Author: Green Car Online News

Tesla launches battery recycling at Nevada Gigafactory

Tesla Gigafactory in Sparks, Nevada [CREDIT – YouTube user California Phantom]
In its latest environmental impact statement, Tesla announced that it will open its own battery recycling facility.

Tesla has been recycling batteries made at the factory using third-party recyclers. Now, as the earliest Model Ses reach 7 years old, and the company is starting to receive some batteries back after use in those early cars, it's setting up its own battery recycling facility.

READ MORE: Formula E signs on to complete battery recycling

The new processing center at the company's Gigafactory in Sparks, Nevada to process both old batteries used in customers' Teslas as well as those from its own research and development.

The company says lithium, cobalt, aluminum, copper, and steel will be recovered from the batteries in a closed-loop system that optimizes the materials for new battery production.

It also says it expects to save money producing new batteries from the recycled materials, rather than buying new minerals for its batteries.

CHECK OUT: BMW sets up end-to-end battery recycling in Europe

The new facility should also save significant expenses and pollution from shipping batteries overseas to be recycled, where many of the third-party recyclers are located.

“The closed-loop battery recycling process at Gigafactory 1 presents a compelling solution to move energy supply away from the fossil-fuel based practice of take, make and burn, to a more circular model of recycling end-of-life batteries for reuse over and over again,” the company said in its environmental report.

Argonne National Lab also opened its first battery recycling research and development center in Illinois in February to study how to make recycling lithium-ion batteries more economical. Currently, high prices for cobalt, and rising lithium prices are helping to make battery recycling profitable, but the goal is to make recycling electric car batteries economically sustainable even when mineral prices drop.

Infiniti Qs Inspiration is the automaker’s idea for an EV sport sedan

Infiniti Qs Inspiration concept
Infiniti is on the back foot for electrified powertrains today.

The luxury automaker quietly shelved its hybrid powertrains in the past few years in the buildup toward an all-electric lineup sometime in the next few years.

On Wednesday, ahead of the 2019 Shanghai auto show, the Infiniti Qs Inspiration concept sedan gave us a glimpse of what may be coming in 2021 or shortly thereafter.

READ MORE: Is Infiniti now ready to launch an electric car, after all?

The Qs Inspiration sport sedan concept follows the QX Inspiration crossover, which made its debut at the 2019 Detroit auto show, and the Q Inspiration sedan that bowed at the 2018 Detroit auto show. Unlike those models, the Qs Inspiration sport sedan is light on details—no approximate wheelbase or range was offered by the automaker initially.

Instead, Infiniti pushed the ball slightly forward by hinting that the production model based on the Qs could have a slightly higher driving position and that all-wheel drive would be standard on upcoming electrified models. Infiniti has committed to an all-electric architecture in the near future, and it's likely that the production model based on the Qs Inspiration would be a relative of a sedan and crossover with common components.

Infiniti Qs Inspiration concept

The sport sedan concept skips Infiniti's past of sculpted body sides and rounded corners for a flatter, angular look that's punctuated by a handful of body creases. The automaker's philtrum—worn by the current Q60 coupe and QX50 crossover—appears on the new Qs Inspiration, too and draws down from the hood toward the front of the solid nose and extends to the bottom of the front fascia. A deeply set Infiniti badge is plunked in the middle of the nose, underscored by a wide “INFINITI” brand that's framed by a chrome baseline underneath it, similar to the QX Inspiration.

DON'T MISS: Infiniti QX Inspiration concept sets design direction for brand’s electric future

A blacked out A pillar draws the hood back toward the rear of the car but the roofline's rake doesn't appear to be as elegant or gently curving as the Nissan IMs concept, which we saw at the 2019 Detroit auto show. The Qs Inspiration's doors are creased in the middle, which creates a positive and negative space that breaks up the visual weight of its otherwise straight sheet metal. The long and thick beltline lifts the sedan higher, even though Infiniti promises a low center of gravity from its electric powertrain.

We'll have to wait to hear about details such as size, range, charging, battery capacity, and driving features, but we expect Infiniti to start shaping up its electrified future soon.

Ford develops software to target most effective places for public chargers

Ford Transit Custom plug-in van
More electric cars need more electric chargers—especially in and around cities.

Most charging may be done at home but to give drivers confidence to go where they want, or for city-dwellers to effectively drive electric cars, convenient public charging will be key.

Now, Ford says it has developed a new algorithm to help locate public chargers—especially fast-chargers—where drivers travel so they don't have to go out of their way to get to charger. The announcement came Tuesday as London implemented a new ultra-low emissions zone.

