you choose to support this measure, you are also deciding that Oregon’s children can do with fewer teachers or days of school.”

For legislators, that’s a difficult charge. Stay tuned, more politicking to come.

Photo courtesy of Volkswagen Group

Volkswagen to invest €10 billion in advanced powertrains, but will continue clinging to diesel

The Volkswagen Group has invested some €3 billion ($3.3 billion) in “alternative” drive technologies over the past five years, and plans to triple this amount over the next five years, said CEO Matthias Müller at the company’s Annual General Meeting in Hanover.

“The future is electric. We intend to be the number one in e-mobility by 2025,” said Müller. “At the same time, the Volkswagen Group is continuing to develop diesel and petrol engines, making them even more efficient and eco-friendly…Conventional engines will remain indispensable for the foreseeable future.”

“The Group will be rolling out more than 10 new electrified models by the end of 2018. By 2025, we will be adding over 30 more BEVs,” Müller added. “At the same time, we are conducting intensive negotiations to establish partnerships in the field of battery cells in Europe and China. You will soon be hearing more about this.”

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Commercial vehicle equipment provider Knapheide Manufacturing will become a ship-through installer of XL Hybrids’ XLP plug-in hybrid upfit for Ford F-150 half-ton pickup trucks. Knapheide will begin XLP upfits at its Kansas City, Missouri facility starting in the fourth quarter of this year.

XL Hybrids’ XLP system is compatible with a range of wheelbases, cab and bed configurations, and can be installed in just hours as a ship-through upfit. It leaves the original OEM engine, transmission, fuel system and exhaust system completely intact. Fleets maintain the OEM warranty, and get a 3-year, 75,000 mile warranty from XL Hybrids on the XLP powertrain.

Both XL Hybrids and Knapheide recently earned Ford’s new eQVM supplier status, a vehicle electrification version of the company’s Qualified Vehicle Modifier program, allowing them to perform upfits and leave the original vehicle warranty intact.

“Knapheide has performed XL Hybrids system installations on a range of Class 2 vans and Class 3 and 4 cutaways for major national and municipal fleet customers,” said Senior VP Bo Knapheide. “We expect the pace of growth to increase as more and more utility and municipal fleets seek electrification options.”

“Our cloud-based data analytics system, XL Link, provides fleets with an unparalleled ability to measure key performance indicators and receive an analytics summary of millions of vehicle operational data points,” said Clay Siegert, XL Hybrids co-founder and COO.

Photo courtesy of XL Hybrids

Knapheide installs XL Hybrids’ plug-in powertrain in Ford F-150 pickups

THE VEHICLES

BMW putting the fear of Tesla into its employees One of the most interesting questions in the automotive world right now: How seriously are the incumbents taking the threat from our favorite California startup? One answer might be found at a recent event near Munich, where an image of Elon Musk appeared on a screen as a narrator ominously intoned, “We’re in the midst of an electric assault. This must be taken very seriously.”

The audience was composed of employees of the BMW Group, flown in for what Automotive News calls “a combination pep rally/horror film intended to make them afraid about the future of the industry.”

BMW was an early electrification pioneer – its i3, launched in 2013 was a highly innovative EV – but the company has since slackened its pace. The next vehicle in the i electric sub-brand is not expected until 2020 or 2021. “BMW has lost its leadership in innovation,” says Juergen Pieper, an analyst at Bankhaus Metzler in Frankfurt. “It’s not brave enough to get into pioneering

projects and do something really new.”

Be that as it may, the company wants its employees to understand that big changes are afoot. So far this year, the carmaker has taken 14,000 engineers, marketers and factory managers, about 10 percent of its workforce, through day-long events designed to familiarize them with new technologies such as electrification, autonomy and ride-sharing.

“It’s easy to fall into a closed way of thinking,” says session leader Jutta Schwerdtle. “This helps push people out of that.”

On display at the event was a prototype of the iNext, a self-driving electric sedan with a retractable steering wheel. CEO Harald Krueger has said that the iNext will replace the 7 series as the company’s flagship in 2021.

BMW recently outlined a plan to milk money from sales of its highly profitable SUVs in order to finance the transition to EVs.

WORKHORS

UNVEILS ITS PLUG-IN HYBRID 52

THE VEHICLES

Workhorse CEO Steve Burns on the market for electrified commercial trucks, and his company’s expansive plans for the future.

By Charles Morris

W

SE

D PICKUP TRUCK

e all acknowledge the absurdity of ignoring an elephant, when one is present in the very room in which important matters are being discussed, but what about a hulking, jacked-up, V8-powered monster truck? Tesla permanently changed the conversation about EVs when it electrified a sporty two-seater, a luxury sedan and a crossover SUV, but few have been talking about plugging in the most popular vehicle in the US. An electric pickup? There isn’t even a hybrid pickup available from any major manufacturer, although Ford plans to bring a hybrid F-150 to market by 2020. Over the years, we’ve reported on a few smaller companies with electric pickup plans that have delivered with varying degrees of success, including Via Motors, Torque Trends, Efficient Drivetrains and EV Fleet. Trendsetter Tesla has recently announced plans for an electric pickup (Model P?), but its offering is not expected to hit the market for at least four years.

Images courtesy of Workhorse

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Images courtesy of Workhorse

Meanwhile, Workhorse, an Ohio-based public company with about 115 employees, is way past the talking stage. The company recently unveiled a prototype of its W-15 Electric Work Truck, and it already claims to have almost 5,000 orders on its books. Workhorse recently named fleet management specialist Ryder as its primary distributor and service provider for North America. Charged spoke with Workhorse CEO Steve Burns about the current market for electrified commercial trucks, and his company’s expansive plans for the future.

Where are the plug-in pickups?

To those who are familiar with the economics of the auto business, it’s pretty obvious why the Big Three have no interest in plug-in pickups. The only thing trucks are better at than guzzling gas is raking in money. The Ford F-150 has been the top-selling vehicle in the US market for 41 years, followed closely by Chevy’s Silverado and Chrysler’s Ram pickup (truck worship is mainly an American phenomenon - on a global basis, the F-150 is second to the Toyota Corolla).

Pickups are not only popular, but profitable. In 2016, CarBuzz calculated that Ford makes nearly $13,000 in profit on every pickup it sells, and quoted industry analyst Max Warburton, who said, “There has been no greater profit machine in the history of industry than the Ford F-Series.”

If a company is making 98% of their profits from gas vehicles, they’re hard pressed to say ‘Buy this electric version of our truck, don’t buy the gas version.’

However, what looks like an unassailable money machine for the big boys could turn out to be a huge opportunity for smaller startups. “This is a classic case where a new fresh idea is not going to come from the incumbents,” Steve Burns told us. “If a company is making 98% of their profits from gas vehicles, they’re

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hard pressed to say ‘Buy this electric version of our truck, don’t buy the gas version.’”

So far, the truck makers have had no incentive to do anything other than exactly what they’re doing. “The barrier to entry to get to be an OEM is so high that until Tesla came, the big boys could say, ‘Look, there’s no competitive pressure to do this - nobody can get through that gate, it’s too expensive,’” said Burns. “And nobody sneaks up in the automotive world. I come from software, and you’re always worried before you launch your world-changing product that 10 guys in their basements are working on it, and they’re going to launch before you. But in the car world, nobody sneaks

THE VEHICLES

up. All the vendors, all the engineering, all the testing...nobody sneaks up and says, ‘We’ve been working on this on the side, and here it is.’”

