CHARGED Electric Vehicles Magazine - Issue 49 MAY/JUN 2020

ELECTRIC VEHICLES MAGAZINE

ISSUE 49 | MAY/JUNE 2020 | CHARGEDEVS.COM

MODEL Y TESLA

p. 52

Tesla’s latest model is its most refined—and it continues to improve.

SPECIALIZED MOTOR MATERIALS AND CONSTRUCTIONS: PART 2

AVOIDING MOTOR DEMAGNETIZATION

COVID-19 VS EVS: WHAT HAPPENS?

SOLAREDGE MAKES THE SUN-TO-CAR CONNECTION

p. 22

p. 34

p. 62

p. 72

THE TECH CONTENTS

22 Specialized motor materials

22

and constructions: Part 2

28 Scaling up solid-state Q&A with Ilika Technologies

34 Motor demagnetization

28

How to ensure EV traction motor magnets aren’t pushed beyond their operating limits

current events 12

Chroma Systems’ new bidirectional DC power supplies Software Motor Company and Ansys speed development of advanced motors

17

13 14

SK Innovation increases investment in US battery business to $2.5 billion Schleuniger’s new CrimpCenter 64 SP speeds up production Enovix secures $45 million to commercialize 3D Silicon Li-Ion Battery

16

Amphenol’s new sensor detects water in EV battery packs Delta-Q’s new RQ350 EV battery charger

17 18

18

DSM and Lightyear to scale integrated solar roofs for EVs LG Chem increases carbon nanotube capacity by 1,200 tons DOE to provide $18 million for research on rare earth materials

20

First Cobalt performs feasibility study for Canadian cobalt refinery

THE VEHICLES CONTENTS

52 Tesla Model Y

Tesla refines its formula with its latest model

52

62 COVID-19 vs EVs

EVs may experience hiccups, but shouldn’t suffer much more than the rest of the auto industry

current events 42 43 44

GM and Honda to jointly develop two new EVs for North America

62

GM exec: There will be “no slowdown” to EV programs DAF’s CF Electric refuse truck begins field tests in the Netherlands Electric aircraft maker Lilium completes $240-million funding round

45 46

BMW reveals specs, pricing for 2021 330e plug-in sedan Renault to sell only electric cars in China Daimler becomes the latest automaker to abandon hydrogen-powered cars

47 48

Audi plans battery assembly plant in Germany VW to shift to dealer agency model for EV sales in Germany

44

Toyota RAV4 Prime PHEV boasts 42-mile electric range, $38k base price

49 50 51

Colorado adds medium- and heavy-duty vehicles to its electrification plans BYD to launch Tang electric SUV in Norway California proposes to enact ZEV mandate for commercial vehicles

IDENTIFICATION STATEMENT CHARGED Electric Vehicles Magazine (ISSN: 24742341) May/June 2020, Issue #49 is published bi-monthly by Electric Vehicles Magazine LLC, 2260 5th Ave S, STE 10, Saint Petersburg, FL 33712-1259. 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 2260 5th Ave S, STE 10, Saint Petersburg, FL 33712-1259.

48

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Charged Electric Vehicles Magazine presents a FREE online event for the EV industry featuring live webinars, on-demand videos, whitepapers and interactive Q&As.

THE INFRASTRUCTURE CONTENTS

72 Sun-to-car connection

72

SolarEdge provides the missing link between solar panels and EV charging

76 The emerging “non-utilities” EVs are helping new players in the energy marketplace

current events 66

66

HUBER+SUHNER’s new cooled cable enables continuous 500 A charging Shanghai plans to deploy 100,000 data-collecting EV chargers

67

FreeWire Technologies raises $25 million in new financing Chinese wireless charging standard incorporates WiTricity’s technology

68

ORNL demonstrates wireless bidirectional charging on UPS delivery van AMPLY Power secures $13-million in funding for Charging-as-a-Service

69

SparkCharge raises $3.3 million for its portable, modular charger Tesla’s Autobidder software aggregates solar and storage into a virtual utility

70

70

Chicago to require EVSE-ready parking spaces UL certifies Lumen Group’s wireless charging system

71

New Lightning Mobile charger provides roadside DC fast charging Tritium adds Plug & Charge capability to its charging stations

71

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© 2020 Chroma Systems Solutions, Inc. All rights reserved.

Publisher Christian Ruoff Associate Publisher Laurel Zimmer Senior Editor Charles Morris

Contributing Writers Paul Beck Jeffrey Jenkins Michael Kent Tom Lombardo Charles Morris John Voelcker

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

Associate Editor Markkus Rovito Account Executives Jeremy Ewald Technology Editor Jeffrey Jenkins Graphic Designers Deon Rexroat Kelly Quigley Tomislav Vrdoljak

Contributing Photographers Nicolas Raymond Christian Ruoff Cover Images Courtesy of EVANNEX 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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As we lived through lockdowns, some of us dreamed that the visions of clear, pollution-free skies would inspire the citizens of the world to demand a speedy end to the Oil Age. Others dreamed that rock-bottom gas prices would do away with pesky EVs once and for all.

The future is still far from certain, but it now appears to lie somewhere between these two extremes. A few smart analysts I know predict that, in the short term, EV sales will suffer along with the broader auto industry, but that the trend toward electrification will continue, and accelerate. So, with the existential crisis (hopefully) behind us, I think it’s safe to make a trio of predictions about trends in the EV industry for the next couple of years.

First, Tesla will continue to dominate the industry, at least in regards to passenger car sales here in the US. If Model Y (this issue’s cover car) proves half as popular as predicted, the electric innovator’s lead will only widen. True, the legacy automakers are getting much more serious about EVs, and this is a welcome development. However, even their most ambitious plans fall short of a direct challenge to the Californians. Tesla sold 192,200 vehicles in the US in 2019, compared to second-place Chevrolet’s 16,418. According to AutoForecast Solutions, GM and Ford collectively plan to produce about 325,000 EVs in 2026 (along with 5 million gas-powered SUVs and pickup trucks). Tesla produced over 367,000 EVs worldwide in 2019, and hopes to deliver 500,000 this year. (Skeptical? Wall Street is not.) All this doesn’t mean the legacy brands’ electric efforts are for naught—some of them have important projects in the pipeline—but Tesla will lead, and they shall follow.

Second, Europe plans to challenge China to become the center of the EV industry. The EU is forging ahead with stringent new emissions standards, and European automakers are shifting from resistance to acceptance. The Volkswagen Group alone has announced 60 billion euros of investment in electrification. France announced an auto industry bailout package with substantial support for EVs. Germany’s leaders also encouraged e-mobility in a pending stimulus bill (and resisted pressure to incentivize ICE vehicle purchases). Spain and the UK are among other countries pushing ahead with pro-EV policies. Cities across the continent are planning ICE bans and low-emission zones. Meanwhile, for complex reasons, China’s once-formidable market for “new energy vehicles” is struggling. In the US, a civil war (figurative, thank goodness) is going on between the anti-EV federal government and a growing number of pro-EV states. A study by Vivid Economics found that, of the coronavirus-related stimulus programs announced by world governments, those of the US and China have been by far the “brownest,” with little or no funding for environmental improvements.

A third important trend, which won’t make any headlines outside the EV trade press, is the gradual maturing of the charging ecosystem, which presents huge opportunities for new businesses. As major fleet operators plan EV deployments, they’re learning that their infrastructure needs involve much more than simply plugging in some chargers. Many are relying on expertise and services from EVSE specialists. Utilities are learning that EVs represent a potential storage asset that perfectly complements their transition to renewable energy, and startups are emerging to provide services in this space as well.

It’s been an unpredictable year, to say the least, but when you look closely, a few things in the EV industry still seem clear.

Christian Ruoff | Publisher

EVs are here. Try to keep up.

THE TECH

Image courtesy of Chroma Systems

Software Motor Company and Ansys speed development of switched reluctance motors Chroma Systems’ new bidirectional DC power supplies for EV component testing Chroma Systems Solutions, a provider of power conversion test equipment, has announced the first-phase release of its new 62000D bidirectional DC power supplies. Bidirectional DC power supplies offer two-quadrant operation with positive current/positive voltage as well as negative current/positive voltage, enabling both DC power output and regenerative DC loading. The absorbed energy feeds back to the grid with a conversion efficiency up to 93%, and can operate in constant voltage, constant current, and constant power modes.

Pre-compliant with LV123 and LV148 standards for EV component testing, the 62000D is suitable for testing power components such as bidirectional on-board chargers (BOBC), bidirectional DC converters, and DC-AC motor drivers. It can also perform battery simulations.

The 62000D has a high-speed CV dynamic response slope that can be controlled to 180 V/ms, and is applicable to the electrical characteristics tests of many vehicle guidelines.

The 62000D series offers power ratings of 6 kW, 12 kW, and 18 kW, and achieves 180 kW in parallel and series operation. Voltages range from 0-100 V/600 V/1,200 V/ 1,800 V, with a current rating from 0-540 A.

12

Software Motor Company (SMC) and Ansys are collaborating to accelerate the development of ultra-efficient switched reluctance motors (SRMs) that solve critical noise, vibration and harshness (NVH) issues.

Traditional AC induction motors drive most of today’s power-hungry machines, including EVs. SRMs are more efficient, reliable, and durable, but to drive industry adoption, they must overcome NVH challenges—requiring months of prototype testing and weeks of simulation.

An enhanced workflow could greatly compress that development time, ensuring that motors run silently and efficiently.

SMC and Ansys are building an automated, optimized, repeatable workflow for rapid design and analysis of SMC’s Q-series SRMs. By leveraging Ansys workflow technologies—including multiphysics simulation and Ansys Cloud—SMC hopes to enable global implementation and adoption of its motors by companies across numerous industries.

“With the electrification revolution in full swing, this new state-of-the-art workflow will help us create a highly innovative next-generation SRM—the most sophisticated electric motor design in the world—and deploy it with minimal NVH effects,” said SMC President Mark Johnston.

“Together with SMC, we are rapidly developing SRMs, delivering unprecedented reduced noise levels and enabling wide commercial adoption of these highly efficient motors for the first time,” added Prith Banerjee, CTO of Ansys. “This automated, optimized, and cloudbased motor design and analysis platform significantly speeds SMC’s development of next-generation SRMs, which promises to disrupt a $100-billion-plus industry and alter how the world consumes energy.”

SK Innovation increases investment in US battery business to $2.5 billion SK Innovation has announced additional investment in its US battery business to fund the construction of a second EV battery plant in Georgia.

The company plans to invest a total of $2.5 billion to build two plants at its site in Commerce, Georgia, with a combined annual capacity of 21.5 GWh. SK broke ground on the first plant at the Georgia site in March 2019, and is expected to begin mass production in 2022.

Construction on the second plant is expected to begin in July at the same site, with mass production to start in 2023. The company says it could invest as much as $5 billion in its US battery business, and create as many as 6,000 jobs.

“While the global community faces challenging times, SK Innovation believes it is important to continue making strategic investments to drive economic growth and meaningful change,” said CEO Jun Kim. “With this investment, SK Innovation’s battery business will significantly contribute to not only the local Georgia economy but the development of the US EV industry value chain and ecosystem.”

Image courtesy of Schleuniger

Schleuniger’s new CrimpCenter 64 SP speeds up production Schleuniger Global recently introduced CrimpCenter 64 SP, its latest automatic crimping machine. The company says that the new product delivers 8 to 14 percent faster production compared to its predecessor.

The new CrimpCenter 64 SP provides an array of features, including: • Application-specific default values for process parameters • Dual ToolingShuttle quick-change system • Automatic pneumatic pressure control of feeding belts and gripper systems • A straightening unit • A new roller design for very thin cables • A new deposit gripper system • Integrated crimp-force monitoring for multiple stamped terminals • A split-cycle function The CrimpCenter 64 SP offers several quality-monitoring options, such as SmartDetect, WireCam, material change detection, PullTester 320, crimp-height measurement, and ErrorExpert software.

14

Enovix secures $45 million to commercialize 3D Silicon Lithium-ion Battery Enovix Corporation has secured an additional $45 million to produce and commercialize its 3D Silicon Lithium-ion Battery. Enovix CEO Harrold Rust said, “Anchoring the round is a $25-million strategic investment from a leading California technology company. Present investors have added $10 million, and customers have contracted $10 million to develop batteries for specific products and to reserve production capacity.”

Enovix will use the bulk of the funds to complete its Fremont, California high-volume battery production facility, where about 75% of the equipment and processes are identical to those used in standard pouch battery manufacturing.

Enovix has developed proprietary electrode laser patterning and high-speed stacking tools that replace the standard electrode winding process to increase production line MWh capacity by 30%.

“We initially attracted customers when we sampled cells about a year ago with energy density over 900 Wh/l and full-depth-of-discharge cycle life over 500,” said Rust. “As customers and investors visited our production site and saw our proprietary electrode laser patterning and high-speed stacking tools in action, their confidence in our production capability was sufficient to generate revenue and secure additional funding.”

The facility is expected to produce batteries for delivery in late 2020, and to reach a run rate of 8 million units per year as it ramps in 2021 and 2022.

Enovix has also signed new agreements with two additional portable electronics companies. The company now has agreements with four customers to develop and produce silicon-anode lithium-ion batteries for portable electronic devices, worth an anticipated $250 million in annual revenue once fully ramped. Enovix is now working with international automobile manufacturers to develop its patented battery technology for the EV market, where the company expects to supply batteries within five years.

Image courtesy of Enovix

THE TECH

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THE TECH Image courtesy of Delta-Q

Amphenol’s new sensor detects water in EV battery packs

Image courtesy of Amphenol

Amphenol Advanced Sensors now offers its Coolant Leak Detection Sensor to detect the presence of water and coolant in an EV battery pack enclosure, enabling the Battery Management System (BMS) to take proper countermeasures to reduce the risk of pack failure and electrocution.

While substantial design measures are taken to prevent water intrusion into battery enclosures, there are still instances in which this can occur. In mobile applications, the pack shell can be damaged by debris, corrosion, twisting or vibration. Also, many large battery pack enclosures utilize cold plate cooling systems, which can develop leaks over time. Temperature and barometric pressure variations within the airspace of an enclosure may also allow condensation to form.

Amphenol’s new sensor operates on standard 5 V power, and can detect as little as 2.8 mm of standing water in the bottom of a battery pack enclosure. For diagnostics, the sensor includes a 510 kΩ resistor in parallel with two plated contacts for open/short circuit detection. Its small footprint allows for various mounting positions, and custom-length wire leads and connector options are available. Amphenol says its Coolant Leak Detection Sensor is validated against aggressive automotive standards and includes a 2D barcode to comply with traceability requirements.

16

Delta-Q’s new RQ350 EV battery charger Delta-Q Technologies has introduced its latest charger: the RQ350, for EVs and industrial machines.

Building on its history of IC-series chargers rated from 650 to 1,200 watts, Delta-Q has set its sights on lower-power applications with its new 350-watt charger. The company says the new build was designed and tested to meet automotive levels of product reliability, improving machine runtimes.

“The RQ350 is a response to our customers’ needs in multiple application segments,” says Lloyd Gomm, VP of Business Development. “Our customers have asked us to bring our high-reliability charger design into both lower- and higher-capacity battery charging applications.

The RQ350 solidly answers the former need with a well thought-out design offered at an OEM-affordable price.”

The RQ350 is designed for applications such as floorcare machines, pallet walkies, two-wheel e-mobility products, outdoor power equipment and mobile aerial work platforms. The charger, which is housed in an IP66sealed die-cast enclosure, features an integrated CAN bus and over-voltage protection from the AC line. It is compliant with applicable worldwide regulations such as UL, FCC B/CISPR-14 and UNECE R10.

The RQ350 takes advantage of Delta-Q’s library of validated charge profiles, which can be specified for each charger. In addition, like the IC Series, charger cycle data can be downloaded, and new charging profiles can be updated by the OEM or end-use customer.

RQ350 charger evaluation samples are available for OEMs to order now.

DSM and Lightyear to scale integrated solar roofs for EVs Lightyear and Royal DSM have signed an agreement to jointly scale the commercialization of Lightyear’s solar-powered roof for the EV market. The partnership aims to integrate solar-powered roofs in a variety of EVs, including cars, vans and buses, enabling users to charge their vehicles directly with clean energy. The companies are teaming up to assess the market, starting with pilot projects for customers from the automotive and public transport sectors.

This technology was initially developed by Lightyear for the solar panels of Lightyear One. Featuring five square meters of integrated solar cells protected by double-curved safety glass, the solar roof captures sunlight continuously, whether the car is moving or stationary.

Royal DSM VP Pascal de Sain said, “By stepping up our collaboration with Lightyear, we are creating an

Image courtesy of Lightyear

entirely new market for lossless high-power back-contact technology.”

Martijn Lammers, Lightyear’s co-founder and Chief of Strategy, added, “We want to revolutionize the way that people travel. By scaling up the accessibility of our solar technology through our partnership with DSM, we can accelerate the mass adoption of electric vehicles by making them sun-powered.”