“In locating these additional charging points, we've attempted to take into account regular driving and stopping patterns so that topping up slots into drivers regular day-to-day activities,” said John Scott, city data solutions project lead for Ford Mobility in a statement.

READ THIS: Shell buys its first electric car charging station firm in Europe

The program is based on two trials in London. In the first, Ford's City Data Solutions Report, the company tracked 160 gas-powered Ford Transit vans over 625 miles and 15,000 vehicle-days of use. The company says it collected more than 500 million data points about where the drivers went, where they stopped and for how long. Ford says that although the vehicles were not electric, it could track them and identify ways that charging could be integrated into their routes as if they were.

The second fleet trial in London followed 20 plug-in hybrid Transit Custom vans over 50,000 miles to look at charging behaviors. In that study, Ford found that the plug-in hybrids operated in electric mode an average of 35 percent of the time, and that percentage increased the closer the vans got to London's city center. (Plug-in vehicles are exempt from the city's congestion charges as long as they have appropriate permits.)

CHECK OUT: ChargePoint commits to build charging stations for 2.5 million cars by 2025

Interestingly, the plug-in vans started their day with only a 45-percent charge on average. As the study progressed, the fleet operators were better at keeping the vehicles charged, primarily at their depots, rather than by using public charging stations.

If Ford can use the software to determine where to install chargers in the most convenient locations, it could increase the number of electric miles such fleets could drive.

No more turn-signal affirmation for Tesla Navigate on Autopilot

Tesla Model 3 dashboard in Autopilot testing with IIHS [CREDIT: IIHS]
In a blog post on Thursday, Tesla announced that drivers will no longer have to approve lane changes when the car's Navigate on Autopilot system is engaged.

It's a small step, but also a pretty big leap toward self-driving cars.

Navigate on Autopilot is Tesla's “on-ramp to off-ramp” self-driving system, which allows its cars that have the feature to drive themselves on limited access highways and navigate interchanges, on-ramps, and off-ramps by themselves—as long as the driver keeps a hand on the wheel periodically and the car has a destination set in the navigation system.

MUST READ: Tesla Full Self-Driving will still require drivers when it arrives later this year

On surface streets leading toward or away from limited access highways, the Navigate on Autopilot system shuts off.

Until now, though, the cars couldn't change lanes without driver approval. When they encountered slower traffic, or even need to change lanes to take an off-ramp, the car would alert the driver of the need to change lanes, and the driver would have to approve the lane change by activating the turn signal.

Without the need for that intervention the car is much more autonomous in getting from place to place. It still chimes at drivers before the car changes lanes to give the driver a chance to ensure that it's safe to do so.

DON'T MISS: Tesla starts Hardware 3 rollout: Enhanced Summon, red-light warnings

Drivers can still set the car to require turn signal interventions, and Tesla says, “until truly driverless cars are validated and approved by regulators, drivers are responsible for and must remain in control of their car at all times.”

The new software update will also allow driver to set Navigate on Autopilot to turn on automatically every time they start the car, as long as a destination is entered.

Since Tesla rolls out its new software features gradually, to a few owners' cars at a time, it has already been pilot testing the turn-signal-less feature for several months. The company says drivers in its Early Access Program, as well as Tesla engineers testing, have already driven half a million miles with Navigate on Autopilot.

READ THIS: Tesla Autopilot ranks next-to-last in study of self-driving systems

When the company announced the introduction of the base-priced $35,000 Model 3 at the end of February, Tesla CEO Elon Musk said company's Full Self-Driving Capability will be “feature complete” by the end of this year.

Such systems, while they may work perfectly most of the time in situations they were designed for, might be prone to sudden (and sometimes tragic) failure if they encounter something beyond their capabilities.

Tesla has been careful to emphasize in its recent communications that drivers still have to stay alert and engaged while using the system.

Karma Revero gets more power, BMW 3-cylinder

Redesigned Karma Revero teaser
The Karma Revero is getting a long-needed update later this year, and the company has just revealed a few details.

You'll recall that the Revero is the continuation of the original Fisker Karma, which went on sale in 2011. The company and its manufacturing facilities for the Karma were bought out by a Chinese company. Now the company is named Karma, and the car was renamed the Revero. Other than the name, though, the car hasn't changed.

DON'T MISS: Karma plans to relaunch with three new models at Shanghai auto show

It still uses its original 37-mile lihtium-ion battery pack, two electric motors good for 403 horsepower, and a GM-sourced 2.0-liter turbo-4.

Last month, Karma announced that it will unveil an update to the Revero, along with two new models, a Pininfarina designed SUV, and a new all-electric flagship called the Vision.