Focusing on fleets Workhorse didn’t exactly sneak up, but it has brought its potentially disruptive product pretty far down the road in a short time. The company was established as AMP Electric Vehicles in 2007, and went public in

2010. It started out converting SUVs, but lost faith in the economic benefits of conversion and began to focus on electrifying commercial vehicles. In 2015, AMP acquired the Workhorse brand, along with the company’s Indiana chassis assembly plant, became an OEM and formally changed its name to Workhorse Group Incorporated (NASDAQ: WKHS).

Fleets are the company’s target market, and it has already won several substantial customers for its new W-15 pickup. Utilities Duke Energy and the Southern California Public Power Authority have each ordered 500 units, and so has the city of Columbus, Ohio.

Other customers include the city of Orlando, Florida, Clean Fuels Ohio and the truck rental and fleet management giant Ryder System.

Part of the reason Workhorse has been able to log so many orders for its pickup, sight unseen, is that it has already established serious cred in the fleet world as a

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supplier for Big Brown. Workhorse has been working with UPS for four years. Burns told us that making plug-in versions of the delivery giant’s 20,000-pound brown icons is currently Workhorse’s main business.

Each successive order has grown bigger, from 2 units to 18 to 125 to a recent order for 200 announced in October. In May, UPS announced it was paying $50,000 per vehicle, and Burns says the per-vehicle price of the latest order is “comparable.”

“We worked a long time to get that drivetrain solid enough for the likes of UPS vans - very good up-time, and economical enough. We have discovered that fleets look at the total cost of ownership - 8 years of gas and 8 years of maintenance. [Until now] there’s never been anything really better than gasoline.”

What are fleets waiting for?

The business case for electrifying commercial vans would seem to be a slam-dunk, considering the substantial and demonstrable savings on fuel and maintenance. XL Hybrids, Orange EV, Efficient Drivetrains, Phoenix Motorcars, Electric Vehicles International (recently acquired by First Priority GreenFleet) and New Eagle (profiled in the March/April issue of Charged) are just a few of the firms that are vying for a share of this promising market. So far, however, there have

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Images courtesy of Workhorse

THE VEHICLES

A meat-and-potatoes fleet guy says, ‘What is the most economical way I can operate my fleet?’

We come in and say we are less expensive than a gas vehicle. been plenty of pilot projects, but few large orders.

Meanwhile, several startups, including Azure Dynamics and Bright Automotive, have starved out while waiting for fleet customers to take the plunge. Via Motors, which sells converted pickups and panel vans, has been around for five years, but has yet to start delivering trucks in large volume.

As observers of the fleet market have told us, the missing puzzle piece is proven reliability. Saving

money may be tempting, but dependability is mission-critical. Fleet operators aren’t going to commit to deploying large numbers of plug-in vehicles until they’re 100% convinced that they will get the job done year after year, and for that, they need several years of real-world testing.

Well, those several years of testing are drawing to a close, and the day that plug-ins have proven their prowess should be close at hand. UPS is the undisputed king of commercial fleets, and once it turns the key on electrification, other companies will probably have no choice but to follow its lead.

“UPS is not a bakery that uses trucks - they are a truck company,” Burns points out. “So, they are the hardest to satisfy. There’s no [equivalent to] Consumer Reports, other than maybe Charged, in this space. So,

If packages had wings...

In a recent test in a suburb of Tampa, Florida, UPS used a drone, launched from the top of a plug-in package car, to autonomously deliver a package and return to the vehicle, while the delivery driver continued along the route to make a separate delivery. Workhorse built the drone and the UPS van used in the test.

The Workhorse HorseFly is an octocopter delivery drone that’s integrated with Workhorse’s line of trucks. The drone docks on the roof of the truck, and a cage suspended beneath the drone extends through a hatch into the vehicle. A UPS driver inside loads a package into the cage and sends the drone on a preset route to a nearby address.

The HorseFly has a 30-minute flight time and can carry a package weighing up to 10 pounds.

“This test has implications for future deliveries, especially in rural locations where our package cars often have to travel miles to make a single delivery,” said Mark Wallace, UPS Senior VP of Global Engineering and Sustainability.

“Imagine a triangular delivery route where the stops are miles apart by road. Sending a drone from a package car to make just one of those deliveries can reduce costly miles driven.”

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Images courtesy of Workhorse

Range Extender

Internal Combustion Engine

Panasonic 18650 Li-ion Batteries

if a fleet wants to know if something works, they look to the leaders. UPS is the largest commercial truck fleet in the United States. So, it took many, many years, and a lot of miles, to build something rugged enough for them, and at a price point they can justify.”

“Green is good - everybody wants to be green - it’s a nice by-product. But we realized that if electric is going to take off, it has to be less expensive than gas.

It really comes down to that, at least in the fleet world.

A meat-and-potatoes fleet guy says, ‘What is the most economical way I can operate my fleet?’ We come in and tell him we are less expensive than a gas vehicle.”

According to Burns, the reason other companies have failed is that, although they were able to deliver on the gas savings, “the asterisk on that statement is that a fleet has to believe the vehicle is going to last.

They have to believe it’s going to last for 20 years. UPS keeps their trucks for 20 years.”

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Independent Rear Suspension

All Wheel Drive

with front and rear motors

We took our UPS drivetrain, and essentially shrank it, and put it in a pickup truck.

Business is picking up The new W-15 pickup is a direct descendant of Workhorse’s UPS van. “We took our UPS drivetrain, and essentially shrank it, and put it in a pickup truck,” said Burns. “Although it’s just been a few years with UPS, the grueling nature of the stop-and-go UPS truck, and

THE VEHICLES

We really don’t think an allelectric pickup truck will work, because of what people put pickup trucks through - occasionally they have to do something very hard. the fact that they’re buying more each time, indicates that UPS is realizing these are working, [and that] gave us the pedigree to jump into lighter-duty vehicles.

Duke Energy was the first to pre-order 500 from us.

When we saw the appetite, that people would preorder a year or two before the product, and before they could even touch and feel, we really saw there was a desire. We got enough pre-orders, we built the concept, and we really believe it’s going to be the start of a sea change.”

What about the competition? “Everybody says, ‘Are you worried about Ford?’ Ford hasn’t even announced [a plug-in pickup]. Tesla, at least, has announced they’re going to unveil a pickup truck in two years, and build in four years.”

Plug-in beats all-electric “We really don’t think an all-electric pickup truck will work, because of what people put pickup trucks through - occasionally they have to do something very hard,” says Burns. “Tow a lot, haul a lot, climb the side of a mountain, go far. Duke Energy, if there’s a hurricane in Charlotte, all the Duke trucks from all the neighboring states pack up and head for Charlotte.

Although they normally go 50 miles a day, once in a while they’ve got to go 400. Once in a while, they put three big transformers in the back. We built this so that it covers our average day, and then we’ve got a little insurance policy up there. [Even] if it’s a weird day, you’re always going to complete your rounds.”

“We found that out with UPS. If you tell a major fleet that this vehicle is really good but doesn’t do all things,

Images courtesy of Workhorse

you’ve got to be careful where you put it, they don’t want to hear that. They just want it to be ubiquitous.

We just say this can do anything a gas pickup can do.

360 days a year, you’re going to get 75 miles per gallon because you’re running it all electric, and the other 5 days, you’ll burn a little gasoline, but the show will always go on.”