THE TECH Image courtesy of International Information Program (IIP)

LG Chem increases carbon nanotube capacity by 1,200 tons LG Chem recently announced that it will invest 65 billion South Korean won ($54 million) by Q1 of next year to add 1,200 tons of carbon nanotube (CNT) production capacity to its Yeosu, South Korea plant. Once the expansion is made, the company will have a total production capacity of 1,700 tons.

LG Chem says it’s making the new investment not only to target the global EV market, but also the growing CNT market for anode conductive additives in lithium-ion batteries, which can increase the batteries’ energy density and lifespan.

Plans are also in place to develop and commercialize a variety of new uses for CNTs, such as gang form (large casts for construction), semi-conductive layers inside high-voltage cable sheaths, and high-strength concrete for architecture.

Noh Kug-lae, VP of LG’s petrochemicals unit, said, “We must lead the market with distinguished technologies and products to survive in the global materials competition. We will become a dominant market leader in next-generation high-value materials, including CNTs.”

18

DOE to provide $18 million for research on rare earth materials The US Department of Energy (DOE) will provide up to $18 million for basic research to ensure the continued availability of rare earth elements. Neodymium, praseodymium, lanthanum and other rare earth materials are widely used in a variety of technological applications, including EV motors and wind turbines. The research will seek breakthroughs that increase the availability or reduce the use of rare earth elements, lead to more efficient separation approaches to enable reuse, and discover effective substitutes.

“Critical minerals and rare earth elements are essential to technologies that we use every day, from cell phones to lifesaving medical equipment to batteries for electric cars,” said Undersecretary of Energy Mark W. Menezes.

“Unfortunately, the US is heavily dependent on countries like China to supply these critical materials. The research and development at DOE labs is critical to harnessing our domestic supply of rare earth elements and critical minerals, and is key to developing new ways to process and recycle these elements.”

DOE national laboratories are invited to submit proposals for breakthrough research in materials and chemical sciences. Applicants are encouraged to find partners at universities, national laboratories, and other institutions. Awards are expected for both small groups and larger multidisciplinary teams.

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THE TECH We have your traction motor magnetization solution!

THE TECH Image courtesy of First Cobalt

First Cobalt performs feasibility study for Canadian cobalt refinery expansion First Cobalt has announced positive results from an independent feasibility study conducted on its permitted cobalt refinery in Ontario, Canada. The study contemplates expanding the existing facility and adapting it to be North America’s first producer of cobalt sulfate, an essential component in the manufacturing of EV batteries.

Study highlights:

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• Annual production of 25,000 tons of battery-grade cobalt sulfate from third-party feed, representing 5% of the total global refined cobalt market and 100% of North American cobalt sulfate supply • An initial capital estimate of $56 million and an operating cost estimate of $2.72/lb of cobalt produced, which would be competitive on global markets • $37 million in free cash flow forecasted during the first full year of production • Payback period of 1.8 years Discussions are underway with Glencore on commercial arrangements, financing, and allocation of project economics.

Several EV manufacturers have expressed an interest in purchasing North American cobalt sulfate.

The company is evaluating several other plans that could enhance project economics further, including alternative approaches to managing elevated sodium concentrations prior to returning process water to the environment.

“This is an important milestone in our efforts to disrupt the existing cobalt supply chain,” said First Cobalt CEO Trent Mell. “With most of the world’s cobalt refining capacity located in China, there is strong demand for a North American alternative. Our focus will now turn to working with Glencore, our strategic partner, on implementing a new, ethical and transparent supply chain.”

THE TECH

SPECIALIZED

MOTOR MATERIALS AND CONSTRUCTIONS

By Jeffrey Jenkins

Photo courtesy of Aumann

22

PART 2

T

As is usually the case in engineering, one coil winding scheme is not clearly superior to the other in all respects.

he previous article in this two-part series looked at specialized materials that are (or will be) used in motors; the focus this time will be on the innovative methods of construction that make motors more suitable for EV traction applications. Separating the wheat from the chaff is especially important here, because hyperbole (and outright fantasy) are employed far too often in describing advances in motor technology (second only to batteries, I’d wager). Armed with a suitable dose of skepticism (especially if you see any reference to “overunity,” that is, perpetual motion), let’s look at some intriguing—even promising—advances in the state of the art, starting with the evocative, if unusual-sounding, hairpin winding. But first, a quick review of motor operation and construction.

Torque is produced in any motor from the interaction of a fixed magnetic field (“field”) with a rotating one (“armature”). In most AC motors (3-phase induction and synchronous), the rotating part of the motor—the rotor—is where the fixed field is produced, while the stationary part of the motor—the stator—contains the armature, and the apparent rotation of the armature is produced by sequentially energizing pairs of coils—electromagnets—spaced evenly around the perimeter of the stator. The most common arrangement of the armature coils is to place them radially about the inner surface of the motor housing so that their pole faces all point towards the center of the shaft. Unsurprisingly, this arrangement is called a radial flux machine, because the magnetic field produced by the armature coils projects radially towards the rotor/field (an alternate arrangement in which the coils are placed axially will be discussed below; no prizes for guessing what it’s called). There are also two main schemes for winding the coils: concentrated and distributed.

The more obvious one is the concentrated winding, in which each coil is wound on its own individual pole face, whereas in a distributed winding construction each coil is spread out over several pole faces. As is usually the case in engineering, one scheme is not clearly superior to the other in all respects. Concentrated windings are less expensive to construct, and exhibit lower losses, while distributed windings produce much smoother torque with less ripple/ cogging but incur higher losses because the length of the end turns (that is, the wire not in the slots) has to span multiple slots. In any event, this ground has been well and truly trodden over the last 150 years or so of motor development, so there’s little chance of even an evolutionary improvement here, much less a revolutionary one.

There are, however, two relatively simple things that can be done with the stator coils in a conventional radial flux machine to improve its efficiency: using square wires to better fill the precious slot area; and the “hairpin” winding construction technique, in

MAY/JUN 2020

23

THE TECH

RADIAL FLUX

Flux is produced radially along the sides of the rotor ROTOR/STATOR

AXIAL FLUX

Flux is produced axially along the axis of the rotor ROTOR STATOR

STATOR/ROTOR

which half-turns of wire are preformed into a hairpin-like shape to lie precisely in the slots, then welded together to form complete turns. Square wires are much more difficult to work with, because if they twist at all during the winding process—and some twisting is inevitable, really—they can end up lying on the diagonal, which will worsen the slot fill factor, instead of improving it. They are also much more susceptible to insulation failure because of the stress risers which are always produced in fatigue-prone materials which have sharp corners. Preforming the wire into the correct configuration to lie in the slots of the stator—the hairpin winding technique—addresses the twisting issue, and reduces the likelihood of insulation failure because the wire is not being bent under tension as it gets wound around the stator slots, as would occur with a normal coil winding machine. One downside is that the half-turn hairpins have to be welded together to form complete turns, which takes additional time and, most likely, a very expensive laser or electron beam welder to perform. Also, while the welds that join each hairpin together end up outside of the slots, so are in less danger of shorting out, they still need to have an insulating coating re-applied, especially for motors supplied by the typical traction battery voltage in an EV (>300 V).

The radial flux machine has served industry well for over a century, but there’s another way of constructing

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The radial flux machine has served industry well for over a century, but there’s another way of constructing motors that might prove superior in EVs, and that is the axial flux machine.

motors that might prove superior in EVs, and that is the axial flux machine. Instead of having a cylindrical rotor inside a larger cylindrical stator, the axial flux machine rotates the pole electromagnets 90° to face a diskshaped rotor from the side (that is, axially). Construction details start to vary from here, but generally, all the axial flux motors aimed at EVs have a fairly straight flux path through the pole electromagnets, and so can benefit from the use of grain-oriented electrical steel for a couple of percentage points improvement in efficiency.

As explained in the previous article, this is not true for the radial flux machine, because the flux paths between stator and rotor are curved.

Another benefit of the axial construction—and arguably the most important one—is that the housing and the “back iron”—needed to complete the magnetic circuit between the stator and rotor—are separate. This means the housing of an axial flux machine can be made of aluminum instead of electrical steel, greatly reducing overall weight while enabling much more effective cooling of the pole electromagnets. Furthermore, the pole electromagnets in an axial flux machine don’t add to the outside diameter of the motor, because they are placed within the confines of its rotor, rather than beyond it, as in the radial flux machine. This translates into an automatically longer moment arm between the pole electromagnets and the rotor for a given motor diameter, which means more

torque for a given number of ampere * turns of each pole electromagnet (but more back EMF for a given RPM—no free lunches). However, a disk is far less rigid in the axial direction than a cylinder, so making use of the naturally longer moment arm in the axial flux machine requires a very high-strength rotor design, something which is made all the more difficult if magnets need to be embedded within it for the field. Composite materials (e.g. woven fiberglass or carbon fiber cloth impregnated with epoxy) are invariably needed to provide sufficient strength and rigidity without an intolerable increase in the rotating mass, or disturbing the magnetic circuit between stator and rotor from eddy current induction into otherwise non-magnetic metals like aluminum. Composite construction is much more costly both in materials and assembly labor, however, and the pancake-like form factor of the axial flux motor has resulted in very little market penetration so far, much like the oft-promised “wheel motor” (eternally doomed by the huge increase in mass the suspension system has to deal with, as well as the merciless pounding of the shaft bearings).

Finally, no discussion of advanced motor construction techniques would be complete without at least touching on the use (and abuse) of permanent magnets, as the PM synchronous motor (PMSM) is still far C

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THE TECH

ROTOR

PERMANENT MAGNET

STATOR

STATOR WINDING

Surface mounted permanent magnet motor (SPM)

ROTOR

PERMANENT MAGNET

STATOR WINDING

Interior permanent magnet motor (IPM)

and away the most popular choice for traction in EVs. As discussed in the previous article, the field magnets in the PMSM are invariably of the rare earth type, and more specifically, of the neodymium-iron-boron (NdFeB) formulation, which delivers the highest field strength and resistance to demagnetization (or “energy product”) at the expense of poor tolerance of high temperatures and an astounding susceptibility to corrosion (requiring protection from oxygen even while being manufactured).

Needless to say, both of these downsides can be particularly vexing inside an EV motor that operates outdoors with a hot stator radiating heat from just an air gap away.

It is possible to tweak the NdFeB formulation to increase the temperature tolerance, but this invariably reduces the energy product, and at some point the samarium-cobalt (SmCo) formulation will become more attractive (pricing of the raw materials aside—neodymium, samarium and, to a lesser degree, cobalt, are all quite expensive).

One construction that helps keep the magnets cooler, and which works well in smaller motors, at least—think e-bikes or, maybe, motorcycles—is the outrunner design.

This flips over the roles of the stationary housing and the spinning rotor: the field magnets are placed on the inside perimeter of the housing, which itself spins, so it becomes the rotor, while the stator coils are situated

26

STATOR

Besides being a stronger way to retain the field magnets, burying them also modifies the speed-torque behavior for the better, resulting in a motor that delivers constant power over a wider speed range than its surface-PM (SPM) counterpart.

around the former output shaft, which becomes the bearing surface for the spinning housing. This construction technique also solves another vexing problem with the magnets, which is how to keep them from flying off the rotor from centrifugal force (ignoring the tired old internet argument about how there is no such thing).

However, the armature is the main heat source in any motor, and the outrunner design buries it in the center with no good way of cooling it, so it seems destined to be relegated to relatively low-power traction applications.

Another way to prevent the magnets in a PM rotor from flying off at speed is to bury them inside it, making what is then called an interior-PM synchronous motor (IPM-SM). Besides being a stronger way to retain the field magnets, burying them also modifies the speedtorque behavior for the better, resulting in a motor that delivers constant power over a wider speed range than its surface-PM (SPM) counterpart. The reason for this is that the magnetic field emanating from an SPM rotor smoothly varies from North to South as each magnet spins past, but the field in an IPM-SM rotor has regions of much stronger intensity where the ends of the buried magnets come closest to the surface, contrasted with regions of very little field intensity near the center of each magnet. The more intense field regions are called “salient

poles,” and they interact with the armature to deliver torque in the same manner as in the SPM machine, but the regions of little magnetic field intensity also generate torque because of magnetic reluctance, or the attraction experienced when a magnet (in this case, the stator electromagnet) is brought close to a ferromagnetic material (the steel laminations surrounding the buried magnets in the rotor). The contribution of reluctance torque extends the constant-power speed range all by itself, but burying the field magnets also permits more use of field-weakening, or intentionally timing the current waveforms in the stator to partially counteract the field from the rotor. This reduces torque, of course, but it also reduces back EMF, which would otherwise prevent the inverter from spinning the motor any faster (because the back EMF would then exceed the battery voltage, turning the motor into a generator—this effect is how regenerative braking works, after all). It’s also much safer to apply field-weakening in the IPM motor, because the steel surrounding the magnets will saturate at a lower magnetic field strength than would be needed to demagnetize them, even at their maximum allowed operating temperature. All in all, the IPM design has proven to be a real winner, and has the potential for even more optimization and customization in the future.

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THE TECH

SCALE UP

MICRO SOLID-STATE BATTERIES TO LARGE EV CELLS?

IT’S NOT SO SIMPLE. Q&A with Ilika Technologies

By Charles Morris

very other scientist in the battery world seems to be working on commercializing largescale solid-state batteries for use in EVs. The potential for technical and safety benefits is substantial, so there will be a big pot of gold for those who first make real advancements on the automotive level.

Using solid electrolytes in batteries isn’t all that new, however. For example, there are some smaller applications that have already commercialized micro-solid-state batteries—integrated into the circuit boards of your laptop, or in other electronic applications.

The conventional wisdom, however, is that the process used to make those types of solid-state batteries cannot be cost-effectively scaled up to large-format EV batteries.

To help understand why, Charged recently chatted with Denis Pasero, Product Commercialization Manager for Ilika Technologies, a company that’s been

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working on this problem for over ten years. Pasero explained that these two different types of batteries require two very different manufacturing approaches.

Ilika was founded in 2004 as a spin-out from the School of Chemistry at the University of Southampton.

Since then, it has grown quickly—it made an IPO on the London Stock Exchange in 2010, and now has operations in the US, China and Israel.

The company started out providing materials discovery and optimization services, using high-throughput equipment to develop new materials and chemicals for OEMs. A collaboration with Toyota that began in 2008 steered Ilika in the direction of solid electrolytes, and now the company is firmly focused on solid-state batteries. Ilika is developing two very different kinds of batteries: its Stereax micro-batteries, for such applications as implantable medical devices and automotive sensors; and its newer line of Goliath cells and pouches, aimed at the EV market.

Images courtesy of Ilika Technologies

have an ever-growing number “Weof edge nodes or sensors, which Q Charged: Tell us a bit about your micro-batteries.

A Denis Pasero: These are batteries that would be on

the millimeter scale or maybe a square centimeter scale.

They are flat batteries, which we are developing in order to integrate them into devices such as next-generation implantable devices. These require batteries that are ultra-small, because the devices themselves go inside the heart, inside the lungs, inside the arteries. They need to do all kinds of sensing and measurement, and

need to be very small, and you don’t want to change the batteries regularly, so you need our kind of battery, which is a long-cycle-life battery and very small.

”

they need a battery that’s safe, so it’s not going to explode inside a body.

That’s been a large part of our development, going towards how we can make very energy-dense but ultra-small batteries for medical tech, but also for the

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THE TECH

Internet of Things (IoT) sector, particularly in the industrial environment, where everything is becoming more and more automated and interconnected. We have an ever-growing number of edge nodes or sensors, which need to be very small, and you don’t want to change the batteries regularly, so you need our kind of battery, which is a long-cycle-life battery and very small.

We are developing those batteries for various applications, but have not yet fully commercialized them. We are currently selling other prototype-level batteries. For example, in the industrial IoT world, sensing equipment that goes inside semiconductor furnaces and growth deposition chambers.

When companies make wafers with silicone chips, they need a whole lot of measurements around that. Our batteries go to high temperatures—they go to 150° C, so that works very well inside those furnaces.

We successfully completed a £15-million equity placement a couple weeks back for a proper technology transfer and scale-up into a fabrication facility, so we have a road map, and now the funding, to go into mass production of those batteries.

Q Charged: How did you get into working on automotive batteries?

A Denis Pasero: We started working with Toyota 12

years ago, then we moved away from the EV market for about 10 years, but in those 10 years we gained a lot of expertise in materials and processes. And alongside that, the world is changing, and we began to understand that some of our solid-state battery technology could also be used in electric vehicles. In the last two years we’ve started a project to develop those EV batteries. We are currently being funded by the UK government in a variety of collaboration projects with automotive OEMs, but also design houses and companies that make battery packs and thermal management systems and battery management systems. This is early days for us in this particular market, but we do aim to provide cells for evaluation next year.

Q Charged: Are you trying to adapt the same kind of

chemistry and manufacturing processes from the micro level to the larger cells, or are you working on a separate formulation altogether?

30

that the micro “It’sscalenotisnecessarily easier. It’s more about the equipment used. ”

A Denis Pasero: That’s a good question. This is basically

what we thought about first—can we scale up from milliwatt-hours to watt-hours by using the same chemistry and processes? And, technically, we probably could, but the price would not be attractive at all. Some of the chemistries are quite similar, but the processes needed to be quite different to get to a price point that’s attractive for the EV market. Whereas the micro batteries are deposited in semiconductor-type deposition chambers, the batteries for EVs are deposited with more conventional printing techniques and inks and so forth.