CHECK OUT: 2018 Karma Revero: first drive of reborn luxury plug-in hybrid sedan

In an email on Thursday, Karma revealed to Green Car Reports that the new 2020 Karma Revero will have more power, along with a more efficient and powerful gas engine from BMW.

The new engine will be BMW's 1.5-liter turbo-3 found in the BMW i8 plug-in hybrid sports car, which, combined with more powerful motors and likely new batteries, will boost acceleration from about 5.5 seconds from 0 to 60 mph to a more sportscar-like 4.5 seconds.

READ MORE: Pininfarina's Italian design may be good Karma for plug-in carmaker

Karma signed an agreement with BMW in 2015, and the updated Revero has been spotted by amateur and spy photographers several times testing around the U.S., most likely with the new engine.

With improved battery technology, the Revero is also likely to get a longer range in the updated model. Karma says it will also give a much-needed update to the Revero's in-car electronics.

The updated car, along with the Vision and Karma's new unnamed SUV, are set to debut at the Shanghai auto show later this month.

Nio teases sleek ET7 coupe, to include next-generation power system

Teaser for Nio ET7 concept
Nio, one of a handful of Chinese electric carmakers aiming to be Tesla competitors, just teased its next mass-market car, expected to debut at the Shanghai auto show later this month.

Its latest car looks set to be a four-door luxury fast-back, perhaps similar to shadows of a car known as the EVE Vision shown in earlier Nio press materials as following the SUVs. It's sleeker and perhaps smaller than that angular hatchback, though. The teaser shot suggests the ET7 would have rear-hinged “suicide doors” in back, though the picture is far from clear.

READ THIS: NIO aiming to innovate with battery cooling, patents suggest

Nio calls the concept the ET7, and says that it will feature the company's new “comprehensive power solution” it calls Nio Power, perhaps including new proprietary battery cooling technology.

The company says the ET7 will include the now requisite show-car Level 4 self-driving technology—easy to include in a concept car that doesn't yet drive anywhere, with or without a driver.

CHECK OUT: Nio ES8 electric SUV to go on sale in China this month; half the price of Tesla Model X

The ET7 follows Nio's ES8 flagship eight-passenger SUV and the slightly shortened six-passenger ES6, as well as the EP9 electric supercar for the track.

Nio has become known as one of the more serious Chinese electric car companies after it raised $1 billion on the New York Stock Exchange in September, and because of its success with the EP9, ES8, and in fielding a team in electric Formula E racing. In its earnings report for the first quarter, Nio said it delivered 3,898 vehicles, about 5 percent higher than expected.

DON'T MISS: Electric carmaker Nio begins trading on NYSE, aims to sell cars in US

It has grown to 9,000 employees after starting just five years ago. The company says it is focused on the Chinese market, but plans eventually to export cars to the U.S. as well. It has a design, engineering, and manufacturing centers in San Jose, California, as well as Shanghai, Beijing, London, and Munich, Germany.

More details will be revealed at the Shanghai show media days, April 16 and 17.

Lucid Motors gets real as Saudi funding comes through

Lucid AIr
Things just got real for Tesla competitor Lucid Motors.

The company, which announced a $1 billion deal with the Saudi Arabian Public Investment Fund last September, confirmed on Thursday that the investment is complete. That could make Lucid the most realistic competitor to Tesla yet, as it plans to bring its nearly fully developed Lucid Air to production next year and now has the funding to do so.

READ THIS: Saudi investment fund takes $1 billion stake in Lucid Motors

Lucid is privately held, so terms of the deal have not been revealed, but the Saudi fund is thought to have acquired a majority stake in Lucid. The Saudi investment fund also owns a 5 percent stake in Tesla.

The Lucid Air is an electric luxury sedan starting with a 240-mile range and 400 horsepower. It could start at around $60,000, while a higher-end version will have 1,000 horsepower, 400 miles of range, executive reclining rear seats, and has been clocked at 217 mph at the Transportation Research Center test track in Ohio.

CHECK OUT: Lucid Air electric luxury sedan: a Tesla Model S owner's take

Lucid says the car will be “self-driving ready.”

Based in Newark, California, the company has also broken ground on a factory to build the cars in Casa Grande, Arizona, and is working on an SUV to follow up the Air.

DON'T MISS: Lucid owners will get access to Electrify America's chargers, another jab at Tesla

The company also announced a deal to provide Air buyers with access to Electrify America's network of fast chargers to, eventually, rival Tesla's Supercharger network.

The new funding looks set to move Lucid ahead of other startup electric-car competitors such as Faraday Future, SF Motors, and possibly even Chinese startups such as Byton and Nio, in bringing Tesla some new electric luxury competition.