The powertrain Workhorse’s UPS truck uses a range extender engine from BMW - it’s exactly the same one used in the i3, a three-cylinder gasoline engine producing 50 kW of power. “We buy the whole genset from them, the internal combustion engine, the generator, and the computer.” OEMs rarely sell such high-tech components to other OEMs. However, “BMW’s not into trucks, so we’re in a different lane,” says Burns.

The company hasn’t announced exactly what range extender it will be using in the W-15 pickup. “It could still be a BMW, but...it has to be bigger than the i3’s, because to push a pickup truck from New York to California, on one of those weird days, it has to be bigger.”

Like Tesla, Workhorse uses Panasonic 18650 battery cells, which it assembles into its own air-cooled and heated battery pack. “Only we and Tesla have been certified by Panasonic to use their automotive-grade cells. It takes a lot - Panasonic has to really test your pack and make sure it’s going to have the longevity and the safety needed.”

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The specs Battery pack

60 kWh (40 kWh usable)

Motors

2x 230 hp

0-60 time

5.5 sec

Electric range

80 miles

Fuel economy

75 MPGe

MPG (with range extender)

28 highway, 32 city

Ground clearance

12 in

Bed size

6.5 ft

Weight

7,200 lbs

Payload capacity

2,200 lbs

Towing capacity

5,000 lbs

Power export

7.2 kw

The battery pack is mounted under the vehicle, where it adds rigidity to the truck’s frame. There are front and rear subframes, each with an electric motor, a single-speed reduction gearbox, and a fully independent coil-spring suspension. “The battery pack’s not encroaching on the cargo space at all,” says Burns.

“It’s between the rails. If you look at our chassis from

THE VEHICLES 360 days a year, you’re going to get 75 miles per gallon because you’re running it all electric, and the other five days, you’ll burn a little gasoline, but the show will always go on. a distance, it looks like the dual-motor Tesla chassis battery in the floor [with] a motor and inline differential on each end.”

Workhorse is using components from familiar companies in order to reassure customers that service and parts will continue to be available. “The reason we use Panasonic cells and a BMW generator is to give a company like UPS, that keeps their trucks for 20 years, the confidence so they can buy the first one, and [know

that] Panasonic’s going to make those cells for a long time for Tesla. BMW is going to make that i3 engine and parts for it forever - in 20 years, you’re covered.

Those are mainstream commodity parts.”

Powering the wheels of the W-15 pickup are two 230 hp/172 kW BorgWarner electric motors, one for each axle. This setup allows for full-time all-wheel drive with active torque vectoring. The vehicle’s top speed is limited to 80 mph for the sake of efficiency. When it comes to charging, the W-15 supports Levels 1 and 2.

The initial model will not be capable of DC fast charging, but the vehicle does have a CCS charging port, and a fast charging option is likely to be added at some point.

Workhorse may offer different powertrain options in the future, but to keep things simple, “We’re going to have one product at first. One cab, one bed length, one trim package, one battery pack, dual motor with the range extender.”

Carbon and stainless steel The W-15’s carbon fiber body and stainless steel chassis delivers what Burns says is the right balance among

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THE VEHICLES weight, rigidity and cost. “When you have a carbon fiber body, it’s stiff, right? That lets you require less rails underneath, and stainless steel’s stronger, so you can keep [the chassis] very small and light. [Stainless steel] costs a little more but it’s lighter and smaller [and] the stiffness of the carbon body enables us to use stainless steel down there for the rails. It’s stronger, and will never rust, so you’ve got a body that will never rust - carbon - and then you’ve got stainless steel as the rails.”

When it comes to cost of course, the battery is the main factor. “The key is to right-size the battery. We only have a 60 kW battery, yet we say this vehicle can do anything a gas vehicle can do. If it was all battery, if we had to put a battery in there that could do towing and hauling and go 250 miles, it would be way too heavy and way too expensive. The whole thing is size.”

Workhorse’s announced price point of $52,500 has raised some eyebrows - it seems pretty low for a purpose-built electric pickup. A bare-bones gas pickup costs at least $27,000, and for most fleets the gas and maintenance savings would cover the e-truck’s price premium in pretty short order. Workhorse anticipates that for those keeping inside the 80-mile range of the W-15’s all-electric driving mode, the truck will earn back its premium in just two years. The company projects that over 20 years, a single such truck will save a commercial fleet operator $170,000.

That sounds like a can’t-lose proposition, but how can Workhorse produce its pickup so cheaply? Burns explains that the company has been able to leverage much of the development and equipment for its existing medium-duty truck line. The W-15 will be built in Workhorse’s existing factory, and using carbon fiber means the company won’t have to invest in steel stamping machines, which Burns estimates would cost some 250 million dollars. “Our goal was to get enough pre-orders so that we knew we could make money on the first vehicles, and then pull the trigger. The thing we’re saying out loud now is we’ve received enough pre-orders to commit to the production.”

Built for the modern worksite The W-15 features a light bar with yellow hazard lights, a sprayed-in bedliner and a power export module that delivers 7.2 kW, enough to power a job site. All the latest high-tech goodies are here, too: most of the vehicle’s functions are controlled through a touchscreen (which is designed to work even with gloves).

A lot of us had the same idea ten years ago - let’s convert vehicles.

But it’s a tough sell to customers, a converted vehicle, because they know it’s doing something different than its original purpose.

Workhorse’s Metron fleet management software sends the truck’s location and condition to fleet managers in real time. All the truck’s software can be updated over the air. Safety features include collision warning, emergency braking, lane departure warning, and lane keep assist, as well as adaptive cruise control and a full complement of airbags. Workhorse hopes to achieve the highest-ever safety ratings for a pickup.

Going native Workhorse is the first company to build a plug-in pickup from the ground up rather than convert an ICE truck, as Via Motors and a few others have done. Burns and his team are convinced that this is by far the better way to go.

On the face of it, converting an existing truck sounds like a good way to save money and avoid “reinventing the wheel.” Other than the engine, transmission and gas tank, most of the other bits of a vehicle - body, interior, lights, electronics, wheels, suspension - can be the same, regardless of the powertrain. However, this approach requires the designer to make a series of compromises that trade away many of the benefits that an electric powertrain can offer. Tesla built the Roadster on a Lotus Elise chassis, but Elon Musk later said that it was “actually an incredibly dumb idea.”

Burns strongly agrees. “We started like Via Motors... we were a converter, because being an OEM, the bar is so high. A lot of us had the same idea ten years ago - let’s convert vehicles. But it’s a tough sell to customers, a converted vehicle, because they know it’s doing something different than its original purpose. A fleet says, ‘Look, if a frame rail breaks, who do I call? The company that originally made it?’ They’re going to say, ‘Well, it broke because you hung a heavy battery

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Images courtesy of Workhorse

THE VEHICLES

Going postal All that combined into a very uniquelooking pickup truck, good-looking enough that every consumer that sees it says they want one. pack on it.’ If a control center for that gasoline engine was built not knowing that somebody was going to bolt something onto it later, because it’s already been CARB-approved and EPA-approved, you can’t mess with the software. It’s a tough road - in general I don’t think any conversion company ever made it. It’s impossible to make the numbers work.” “[Converting] ends up being more expensive, because you’ve got to deal with the hand you’re dealt.