It’s not necessarily that the micro scale is easier. It’s more about the equipment used. The semiconductor industry has equipment already available, which can be adapted to make batteries the size of a silicon chip. This is why we can make those batteries at a similar cost base.

However, this is not equipment that can be adapted for making kilowatt-hours of batteries every day. They don’t have that kind of throughput. It’s a scale thing. The semiconductor industry equipment will make small things at a good price point, but that’s not adapted to making films, roll-to-roll films of great length.

semiconductor industry “The equipment will make small things

at a good price point, but that’s not adapted to making films, roll-toroll films of great length.

”

Q Charged: What is your approach for developing large format solid-state cells?

A Denis Pasero: We’re trying

not to disturb the very active lithium-ion battery technology by using brand new equipment and processes, so we want to be using a lot of similar equipment—inkbased deposition of films on substrates, drying and lamination and so forth. We are trying to integrate as many technologies as possible from the lithium-ion battery world, but there will be some differences. The main difference, of course, is that the electrolyte is not a liquid. It’s not even a polymer or a gel. We are going for completely solid ceramic films. So, the deposition and creation of the electrolyte layer, its interaction with the cathode and anode layer, making sure the interfaces are good, it requires a slightly different type of equipment.

Q Charged: Are you developing

this solid electrolyte with a specific cathode and anode formulation in mind, or do you think it’ll be varied depending on the customer?

A Denis Pasero: At this stage we

are using available formulations from the industry. We are not inventing new anodes or cathodes for this particular purpose. So, this is very much about using current and future materials with new processes. What I mean is that there is a sense that a solid-state battery could use, let’s say high nickel content, NMC materials, or even possibly just pure lithium nickel type materials

Autonomous vehicles require batteries with lasting power.

Visualization of the temperature profile in a liquidcooled Li-ion battery pack.

The stage of the load cycle, potential, local concentration, temperature, and direction of the current all affect the aging and degradation of a battery cell. This is important to consider when developing autonomous vehicles (AVs), which rely on a large number of electronic components to function.

When designing long-lasting batteries that are powerful enough to keep up with energy demands, engineers can turn to simulation.

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THE TECH Image courtesy of Ilika Technologies

much more effectively, in fact in a much more stable manner than a liquid-based electrolyte. The interface between a liquid and such cathodes is well known for not being so stable, but it could be for solid-state materials.

We are going for a full solid-state ceramic film. The gel and polymer electrolytes are sometimes called solid-state as well, so it is confusing. But semi-solid is a better way of describing them. We’re not using these at all.

The advantage of ceramic films is that we believe you can reach much higher energy density than even polymer- or gel-based lithium-ion batteries. Lithium-ion batteries have been evolving for some decades now. Energy density is going a little bit higher every year. There seems to be a theoretical limit for the energy density of conventional lithium-ion batteries, which at some point will plateau. New technologies—lithium air, lithium metal, lithium sulfur, but also solid-state—can theoretically provide up to 500 watt-hours per liter. We’re not there yet of course, but there is the potential. That’s the advantage.

The difficulty is at a technical level. Can you ensure that a solid cathode next to a solid electrolyte next to a solid anode communicate and transfer lithium ions very well?

32

you ensure that a solid “Can cathode next to a solid

electrolyte next to a solid anode communicate and transfer lithium ions very well? That’s actually quite a challenge.

”

That’s actually quite a challenge. You need for those layers to have low resistance at the interfaces, so what you try to do is grade one layer into another. If you don’t do that, you’ll have sluggish, high-energy but low-power batteries. So that’s the challenge, and we’re working very much on making sure the interfaces and the layers are in good contact.

Q Charged: Is that interface challenge mostly about

chemistry or manufacturing techniques?

A Denis Pasero: It’s a mixture of chemistry and

processes. It’s processes that allow a good link between the various components of the batteries. But there are also tricks like additional chemicals at the interfaces, which is also helping.

Q Charged: What are the next

steps for your large-format batteries? What are the nearterm goals?

A Denis Pasero: The first two

years of this endeavor were UK government-funded. And that allowed us to get the basis of some alpha prototype cells. The next step is to increase the energy density and start packing cells into pouch cells and next into packs. We do have partners that are dying to evaluate our batteries, looking for more. But the next step is going from alpha cells to pouch cells, and then to start evaluating them within packs.

Q Charged: What sort of

partners are you looking for?

A Denis Pasero: We’re always going to talk to the end user, the automotive OEMs, because they tell us what they need, and we get the specs straight from their mouth. We are creating a kind of ecosystem, which we call “lead partnership,” of people who know how to design packs, people who know how to design battery management systems, which is not at all in our DNA. But the last thing we want to do is make cells that are irrelevant to the end user, so talking to those people is very useful to us.

THE TECH

AVOIDING MOTOR

DEMAGNETIZATION HOW TO ENSURE

EV TRACTION MOTOR MAGNETS AREN’T PUSHED BEYOND THEIR

OPERATING LIMITS 34

John Wanjiku, Technical Specialist at Mentor Graphics, explains the goals of a detailed traction motor design analysis.

By Tom Lombardo eodymium permanent magnets are used in EV traction motors because of their powerful magnetic fields and relatively strong resistance to demagnetization, but they tend to lose their magnetism when exposed to excessive operating temperatures, opposing magnetic fields or electrical faults. This could lead to a temporary loss of torque or, in severe cases, premature For high-temperature motor failure. operations, if the How can engineers ensure that the motor’s magnets won’t degrade because of these factors? Charged motor is overloaded or spoke with John Wanjiku, a Technical Specialist at a fault occurs, it gets Mentor Graphics, a subsidiary of Siemens, and he walked us through a detailed traction motor demagdemagnetized, and the netization analysis that he recently completed. capacity for that machine “One of the key materials that is used in a traction motor is the permanent magnet,” Wanjiku told to generate torque Charged. “But this is its Achilles heel: it degrades dissipates. when operated beyond its permissible temperature.

So, for high-temperature operations, if the motor is overloaded or a fault occurs, it gets demagFigure 1: FreedomCAR 2020 torque-speed operation targets netized, and the capacity for that machine to generate torque dissipates. This can be instantaneous, or it can be gradual, where the motor’s capacity erodes over time.”

N

“

”

Defining the life, load and duty cycle of a motor “For our analysis,” Wanjiku continued, “we use the FreedomCAR 2020 torque-speed profile (shown in Figure 1) as the benchmark for a motor’s service life. To meet

L. Marlino, FreedomCAR and DOE Roadmap for Automotive Power Electronics, ORNL, APEC 2011 M. Olszewski, FreedomCAR Advanced Traction Drive Motor Development PHASE 1, ORNL, 2006

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THE TECH the vehicle’s specifications, a traction motor must sustain 30 kW of continuous power and deliver 55 kW of peak power for at least 18 seconds. Under these conditions, the motor should last for at least 15 years or 300,000 km (about 190,000 miles) which is the vehicle’s lifetime.”

Ideally, engineers would like an EV motor that is designed to meet the peak torque demand, but doing so would require a motor that’s large, heavy, and expensive—a trifecta of undesirable qualities for an EV powertrain. Wanjiku told us that a smaller, lighter, and less costly motor—one that’s capable of delivering continuous-duty performance efficiently and can occasionally be overloaded when rapid acceleration is needed—is preferable. However, that will require active cooling to ensure that the motor doesn’t exceed its maximum operating temperature when pushed into the overload condition. As we’ll see in Wanjiku’s example, excessive temperature and overloading can permanently damage a traction motor.

Figure 2 is an example of a high-acceleration aggressive driving schedule that results in the intermittent loading of a traction motor. The load variations between 0 and 200 seconds and between 500 and 600 seconds will cause temperature cycling, which accelerates aging. So, a motor’s duty cycle is an important factor in reliability analysis.

Figure 2: A typical driving cycle such as the US06 SFTP driving schedule

EPA US60 or Supplemental Federal Test Procedure (SFTP) Duration: 596 seconds, 8.01 miles,classes Ave Speed: 48.37 mph FigureDistance: 3a: Insulation

Figure 3b: Permissible temperature rise for class H

(© 1996-2018, Electrical Apparatus Service Association, used with permission)

a

motor’s insulation class and “The thermal design are critical for intermittently loaded motors, such as traction motors.

Insulation and temperature limits

”

“At constant speed, the motor will settle at a steady-state temperature because there are no inertial loads,” explained Wanjiku. “In cruise control mode, you mainly have to overcome the drag force to maintain the speed.

But when you accelerate or decelerate, inertia comes into play. Hence, the motor’s insulation class and thermal design are critical for intermittently loaded motors, such as traction motors.”

36

b

“This is because a motor’s temperature limit determines its peak torque capability and service life,” he continued. “So, the designer selects the insulation class according to the budget and expected motor life, and that, in turn, determines the highest operating temperature, as shown in Figure 3a. For our discussion, we’ll choose a class H insulator, which has a 20,000-hour lifespan as long as its temperature doesn’t exceed 180° C.” (Note: 20,000 hours is equivalent to driving an average of 3.5 hours a day for about fifteen years.)

Figure 4a: Temperature: linear (dashed lines); nonlinear (solid lines) Figure 4b: Opposing field demagnetization

a

b

Conventionally, the motor service life is based primarily on the class of the insulators that are used to build it.

Figure 3a tells us: • For a given winding temperature limit, the higher the class, the longer the service life.

• As the winding temperature in a given class increases, the service life decreases exponentially. (Note that the Y-axis is on a logarithmic scale.) In this case, for every 10° C increase in temperature, the insulator’s life is cut in half.

“The insulation class is based on the lowest class of the insulators used to build the motor, such as the wire enamel coating, slot-liners, impregnating varnish, etc,” explained Wanjiku. “In addition to this, permanent magnet grades have their own operating temperature limits.

Since most EV traction motors are permanent magnet motors because of their higher power density, efficiency and power factor, the temperature limit must consider both the insulation class and the permanent magnet material.”

“EV traction motors are expected to operate in ambient temperatures between -40 and 105° C,” he added.

That is, the ride experience should be independent of the location. “Figure 3b shows that as ambient temperature increases, the permissible temperature rise (due to loading) decreases. So, to meet the same load torques at higher ambient temperatures, the motor must be adequately cooled to keep its winding temperature below 180° C.”

Demagnetization

To minimize weight, most EVs employ permanent magnet motors rather than induction motors. However, magnet materials not only degrade with an increase in temperature, but also in strong opposing fields, such as the magnetic field induced by the stator’s coils, which is increased during higher speeds (field weakening), overload and fault conditions.

Wanjiku described Figure 4a, which shows flux density (B) vs coercive force (H) at different temperatures. “We can see the demagnetization characteristic of this particular material. The dashed lines represent a linear model, which assumes that the magnetic field will recover once the coercive force is removed. The solid lines, however, acknowledge that there’s a point of no return—the ‘knee’ of the curve—at which the magnet will be permanently

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THE TECH damaged. At higher temperatures, the knee is reached with less coercive force.”

In other words, the higher the temperature, the easier it is to permanently damage the magnet through coercive forces caused by opposing magnetic fields.

“Figure 4b,” he continued, “shows the progression of a magnet’s characteristic when an opposing sinusoidal field is applied to it. In every half cycle, the external field pushes the magnet beyond the knee, making it recoil in a new, but lower, characteristic, indicating a loss of magnetization.”

We can see that the magnet’s material affects a motor’s maximum operating temperature, which, in turn, limits its peak torque capability. Since magnetization loss is permanent for high-energy traction motors, engineers must verify that their motors can withstand increases in peak demand as well as temperature in order to prevent demagnetization.

Figure 6: Peak load demagnetization analysis at 120° C

a

b

Figure 5: The 42 slots/8 poles traction motor model and operating points used in the demagnetization analysis

c

d 5 ms

20 ms

e Peak Power: 60 kW Peak Torque: 207 Nm at 3000 rpm Continuous Power: 30 kW Continuous Torque: 100 Nm at 3000 rpm

Frequency: 200 Hz At 3000 rpm Magnet Grade: N42 Current: Sinusoidal

Demagnetization analysis

“An electromagnetic reliability assessment should include a realistic demagnetization analysis that considers both current and temperature effects under normal loads, brief overloads (e.g. up to 18 seconds), and extended-speed operations,” explained Wanjiku.

“In the following analysis, we used Siemens’ Simcenter MAGNET software to model the various scenarios for a motor similar to that of a 2010 Toyota Prius. The model was reduced to a 2D pole section shown in Figure 5 and analyzed at the operating points specified in the table.”

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Scenario 1: Peak demand

The purpose of this analysis is to ensure that the magnets are not degraded because of peak torque demand. In this case, the continuous torque of 100 Nm (with the motor delivering 30 kW) was ramped up to a peak of 200 Nm (pushing the motor to 60 kW), by increasing the current as shown in Figure 6a, with a corresponding increase in

torque. Two magnet models are used: the non-demag linear and the demag irreversible models. In this scenario, winding temperature is held constant at 120° C. Wanjiku interpreted Figure 6c: “We can see the state of the magnet before and after increasing the current. At 5 ms, the motor is operating in continuous mode, and the magnets are not demagnetized. But at 20 ms, which occurs after the current reaches its peak, the motor experiences partial demagnetization, which lowers the torque by 4%.”

So, what happened to the magnets in the partially demagnetized regions? Wanjiku told us that to analyze this, the B and H fields were sampled at a selected point in the partially demagnetized region. Samples were taken at all three stages of acceleration: • Stage one is the continuous operating mode, in which the magnet recoils on the same characteristic for both the non-demag linear and the demag irreversible models, as seen in Figure 6e.

• During stage two, in which the current is ramping up, the demag irreversible model reveals that progressive demagnetization occurs as the material is pushed below the knee and recoils in a newer, but lower, characteristic.

• Finally, in stage three, we can see that the current settles at a higher value, and the magnet recoils in an even lower characteristic.

THE TECH Under all field conditions at a constant temperature, the non-demag linear model that only accounts for temperature will recoil on the same characteristic, which overestimates the motor performance under peak and fault conditions. Clearly, the demag irreversible model is more accurate, as it accounts for both field and temperature demagnetization, as well as the magnetization history shown in Figure 6e. This is the reason that traction motors should be analyzed under all conditions, particularly under acceleration, which requires the motor to be briefly overloaded.

this motor were in the field, it “Ifwould fail prematurely. Therefore, traction motor peak operation should be verified at the expected elevated temperatures.

”

Figure 7: Thermal and peak-load demagnetization analysis at 150° C

Scenario 2: Thermal and peak demand

This condition is similar to Scenario 1 in terms of the current profile associated with a higher torque demand, but it also takes thermal effects into account. In this case, a higher temperature (150° C) lowers the magnet’s knee, as seen in the nonlinear curves of Figure 4a, which causes irreparable damage to occur even sooner than in the previous scenario.

“For the non-demag linear model, the effect of temperature is minimal: about a 2% overall reduction in torque (Figure 7a),” noted Wanjiku. “This is because of the slight difference in the magnet characteristic at the two temperatures, as highlighted by the arrows in Figure 4a. Remember that this model does not account for field demagnetization, so it always recoils on the same characteristic for a given temperature.”

However, Wanjiku said that under the demag irreversible model, the effect of both the higher temperature and higher current is significant: a 27% reduction in torque, as indicated in Figure 7b. This is because a combination of higher temperatures and demagnetizing currents lowers the field needed to demagnetize the magnets significantly, and it was exacerbated by the choice of the low-temperature-tolerance magnets.

Wanjiku elaborated: “In Figures 7c and 7d, we see that at 5 ms the magnets are not significantly demagnetized, but at 20 ms, severe demagnetization results in a 27% loss of torque. If this motor were in the field, it would fail prematurely. Therefore, traction motor peak operation should be verified at the expected elevated temperatures.”

Scenario 3: Short-circuit fault

Wanjiku illustrated a situation in which a short circuit can result in demagnetization. “In Figure 8a, we see that a 5 ms short-circuit occurred at 10 ms. Figures 8a and 8b

40

a

b

c

d

5 ms

20 ms

show the phase A back EMF and three-phase short-circuit fault currents, respectively.”

“Similar to the higher current demagnetization that we saw in scenario one,” he observed, “at 5 ms, no demagnetization occurs; but at 20 ms, some partial demagnetization happens after the short-circuit fault (Figures 8c and

8d). This effectively lowers the peak back EMF by about 8% (Figure 8a).”

In stage one, the demag irreversible and non-demag linear models recoil on the same characteristic. However, in stage two, with the rapid increase of the short-circuit currents, immediate demagnetization occurs at the sample point. The material is forced to recoil at a lower characteristic in stage three.

“In this scenario,” Wanjiku explained, “there is no progressive demagnetization in stage two, but a ‘jump’ to a lower magnetization state. Why is this important in fault analysis? It means that both the magnitude and the rise time of the fault currents determine the final magnetization state, and this should be factored into short-circuit fault mitigation.”

the magnitude and “Both the rise time of the fault

Figure 8: Three-phase short circuit fault demagnetization analysis at 120° C

a

b

currents determine the final magnetization state, and this should be factored into shortcircuit fault mitigation.

