A superpowered Formula 1 car, a buzzing drone, a soldier’s pack, and a wearable smart device have this in common: they all need batteries. Ideally, those batteries could fit into oddly shaped nooks, curves and voids, something that today’s cylindrical or rectangular cells struggle to do. Engineer Gabe Elias, who helped design the Mercedes-AMG Petronas… Continue reading Material’s Printed Batteries Put Power in Every Nook and Cranny
Author: IEEE_Spectrum
How Norway Accomplished a Near-Total EV Transition
More than 97 percent of the new cars Norwegians registered in November 2025 were electric, almost reaching the country’s goal of 100 percent. As a result, the government has begun removing some of the many carrots it used to encourage its successful EV transition. Cecilie Knibe Kroglund, state secretary in the country’s Ministry of Transport,… Continue reading How Norway Accomplished a Near-Total EV Transition
CES 2026: The First Solid-State Vehicle May Be a Motorcycle
In a global race to get solid-state batteries on the road, few would bet on two tiny companies in Estonia, known for their innovative hubless, in-wheel electric motors and motorcycles. Yet these upstarts have apparently done what Tesla, BYD and other EV-and-battery titans have been unable to do. To be fair, building a relative handful… Continue reading CES 2026: The First Solid-State Vehicle May Be a Motorcycle
The Dry Revolution: Reinventing How Batteries Are Built
Ask the average driver what they want from a car, and it isn’t 0-to-60-mile-per-hour times or Nürburgring lap records. It’s something quiet, comfortable, reliable, and inexpensive to run. On all those fronts, the electric vehicle (EV) already offers a better experience than a gasoline car. EVs are more responsive, easier to maintain, and aligned with… Continue reading The Dry Revolution: Reinventing How Batteries Are Built
This Engineer Builds Bespoke Accordions and Autonomous Car Systems
When Sergey Antonovich rediscovered a childhood passion for music, he found an unexpected application for his skills as an embedded systems engineer: building bespoke digital accordions. Antonovich admits the accordion isn’t the coolest instrument. It was chosen for him by his mother when he was 8, and he quickly lost interest as a teenager. While… Continue reading This Engineer Builds Bespoke Accordions and Autonomous Car Systems
Porsche Brings Wireless EV Charging to Consumers
Charging an EV at home doesn’t seem like an inconvenience—until you find yourself dragging a cord around a garage or down a rainy driveway, then unplugging and coiling it back up every time you drive the kids to school or run an errand. For elderly or disabled drivers, those bulky cords can be a physical… Continue reading Porsche Brings Wireless EV Charging to Consumers
First Air Taxi Service to Launch in Dubai in 2026
Ten years ago, ride-sharing giant Uber embraced a sci-fi future in which clean, quiet electric aircraft would shuttle passengers around crowded cities. Uber’s well-funded Elevate initiative, which included a white paper and three high-profile annual summits, effectively launched the electric vertical take-off and landing (eVTOL) industry, promising investors, regulators, and the general public that these… Continue reading First Air Taxi Service to Launch in Dubai in 2026
The Top 5 Transportation Stories for 2025
IEEE Spectrum’s transportation coverage this year covered breakthroughs in electric vehicles, batteries, charging, automation, aviation, maritime tech and more. Readers followed the race to rebuild U.S. magnet manufacturing, rethink EV-charging architecture, and reinvent automotive software. They tracked China’s sprint toward five-minute charging, the rise of high-power home chargers, and the push to automate airports. Our… Continue reading The Top 5 Transportation Stories for 2025
This Valve Could Halve EV Fast-Charge Times
Fast, direct-current charging can charge an EV’s battery from about 20 percent to 80 percent in 20 minutes. That’s not bad, but it’s still about six times longer than it takes to fill the tank of an ordinary petrol-powered vehicle. One of the major bottlenecks to even faster charging is cooling, specifically uneven cooling inside… Continue reading This Valve Could Halve EV Fast-Charge Times
A Chip That Keeps Time (Almost) Like an Atomic Clock
For decades, atomic clocks have provided the most stable means of timekeeping. They measure time by oscillating in step with the resonant frequency of atoms, a method so accurate that it serves as the basis for the definition of a second. Now, a new challenger has emerged in the timekeeping arena. Researchers recently developed a… Continue reading A Chip That Keeps Time (Almost) Like an Atomic Clock