That hand wasn’t built for what you wanted to do and then you just wind up compromising, and this is a world where everything’s got to be 100 percent for its purpose.”

Burns and his team had an advantage that other would-be truck builders didn’t - they were able to buy an existing truck OEM. “We bought Workhorse. They were making medium-duty vans and RVs. That enabled us to get a jump on being an OEM, taught us how to handle the factory and the brand and all the electrical problems. We couldn’t have really done it without that.

Carmakers don’t come up for sale often.”

The Workhorse W-15 will go into production in late 2018 at a price of $52,500, and it will qualify for the

Workhorse is also casting a line for an even bigger fish. The US Post Office completely replaces its fleet every 25 years, a long and complicated process. The original RFP for the upcoming fleet replacement was issued a couple of years ago, and the agency has now narrowed it down to five companies - Workhorse is one.

The new vehicle, like the current LLV, will have right-hand drive, an enclosed van-style body and a sliding driver door.

However, it will also incorporate modern safety features, including a front airbag, tire-pressure monitors, a backup camera, daytime running lights, and ABS. The postal service has also expressed interest in less-polluting powertrains, and it’s likely that “alternative fuel vehicles” will make up at least part of the new fleet.

USPS expects to purchase 40,000 vehicles per year until the fleet of 180,000 is completely renewed. At $25,000 to $35,000 each, that’s $6.3 billion worth of potential business.

$7,500 federal tax rebate. Burns won’t say exactly how many units the company plans to produce per year, but Workhorse’s factory has an annual capacity of 60,000 vehicles.

Any plans to eventually sell to consumers? “Well, I would’ve said no to that a little while ago, but a couple of things are happening. It’s really good looking - we built it to be modern and professional-looking. We have some aerodynamics to it because we’re worried about energy. Some of our customers wanted a lower hood so they could see pedestrians easier. All that combined into a very unique-looking pickup truck, good-looking enough that every consumer that sees it says they want one.”

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Motorcycle maker Energica unveils fast charging station in Italy’s Dolomites

Innogy Innovation Hub, a subsidiary of German electric and gas utility RWE, has launched hundreds of charging stations all over Germany, connected to Ethereum’s public blockchain.

As Trustnodes explains, “By using a computer chip in the charging station, a smartphone app to communicate with the interface, and a blockchain to manage and record all of the payment and charging data, a fully automated, worldwide authentication, charging and billing solution with no middleman is created.”

The idea is for autonomous EVs equipped with blockchain technology (which, apparently, no existing models yet have) to automatically pay for charging without human intervention.

A blockchain is a distributed database that maintains records that cannot be altered retroactively, making them secure from tampering. Ethereum is an open-source blockchain-based distributed computing platform.

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Photo courtesy of Energica

Photo courtesy of Kārlis Dambrāns (BY-CC-2.0)

German utility connects charging stations to Ethereum blockchain

Energica, maker of the Eva and Ego electric superbikes, has unveiled its first branded fast charging station at Selva di Val Gardena, in the Dolomites region of Italy. The 50 kW Combo CCS fast charger is the first in a network that will cover roads loved by motorcyclists.

Automakers and governments are installing chargers around the world, but these tend to be located in cities and along highway corridors. Motorcyclists like riding mountain and seaside roads that are often located far away from the well-traveled routes served by existing chargers. Energica plans to fill the gaps to open up scenic routes to electric motorcycle riders.

The company is in the process of selecting locations, and the first round of installations in Italy and in California is to be completed by the end of 2017.

Energica is working in partnership with several companies (utilities, hardware manufacturers, charging service providers), and will either co-finance the installation of dedicated chargers or facilitate access to existing ones. For example, in the Netherlands, Energica owners receive four years of free fast charging through local network Fastned.

“With this new installation, motorcyclists and other EV customers will finally be able to discover the amazing Dolomites area with fully electric vehicles and without any range anxiety,” said Energica CEO Livia Cevolini.

THE INFRASTRUCTURE

Wireless charging pioneer Qualcomm has demonstrated a dynamic electric vehicle charging (DEVC) system that’s capable of charging an EV dynamically at up to 20 kW at highway speeds (100 km/h).

Qualcomm also demonstrated simultaneous charging, by which two vehicles on the same track can charge dynamically at the same time. The vehicles were able to charge in both directions along the track, and even in reverse.

The demonstrations took place at the 100-meter FABRIC test track at Satory Versailles, recently built by the French research institute VEDECOM. Qualcomm’s Halo DEVC system was integrated into the test track, and the receiving components were installed in two Renault Kangoo EVs. VEDECOM will be performing a range of further tests to evaluate such things as vehicle identification and authorization, power level agreement between track and vehicle, and the speed and alignment of vehicles along the track.

Qualcomm envisages a transport system in which licensed operators build out the dynamic charging network, similar to the way that cellular communications networks have been deployed. DEVC technology would be integrated into one or more lanes of main roads and highways.

“We are inventors. We are WEVC. This dynamic charging demonstration is the embodiment of this,” said Steve Pazol, Qualcomm’s VP and General Manager of Wireless Charging. “The combination of a global team of expert engineers and Qualcomm Halo technology, which covers all aspects of WEVC systems, irrespective of the magnetics used, has enabled us to really push the boundaries of the possible and outline our vision for future urban mobility.”

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Photo courtesy of Qualcomm

ClipperCreek has introduced a new cable management solution for its line of EV charging stations. The Universal Pedestal Extension Kit is for use with the company’s HCS or CS series stations, and can be added to existing pedestals in the field.

This new kit adds easy cable retraction based on an adjustable spring system.

It eliminates the need for users to wind cables after use, and keeps cables safely off the ground. It’s designed for fleet and parking lot environments, featuring powder-coated steel for a durable finish, and complies with ADA height and reach standards.

“As EV charging demand grows, customers have asked us to offer a cable management system for our most popular commercial EVSE pedestal, resulting in the new Universal Pedestal Extension Cable Management Kit, a durable option that will last even in the toughest environments,” said Jason France, President and founder of ClipperCreek.

“One system for use with multiple products gives our customers greater flexibility and value,” said Will Barrett, Director of Sales.

The Single-Mount Universal Pedestal Extension Kit is now available at $759. It can be paired with one HCS or CS Charging Station and pedestal for a complete solution starting at $2,043. The Dual-Mount kit retails for $1,075 and can be paired with two HCS and/or CS Charging Stations and a dual-mount pedestal. All products are American-made and come with a one-year warranty.

Photo courtesy of ClipperCreek

Qualcomm demonstrates ClipperCreek’s Universal Pedestal Extension Kit keeps 20 kW wireless dynamic cables safely off the ground charging at highway speeds

Groupe PSA and partners launch GridMotion smart charging project

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Photo courtesy of ChargePoint

Network operator ChargePoint is expanding into the European market by partnering with InstaVolt to deploy over 200 ChargePoint rapid charge systems in the UK. ChargePoint’s Express Plus solutions will be installed by InstaVolt close to popular routes across the UK, enabling drivers to charge their vehicles during long journeys.

“InstaVolt has raised millions to install a DC rapid charge network countrywide across the UK,” said ChargePoint VP Simon Lonsdale. “InstaVolt is well positioned to help expand EV charging in the UK.” Express Plus is a modular charging platform designed to scale as demand grows.