”

The purpose of this work is to highlight the importance of a rigorous demagnetization analysis that accurately reproduces the operating and fault conditions, allowing engineers to determine the traction motor’s operating envelope for effective monitoring, control, and fault mitigation.

By examining the demagnetization characteristics of neodymium magnets and the factors that can erode their magnetic fields, EV traction motors designers can better understand the short-term and long-term effects of excessive heat, repeated overloads, and internal short-circuits on a motor’s torque, efficiency, and motor life.

c

d

5 ms

20 ms

e

For more details about Wanjiku’s work, read the full white paper (Effects of incorporating permanent magnet demagnetization in the simulations of modern electric machines for electric vehicles), available here: ChargedEVs.com/Motor-Demagnetize

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THE VEHICLES Image courtesy of General Motors

Image courtesy of Volkswagen

GM and Honda to jointly VW ID.4 already in production, develop two new EVs for North will be about the size of Tesla America Model Y, sell for $40k General Motors and Honda have agreed to jointly develop two all-new EVs—and not just for China! The two new models will be based on GM’s new global EV platform and Ultium batteries, and will be produced at GM plants in North America. They will bear Honda nameplates, and the exteriors and interiors will be designed exclusively by Honda.

Sales are expected to begin in the 2024 model year in Honda’s US and Canadian markets.

GM and Honda have been cooperating on electrification for some time. The two have worked together on battery modules, fuel cells and the Cruise Origin, an electric self-driving vehicle that was revealed in San Francisco earlier this year.

“This collaboration will put together the strength of both companies, while combined scale and manufacturing efficiencies will ultimately provide greater value to customers,” said Rick Schostek, Executive VP of American Honda. “This expanded partnership will unlock economies of scale to accelerate our electrification roadmap and advance our industry-leading efforts to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.”

“This agreement builds on our proven relationship with Honda, and further validates the technical advancements and capabilities of our Ultium batteries and our all-new EV platform,” said GM Executive VP Doug Parks. “It is another step on our journey to an all-electric future and delivering a profitable EV business through increased scale and capacity utilization.”

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Volkswagen’s ID.3 will be a milestone vehicle—the company’s first EV based on the new MEB platform.

Unfortunately, deliveries have been delayed by software problems, and are now expected to take place in a big batch this summer. It’s also unfortunate that VW has no plans to sell the small electric hatch in North America, but this was probably the right decision, bein’ as how us ‘Mericans don’t cotton to little bitty cars.

However, VW has another, potentially even more exciting MEB-based EV in the pipeline, and a sneak peek at the company’s Zwickau factory indicates that it’s already in production.

The VW ID.4 is an electric crossover based on the ID CROZZ concept, and it’s expected to be similar in size and range to Tesla’s Model Y (a planned unveiling in April got scotched, alas). Electrek reports that VW plans to “produce and sell the ID.4 in Europe, China and the US,” and that the starting price is expected to be around $40,000.

Now German YouTuber nextmove, an assiduous observer of VW’s electric efforts, has made a video about a recent visit to the Zwickau factory. He saw several things that he agreed not to talk about (and Germans tend to take such undertakings seriously), but he did mention that he saw the ID.4 being produced at the facility.

VW plans to convert the Zwickau plant to 100% EV production, and has promised to crank out 100,000 ID.3 and ID.4 units this year.

GM exec: There will be “no slowdown” to EV programs GM is one of several automakers that had ambitious EV plans in the pipeline before the global health crisis hit. Now lockdowns are being lifted, but the outlook for the auto industry is bleak. Will GM’s EV programs fall victim to cost-cutting, as a planned Lincoln/Rivian collaboration already has?

Ken Morris, a 31-year GM veteran who was recently named Vice President for Electric and Autonomous Vehicles, says no. In a wide-ranging interview with Automobile, he said that GM will be all-electric “sooner than people would think.”Automobile asked Morris if pandemic-related shutdowns will put the brakes on GM’s electrification efforts. “For what you saw at EV Day [at which GM revealed plans for a dozen new EVs], we’re full speed ahead,” he answered. “We’re protecting these programs as much as we possibly can. Engineers [and] designers are working from home, but they’re going through extraordinary lengths to make sure that we’re maintaining the timing on the programs. My guess is when we’re able to come back to work and we’re able to get our hands on hardware and clay models and all those things, we may have to work harder, maybe put more resources on these programs to keep them on time. But there’s no slowdown, none.”

GM did indefinitely postpone the unveiling of the GMC Hummer EV and the electric Cadillac Lyriq crossover, but of course, the cancellation of these press events doesn’t mean that production will be delayed.

Automobile also asked Morris how the collapse of oil prices will affect GM’s EV sales. “The beauty of electric vehicles is [they are] largely independent of fuel prices, because there are a couple of things that are important,” said he. “One, we feel so strongly about electric vehicles because [GM’s] mission statement is zero crashes, zero emissions, and zero congestion.

Electric vehicles are zero-emissions right out of the box. Two, you also talk about the driving experience and the ownership experience. You don’t have to go to the gas station at all. You can charge at home, you can charge at work, you can charge at the rapidly growing infrastructure that has charge stations around the country.”

The transition won’t happen overnight. “If you can sell a vehicle that doesn’t use any gas at all for the same price of a vehicle that does burn gas, you don’t have to do that math of, is it worth the payback or not? We’re not there yet. Today we’re getting much closer. The research does tell us that for now a customer will pay a select premium for an EV vehicle, but they’re not going to pay a big premium. And so, our job is to [get prices down as much as we can].”

“My hope and gut feel is that there’s going to be an inflection point in the mid-2020s where suddenly people are going to be buying [EVs] at a faster rate than anybody expects, just because the driving experience on these vehicles is fantastic,” Morris continued.

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THE VEHICLES Image courtesy of DAF

DAF’s CF Electric refuse truck begins field tests in the Netherlands As part of a field test of four comparable vehicles, the first DAF CF Electric 6×2 refuse collection truck has begun operations with Dutch public waste disposal firm ROVA. The vehicle will serve the Dutch city of Zwolle.

Since the end of 2018, DAF CF Electric 4×2 tractors have been in operation for inner-city distribution with several Dutch and German transport companies and supermarket chains.

The electric 6×2 chassis is a 3-axle vehicle that offers a payload of up to 28 tons GVW, and—thanks to a steered trailing axle—excellent maneuverability, which is a huge advantage for waste collection vehicles operating in dense urban areas.

The DAF CF Electric features a VDL electric powertrain alongside a fully electric VDL refuse collection superstructure. The VDL E-power driveline provides 210 kW of power and 2,000 Nm of torque. The battery pack has a gross energy capacity of 170 kWh, which is expected to be sufficient for covering regular garbage collection routes. Waste collection trucks typically return to the depot every few hours to unload. The DAF CF Electric can recharge up to 80% battery capacity in 30 minutes.

“The DAF CF Electric is just as good and easy to operate as any conventionally powered truck,” says ROVA General Director Marco van Lente. “It is in our DNA to take care of the future of our planet, and the use of low-emission vehicles is part of our sustainability plan.”

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Image courtesy of Lilium

Electric aircraft maker Lilium completes $240-million funding round Munich-based aviation company Lilium is developing an all-electric, vertical take-off and landing (eVTOL) aircraft designed to serve regional air travel markets.

The company recently completed a $240-million funding round led by Tencent, with participation from other existing investors, including Atomico, Freigeist and LGT. The latest round brings the total sum raised to date to over $340 million. The new funding will be used to support further development of the Lilium Jet, and to prepare for serial production at Lilium’s newly-completed manufacturing facilities.

The Lilium Jet is a brand-new type of aircraft that’s designed to make regional journeys considerably faster than rail or road, yet at a competitive price. The five-seat demonstrator aircraft first flew in May 2019, and recently completed the first stage of flight testing, flying at speeds exceeding 100 km/h.

Lilium intends not only to design and manufacture the electric plane, but also to operate a regional air mobility service in several regions around the world.

“This additional funding underscores the deep confidence our investors have in both our physical product and our business case,” said Lilium CFO Christopher Delbrück. “We’re pleased to be able to complete an internal round with them, having benefited greatly from their support and guidance over the past few years. The new funds will enable us to take big strides towards our shared goal of delivering regional air mobility as early as 2025.”

BMW reveals specs, pricing for 2021 330e plug-in sedan

NEW PRODUCT

Images courtesy of BMW

BMW recently revealed the 2021 330e plug-in hybrid, along with an all-wheeldrive variant, the 330e xDrive.

The new sedan sports a 2.0-liter BMW TwinPower Turbo engine with 181 hp and 258 lb-ft (350 N·m) of torque, paired with an electric motor cranking out 107 hp and 77 lb-ft (104 N·m) of torque. A 12 kWh (9.09 kWh net) battery pack is located underneath the rear seats. Electric range is estimated at 22 miles (20 miles for the xDrive version), and MPGe is estimated at 75 (67 for the xDrive). Acceleration from 0-60 is 5.6 seconds (5.7 seconds for the xDrive).

Both versions feature an 8-speed Sport Steptronic transmission that intelligently adapts its shifting strategy for different driving situations. For example, the transmission can use data from the navigation system and radar sensor to avoid unnecessary gear changes when negotiating fast corners, or to downshift when approaching a vehicle ahead.

There’s a huge array of standard and optional driver assistance systems, including Active Cruise Control with Stop and Go braking function, Frontal Collision Warning, Lane Departure Warning, Blind Spot Detection, Rear Collision Protection, Cross-Traffic Alert, Parking Assistance, and (one I’d really like to try) the Extended Traffic Jam Assistant.

The standard Active Protection for Pedestrians features an exterior speaker system to generate “an unmistakable sound created specifically for electrified BMWs” when operating in electric mode at speeds up to 20 mph.

Both models should be on sale in the US by press time. MSRP is $44,550 for the 330e and $46,550 for the 330e xDrive (plus a $995 destination charge).

Motor Authority notes that BMW was previously expected to launch an all-electric 3 Series, but that model has probably been dropped in favor of the upcoming i4, which is scheduled to launch in 2021.

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THE VEHICLES Image courtesy of Daimler

Image courtesy of Renault

Daimler becomes the latest automaker to abandon hydrogen-powered passenger cars Renault to sell only electric cars in China Renault has announced that in the future, it will concentrate on electric vehicles and light commercial vehicles in the Chinese market. The French automaker has withdrawn from its joint venture with Dongfeng, under which it had built ICE vehicles, including the Captur, Kadjar and Koleos SUVs, in Wuhan.

The Renault Group set up joint ventures to produce EVs and light commercial vehicles in the Chinese market in 2017 and 2018. Now the French group says it has “cut [its] losses with the business of fossil-fueled private vehicles in China.” (If we’re parsing this correctly, the group will still sell ICE-powered commercial vehicles, but not passenger vehicles, in China.)

The French automaker will continue to produce EVs with its JV partners eGT New Energy Automotive (which builds the City K-ZE) and Jiangxi Jiangling Group Electric Vehicle (JMEV). Renault and Dongfeng have not entirely severed their connection: Dongfeng holds 50 percent of the shares in eGT New Energy.

“We are opening a new chapter in China,” says Francois Provost, Renault’s China Region Chairman. “We will focus on electric vehicles and light commercial vehicles, the two main drivers of future clean mobility, and more efficiently leverage our relationship with Nissan.”

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Mercedes-Benz has ended its development of fuel cell-powered passenger cars, saying that they would be too expensive—around double the cost to produce of comparable battery-electric vehicles. The company has been working on fuel cell technology for over 30 years.

Mercedes says it will wind down production of the GLC F-Cell, which was developed in a 2013 collaboration with Ford and Nissan. Mercedes was the only automaker of the three partners to produce a vehicle under the program. It built a few hundred units of the GLC F-Cell, and provided them to business partners and a few fleet operators, but never offered the model for sale to the public.

Other automakers have also recently retreated from fuel cell development. Last November, Honda said it would put fuel cell vehicles on a back burner (and phase out diesels). In March, Volkswagen explained in detail why it decided that batteries are a superior solution for passenger cars.

BMW, Hyundai, and Toyota continue to pursue fuel cell vehicles.

Even as automakers abandon hydrogen as a storage medium for passenger cars, many clean energy advocates argue that the technology may have a role to play: in industrial processes; as a propellant for ocean-going ships; and possibly for heavy-duty long-haul trucks. In fact, Daimler recently formed a new joint venture with Volvo for “development and large-scale production of fuel cells for applications in heavy-duty vehicles and other use cases.”

Audi plans battery assembly plant in Germany German automakers know they need to establish a European battery industry, and they’re taking steps to chip away at the stranglehold Asian firms have on the market.

Audi is reportedly planning an assembly plant for EV battery packs near its plant in Ingolstadt, Germany.

Electrive, citing the Korean blog Guru, tells us that Audi intends to assemble cells supplied by LG Chem into ready-to-install battery packs at the new plant. Audi already uses cells from longtime supplier LG in several models built at Ingolstadt. The German automaker also uses cells from Samsung SDI. Meanwhile, LG Chem is planning a major expansion of its battery cell production in Europe. The European Investment Bank has agreed to lend the Korean cell manufacturer €480 million to expand the capacity of an ex-

Image courtesy of Audi

isting plant in Wroclaw, Poland. The €1.5-billion project is expected to increase LG Chem’s production capacity in Wroclaw to about 65 GWh per year.

LG Chem has already bought a 223,000-square-meter factory, formerly used to build TVs, near its existing cell plant in Wroclaw.

THE VEHICLES Image courtesy of Toyota

VW to shift to dealer agency model for EV sales in Germany It’s no secret that auto dealerships are a major bottleneck for EV sales. Legacy automakers may cast an envious eye on Tesla’s direct-to-customer sales model, but they cannot practically (or legally) cut the dealers out of the equation. Now Volkswagen may have found a way to solve this dilemma, at least in Germany.

VW has announced that its German dealerships will not be the primary point of contact for buyers of the new ID family of EVs. Rather, customers will place their orders directly with Volkswagen, and choose a local dealer, which will act as an agent. Dealerships will provide test drives, finalize transactions, and deliver the vehicles.

Prices and dealership commissions will be fixed.

This neatly eliminates several of the problems with selling EVs through the traditional dealership model.

Dealers will no longer have an incentive (nor will they have the opportunity) to steer potential EV customers to gas or diesel vehicles. Sales associates don’t need to become EV experts, or do the extra work required to sell an unfamiliar product. The salesperson simply hands over the vehicle, the dealership gets paid, and everybody’s happy.

“All our partners are now 100% on board,” said Holger B. Santel, Head of VW Sales in Germany. “From the customer’s perspective, Volkswagen and retail become one unit with the agency model. And this seamless, coordinated shopping experience at all touchpoints is exactly what our customers want.”

The new model also offers financial benefits for dealerships. “The dealer no longer has to finance vehicles in advance,” Santel explained. “We also bear inventory cost and the costs associated with showroom vehicles. We are offering dealers an extremely attractive leasing concept for demonstration vehicles.”

“The agency model brings significant financial relief for dealers, and that is particularly important at the present time,” said Dirk Weddigen von Knapp, Chairperson of the Volkswagen and Audi partner association. “Our partners can, therefore, focus on what makes retail so indispensable: personal, competent customer care.”

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Toyota RAV4 Prime PHEV boasts 42-mile electric range, $38k base price Toyota has announced pricing for its upcoming RAV4 Prime. The PHEV version of the company’s popular small SUV is slated to go on sale this summer. The base SE trim will start at $38,100, and the XSE trim will start at $41,425.

The RAV4 Prime boasts an electric range of 42 miles, which compares favorably with most of today’s PHEVs. (The longest range currently available is the Honda Clarity’s 48 miles; the doomed Chevy Volt offered 53 miles; and the upcoming Polestar 1 is targeting 60 miles.)

Toyota’s new plug-in features on-demand AWD, generates up to 302 hp, and aspires to do 0-60 mph in 5.7 seconds, making it the quickest four-door model in Toyota’s lineup. The base model comes with a 3.3 kW onboard charger. A 6.6 kW charger is available as part of a $5,760 premium options package.

Considering the success of Toyota’s Prius Prime—it was the second best-selling plug-in in the US last year, after the Tesla Model 3—and the popularity of the legacy RAV4, we’d expect Toyota to have a winner on its hands here. But of course, this is Toyota, which paradoxically pioneered and pooh-poohs electrified conveyances. The EV gurus are skeptical. Electrek’s Fred Lambert gives the RAV4 Prime “a qualified thumbs-up.” John Voelcker expects Toyota to sell every unit it builds—but that might not be many, as the company is likely to limit sales to the ZEV states.

Colorado adds medium- and heavy-duty vehicles to its electrification plans Governments around the world are pursuing policies to speed up EV adoption, but most are piecemeal—a purchase incentive here, an investment in EVSE there. California and the UK are among the few entities that are developing comprehensive plans to electrify all forms of transport.

The Centennial State is moving closer to that ideal, and is trying not to let the COVID-19 crisis derail its electrification plans, as the Colorado Sun reports.

