“Hit ’em low, hit ’em high” is an old football catchphrase. It also describes the two-pronged strategy BYD has adopted to take the automotive world by storm—and potentially blow legacy carmakers out of the water. In a single week in February, the fast-rising Chinese automaker debuted a US $236,000 “dancing” electric supercar and an $11,000… Continue reading BYD’s EV Dream May Be Legacy Automakers’ Nightmare
Author: IEEE_Spectrum
The Lithium-Ion Battery May Not Be the Best Bet for EVs
This article is part of our exclusive IEEE Journal Watch series in partnership with IEEE Xplore. As more electric vehicles hit the roads, the environmental impact of their battery production will also increase. This raises a major question: What type of EV battery will be the most environmentally friendly on a large scale? A study… Continue reading The Lithium-Ion Battery May Not Be the Best Bet for EVs
BMW’s iX5 Signals the Company’s Push for Hydrogen
Hydrogen-powered cars constitute a drop in the world’s ocean of 1.47 billion cars. The same goes for renewable “green” hydrogen fuel, or any infrastructure to effectively deliver it to vehicles or power their factories. But despite rampant skepticism in some corners, BMW is among the automakers and policymakers convinced that our lightest atomic element holds… Continue reading BMW’s iX5 Signals the Company’s Push for Hydrogen
E-Snowmobile Amps Up Recreation Tech
Boats, bicycles, and motorcycles. Waterfoils, scooters, and Segways. There seems to be no limit on imaginative, electrified modes of transportation, mainly from scrappy start-ups with big dreams. The latest is aimed at winter-wonderland fans, and it’s called the Envo SnowKart. Appropriately, it hails from British Columbia, Canada, from Burnaby-based Envo Drive Systems, a company that’s… Continue reading E-Snowmobile Amps Up Recreation Tech
Yamaha Joins Global Move to Battery Swaps for E-bikes
E-bikes are today a growing component of the global transition away from fossil fuels—possibly more than the car-and-truck-focused sustainability crowd appreciates. E-bikes’ rapid growth in recent years stems in part from their simple solution to the range issue that big, hulking cars typically don’t offer. E-bikes are powered by relatively small batteries that can be… Continue reading Yamaha Joins Global Move to Battery Swaps for E-bikes
EV Design and Battery Tech Trim Back for Slimmer Times
The champagne pop of a record 1.2 million EV sales in America in 2023 couldn’t fully cover a shortage of fizz: Suddenly slowing consumer demand. Automakers walking back ambitious EV production plans. A shaky public charging infrastructure that’s keeping potential buyers on the sidelines. When Elon Musk himself sounds pessimistic about near-term prospects, you know… Continue reading EV Design and Battery Tech Trim Back for Slimmer Times
The Greening of Transportation
According to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, approximately 15 percent of net anthropogenic greenhouse gas emissions come from the transportation sector. To meet global climate targets, we must devise ways to get people and goods from point A to point B without burning fossil fuels. In this month’s special report on the greening of… Continue reading The Greening of Transportation
Compact Spinning Tech Makes Thermal Imaging Bright
Seeing heat, as a cutting-edge field of research today, is getting hotter. Purdue University researchers have merged the power of advanced surfaces (including metamaterials) with thermal imaging algorithms to create technology that could open new frontiers in machine vision and autonomous systems. Previously, such advanced surfaces had been used for imaging tech in the visible… Continue reading Compact Spinning Tech Makes Thermal Imaging Bright
This Lockheed Martin Researcher’s Work on UAVs Saves Lives
Kingsley Fregene wants to keep people out of harm’s way—so much so that he has ordered his life around that fundamental goal. As director of technology integration at Lockheed Martin, in Grand Prairie, Texas, he leads a team that is actively pursuing breakthroughs designed to, among other things, allow life-saving missions to be performed in… Continue reading This Lockheed Martin Researcher’s Work on UAVs Saves Lives
Solid-State EV Batteries Now Face “Production Hell”
Recent solid-state battery announcements by Volkswagen and QuantumScape are raising hopes in the electric-vehicle market, but automotive battery experts are warning that the road to widespread, solid-state success is still a long and arduous one. A single breakthrough, as if from above, is not likely to turn the whole industry on its nose anytime soon.… Continue reading Solid-State EV Batteries Now Face “Production Hell”