“We own, install and maintain rapid charging units all over the country, giving landowners the opportunity to earn a rental income by housing them, and giving EV drivers access to the fastest charging available,” said Tim Payne, CEO at InstaVolt. “ChargePoint’s charging units are future-proofed so the units can be configured to meet the precise requirements of any site and can be scaled incrementally as demand for higher-rate charging increases. This is particularly important as EV manufacturers begin to bring out new models with increased battery capacity.”

Photo courtesy of Groupe PSA

ChargePoint expands into Europe with InstaVolt partnership Groupe PSA and several partners have launched a new project to evaluate smart charging technology. The idea is to reduce an EV driver’s electricity bill by shifting charging times to periods of lower electricity prices. Further savings could be achieved by providing grid balancing services through a Vehicle to Grid (V2G) system.

The two-year GridMotion demo project will be carried out with two groups of users. Fifty EV owners will test smart unidirectional charging – the system will charge their vehicles when electricity prices are generally lower (nighttime in France). Also, a fleet of 15 vehicles with Enel bidirectional charging stations will test V2G services. This fleet will provide grid balancing services, charging the vehicles when there is surplus electricity supply on the grid, and discharging when there is surplus electricity demand.

Groupe PSA is in charge of recruiting customers and managing the project; Direct Energie will act as an aggregator, making bids in the electricity and reserve markets; Nuvve will be in charge of controlling the charging/ discharging patterns of the EVs; Enel will provide the bidirectional charging stations; Proxiserve will install the charging stations; and DTU will provide academic support and testing systems.

The project partners are looking for volunteers to start the experiment. Participants should be based in France and own a Peugeot or Citroën electric vehicle produced from January 2015 onwards.

THE INFRASTRUCTURE

Photo courtesy of Nissan

New report: EVs can make Nissan and EVgo to build I-95 the power grid more Fast Charge ARC connecting efficient and affordable Boston and Washington DC

Nissan and EVgo have revealed a plan to connect Boston and Washington DC with nine DC fast charging sites.

The I-95 Fast Charge ARC is already under construction, and is scheduled to be in service this fall. There will be a total of 50 charging stations, each with both CHAdeMO and CCS connectors and a power output of 50 kW. The sites have been designed with future charging advances in mind, and will be pre-wired for a power output of up to 150 kW. “Regardless of range capability, a convenient fastcharge infrastructure along high-traffic routes is imperative for the mass adoption of electric vehicles,” said Nissan Senior Manager JeSean Hopkins. “Following a similar project in California, this is our second corridor project in the US, and completion is expected in time for the launch of the all-new Nissan LEAF.” “This charging corridor will provide the best public charging experience available in the US to drivers in one of the most densely populated and highly trafficked routes in the country,” said EVgo VP Rob Barrosa.

“The sites are also designed to accommodate 150 kW high-power charging, paving the way for charging the next generation of EVs on the East Coast.”

Plainly, the growing popularity of EVs will have a substantial impact on electric utilities. A new report from nonprofit utility watchdog the Citizens Utility Board (CUB) argues that, with the right public policy, that impact could be a positive one.

“The ABCs of EVs: A Guide for Policy Makers and Consumer Advocates“ is intended to help stakeholders, including state regulators and consumer advocates, develop optimal EV-related polices.

While an EV dramatically reduces driving costs, charging requirements could increase a household’s electricity usage by 40 percent, according to CUB. However, managing EVs and related infrastructure as distributed energy resources could result in lower electric rates for all consumers, even those who don’t drive EVs. “EVs provide an opportunity for tremendous benefit for the electrical system,” said lead author Martin R. Cohen. “But there are also pitfalls if public policy doesn’t keep pace with the new technology.”

“CUB as well as policy makers don’t usually concern themselves with end-use electricity,” said CUB Executive Director David Kolata. “But we argue that the right public policy can use EVs to create a more efficient and affordable power grid.”

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IEEE Transportation Electrification Conference & Expo Chicago, IL, USA June 22-24, 2017

ITEC is aimed at helping the industry in the transition from conventional vehicles to advanced electrified vehicles. The conference is focused on components, systems, standards, and grid interface technologies, related to efficient power conversion for all types of electrified transportation, including electric vehicles, hybrid electric vehicles, and plug-in hybrid electric vehicles (EVs, HEVs, and PHEVs) as well as heavy-duty, rail, and off-road vehicles and airplanes and ships.

Early Registration Deadline April 7th, 2017

Keynote Speakers Michael Tamor

Steve Tarnowsky

Executive Technical Leader, Henry Ford Technical Fellow on Energy and Sustainability Ford Motor Company

Director, Global Transmission & Electrification, Advanced & New Product Engineering General Motors

Mengyang Zhang

ITEC 2017 will be hosted at the historic Navy Pier. A prime tourist location jutting out into beautiful Lake Michigan, Navy Pier is walking distance from Downtown Chicago. Register for the conference and bring your whole family to enjoy Chicago in the summer!

Conference General Chair: Dr. Omer Onar Oak Ridge National Laboratory Questions?

Email ITEC2017@rna-associates.com Conference Website: www.itec-conf.com

Nicholas Nagel

VP of Engineering, Skysource Nanjing Powertrain Technology CTO Najing Golden Bus

John Nairus

Director of R&D, Triumph Aerospace

Silva Hiti

Chief Engineer, Power & Control Division The Airforce Research Laboratory

Professor Adel Nasiri Director, Center for Sustainable Electrical Energy Systems University of Wisconsin Milwaukee

Jeffrey Casady

Business Development And Program Manager, Wolfspeed/CREE

Senior Director, Powertrain Engineering Faraday Future

Bruce Upbin Vice President, HyperloopHyperloop-One

Larry Spaziani Vice President, GaN Systems

Richard Hampo

Director, Power Electronics and Controls Lear Corporation

Kent Wanner

Technical Manager, Electronic Design John Deer Electronics Solutions

THE INFRASTRUCTURE

Electronics giant ABB has won a contract to provide electric bus charging infrastructure for a fleet of Volvo 7900 12-meter electric buses that will serve Harrogate, a historic spa town in northern England.

ABB will supply three HVC 300P charging stations and an electric substation.

ABB says this project will be the first in the UK to use the OppCharge interface, which enables fast opportunity charging while buses wait at bus stops at the end of the line. Charging will take three to six minutes. Opportunity charging allows the e-buses to use smaller batteries, reducing their overall weight and improving energy efficiency.

ABB’s chargers feature a modular design offering charging power of 150, 300, 450 or 600 kW. The buses’ on-board pantographs connect automatically to an overhead charging mast. The OppCharge interface is also compatible with other brands and models of electric buses.

Daan Nap, Global Sales Director of Electric Bus Charging at ABB, said, “This contract introduces the OppCharge interface in the UK, a development that will help to further accelerate the uptake of electric buses by allowing the same charging equipment to be used by different brands of buses.”

Martin Hale, Marketing and Sales Manager for ABB’s EV Charging Infrastructure, said, “OppCharge saves weight on electric buses and improves energy efficiency by keeping the batteries topped up and allowing the vehicle manufacturer to reduce the battery size.”

Photo courtesy of AeroVironment

Photo courtesy of ABB

Fleet of 8 Volvo electric buses to use ABB’s OppCharge infrastructure

Atlanta airport to deploy 102 AeroVironment TurboDock charging stations

Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport plans to deploy 102 AeroVironment TurboDock charging stations at its parking facilities. The chargers will be installed at hourly and daily passenger parking lots, as well as an employee lot and a maintenance building.