The Colorado Energy Office recently introduced its updated 2020 Electric Vehicle Plan, which for the first time describes the electrification of medium- and heavy-duty vehicles. The plan also reiterates the goal of increasing the number of EVs in state fleets, and the objective of having 940,000 EVs on Colorado roads by 2030.

“This plan is the first time Colorado has set a goal to transition all vehicles to clean, zero-pollution energy,” Travis Madsen, Transportation Program Director for the Southwest Energy Efficiency Project, told the Sun. “To date, the work in Colorado has primarily focused on light-duty vehicles,” said Will Toor, Executive Director of the Colorado Energy Office.

However, thanks to funds from the Volkswagen settlement, the state has made progress in “electrifying transit fleets and other heavy-duty fleets and [deploying] 1,000 electric buses by 2030.” He said state officials hope to have a plan in place by July 2021, with the goal of electrifying all heavy-duty vehicles by 2050.

Colorado has advanced several EV-friendly policies over the past couple of years: last August, it adopted California’s zero-emissions vehicle mandate; in March, it clarified that EV-makers would be allowed to sell directly to consumers, a boon for Tesla and Rivian.

More clean transportation bills are in the pipeline, including one that would establish a petroleum redevelopment fund and another that would mandate a blend of biodiesel. However, these were in legislative limbo at press time because of the ongoing public health crisis.

“Unfortunately, we just don’t have certainty right now,” said Samantha Lichtin, Legislative Liaison for the Colorado Energy Office. “This legislative session may not accomplish all of the pieces that individuals have been working hard on. We’re looking forward to next year’s session and having a full plate of electrification work.”

“We will be doing our best to meet the timelines that have been identified in support of our broader goals,” said Will Toor.

THE VEHICLES

THE VEHICLES

BYD to launch Tang electric SUV in Norway, sets out EV expansion strategy for Europe

Images courtesy of BYD

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Chinese EV powerhouse BYD has big plans to sell EVs in Europe. The first move will be the introduction of the second-generation Tang electric compact SUV to the Norwegian market.

The BYD Tang EV600 features permanent all-wheel drive, and a 373-mile NEDC range. Pricing will be announced later this year.

BYD is already selling electric buses in European markets. The company plans to bring a full range of commercial EVs to Europe later this year, including a panel van, 7.5-ton and 19-ton distribution trucks, and a yard tractor.

“The Norwegian market is the natural choice for BYD to start this trial as we look to expand our EV presence in Europe,” said Isbrand Ho, Managing Director, BYD Europe. “Norway is the most advanced market in Europe when it comes to the widespread adoption and usage of electric vehicles, as well as possessing a comprehensive charging network. We will closely evaluate how the market performs, but, in the longer term, it is our aim to expand passenger car sales beyond Norway.”

California proposes to enact ZEV mandate for commercial vehicles The California Air Resources Board (CARB) has released the final draft of the Advanced Clean Trucks standard. The latest proposal, which is stronger than previous drafts, is the first in the nation that would create a zero-emission mandate for trucks.

The proposed rule would require automakers to sell a certain percentage of zero-emission trucks each year. It would require some 4,000 electric trucks to be sold in 2024 (out of an estimated 75,000 total sales). CARB estimates that at least 20% of the trucks on the road would be electric by 2035.

The rule imposes different quotas for different classes of vehicles. For semi-tractors, 40% of units sold in California would have to be zero-emission by 2035. For smaller trucks such as the Ford F-250, the quota is 55%, and for delivery trucks and vans, it is 75%.

The policy applies to companies that sell more than 500 trucks per year in the state. Manufacturers currently meeting that threshold are: Daimler (Freightliner, Western Star), Paccar (Kenworth, Peterbilt), Navistar (International, IC Bus), Ford, GM (Chevrolet, GMC), Fiat Chrysler (Dodge), Nissan, Isuzu, Toyota (Hino), and the Volvo Group.

According to Electrek, there are now more than 70 electric trucks and buses available from 27 manufacturers.

The Union of Concerned Scientists (UCS) hailed the new rule, but said it doesn’t go far enough: “The new proposal is a big step in the right direction and perhaps the most significant policy for electric trucks to date anywhere. Even colleagues in China, a country with the largest deployment of electric trucks and buses, are watching what CARB does next. But the numbers show that this policy alone won’t transition the heavy-duty vehicle sector from one fueled by diesel to one powered by batteries and hydrogen.”

UCS notes that trucks and buses contribute disproportionately to air pollution. A 2019 report found that America’s 28 million trucks and buses represent 10% of all vehicles, but contribute 28% of carbon emissions from the transportation sector, as well as 45% of nitrous oxides and 57% of particulate matter pollution.

On the other hand, this mandate, limited though it is, could be an incentive for manufacturers to eventually electrify their entire fleets. “This will be transformative,” said Earthjustice attorney Paul Cort. “At some point, these manufacturers are going to realize it doesn’t make sense to be making zero-emission trucks and combustion trucks to serve the same market.”

The California Trucking Association takes another view. “It’s disheartening to see regulations get stricter when the economy is in freefall and businesses are in survival mode,” said VP Chris Shimoda. “In the face of a generational recession, we’d urge the Air Board to exercise caution.”

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Y

THE VEHICLES

TESLA MODEL

By Charles Morris

Tesla refines its formula with its latest model

Image courtesy of EVANNEX

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very Tesla model has arguably been a historic vehicle. The Roadster was the first EV to offer the performance and aesthetics that attract car buyers. Model S was the first mass-produced EV to deliver this combination, and Model X delivered it as an SUV. Model 3, the culmination of the company’s master plan, was the first to bring this winning formula to the mid-priced segment. With the new Model Y, Tesla has refined all the features of Model 3 in a form factor aimed squarely at the most popular market segment in the world.

This revolutionary new EV arrived on the market with unfortunate timing. Tesla was just beginning customer deliveries when the COVID-19 pandemic forced the company to more or less shut down operations for weeks.

When we started work on this article, the best estimates were that only a couple thousand people, all in the US, had received their Model Ys. We were able to interview two of the fortunate few, both of them long-time Tesla

E

observers in very different fields, one on the drivers’ side and one a manufacturing expert.

Driving Model Y

Roger Pressman probably knows as much about Tesla vehicles, at least from the consumer standpoint, as anyone in the world. Roger is the founder of EVannex, a manufacturer and distributor of aftermarket accessories for Teslas. He has owned all four of Tesla’s mass-market models (you might say he’s a S3XY guy) and in the course of developing products for them, has minutely measured and examined each one. At the time we spoke, Roger had been driving his Y for about a month, and he shared his first impressions with us.

“The key word for the whole car is refined,” Roger told Charged. “I’ve driven all four cars, as a daily driver or a family car for long trips. Obviously, the S and X have more luxury features and a more luxury feel. They’re bigger cars, and they have some bells and whistles that

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the Y doesn’t have. However, pretty much all the other characteristics of the car represent a refinement of the entire Tesla line, and that’s a really good thing. I think Tesla’s learned a lot over the last eight years, and the Y is a culmination of that.”

Twin vehicles Tesla has said all along that Model Y would be based on Model 3. In January 2019, Elon Musk said that the two would share 76% of the same components, which would allow Tesla to leverage economies of scale and greater efficiency, not only in its supply chain, but also in terms of the supply of parts to its service centers. (Tesla had a similar goal for Model X, but the list of new features for the SUV ballooned, and it ended up sharing only about 30% of its parts with Model S.) The first question we asked Roger was how Models 3 and Y differ. “With regard to functionality per se, there isn’t a whole lot of difference between Y and 3,” he told us. “But I could think of lots of little things that are really cool. You have the hatchback on the Y, which is automatic, pops up nice and smoothly and slowly. You don’t have that on Model 3—in order to achieve it you have to buy an aftermarket product.”

One noticeable change is that the front and rear tires are different sizes. The rears are 275 mm wide, and the fronts are 255 (most observers expect this to be the case only for the Performance model, but that remains to be confirmed).

Some may complain that this arrangement prevents you from rotating the tires, but it has advantages, as Roger explains.

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“I think Tesla’s learned a lot

over the last eight years, and the Y is a culmination of that.”

“It gives the car a very aggressive look, and visually gives you the feel of a wider car than it really is. When you look at it from the rear particularly, it has a feel of a wide stance.

Wider tires and a slightly wider feel to the car gives you better cornering capability, better traction on the road.

Handling of this car for an SUV is remarkable.

“Having driven Model 3 for two years, I do think it’s probably a little better driver’s car—just a little, not a lot. It’s lower, has a lower stance. You just have a little bit better feel for the road. But Model Y is amazing for an SUV or crossover. That’s a perception thing, but a Model 3 Performance really is a driver’s car—doesn’t lean, brakes well, holds the road, doesn’t feel particularly light at high speed. A Model Y has those characteristics, but you could tick it down just a little bit because it’s an SUV.” When it comes to the interior, and the vehicle functions, Models 3 and Y are pretty much the same except for one key attribute. Long-time Charged readers may be tired of hearing me harp on interior storage space, but this is very important for some buyers, and it has always been a sore spot with EVs. Actually, not with Teslas—in fact, one of

Images courtesy of EVANNEX

the brand’s selling points has always been how much they can haul, thanks to their skateboard battery configuration.

Model 3 doesn’t have much storage space (15.0 cubic feet), and nobody ever claimed it did—Model Y, however, is quite a different animal.

“One thing that’s shocking on the car is its interior volume,” Roger told me. “It really can hold a lot of stuff—that’s another pleasant surprise when you get the car.” I was very surprised to learn that Model Y actually has more space with the seats folded down (68.0 cubic feet) than the famously roomy Model S (60.2), and not that much less than the massive Model X (87.8). Roger has X and a Y sitting next to each other in his garage. “The Y isn’t much smaller when you’re standing at the hatch gate and looking in.”

As musicians, sports enthusiasts and other lovers of material goods know, storage isn’t just about cubic feet—it’s also about the design and how easy it is to load stuff in and out. Model Y has very little liftover in the back, making it easy to load heavy objects, and the seats fold almost flat, making it easy to slide ‘em in. “It’s close to a flat floor,” says Roger. “When you fold down the second-row seats, there’s a slight angle—they don’t go dead flat, but very few cars do, actually. There’s a button in the back which allows you to lower the seat backs of the second row so you can throw some stuff in quickly without having to walk around the car and open the door. The other thing that’s nice is that the center portion of the second row folds down without the other two sides folding down. So, if you have something long and narrow, like a piece of lumber, you just fold that down, shove it in the car, and you’re good to go.”

Will Model Y take off, or take over?

Roger kept coming back to the word refinement. “I really do think from an industry point of view as well as a product line point of view, Model Y represents a refinement of all the ideas that have been integrated into Tesla’s other vehicles, and I believe that’s a very good sign for the company. I think ultimately Model Y is going to be the biggest-selling car in the line.

“It is remarkably better looking in person than it is in either video or in photos. It’s really shocking. The car looks like a small typical SUV with a Tesla feel in photos and in video.

“With regard to performance, it’s cool. I have a Performance Y, so when you come up to a stoplight, pretty much no matter who’s next to you, they’re not going to stay with you. I mean, 3.5 seconds from 0 to 60 is really fast. Most drivers on the road now recognize, you don’t

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Images courtesy of EVANNEX

mess with a Tesla, and the Model Y exemplifies that. It may look like just a small SUV, but it ain’t. It’s a performance car and it acts like it.”

The start of Model Y deliveries should have been the automotive story of the year, a gathering wave of rave user videos and media reviews. The coronavirus crisis brought it all to a screeching halt, and by the time the pandemic passes, the launch will be old news. Tesla was robbed of its big media splash—will that hurt Model Y sales? “I don’t think it’s going to make a bit of difference,” says Roger. “I think once things open up again, this car is going to take off, once people see it on the street.”

As you may recall, the market launch of Model 3 coincided with a round of eulogies for the sedan. SUVs were (and still are) dominating the market to such an extent that the Big Three basically stopped producing sedans in the US altogether. Some said Tesla had missed its moment, coming out with a sedan just as sedans were officially pronounced dead. Sales figures have proven that prediction wrong—Model 3 quickly became the best-selling EV in history, and is handily outselling all competitors in the luxury sedan segment. It’s only logical to expect Model Y to be even more popular.

“I think Y dovetails into the current trend perfectly,” says Roger. “It provides all the benefits of Model 3, and it’s also an SUV, which gives you a level of practicality that no sedan can achieve. So, it’s the full boat, and that’s why I believe it will ultimately become the most popular car in the Tesla line.”

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Manufacturing Model Y

Drivers may not notice much difference between Models 3 and Y, but the new Tesla has many innovations under the hood, a couple of which are extremely important: the heat pump combined with the Octovalve, and the rear underbody castings.

Things are heating up Model Y’s new thermal management system, the Octovalve (which sports a picture of an octopus with a snowflake) is the heart of the car’s cooling and heating system, and replaces the Superbottle used in Model 3.

All previous Tesla models used resistive heating systems, whereas Model Y uses a far more efficient heat pump.

“The heat pump means that the car is able to operate more efficiently,” Elon Musk recently told the Third Row Podcast. “So, even though it’s heavier and has a bigger cross-sectional area, it’s actually able to achieve a range

“It may look like

just a small SUV, but it ain’t. It’s a performance car and it acts like it.” that is about the same as the Model 3.

Normally you’d expect something that is around 10% heavier, [with] around 10% bigger cross-sectional area, to have 10% less range approximately.

But we were able to make the car a little better than 10% more efficient.”

Elon concedes that there’s no easy way to describe a heat pump. It’s “kind of like an air-conditioner backwards.”

Tesla’s heat pump includes several clever features, including a local heating loop, which is designed to improve performance in low-temperature operation. “Heat pumps typically encounter issues around minus 10 to minus 20° C,” says Elon. “They have a problem spooling up. So, the solution that the Tesla HVAC team came up with was to have a local heating loop.

The thing will basically spin itself up and get hot locally before opening another valve, that then tries to heat the cabin.”

Casting call Another innovation is hidden away in the rear underbody of Model Y, where Tesla has replaced about 70 parts with two enormous aluminum castings.

Manufacturing engineering expert Sandy Munro once described Model 3’s chassis as looking like “a patchwork quilt,” an assessment that Musk

EVannex fills the gaps with aftermarket parts The folks at EVannex probably know more than anybody outside Tesla about customer reaction to the cars and useful features that they lack.

How do they decide which aftermarket products to make?

“A lot of our ideas come from customer requests and customer complaints,” Roger Pressman told Charged. “However, having been in the business longer than anybody in the Tesla space, we have a lot of experience looking at their vehicles and saying, ‘Here are some of the things that we think the appropriate demographic for that car might need.’ For example, a lot of Model S owners want not only functional enhancements to the car, but what we call bling enhancements, which are more visual, aesthetic. That demographic, because of the price point of the car, has the financial wherewithal to acquire higher-cost products. Model 3 owners, on the other hand, are more likely to be looking for functional enhancements to the car.”

Sometimes, EVannex has introduced an aftermarket product, and later on Tesla has realized that it’s something people want, and incorporated it into the vehicles. “Our very first product was a classic example of that,” says Roger. “The center console insert is how we started the company.

For two years we sold that product. We still sell it in reasonably significant volume, into the used car market. At first Tesla refused to put a center console in the car, but then in 2015-16, they began putting them in.”

There are also a couple of products EVannex made for Model 3 that Tesla has now incorporated into Model Y and made superfluous. “We were early in providing a rear hatch enhancement,” says Roger. EVannex’s Trunk Lift product is not an automatic system, but rather a shock absorber-like gadget that makes opening and closing the hatch smoother and more convenient. Model Y comes with an automatic trunk opening system. “I don’t think we were the driver for that—I just think they thought it was a really good idea. But there’s an example where we were there first, and maybe Tesla looked at it and said, ‘We can do better than that.’ Wireless phone charging is another thing that we offered very early in the game for Model 3. Obviously, we don’t offer it for Model Y because Model Y has it built in.”

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THE VEHICLES

Model 3 rear underbody made of 70 pieces of metal

seems to agree with. It’s functional and achieves a high level of safety, but “the complexity in the body shop is insane. I think our Fremont body shop feels like a Dickensian nightmare. It’s sort of cool in a steampunk way, but not something you want to repeat. So, the current version of the Model Y has two big high-pressure die-cast aluminum castings that are joined, and then there’s still a bunch of other bits that are attached.”

Later this year, Tesla will transition to using a single-piece casting for the rear underbody, which will also integrate the rear crash rails. This will require “the world’s biggest casting machine, which we have two of,” said Musk.

“It’s around a 6,000-ton casting machine. It’s the size of a small house.”

According to Musk, this innovation allows the size of the body shop to be reduced by about 30%, and greatly reduces the number of robots required. That’s an improvement that Tesla could eventually bring to Model 3 as well, but given all the other things the company has on its plate, such a retrofit will probably have to wait another two years or so, said Musk.

Elon told Third Row that Model Y’s huge casting was inspired by a die-cast toy car on his desk. “I’m looking at the little model cars that you have on your desk, and they cast those things, and I’m like, ‘Well, geez, what’s the actual limitation on casting? Where do we hit the limit of physics?’ And it’s like, ‘Oh well, actually we don’t.’ Okay, great. What would it take to cast the whole damn car? And they’re like, ‘The whole damn car? Because that would be like a 15,000-ton press and that’s just way too terrifying.’ So, what if we cast a third of the car? Okay, that sounds maybe not totally crazy.”