AeroVironment’s TurboDock is designed for commercial applications. It charges at either Level 1 (12 amps/120 volts), or Level 2 (16 amps/240 volts) and allows access control using Bluetooth and a smartphone app with no recurring cellular fees. The configurable, modular design is designed for maximum installation flexibility.

Different parking locations call for different charger configurations – drivers parking their cars at airports prefer a larger number of low-power charging ports, rather than a smaller number of high-power ports, since their cars typically remain parked for longer periods of time.

“Atlanta International has set out to become one of the greenest airports in the world, and AeroVironment will help ATL and its guests support that goal,” said AeroVironment VP Ken Karklin. “TurboDock is packed with features specifically designed to make it ideal for airports, including modular charging configurations, 120 V capability and mobile app-based access control.”

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THE INFRASTRUCTURE

Photo courtesy of Fastned

Fastned expands into Germany with highway fast charging stations

European fast charging network operator Fastned has acquired its first 14 locations in Germany. Each location will include multiple fast chargers, which will be upgradable to power levels of 150 to 350 kW. The new charging stations will be conveniently located along major highways. Fastned is cooperating with hotel chain Van der Valk and property developer Lutzenberger.

“Both Van der Valk and Fastned offer service to people who are on the road,” said Vincent van der Valk, Director of the Van der Valk hotel chain. “We are delighted that we will soon have charging facilities available for our guests and other EV drivers, while we don’t have to operate these stations ourselves. Fastned takes care of everything and makes sure the chargers are always working.”

“We are witnessing the start of the Autowende [automobile transition] from fossil to electric,” said Fastned CEO Michiel Langezaal. “Fastned is building a pan-European network of fast charging stations that will provide freedom to drivers of electric cars to travel across Europe. As charging speeds increase, fast charging stations will be the petrol stations of the future.”

Photo courtesy of Con Edison

Con Edison offers rewards for smart EV charging

EV owners in New York City and Westchester County can earn gift card rewards by participating in a new Con Edison program. The utility has partnered with charging specialist FleetCarma to offer a program called SmartCharge New York that will pay EV owners to charge their vehicles at off-peak times.

The program is open to all EV owners, both residential and fleet, that charge in the Con Edison service territory.

Each participant will get a cellular-enabled device that plugs into the vehicle’s on-board diagnostic port and collects charging and driving data. Drivers will be able to see their information via an online portal.

Participants will earn $50 in SmartCharge Rewards on enrollment, then $5 each month, plus 5 cents for each kilowatt-hour of charging during off-peak hours (midnight to 8am).

In addition to smoothing out electrical demand, Con Edison hopes to gather insights on how the growing number of EVs will impact its grid.

“We expect the number of electric vehicles to increase the next few years as drivers realize the economic and environmental benefits,” said Con Edison VP Matthew Ketschke. “We see EVs as another technology that is helping us build a cleaner, more efficient energy future.”

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BIG POWER SMALL

PACKAGE

WattZilla’s Black Mamba and Wall Wattz receive UL safety certification as the company launches a new EVSE trade-in program

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By Michael Alba

Photo courtesy of WattZilla

THE INFRASTRUCTURE

Black Mamba The last time Charged spoke with WattZilla’s Frank Gangi, he teased the company’s Black Mamba as “a lightweight EV charging cord that looks like a snake that ate a rat.” Don’t be put off by the namesake - as Gangi tells it, the Black Mamba is a carefully designed, lightweight charger that packs a punch.

“To get all the stuff in that little beer can there, we think we will have about five patents that will come out of that enclosure,” says Gangi about the Black Mamba’s protruding midsection. “And that’s actually a six-foot cord on the power side and a 25-foot cord on the output

a lightweight EV charging cord that looks like a snake that ate a rat side. So it gives you a little more than 31 feet, end to end.”

On one end of the Black Mamba is the wall plug (offered as a NEMA 14-50 or 14-60 for 40 A or 48 A continuous rated output). The “beer can” tube is a

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Photos courtesy of WattZilla

custom-made enclosure with an inner polycarbonate layer surrounded by aluminum. It’s built to be durable, with a standard T6061 black anodized aluminum can that adheres to National Electrical Manufacturers Association (NEMA) Type 4X standards. WattZilla says you can drive over it with a truck, and it’s designed to withstand a two-thousand-pound test. On the other end is a J1772 coupler.

For customers with even stronger requirements, WattZilla is up to the task. “We have one customer, a mining company up in Canada, who was worried about wildlife,” says Gangi. “So we manufactured the product for them using 316 stainless [a marine grade alloy].”

Like all of WattZilla’s products, Black Mamba is designed to be the last charger you’ll need to buy - both in terms of durability and power rating. “As far as I can

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tell, we’re the only 48 A in this power cord form factor in the market,” said Gangi. Even Tesla owners might want to pay attention: “Not even Tesla provides a 48 A portable charger. The maximum they provide is 40, but the car will take 48. We provide that through the Black Mamba 48 A model.”

WattZilla also thinks the Black Mamba will be helpful in a lot of commercial settings, like car dealerships.

“Rather than putting in one bay that has a charger, they can just bolt the Mounting Bracket to a tool box or shop cart and take the charger wherever they need it. So they don’t have to designate a specific EV bay - any bay can be an EV bay.”

Wall Wattz The Wall Wattz is WattZilla’s newest wall-mounted

THE INFRASTRUCTURE

You can say, ‘you know what, my car is red, give me a red charger.’ Or, ‘my car is blue, give me a blue one.’ charger, available in 40, 48, or 75 amp models. With a small form factor, LED display, and stainless-steel enclosure, the Wall Wattz is an attractive EVSE option. But Gangi likes to think of WattZilla’s products as industrial art, rather than just pieces of equipment - hence, the Wall Wattz Artist Series.

“You don’t have to take our basic stainless steel,” says Gangi. “You can say, ‘You know what, my car is red, give me a red charger.’ Or, ‘My car is blue, give me a blue one.’ Or, ‘You know what, I want a skull.’ We’ve got this Artist Series which is a bespoke kind of service, where you can select what you want your charger to look like.”

Want your charging station to be a homage to Iron Man? No problem. How about Boba Fett? You got it.

WattZilla offers a number of designs to choose from, but if their selection leaves you wanting more, just design one yourself: “It doesn’t have to be any one of these,” says Gangi of the options on WattZilla’s web site. “You can send us a picture and say, ‘I’d like this,’ and we can do that too. You give us the artwork, we’ll install it and ship it to you.” With the Wall Wattz Artist Series, your EVSE can be as personal as your EV.

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Register Today at www.easa.com/convention

you can tell us the make, model, and serial number, and we’ll give you a trade-in value towards a Wattzilla UNO, DUO, or QuadZilla.

UL approval One of biggest updates to the WattZilla lineup is the recent UL Certifications. In fact, says Gangi, WattZilla’s EVSEs even have a leg up on other UL-listed products: “We’re already meeting the 2019 standards with our entire product line, not just Black Mamba and Wall Wattz.”

In order to meet UL standards, Gangi and the WattZilla team had to rethink some EVSE engineering. “When you go to UL to get approval for an EVSE,” explains Gangi, “one of the tests you have to pass is how fast the relay opens when it’s commanded open. And that’s not just at room temperature, that’s at 66° C [150° F] and -35° C [-31° F]. They first test the relay at 25° C thousands of times. Then they bring you up to 66° C, do the same test, then lower the temperature down to -35° C and test it there.”

To pass this test, WattZilla developed a new, patentpending method of relay control. “We came up with an unheard-of process where we actually fire the relay with two different wires,” says Gangi. “Rather than trying to find a single power amount that will both close the relay and allow it to open quickly, we separated those two functions. We have a patent-pending methodology for allowing the relay to close and stay closed reliably, but open very quickly.”

This innovation proved very successful with UL, according to Gangi. “We’ve got some of the highest temperature ratings of any EVSE. Other EVSEs don’t have quite the range we do, so we have an expanded range over a lot of products.”

Trade-In EVSEs In addition to the new products, WattZilla has also announced what Gangi describes as an industry first:

Photo courtesy of WattZilla

THE INFRASTRUCTURE

a trade-in program for outdated EVSE. “If you have an existing EVSE that’s not working, for whatever reason, you can tell us the make, model, and serial number, and we’ll give you a trade-in value towards a WattZilla UNO, DUO, or QuadZilla.”

EV owners looking to upgrade their old EVSE will get up to $1,000 in trade-in value, and will receive a brand-new unit from WattZilla, warranty included. To make the trade-in even easier, WattZilla is offering a flat ground shipping rate of 99 cents a pound anywhere in the US. “We’re very good at adapting to other peoples’ EVSE footprints,” adds Gangi. “We can make an adapter plate that will sit on the original nuts and bolts that are coming out of the ground. So you don’t have to pull up the concrete or any of that other stuff, we just put the adapter plate down and put our unit on top of it. We make it simple and easy.”

Whether you’re fresh from the dealership with your first EV, or an experienced veteran looking for an EVSE upgrade, WattZilla has something for you.

From the lightweight Black Mamba to the artistic Wall Wattz, it seems Gangi and the WattZilla team are as intent as ever on their goal: to create the last charging station you’ll ever need.

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THE US IS GENERATING PLENTY

OF POWER READY AND WAITING FOR TRANSPORTATION TO ELECTRIFY DOE’s Electricity Advisory Committee meets for the first time since the new administration took office

By Tom Ewing, a writer specializing in energy and environmental issues

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n March 29 and 30, the DOE’s Electricity Advisory Committee (EAC) held its first meeting of 2017. The EAC has 31 members from across the country, representing all aspects of the electricity sector. Its focus includes generation, grid security, and federal-state coordination.

The EAC reports to the DOE’s Assistant Secretary for Electricity Delivery and Energy Reliability, a position currently held by Patricia Hoffman.

DOE officials participated in the agenda, including Hoffman and Cheryl LaFleur, Acting Chair of the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission. Their participation was particularly noteworthy since they introduced new perspectives and concerns from a new Administration and Energy Secretary.

O

THE INFRASTRUCTURE

Transportation electrification? Not on the agenda, hardly mentioned. Of course, topics such as grid modernization, transmission and rate structures are fundamental to all electricity issues, including EVs. Still, considering the front-page and high-level attention regularly given to EVs, one might have expected that TE would draw at least some singular attention from a national electricity advisory committee. Didn’t happen.

Here’s why: There’s consensus among electricity experts that transportation electrification challenges now lie mostly on the transportation side - not the electrification side. Power is available and accessible.

Yes, there could be local issues for individual utilities and regional grid operators if the number of EVs in certain markets increases faster than projected. But from a national perspective, the nation’s generation, transmission and distribution systems likely won’t even flicker when sales of new passenger EVs begin to tick upwards.

To be clear, this assessment is just for one aspect of transportation electrification: privately owned light-duty vehicles, e.g. LEAFs, Bolts, Teslas. It does not include TE issues pertaining to heavy trucks, fleets of FedEx- or UPS-style delivery vehicles or transit and school buses.

That power presents different issues.

Jim Lazar is an electricity expert with the Regulatory Assistance Project, and an EAC member. Professionally, he is an expert in utility ratemaking and resource planning. He has worked extensively on EV issues, and is well known for his analysis of strategies to optimize the

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If we replaced 30 million of the 45 million electric resistance water heaters in the country over the next 15 years we’d free up enough kWh for 15 million electric vehicles. peaks and valleys characterizing electricity supply and demand. He is author of a much-cited (and readable) report on smoothing out supply and demand with the great name of “Teaching the Duck to Fly.” In interviews after the EAC meeting, Lazar was asked about the dynamics and context that define EVs and the grid (his comments here are not presented on behalf of the EAC). Scale is the critical concept, Lazar explains. The grid is a giant, EVs are relatively tiny.

Deliberate policies to augment or otherwise expand generation and related investment aren’t needed.

To make his point, Lazar compares EV power demands with electric water heaters. There are an estimated 45 million electric water heaters in the US, installed and operating without any specific utility policies.

Electric water heaters use about 4,000 kWh/year. An EV, travelling 12,000 miles per year, uses approximately 3,000 kWh/year (varying somewhat depending on vehicle size). The point is, Lazar explains, “3,000 kWh/year is not that much.”

There’s a second critical component: efficiency, which constantly increases, always making more power available. Now, because of new electrical codes, heat-pump water heaters are replacing older resistance heaters. The new heat-pump heaters use two thirds as much electricity.

“For every electric resistance water heater [replaced

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by] a heat-pump water heater,” Lazar explains, “we free up enough kWh for an electric vehicle. If we replaced 30 million of the 45 million electric resistance water heaters in the country over the next 15 years we’d free up enough kWh for 15 million electric vehicles.” Plenty of power. Again, new generation policies or directives aren’t needed.

Lazar was asked to follow up: What, then, are the best next steps to advance the transportation side of TE? He cited two key policy issues: charging infrastructure and rate design.

“Without the charging issue solved,” Lazar commented, “that makes EVs hard to become a national phenomenon.” A basic question is whether charging is a utility’s business. Charging stations are must-have infrastructure for establishing consumer confidence. In some ways, this is a chicken-and-egg issue. Answers will be made locally and regionally, however, not nationally.

If electric fuel costs as much as gasoline, there’s little incentive to purchase an EV, which has higher upfront costs than a gas vehicle. For EV adoption to increase, attention to rates is critical. Rate design could allow a utility to align electricity prices with time-of-day power demands - setting cheaper rates, say, from midnight to 5:00 a.m. when residential loads decrease and power is relatively more plentiful. EV owners would likely respond to a chance to save money, especially when sleeping. Importantly, non-peak demand also helps the utility balance resources and operations.

Lazar referenced a recent EV charging study comparing Houston and San Diego. In Houston, post-rush-hour evening demand is up because EV drivers start to recharge when they get home. In San Diego, however, that added load doesn’t show up until after midnight when EV owners can take advantage of a discounted timeof-day rate, which is not available in Houston. It’s the pricing that delivers the benefits - for EV owners and, importantly, for ratepayers in general.

The workday presents another critical time-of-day opportunity: between morning and evening rush hours, when commuters’ cars are parked and residential loads decrease. Again, to buttress sales, to smooth out its load, to take advantage of cheap mid-day power surging in from a solar-rich system (or a wind-rich system, as in

THE INFRASTRUCTURE

The agenda The spring agenda was robust, including presentations from Google’s Vinton Cerf, introduced as “Chief Internet Evangelist.” Carlos Batlle, who heads MIT’s Regulation and Systems Analysis Group, presented the conclusions from an MIT-led project called “Utility of the Future Study.”