Tesla’s casting process is a little more complex than that

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Model Y rear underbody made of 2 pieces of metal (eventually a single piece) Images courtesy of Tesla

Model Y high-pressure die-cast aluminum castings

This will “require the world’s biggest casting machine, which we have two of,” said Musk. “It’s around a 6,000-ton casting machine. It’s the size of a small house.” used at the Hot Wheels factory. “We’ve got all these things that predict the flow pattern and solidification and everything. High-pressure aluminum back casting, it’s pretty wild. I mean that aluminum is getting shoved into the die

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THE VEHICLES

Image courtesy of EVANNEX

in about 40 milliseconds. It’s insane, yeah. Because you’ve got molten aluminum and it’s got to flow through that mold so frigging fast. You draw a vacuum on the mold so there’s not even any air in there, and you just hit it with a massive frigging piston and blast that molten aluminum in there, and then you got to cool it in just the right way so that you have good strength.”

Tesla is using a special aluminum alloy that requires no heat treatment after casting. “For the Model S and X we have castings on the corner nodes—the main load-bearing portions of the car are high-pressure die-cast aluminum,” Musk explained to Third Row. “They’re quite complex. But the thing that really drives me crazy about those is that they require a heat treat afterwards. So, when you heattreat it, then you get warping and then it’s a big pain in the butt [and] the bigger the part is and the more complex the shape is, the more warping you’re going to get. So, it’s very important in doing this that we developed an alloy…that is sufficiently strong and has good elongation. Especially important for elongation in a crash event, without requiring a damn heat treat and turning the thing into a pretzel.”

Sandy Munro tears things down Sandy Munro has been in the auto manufacturing game for decades, and has performed teardowns on every mass-produced Tesla model. He probably knows more than anyone outside the company about how these vehicles are built.

When Charged spoke with Sandy, he was in the middle of tearing down a Model Y, and he agrees that the most significant design improvements are the heat pump, the Octovalve and the rear castings.

Tesla is not the first automaker to employ large-scale castings. “Cadillac had one,” says Sandy. “BMW has had them.” Be that as it may, the reduction in the number of parts is quite significant. Sandy estimates that the rear underbody of Model 3 had around 80 parts, and another 80 fasteners. “They used every type of fastener you could use on aluminum. The new one has two major parts,

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“The body build is 1,000% better.

There are still issues, but they’re minor in comparison to what I have seen in the past.”

it’s got two brackets that they use for joining them, and then they’ve got two bolts in each one. We’re going from maybe 150 parts and fasteners, down to 4 parts and 8 bolts or whatever. They took into account where they put the springs, where they put the wire harness connections, the brake lines, all kinds of stuff is built right in. It makes it super-easy for the [assembly line] operators to put things together.”

Sandy told us that one of the most intriguing questions about the massive casting is what alloy Tesla is using—his ears perked up when he heard Musk describe using an aluminum that doesn’t need a heat treatment. He immediately sent off a sample of the casting material for a spectrographic analysis. “You take a chunk, and give it to one of these guys that has very sophisticated equipment,” Sandy told Charged. “They blow it up basically, and then they check for the…different colors to tell you what the different alloys are.” The analysis will reveal exactly what the material is made up of. These are the kinds of details Munro’s customers will happily pay for when his firm starts selling its reports on the Model Y teardown.

Sandy’s eagle eye spotted several details of the underbody casting that hint at features Tesla may add down the line. One is an air shock system (available as an optional feature on Model S, and promised for Cybertruck), which could lower the body to get better mileage at highway speeds, and possibly even allow the vehicle to “kneel” to make it easier for elderly and/or disabled people to get in

and out. Another possible future feature is a third row of seats. Sandy is almost certain that these will be rear-facing.

“When I look at the casting, there’s four mounting points that are not being used right now, but they would be ideal for popping seats in.”

Body building There are numerous other improvements under the hood.

“The body build is 1,000% better,” says Sandy, who famously made some scathing comments about Model 3’s body construction. “There are still issues, but they’re minor in comparison to what I have seen in the past.”

Another techie detail Sandy loves is the wiring. “I like the wire harness arrangement—they’ve done a bang-up job at [making] it easier for people to put things together.

Outside of the vehicle, where the wires are passed around outside, they used corrugated sheathing.” This protects the wire from rodents. “Inside, they used plastic injected molded casings. You take the wire bundle and you snap it into that, and it guides it. It’s much, much easier for the operators to pull a wire harness in and snap it into position.”

The wire Early in the production of Model 3, Tesla admittedly tried to automate a little too much—one of the problems was that the robots had a hard time putting wiring harnesses in place during assembly. Based on some patents Tesla had filed, and rumors that were floating around, Sandy was hoping to see some major innovation in terms of low-voltage wiring. “[Elon] said he was going to go from about 1.6 kilometers down to about 0.8 kilometers. I was very interested in seeing that, but that didn’t show up. I thought they were going to go to multiplexing—in essence, what that is, is there’s a module inside the door panel, and it has one wire going to it, and it’s the power wire. The rest of the signals are Bluetooth or something like that inside the car. If I would have seen that, I would have been really impressed. Now, the reason no one else is doing anything like that is because it is very expensive, so I think maybe they looked at it and said, ‘Maybe next time.’ But the bundles are tight, the wires are on the light side from a gauging standpoint. They’re signal wires mostly—very few power wires.”

Real-time refinements Auto engineer Richard Amacher was another fortunate

It didn’t take long for Munro to receive a call from someone at Tesla, who told him that a “running change” is underway to add a similar insulative case to Model Y’s heat pump. soul who got his Model Y early, and he made a detailed video about it for CleanTechnica. His only major complaint was that he found the HVAC system to be very noisy. Roger Pressman had the same critique: “Yes, it is noisy. Particularly at high fan speeds above, say, seven, it’s a very noisy system. What I try to do is to pre-cool the car before I get in it. Then once I get in the car, I crank the fan down to a four or five, which is completely livable. But if you have the fan up in the neighborhood of eight or nine, it’s noisy.”

The rackety AC did not get past Sandy Munro—he heard about the complaints and investigated. In one of his videos, he shows us that Model Y’s compressor is cleverly isolation-mounted to prevent it from transmitting noise and vibration to the rest of the vehicle, but that it lacks a noise-deadening plastic case that Model 3’s AC compressor has. It didn’t take long for Munro to receive a call from someone at Tesla, who told him that a “running change” is underway to add a similar insulative case to Model Y’s heat pump.

This brings us back to the term refinement. One of the things that makes Tesla unique among automakers is its openness to criticism and quick response to feedback.

Remember how the company promptly made improvements to Model 3’s braking performance via an over-theair software update, after a complaint from Consumer Reports? As other automakers do, Tesla updates and improves its vehicles, as well as the production equipment and processes used to build them, every time it brings a new model into production. However, it takes this ethos of constant incremental improvement a step further and, in Silicon Valley style, makes running changes in real time. The eventual result is an awesome product.

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COVID-19 vs EVs

By John Voelcker

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What happens?

EVs may experience minor hiccups, but they shouldn’t suffer much more than the rest of the auto industry.

I

t’s the question everyone has to ask: How will the COVID-19 pandemic affect my business? For those in the electric-car world, the question is more pointed: Will the pandemic hurt the growth of EVs over the next year? Three years? Five years?

If so, how?

Viral epidemics follow predictable curves, although the shape and slope of those curves varies greatly with human behavior. If parts of the world open up too soon, epidemic “hot spots” will flare up again. Ultimately, a majority of the human herd of 7.8 billion may have to be infected before COVID-19 becomes part of the past. That’s how epidemics work.

Supply, but also demand

Today, the North American and European auto industry is emerging from its April paralysis. The lost production in that month was estimated to be worth $10 billion per day. For the industry to recover to anything like its pace at the end of 2019—which to many feels like years ago in “COVID time”—two things must return to normal: supply and demand.

On the supply side, not only auto factories but their thousands of parts suppliers are working out how to resume production while abiding by new safe-workplace rules. That has already started, at differing paces in different places.

China’s nadir came in February, two months earlier. By mid-May, its auto industry was largely back in production. North American plants planned to reopen, carefully, before the end of May, and European plants were on a roughly similar timetable. Glitches in the intricate global supply chain remain, just as they do for food and other consumer goods. Those will be addressed systematically over the coming months.

NOTE: The information in this article was current as of May 2020. Given the uncertain course of the global COVID-19 pandemic, it is always possible that some of the conclusions will be superseded by breaking news. For the sake of our readers and their businesses, we hope not.

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THE VEHICLES So there seems a reasonable chance that by, say, this autumn, the world’s car factories could be producing a majority of what they did in January—barring new outbreaks or mutations, a return to more stringent shutdown rules, or other, unpredicted pandemic effects.

If the vehicles are coming off the lines, that’s half the equation. The other half is a steady stream of consumers ready, willing and able to buy them. That prospect may be more uncertain.

Such deals you could have had…

Looking back, April was a terrific time to buy a car. Sales lots were covered in vehicles on which dealers were paying interest, and makers jumped in with generous incentives and zero-percent financing. Americans who could afford new vehicles found dealers desperate to work out how to complete sales online and provide “touchless” deliveries.

Now, dealer stock is sparser, and it will take weeks to replenish. Car-rental companies have eased the shortage somewhat, turning back hundreds of thousands of units.

But the economic picture is far from rosy: In April, the US unemployment rate soared to almost 15 percent, a level not seen since the Depression era. By the end of May, 40 million unemployment claims had been filed in the US. US vehicle sales in April, however, held up better than predicted. They were still down 46 percent, but the average transaction price stayed above $35,000. Pickup trucks and bigger SUVs sold better than passenger cars.

Only a minority of Americans can afford to buy new cars even in normal times. Jobs data seems to indicate that the bulk of the job losses have been at the lowest income levels, so those with the means to buy new vehicles may remain able to do so. Whether they will—whether sales will recover over the summer—remains unclear.

Watch May and June sales data closely for hints.

Global sales will clearly take a hit. From 90 million vehicles sold in 2019, LMC Automotive projects this year’s total could be as low as 70 million if the slowdown endures or new COVID outbreaks erupt.

But what about EVs?

Predictions about the impact of COVID-19 on EV sales specifically are all over the map. A few pessimists suggest that low gas prices will slash consumer purchases of plug-in vehicles, just as hybrid sales vary directly with

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EV sales don’t rise and fall with gas prices as hybrid sales do. the cost of gasoline. That’s countered by the data: EV sales don’t rise and fall with gas prices as hybrid sales do.

Other analyses suggest that electric vehicles remain woven into auto companies’ long-term product plans. If broad cutbacks are required, EVs should suffer no more than any other vehicle line. That seems reasonable, with one caveat: If the US proportion of pickup trucks stays as high as it was in April—they actually outsold all passenger cars combined—EVs will suffer in the short run, because the first battery-electric pickups won’t hit the market until sometime in 2021.

Still, a slowdown in 2020 may be okay, because it wasn’t shaping up to be a stellar year for new EVs in the US anyway. The sole new volume entry is the Tesla Model Y, which will represent a substantial portion of EV sales this year. US deliveries of the 2021 Ford Mustang Mach-E remain on target to start before the end of 2020 (though some European deliveries are now delayed into early 2021), but GM has postponed a planned mid-cycle upgrade of the Chevrolet Bolt EV to the 2022 model year.

Production of bigger vehicles like the GMC Hummer EV is more than a year away, and the BMW i4, Nissan Ariya, and Volkswagen ID.4 remain even further out.

It’s remotely possible that incentives might change the math. The idea of government subsidies for vehicle purchases has been raised, often by elected officials serving areas where the Detroit 2.5 operate. But political tea leaves suggest the current administration would structure incentives not to encourage fuel efficiency—as Cash for Clunkers (sort of) did in 2009—but to reward US production and content. That doesn’t do much for EVs.

What really drives adoption?

To bring clarity to the cacophony, it’s crucial to step back from monthly and quarterly sales charts and look at the broader, longer-term global driver of EV growth. Hint: Tesla aside, it’s not consumers demanding EVs. It can be summarized in one word: regulation.

Until electric vehicles in multiple sizes and segments become consistently profitable for automakers—and let’s be clear, most brands lose money on them today—the

main mission of EVs will be to meet a variety of government mandates in different regions. Those may be US corporate average fuel-economy (CAFE) rules, minimum zero-emission vehicle sales requirements—in California and China—or avoidance of stiff European Union fines for exceeding corporate average tailpipe emission limits on CO2.

On the other hand, profitability is close. GM claims the EVs it will sell starting in late 2021 will make money from day one. Those will be high-dollar, large luxury vehicles—the GMC Hummer EV pickup truck and the Cadillac Lyriq luxury crossover utility will be the first two launches for North America. Volkswagen says similar things, and each company says it intends to sell one million EVs a year globally—VW by 2023, GM by 2025.

China first, then Europe

The bulk of those millions of EVs will be sold in China, which in 2019 bought more plug-in vehicles than the entire rest of the world combined. But they’ll also be sold in Europe and North America. European consumers are likely to adopt earlier, and in greater numbers, than US buyers.

China is now in its second decade of a long, sustained push to dominate global production and sales of EVs, just as it did with photovoltaic solar cells and is now doing with lithium-ion battery cells. The government will force Chinese buyers into increasing numbers of “new energy vehicles.” Unless or until the country dials that down, no automaker can relax its EV pace in that market.

China is now in its second decade of a long, sustained push to dominate global production and sales of EVs.

GM’s head of EV programs said that not only was the corporation sticking to the announced timelines for its next-generation EVs, but it might even launch one model more quickly.

Similarly, despite the COVID crisis, no European maker has seriously floated the idea of relief from EU tailpipe-CO2 limits. Those demand increasing sales of zero-emission vehicles each year, until sales bans on new vehicles with combustion engines come into force from 2025 to 2040.

Even in the US, the Trump Administration’s rule changes to freeze CAFE goals may be tossed out in court, due to an apparent lack of scientific backing in the rationales it has submitted for altering the Obama-era rules.

Don’t sweat it

Absent significant, long-term changes to the regulatory drivers that push established OEMs toward higher EV production, their plans will continue. Single products may come and go—for example, Ford has cancelled a planned electric Lincoln “sport utility coupe” model based on Rivian underpinnings, but its higher-volume Mustang Mach-E so far remains on track to launch by the end of this year.

During a mid-May conference call with journalists, GM’s head of EV programs said that not only was the corporation sticking to the announced timelines for its next-generation EVs, but it might even launch one model more quickly than announced due to good progress by the development team. This came despite delays in planned updates of existing models, to conserve cash.

Sure, some other automakers may stretch out their EV timelines by six months or a year. But if you don’t see news that the EU carbon limits have been loosened, or that the Trump CAFE changes have been deemed legal— don’t sweat it.

Once EVs become profitable for major automakers, of course, everything will change again. That’s the disruption to look forward to.

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THE INFRASTRUCTURE Image courtesy of HUBER+SUHNER’

HUBER+SUHNER’s new cooled Shanghai plans to deploy 100,000 data-collecting EV charging cable system enables continuous charging at 500 A chargers Once again, news of a project in China highlights the HUBER+SUHNER, a global supplier of electrical and optical connectivity solutions, has launched a new addition to its RADOX high-power charging line.

The RADOX HPC500 is a cooled charging cable system that allows continuous charging at 500 amps, even in high-temperature environments.

Other improvements and new features include an IP67 connector protection rating, an optional ready-to-use metering system, and replaceable contacts for longer service life.

Alongside the cooled cable system, HUBER+SUHNER has also developed a new 24 V cooling unit to increase cooling capacity and reduce operational temperatures of the power lines, enabling continuous 500 A charging at environmental temperatures of up to 50° C. The new plug-and-play cooling unit is pre-filled with coolant, and is designed to fit into existing charging stations, reducing installation time. The speeds of both the heat exchanger ventilators and the coolant pump are automatically adjusted to achieve the most efficient performance. At normal operating levels, lower speeds result in lower noise levels.

“The improvements we have made to the complete HPC system make this a truly ground-breaking product which enables continuous charging at 500 A for the first time,” said Max Göldi, Market Manager Industry at HUBER+SUHNER. “This helps charging station operators prepare for the future with an improved return on investment.”

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piddling scale of US EV efforts. The Shanghai municipal government recently announced plans to deploy 100,000 charging ports, which will double as data-collecting interactive devices.

Electric utility State Grid announced in April that it would invest 2.7 billion yuan ($383 million) to roll out 78,000 charging piles across the country.

These new charging points (or piles, as some Chinese call them) will have enhanced data-collecting capabilities. “They can offer battery information, user habits, vehicle location, and other data,” Sun Huifeng, President of CCID Consulting, told China Daily. “With such data, services including secondhand car evaluation and user portraits can be further expanded.”

“Charging piles are not merely a charging station,” said Ding Rui, CEO of charging solution provider X-Charge.

“Charging is just a 2% function of a charging pile, and the remaining 98% will be interactive.”