Other agenda items included the Internet-of-Things and risks to the electrical grid. (Some people use a different phrase: Internet-of-Risky-Things.) Subcommittees presented reports on grid modernization, power delivery and safety, and new technical challenges resulting from distributed power and interconnections “at the edge of the grid,” frequently beyond the purview, and sometimes even the awareness, of regulators and utilities.

Iowa), a workday rate, when people are working, not driving, could send the price signal that this is the best time to recharge an EV. Lazar and other experts comment that the issue of workplace charging is critical - really almost its own issue. There are many challenges. Who, for example, should build and operate daytime workplace charging stations? Is that a utility’s responsibility? Should an office building owner take that on? Lazar cites the analysis in a new report, “The ABCs of EVs: A Guide for Policy Makers and Consumer Advocates,” by the Illinois Citizens Utility Board, as a helpful reference for understanding this mix of issues. CUB’s ideas include smart charging technology, aggregating loads, new rate designs and related infrastructure investments.

Rate design is just one part of the broader concept of “smart charging.” Lazar describes intriguing possibilities offered by power aggregators, managed via software apps working in real time.

An EV owner, for example, could use an aggregator app to key in certain demands: the car must be ready to drive 120 miles by 7:00 a.m. Then the app takes over, perhaps starting charging after midnight, accessing power from the cheapest generation sources. Or selling power back to the grid during high demand. It might slow charging when wind slackened at a selected wind farm but quicken it again when stronger winds

We now have sufficient understanding of how EVs are impacting distribution systems, such that EV deployment can be handled as part of the utility planning process. returned. The point is that the app would run the show, seeking the most efficient options while still having the car ready at 7:00 a.m. and at the lowest possible cost.

Lazar said EVs already have smart charge software capabilities. But the assets are not worth much if electricity markets don’t reflect prices. “[Real-time] smart charging is the future,” Lazar said, “we have to encourage that.” Again, rate policies are local and state issues, not national ones.

Lazar’s assessment is not a singular opinion.

MIT’s Carlos Batlle, after his EAC presentation on the “Utility of the Future Study,” was asked, “What are the top three challenges - generation, transmission, distribution to moving towards an electrical system ready to deliver the power for TE?” His answer: None. Like Lazar, Batlle says that getting the rates right is now the critical issue.

Michael Kintner-Meyer, Ph.D., is an author and researcher at the DOE’s Pacific Northwest National Laboratory. In 2007, he co-authored a paper proposing that EV charging could benefit EV owners and ratepayers in general. However, his team suggested further evaluation of infrastructure impacts from more intense and constant utilization.

In an email, Kintner-Meyer was asked about an update regarding his team’s hardware and equipment concerns. His reply: “We now have sufficient understanding of how EVs are impacting distribution systems, such that EV deployment can be handled as part of the utility planning process. The cost of EV charging infrastructure development remains largely at the last meter to dispense electricity. Current discussion is centered around business models and economic viability for charging in employers’ parking lots. From a residential charging infrastructure perspective, there are no real technical issues for the foreseeable future.”

Remember the phrase that all politics are local? Ditto for electric rates.

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2030? Really?

Uberesque TaaS providers. They will do so for one simple reason: it will be much cheaper. Under the new business model, the important metric is “cost per passenger-mile,”

By Charles Morris and autonomy will reduce that cost so much that owning new report from our old friend Tony Seba has a vehicle, especially a gas-burning dinosaur, will come to been getting a lot of press. His conclusions are seem ridiculously expensive.

Seba does identify EVs as an important factor, but not either encouraging or alarming, depending on for the reason you might expect. In a TaaS economy, where your paycheck comes from. “Rethinking Transautomakers will become commodity providers, and the portation 2020-2030,” published by RethinkX, updates and amplifies concepts from Mr. Seba’s 2014 book Clean real value will shift to TaaS providers: companies such as Disruption. “We are on the cusp of one of the fastest, deepUber, Lyft (and perhaps the proposed Tesla Network) that est, most consequential disruptions of transportation in package transportation services for end users. In a quest history,” says Seba. to reduce cost per passenger-mile, TaaS providers will Using the vocabulary of tech disruption, the paper demand longer-lasting, maintenance-free vehicles, and describes an S-curve scenario, in which a new technology that’s why EVs will take over. Seba envisions EVs that last starts as an application for niche markets, then reaches a for 500,000 or even a million miles. tipping point at which it kicks into exponential growth.

It’s not only the EV press that’s been dissecting the new The idea isn’t new - Elon Musk and the other Tesla foundpaper. Several oil industry publications have suggested that “peak oil” may come much sooner than petro-pundits ers have been talking about it since 2003. However, Seba have been predicting. Execs from oil giants including Total and his colleagues point out several interesting factors that others have missed. What seems to be propelling the and Shell have recently said that oil demand may peak report into viral mode is its proposed timeline. According by 2030 - much later than Seba and company are expectto Seba, the point at which the S curve starts to turn vertiing, but much sooner than oil industry dogma until now. cal will be reached around Markham Hislop, who 2021, and the transport and interviewed Seba, as well energy revolution, which as several economists and will utterly transform our analysts, writes in North In a quest to reduce cost per society, will all be over by American Energy News, passenger-mile, TaaS providers 2030.

“If Tony Seba is correct, the 2030? Yes, almost evTexas and Alberta econowill demand longer-lasting, eryone seems to find that mies just took a metaphorimaintenance-free vehicles, and figure premature (decades cal bullet to the head.” that’s why Seba believes EVs premature in the forecasts of Meanwhile, the auto the auto and oil industries). industry is sending mixed will take over. He envisions EVs However, many in the EV or downright contradictory that last for 500,000 or even a world agree that 2021 will - signals about its plans to million miles. be the approximate date of meet the future. Volkswagen CEO Matthias Müller a tipping point. In recent speeches, Tesla founder recently said, “The future is Martin Eberhard and returning Tesla CFO Deepak electric [but] diesel and petrol engines...will remain indisAhuja each predicted that around 2021, battery costs will pensable for the foreseeable future.” Ford Executive Chairreach $100/kWh, bringing EVs to cost parity with legacy man Bill Ford said that his company’s recent CEO switch vehicles. “is about EVs, and about AVs,” but that the company will continue its emphasis on profitable trucks, and “[making] One interesting thing about Seba’s analysis is that he has a different take on what’s going to cause the end of sure that the returns are great for our shareholders.” the Oil Age. For some time now, auto industry observEVs are no longer a fringe technology - they represent ers, including OEM execs, have been acknowledging that an established and rapidly growing market, and the inEVs will eventually replace ICE vehicles, but most of these cumbent industries that are threatened are taking notice. predictions identify government regulation of greenhouse But before we all do a victory lap, let’s remember the adage gas emissions as the driver. However, the new paper says about being careful what you wish for, and think about the little about EVs, and barely mentions climate change or upheavals - massive layoffs, political repercussions - that environmental regulations. The big disruptor is vehicle aumay lie ahead. As powerful as the auto industry is, its intonomy, and a new business model that it enables: Transfluence is dwarfed by that of Big Oil, which represents the port as a Service (TaaS). most economically and politically powerful corporations In Seba’s future world, people will give up owning cars that have ever existed. They will not sit passively and wait in favor of summoning self-driving EVs on demand from for a bullet to the head.

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