The days when China was an EVSE laggard lie in the past. Navigant Research Analyst Sam Abuelsamid recently estimated that the country has some 3.4 million charging ports, twice the number in North America.

He told Electrek that data gathered from chargers is valuable. “There are lots of good reasons for gathering the data, including understanding where people are using charging to aid in making decisions about where to build out infrastructure.” The data will also be important for new applications, including vehicle-to-grid integration and Plug & Charge.

Image courtesy of FreeWire

FreeWire Technologies raises $25 million in new financing FreeWire Technologies, a provider of “power solutions for the grid edge,” has closed a $25-million Series B and venture debt financing round, which was led by existing investor BP Ventures, together with new investors ABB Technology Ventures and Energy Innovation Capital.

The new funding will support the commercialization of FreeWire’s fast charging technologies. The company’s solutions are “designed to overcome the inefficiencies of today’s grid infrastructure to meet customers’ growing demand for rapid, cost-efficient power—all while mitigating infrastructure costs and the impact on the grid.”

In late 2019, FreeWire announced the launch of its new Boost Charger, a battery-integrated fast EV charging system. According to the company, the Boost Charger can be deployed with existing infrastructure at up to a 40% lower cost of installation compared to other high-power chargers. It’s expected to hit the market in the second quarter of this year.

“We’re excited to announce the addition of key strategic investors that will help scale the organization to deliver ultrafast charging to customers worldwide,” said Arcady Sosinov, CEO of FreeWire. “Our continued partnership with this diverse group of new and existing investors demonstrates their determination to resolve a wide range of energy challenges and our joint commitment to a future with flexible, sustainable electrification.”

New Chinese wireless charging standard incorporates WiTricity’s technology After years of development, China recently announced a new national standard for wireless EV charging. Wireless charging is expected to be an important enabler for autonomous vehicles, and standardization is critical to ensure that wireless charging is interoperable across different vehicles and charging equipment.

The new GuoBiao (GB) standard relies on technology developed by WiTricity, an MIT spin-out that was founded in 2007. WiTricity has been actively involved in the Chinese EV wireless charging standardization process for the past four years, working closely with the GB standard committee on several technical matters, including efforts to harmonize the Chinese standard with other international standards (SAE J2954, ISO 19363, IEC 61980) that will be published in 2020 and 2021.

WiTricity claims that its magnetic resonance technology delivers the same power, efficiency and charging rates as conventional plug-in charging methods.

“It’s a significant milestone for WiTricity to have our patented wireless charging technology embraced in the Chinese GB national standard,” said Alex Gruzen, WiTricity CEO. “China is the world’s largest EV market, the global EV trend setter, and a key market for WiTricity.”

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ORNL demonstrates wireless bidirectional charging on UPS delivery van Researchers at the DOE’s Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL) recently demonstrated a 20-kilowatt bidirectional wireless charging system installed on a UPS medium-duty, plug-in hybrid electric delivery truck.

In the demo, the system transferred power at more than 92% efficiency between the truck and a charging pad across an 11-inch air gap, using two electromagnetic coupling coils.

The system incorporates ORNL’s custom electromagnetic coil design, control system, and wide-bandgap power conversion system. The team tested the system using grid and battery emulators before installing it in the vehicle.

The system’s bidirectional design supports use of the vehicle’s batteries for energy storage in a V2G application. ORNL says its bidirectional technology is fully compliant with grid power quality standards. Bidirectional charging capability would allow fleet owners to manage on-site generation such as solar power. “Scaling the technology to a fleet of 50 trucks gives you megawatt-scale energy storage,” said team leader Omer Onar.

ORNL has been working on wireless charging for some time. In 2016, researchers demonstrated a 20 kW wireless charging system on a light-duty passenger vehicle. In 2018, they created a 120 kW system that operated over a 6-inch air gap. The latest version of the system represents a further refinement. “There’s no off-the-shelf solution that can deliver 20 kilowatts across an 11-inch air gap with these efficiencies,” Onar said.

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AMPLY Power secures $13-million in funding for Charging-as-a-Service fleet products Fleet charging solutions provider AMPLY Power has secured $13.2 million in Series A funding from investors including Soros Fund Management and Siemens, as well as existing seed round investors, including Congruent Ventures, PeopleFund and Obvious Ventures.

AMPLY Power’s comprehensive Charging-as-a-Service offering for fleet operators ensures each electric truck or bus is charged and ready for work each day, in exchange for a price-per-mile-driven fee. AMPLY’s proprietary software optimizes and aggregates vehicle charging to minimize energy costs and maximize vehicle uptime.

Customer Tri Delta Transit found that it saved up to 40 percent on charging costs using AMPLY’s solution.

AMPLY’s services include charging hardware deployment, management of depot upgrades and utility interconnections, real-time software-controlled charge optimization, debt financing of capital expenditures and resiliency planning. The company deals directly with the electric utility and bills the fleet customer for vehicle miles.

“At AMPLY, it is our mission to take the technical guesswork out of electrification infrastructure so fleets can scale their zero-emission deployments with confidence,” said AMPLY CEO Vic Shao.

“The major hurdle most electric truck and bus pilots face is the charging infrastructure. In fact, charging fleets without incurring hefty utility bills is the key obstacle for most electric fleets to scale towards full deployment,” said Siemens VP Iti Jain. “AMPLY’s mission dovetails with Siemens’ strategy of making electromobility adoption easy, and we look forward to supporting AMPLY’s growth with our extensive experience in the energy and transportation sectors.”

Image courtesy of SparkCharge

SparkCharge raises $3.3 million to scale production of its portable, modular charger SparkCharge, which was profiled in the July/August 2019 issue of Charged, has developed a portable, modular charger that’s designed to provide anytime/anyplace charging on demand.

Now the company has announced the closing of $3.3 million in seed round financing led by Point Judith Capital (PJC) with participation from Revolution’s Rise of the Rest Seed Fund, PEAK6 Strategic Capital, M&T Bank and Tale Venture Partners. This round brings SparkCharge’s total funding to $5 million since its 2017 launch.

The company plans to use the new investment to scale up manufacturing and aggressively expand development of its products.

SparkCharge’s Portable Ultra-Fast Charger is 100% electric, and is charged using traditional 120- or 240-volt household outlets, avoiding the air pollution that would be created by a gas-powered EV charger. Potential customers include roadside assistance companies, insurance firms, delivery companies, hotels and automakers.

Modules are easily stacked on top of each other, like Lego blocks, to increase the range delivered. The system is compact and light: it’s designed to fit easily in the trunk of a car and to be easily carried by hand. According to SparkCharge, it’s capable of adding range at a rate of one mile per minute of charging.

“EV sales growth is far outpacing the infrastructure growth needed to support such a thriving market,” says Zaid Ashai, Venture Partner at PJC. “This dynamic puts SparkCharge’s innovative portable ultra-fast chargers in a position to partner with new and existing businesses to cure range anxiety.”

Tesla’s Autobidder software aggregates solar and storage into a giant virtual utility The future of energy is distributed. Instead of buying energy from a small number of giant power plants, traders on the energy market are increasingly dealing with a large number of small, widely distributed assets. Energy assets include not only power-generating plants such as wind and solar installations, but storage facilities such as stationary batteries (and, in the future, EVs equipped with V2G technology).

This complex web of assets needs sophisticated software to manage it, and Tesla, ever thinking ahead, has developed a software product called Autobidder that some say will enable Tesla Energy to become a giant distributed global utility as it deploys more and more solar and energy storage systems, at both residential and utility scale.

“Autobidder provides independent power producers, utilities, and capital partners the ability to autonomously monetize battery assets,” reads Tesla’s description of the product. “Autobidder is a real-time trading and control platform that provides value-based asset management and portfolio optimization, enabling owners and operators to configure operational strategies that maximize revenue according to their business objectives and risk preferences.”

“Autobidder is successfully operating at Hornsdale Power Reserve (HPR) in South Australia, and through market bidding, has added competition to drive down energy prices,” says Tesla.

The platform, which apparently also works with non-Tesla energy storage products, is in use at other sites around the world. “Autobidder has hundreds of megawatt-hours of assets under management that have supplied gigawatt-hours of grid services globally.

Autobidder operates at every scale: from aggregations of behind-the-meter residential systems to 100 MW utility-scale installations.”

Electrek reports that Tesla is using Autobidder to manage its Powerwall deployment with Green Mountain Power in Vermont. The Telegraph tells us that Tesla has applied for a license to become an energy provider in the UK, where it has already installed several Powerpack projects.

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THE INFRASTRUCTURE

Image courtesy of Lumen Group

UL certifies Lumen Group’s charging system Chicago to require EVSE-ready wireless Product safety watchdog UL has certified Lumen Group’s wireless EV power transfer system to the UL 2750 parking spaces standard (Outline of Investigation for Wireless Power The Chicago City Council has approved an ordinance requiring new construction of larger residential and commercial buildings to make at least 20% of parking spaces ready for the installation of EV charging stations.

The new rules apply to residential buildings with 5 or more units, and commercial buildings with 30 or more parking spaces. As Utility Dive reports, the ordinance also requires at least one of the EV-ready spaces to be accessible to people with disabilities.

Chicago has announced plans to power all of its municipal buildings with renewable energy by 2025, and all city buildings by 2035. The Chicago Transit Authority aims to electrify its fleet of over 1,850 buses by 2040.

“Analysts have forecasted exponential growth in EVs over the next two decades, and Chicago must be ready,” said Alderman Brendan Reilly, the chief sponsor of the measure. “Readiness starts with ensuring our municipal code anticipates the need for charging resources and other assets that will optimize the performance of our transportation network and minimize costs for electricity consumers, as EVs proliferate.”

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Transfer Equipment for Electric Vehicles).

The Lumen Freedom wireless power transfer system uses resonant inductive magnetic coupling between a ground-mounted transmitting pad and a vehicle-mounted receiving pad to charge with no wires, and no physical contact between the vehicle and the charger.

Lumen Group worked with UL’s engineers and lab technicians to test the safety and performance of its wireless charging equipment, including the power source, the ground pad assembly and the attached vehicle assembly.

“With EV sales expected to exceed gas-powered vehicle sales by 2030, the demand for revolutionary technologies that can be used to recharge electric vehicle batteries, such as wireless power transfer systems, will continue to grow,” said Joseph Bablo, Principal Engineer Manager for Energy Systems and e-Mobility at UL. “Innovative technological solutions are pushing EV infrastructure to do more and faster than before,” said Jeff Smidt, VP of Energy and Power Technologies at UL. “For UL, safety is the foundational element of any successful and sustainable technological deployment.”

Image courtesy of Lightning Systems

New Lightning Mobile charger provides roadside DC fast charging for fleet vehicles Colorado-based Lightning Systems, a manufacturer of zero-emission drivetrains for commercial fleets, has introduced Lightning Mobile, a mobile DC fast charger.

Equipped with 192 kWh of high-energy-density, liquid-cooled battery storage in a package that can be installed in a vehicle or trailer for mobile deployment, Lightning Mobile is designed to provide on-demand roadside charging. Lightning Systems says the mobile charger can even be used to recharge an EV en route, like a fighter aircraft being refueled in flight.

Lightning Mobile is charged from a standard Level 2 AC charger at up to 18 kW, and can deliver DC fast charging at up to 80 kW and (as an option) Level 2 AC charging at up to 19.2 kW. Lightning designed the system to be installed in its Lightning Electric Transit 350HD cargo van, but says it can be installed in any vehicle or trailer that meets size and weight specifications.

The batteries in the Lightning Mobile package include many of the same features as Lightning Systems’ powertrains, including active thermal management and telematics/analytics features.

“Every fleet with electric commercial vehicles will benefit from mobile fast charging,” said Lightning Systems CEO Tim Reeser. “Uptime is the name of the game for fleets. While operators will schedule vehicle duties to include depot-based charging, there’s always the chance that a vehicle will need a top-up at another location or en route. There is also often the need for DC fast charging at locations or times that may not already be permitted for fast chargers or where demand rates would prohibit fast charging direct from the grid.”

Tritium adds Plug & Charge capability to its charging stations Tritium, an Australia-based manufacturer of DC fast charging stations, has incorporated Plug & Charge technology into its products. Tritium says Plug & Charge capability is available immediately for charge point operators to deploy on its PK350kW DC High Power Chargers.

Plug & Charge, based on the ISO 15118 standard, enables direct communication between an EV and a charger, eliminating the need for a card or RFID tag. Using Plug & Charge, a charging session will be automatically and securely billed from the moment the plug connects to the vehicle, regardless of the network operator.

“This firmly and irreversibly tips the convenience scales to the recharging experience over the refueling experience,” says Tritium co-founder and CTO James Kennedy. Tritium says its Plug & Charge solution is more secure than existing card-swipe or RFID tag payment methods. “A third party such as Hubject, which provides an automated and secure data exchange enabled by ISO 15118-conforming Public Key Infrastructure, is responsible for cryptographic certifications between the vehicle and the charger, and our technology ensures we are securely storing cryptographic keys on the charger side in a way that other chargers can’t. You’re more likely to lose a card and have someone swipe it somewhere than by someone being able to access account details via our Plug & Charge technology.”

Vehicles will also need a way to secure the vehicle-side cryptographic key, which will become commonplace with emerging models. “The vehicles will need to have the storage technology built in, in much the same way as paying for something with your smartphone requires NFC technology,” said Kennedy. “Once that becomes the norm, as NFC has, you will see the incidents of Plug & Charge payments skyrocket.”

Tritium has tested its Plug & Charge technology in a live setting at a number of its PK350kW DC High Power Chargers in Germany. The solution has also been repeatedly tested at the Tritium E-Mobility Innovation Centre in Amsterdam, where automotive manufacturers have been able to test vehicles for interoperability with Tritium’s suite of DC chargers.

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THE INFRASTRUCTURE

Q&A with SolarEdge Founder and VP of Marketing and Product Strategy Lior Handelsman

Image courtesy of SolarEdge

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SOLAREDGE MAKES THE

SUN-TO-CAR

CONNECTION PROVIDING THE MISSING LINK BETWEEN SOLAR PANELS AND EV CHARGING

By Charles Morris

A

n EV is a fine thing on its own—but it becomes truly transformative as part of a local system that also includes solar panels, battery storage and smart charging. SolarEdge Technologies provides hardware and software to bring these elements together, including solar inverters, power optimizers and monitoring systems for photovoltaic (PV) arrays. The company was established in 2006, and now has offices in the US, Brazil, throughout Europe and Asia, Australia and Israel.

SolarEdge’s power optimizer is an intelligent electronic chip that connects to each PV module in an array. It’s designed to maximize solar energy production from each module, ensuring that if an individual module underperforms, it won’t affect the performance of other modules in the string.

SolarEdge’s EV Charging Solar Inverter is an Energy Star-certified Level 2 EV charger that is integrated into a PV inverter. It features a solar boost mode that uses power from solar panels and the grid simultaneously to boost charging speeds.

Now the company has introduced a Smart EV Charger. SolarEdge founder and VP of Marketing and Product Strategy Lior Handelsman chatted with

Charged about the new product, and the various ways his company is working to optimize the sun-to-car connection.

Q Charged: How are SolarEdge’s PV inverters

different?

A Lior Handelsman: SolarEdge started as a solar inverter company with the innovative notion of changing the way inverters are made. When we started back in 2006, solar inverters were mostly made by companies with the single competitive angle of conversion efficiency. All these companies were aiming for better and better conversion efficiency of the inverter itself. Of the kilowatts [that come in] to the inverter input port, 96% or 97% should go out the other side.

When we looked at these, [we found] a lot of disadvantages in the way certain inverters are made.

They were not connected, so we couldn’t use telemetry from them, and also a lot of the energy was lost on the roof already because of system inefficiencies: shading between the different modules, mismatches between solar panels on the roof, or nonlinear losses in the energy conversion on the roof.

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THE INFRASTRUCTURE To make a long story short, we invented a new inverter topology, [including] module power optimizers—a type of electronics that’s installed right next to every panel on the roof—and a simpler web-connected cloud-controlled inverter. All together it created this system which was much more powerful. It brought more value to the system owner by producing more power, and it brought more value to the installer by making the installation and the design easier, and by allowing them to provide the most services and the most monitoring and remote control.

So, this is our core—a lot of innovation, power electronics, the cloud connection, system innovation, electronics software. And it actually was quite a big success, because today we are the largest solar inverter company in the world. We have around $1.4 billion in sales of solar inverters.

Over the years, the company evolved to do smart energy. We added storage to our solar systems—that is now something that is very popular in many markets. And we added the ability to control loads and smart energy devices around the home [in order to optimize] the electric bill and consumption. We’ve added smart connectivity to our inverters to [aggregate] them into what we call virtual power plants, which is a cloud software solution that we sell to utilities. And we’ve now added the ability to charge EVs, all within the realm of the smart solar energy system.

Q Charged: Tell me how the Smart EV Charger works,

and what the philosophy is behind it.

A Lior Handelsman: First of all, it’s an AC charger for the home, but we’ve added a few abilities to it based on where we’re coming from. The first one is that it fits in the same software link to our solar production product, meaning that we can optimize your overall [electricity] consumption and production around the home. So, we learn all the times that you actually need more charging. For example, let’s say that you’re a stay-athome dad. You take your kids to school in the morning, you go back home, you plug in the charger. But you actually don’t need to charge now—you can wait a little bit and charge later. What we will do is make sure that we charge the car when the solar power is available, so you can charge with free solar energy rather than buying expensive grid energy.

Then we can [bring] into that same ecosystem the

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If you now have 3 kilowatts of available solar power, we can make sure that you only use these 3 available kilowatts to go into your car, in order to optimize your electrical bill. battery, the EV charger, and even some other small devices around the home to optimize your electric bill. By shifting the time of charge and controlling the amount of charge, we can control the charge linearly. So, if you now have 3 kilowatts of available solar power, we can make sure that you only use these 3 available kilowatts to go into your car, in order to optimize your electrical bill. Of course, that’s if you can wait, if you don’t need the faster charge now.

Another thing we recommend that our customers do, if they already have a solar system, is to install the EV charger on the same circuit as the PV inverter. This brings two major advantages. One, we can make the charge faster than a regular charger. Most chargers are limited in their charging power by the size of the circuit breaker that they are connected to the grid with. For example, if you have a 32-amp breaker, that’s as fast as you can charge, even if your charger [can handle more power] than that.

By placing your charger on the same circuit as the PV inverter, we can take maximum power from the grid. On top of that, we power the cells directly from the sun, or from the battery, to give you a very fast charge, 40 amps or even faster. With your smart charger on the same circuit as the solar system, we make sure that we never go above the grid consumption that is allowed, but we can add more power from the PV or from the battery in order to make your charging faster.

The other thing is that in many homes, there is a scarcity of high-power breakers available in the electrical panel.

That means that when you want to install an EV charger, you need to install a new panel, which is expensive. Here again, you can use the same breaker as the PV system, and save one high-power breaker. That is a pure and simple reduction of the installation cost of a smart charger.

Q Charged: You’ve launched your Smart EV Charger

in North America. When will it be available elsewhere?

A Lior Handelsman: Prior to launching this product,

we launched a solar inverter that has an integrated smart charger. That product is already available globally. The standalone smart charger is now being launched in North America. It will be launched in the rest of the world around Q3.

Q Charged: What kind of cost savings could be available

when using the solar energy directly to charge your car?

A Lior Handelsman: It really depends on the specific

Q Charged: Will the Smart EV Charger only work

with your solar systems, or will it work with other ones as well?

A Lior Handelsman: It won’t fit every system. Even if you don’t have a solar system at all, and you buy the smart charger, it will provide charging and it will leverage your existing grid connection as much as possible. If you want to enjoy the overall integration, all the features that I just mentioned—faster charging than the breaker size, the ability to save a breaker, and the overall energy optimization—yes, you need a SolarEdge inverter for that.

If you don’t have a SolarEdge inverter, you can do simpler optimizations such as time of use. If your utility offers time-of-use pricing you can program this charger to charge after 2 am [for example]. So, basic optimization, like any other [smart] charger in the market, you can do. For more sophisticated optimization, you need the SolarEdge inverter.

financials of electricity where you live. In a time-of-use area, you can reduce the cost of charging your car by up to roughly 30% by basically using free solar energy to charge your car rather than buying energy from the grid.

We’ve seen some cases where you can cut the cost of charging your car by half. Take Hawaii as an example: you can probably get to an improvement of your rate of self-consumption by 40%.

Q Charged: Do your systems also integrate with

programs the utilities offer to control your appliances?

A Lior Handelsman: Yes. Demand response and virtual

power plant. That is built into every SolarEdge product.

Q Charged: Do these EV charging systems need to be installed by a SolarEdge-certified installer, or can they be installed by anyone?

A Lior Handelsman: The chargers can be installed by

any qualified electrician. In order to connect this to the smart inverter and do the integration into the system, you need to have a SolarEdge installer account, but you can get trained online how to do that.

MAY/JUN 2020

75

THE INFRASTRUCTURE

THE EMERGING “NON-UTILITIES” EVS ARE HELPING NEW PLAYERS IN THE ENERGY MARKETPLACE

By Gordon Feller.

Feller serves on the boards of several non-profit organizations focused on the future of greener mobility. He formerly served as President Obama’s appointee to a US Federal Commission established to assess emerging energy-focused digital technologies.

76

Dramatic pricing changes, shifting cost structures, new demand curves and technologies that enable efficient decentralization are driving a dramatic shakeup of the energy marketplace, and new participants are adapting in their own ways. EVs make it possible to build smarter grids, including for the non-utilities that are pushing innovation. n the emerging energy marketplace, what’s the best role for non-utility market participants? One answer can be found by looking closely at the active integration of EVs into smart grids.

Emerging non-utility actors, such as intermediaries and aggregators, are becoming much more active in the energy marketplace. Therefore, it’s important to understand their evolution. And it is essential to assess those business models which can truly optimize their value to the smart grid.

For more than a decade now, non-utility market aggregators have been increasingly involved in distributed solar and in demand response. Many such aggregators are now consolidating around the most exciting parts of the smart grid: mobile energy storage (i.e. electric vehicles), stationary energy storage and microgrids.

The emergence of non-utility market participants is being enabled by four forces that have begun to converge: advances in information and communications technologies; the movement towards sharing economies; new business models and ownership models; and blockchain-encrypted transaction systems. Blockchain is important here because these are the systems that enable the verification and tracking of distributed transactions that can be time-stamped and location-stamped.

Blockchain solutions use encrypted codes to determine who is selling what to whom, and where, in real time.

Non-utility market participants often play the roles of intermediaries, aggregators and coordinators. Non-utility markets are showing up with six types of services: demand response; energy efficiency; distributed solar; electric vehicles (or mobile energy storage); and stationary energy storage.

The benefits which these non-utility participants bring to the grid are many and varied. The long list includes the following:

I

• Peak shaving • Valley filling • Negative demand response • Coordinated charging • Demand charge reduction • Reserve provision • Emergency backup • Capacity firming • Microgrids • Voltage control • Frequency regulation A diverse range of business models is available. For instance, there are various options in terms of the types of asset ownership by non-utility participants (e.g. buy, lease and/or manage equipment). There are options in terms of the relationships to utilities (e.g. contracts for services versus open-market trading). And there are options in terms of relationships to customers (e.g. leasing, or subscription services with aggregators).

One common denominator in the sharing economy is accessibility to services and utilization of products, as opposed to ownership of assets. Social media has actively encouraged sharing practices, because so much more consumer information is being exchanged, with buyer/ seller/sharer connections made rapidly. Increasingly, platforms such as Airbnb, Turo and eBay serve as central markets in which the sharing economy (aka collaborative consumption) proceeds.

From an economic perspective, a core concept of the sharing economy is the ability to capture and redistribute the idle capacity of existing assets. By increasing the usage of products and assets, the sharing economy helps ensure that these assets are used to their full economic potential.

In most advanced economies, owners drive their cars only a few hours each day, offices are often empty, large sections of homes are unoccupied much of the time, stores have

MAY/JUN 2020

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THE INFRASTRUCTURE peak- and off-peak shopping hours, and power plants have substantial unutilized capacity. Collaborative consumption is helping to put this excess capacity to better use.

In the energy sector, the rise of collaborative consumption parallels the shift towards reconceptualization of the energy market to emphasize the services delivered by energy systems and de-emphasize the equipment through which these services are being provided.

When assessing this field, it’s helpful to have a taxonomy to illustrate the alternative business models, to clarify the role of non-utility service providers, and to specify the array of energy services provided by non-utility market participants.

Aggregators offering vehicle-grid integration (VGI) solutions (sometimes referred to more generally as V2X) provide one example of a market in which non-utility energy service providers actively play a key role. The VGI business model envisages a transportation market in which vehicles not only draw power from the grid, but can also be used as a mobile source of supply to power homes, buildings, and businesses. Three different models are emerging: • Grid-to-vehicle: Services based on smart and coordinated charging. The aim is to make vehicle charging more efficient and ensure that EVs positively impact the grid.

• Vehicle-to-grid: EVs provide the grid with ancillary services, including storage for frequency and balancing of the local distribution system. This relies on bi-directional flow of power between the grid and the vehicle to enable the provision of advanced grid services.

• Vehicle-to-building: This service type is currently receiving a great deal of attention because of its value for back-up and emergency services.

Who are some of the leaders providing useful examples in this realm?

• Oak Ridge National Laboratory is working on a Vehicle-to-Home demonstration project, together with the non-profit Habitat for Humanity and automaker Fiat (in North Carolina). This is part of the US government’s DOE Grid Modernization Program.

• Nuvve is currently in commercial operation mode

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providing “Energy as a Service” with its V2G technology in Europe. Nuvve is also launching projects in California, with support from the California Energy Commission. These all involve a combination of technology demonstration and commercialization.

• Austin Energy (the municipal-owned power company in Austin, Texas) has developed alternative VGI models.

• Fiat Chrysler is testing V2G technology in collaboration with Italian grid operator Terna.

• Nissan is working with Fermata Energy on a vehicle-to-building pilot, and also says it is introducing vehicle-to-home technology in Japan.

Who will win this particular race? “Heavy vehicle and large fleet owners will be best positioned to take advantage of the technology and financial opportunity that V2G offers,” said Bob Stojanovic, ABB’s Director of EV Infrastructure for North America. “EV standards bodies are working to make this happen while the marketplace is developing.”

What do the utilities think of all this? One innovator working in these domains is the Sacramento Municipal Utility District (SMUD), which serves more than a million residential customers. Bill Boyce is SMUD’s Manager of Electric Transportation and Distributed Energy Strategy.

He and SMUD “view VGI as a tool that will help us connect and serve all the electric transportation load growth that we anticipate over the next 20 years. It fits in with other load-management capabilities that we are enabling through development of our Distributed Energy Resource Management System.”

Boyce sees a natural progression of VGI—starting with simple time of use rates, moving to more actively managed applications for daytime solar integration, load flattening and avoided costs, as well as vehicle-to-home/buildings to support localized grid resiliency, and finally getting to full V2G to help with meeting afternoon grid ramping conditions. SMUD is using time-of-use rates now to manage EV loads, and Boyce says, “We have active research ongoing regarding V1G, V2G and blockchain. We see all of this at the big picture level as electric vehicles, stationary energy storage, photovoltaics, demand response and building electrification all come together for our clean low-carbon energy future.”

What types of challenges might VGI face in the near term?

“

Heavy vehicle and large fleet owners will be best positioned to take advantage of the technology and financial opportunity that V2G offers.

”

• V2G could be limited by the potential accelerated degradation of lithium-ion batteries due to battery cycling.

• EV warranties could be cancelled by OEMs. • EVs could lead to surges in demand for charging power over space and time, requiring investment in new transformers.

• Owners of DC fast charging stations have to pay for transformer upgrades, and they also must pay demand charges, which can be onerous. (Demand charges are additional fees, usually substantial, that utilities charge commercial customers for maintaining a constant supply of electricity.)

According to Nuvve, both data and stress tests indicate that the damage to batteries can be reduced, and battery quality can be maintained, with use of the proper monitoring. Batteries with VGI management can maintain their health and last longer than unmanaged batteries in EVs which are used only for mobility.

The Pacific Northwest National Laboratory has been working on “grid-friendly” charging technologies that

provide grid services while charging vehicles. Sensors on the charging station measure grid stress conditions and then control the charging of the battery accordingly.

“This is low-cost technology, though the business case for grid sensing capabilities in charging infrastructure is still challenging,” said Michael Kintner-Meyer, electrical engineer at PNNL who’s focused much of his research on the grid impacts of transportation electrification. “However, as EV adoption accelerates over the next few years, it will become not only prudent, but necessary to add these shock-absorbing capabilities to the grid.”

Kintner-Meyer sees new business models emerging with the advent of electric trucks and buses. Commercial EV fleet owners will be interested in working with utilities or third-party providers (if the regulations allow it) to find technology solutions and procurement strategies for e-fueling these larger vehicles. “The electric energy needed for fleets is considerable and the charging profiles tend to be very peaky if not managed as a fleet,” said Kintner-Meyer. (In-Charge Energy, profiled in the March/April 2020 issue of Charged, addresses issues of this kind with its turnkey infrastructure solutions for EV fleets.)

Another issue has to do with locational constraints— when EV fleets are parked at central depots, it can be a challenge to provide the necessary levels of power. For instance, transit bus yards tend to be in urban areas, which may have limited power supplies. If you consider that a bus could have a charge rate of 300 to 500 kW, and if 20 buses are charging at the same time, then the service to the bus yard has to be able to carry 6-10 MW. “This may not be possible in some locations, in which case the charging has to occur elsewhere or sub-transmission lines need to be upgraded at high cost, or a storage device will be placed as a buffer between the grid and the charging station,” Kintner-Meyer said. “This is going to require creative thinking, and new business models are being explored to package DC charging stations and energy storage together as a non-wires solution to defer distribution system upgrades to support these commercial EV fleets.”

What are the trends that will shape future scenarios?

What types of alternative future business models are likely to take hold as the economy embraces collaborative consumption? What (and who) might facilitate this? What might prevent such future models from materializing? These are the questions we should be examining in the months ahead.

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Solutions to the urban charging dilemma are on the horizon very new technology faces a series of roadblocks on the way to widespread adoption. To borrow a metaphor from the world of medicine, we cure one disease, only to see another rear its ugly head. Conventional wisdom is that we’ve pretty much eradicated range anxiety, and now we’re facing infrastructure angst. Modern EVs now have enough range for most applications, so the next obstacle to EV adoption is a lack of infrastructure. We happy souls who have driveways don’t tend to see any problem—we can charge conveniently at home. However, highway travel is still challenging, and there’s another even thornier problem— the millions of city dwellers who have no assigned parking spaces, and rely on on-street parking.

Current-generation fast chargers in city centers and Level 2 destination chargers are helpful, but neither represents a viable option for everyday charging. People aren’t going to buy EVs unless they’re convenient, and convenience demands that drivers have a place to charge where they park overnight. The only comprehensive solution, based on existing technology, is that almost every parking spot in a city is going to have to be a charging spot, and this is a complex and expensive proposition.

But what if there is no infrastructure problem? What if we are in the grip of static thinking—failing to use our imaginations to extrapolate current trends to their logical conclusions?

I was writing about web development tools back in the early days of the internet, and in those days, scarce bandwidth was our bête noire. Online audio and video were simply not practical. Innovators came up with all kinds of clever compression and caching schemes, and other workarounds. Some of these built profitable companies. Remember RealAudio? Macromedia Shockwave and Flash? However, at the same time all this was going on, bandwidth was rapidly expanding. Within a few years, there was plenty to go around, and most of these bandwidth-saving dodges became unnecessary.

We’ve already seen some similar transitional technologies come and go in the EV space, including battery swapping (NIO might beg to differ), range-extending battery packs towed behind EVs on trailers, and other even sillier ideas. Hydrogen fuel cells also fall into this category, as the only practical advantages they offer for passenger vehicles are greater range and faster refueling times. The internet’s bandwidth problem worked itself out, without any need for a revolutionary new technology. Could EVs’ infrastructure problem end up following a similar path?

Let’s try a thought experiment, and envision incremental improvements in three key technologies. First, let’s imagine

E

By Charles Morris the next generation of improved battery packs, one that enables a medium-size, medium-price EV to have a range of 400 or 500 miles. Next, let’s imagine that new battery chemistries and improved charging tech enable faster charging—let’s say you can charge that 500-mile pack in under half an hour.

Together, these two improvements would eliminate any worries about highway driving. Even the longest of road trips would require no more than one brief charging stop per day.

They would also go a long way toward solving the urban charging dilemma. Not all, but many drivers would be able to get along perfectly well charging up once every week or two at centralized depots designed to handle huge amounts of power, perhaps near the grocery store and the gym. Even waiting for half an hour at a coffee shop doesn’t seem like a deal-killing inconvenience if you only have to do it twice a month.

Now let’s imagine one more advance. Let’s say we have a vehicle with a limited ability to drive itself, with no human driver present—we’re not talking about true Level 5 autonomy, just a limited Level 4. This EV can drive itself at slow speeds on major roads within a defined area that’s already known and mapped. Such a car could go off on its own in the middle of the night to the nearest charging station, then meet you wherever you need it to the next morning. The system would incorporate wireless charging or an automated robotic arm to plug in.

If these three advances become widespread, the urban infrastructure problem would vanish. Charging an EV would become like updating the software in a cell phone—it would happen automatically, and most drivers would never even have to think about it. There would be no need for millions of charging stations scattered throughout urban neighborhoods—a few dozen strategically located supercenters could handle an entire city’s charging needs. One of today’s biggest and least talked-about problems—the enormous expense of maintaining public charging points—would become much more manageable.

How far away are we from this wonderful world? Tesla’s Model S Long Range Plus currently offers an EPA range of 390 miles. Porsche has an 800-volt charging system, which the company claims can add over 350 miles of range in half an hour (that’s at 270 kW, and some Electrify America stations offer 350 kW). Cars with the limited autonomy capability described above are already in pilot operation in several cities.

Think about this for a moment: these three advances together would eliminate our toughest charging challenges, and all of them could be widely available within a few years.

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