Author: Green Car Online News

Quiet launch: Daimler builds first electric heavy-duty semis for fleet test

Tesla might have been the first to generate a lot of fanfare over an all-electric Semi, but it’s not the first to actually place an electric Semi with customers for full-time use.

That nod would go to Daimler Trucks North America. The initial two Freightliner eCascadia semis were built this week for its Electric Innovation Fleet—funded by a $16 million California grant—and they’ll be placed into duty later this month by the Southern California operations of two companies: Penske Truck Leasing and NFI.

The company’s intent is to test how the trucks fare in large-scale fleet conditions, and the innovation fleet “will inform the final production versions” of its two upcoming electric trucks, the eCascadia, and the medium-duty Freightliner eM2. Daimler also has an Electric Vehicle Council of 38 customers “to identify and address all potential hurdles to large-scale deployment of commercial battery electric vehicles.”

How much range these trucks can achieve, while performing the tasks they’re expected to—year round—has been one of the great challenges for development teams. Daimler has quoted a range figure of 250 miles from the eCascadia pack’s 550 kwh of usable capacity (with an 80-percent charge possible in about 90 minutes), while Tesla has stuck to claims of versions offering 300 and 500 miles.

With both trucks essentially fitting the spatial constraints, that led some in the industry to question the physics involved—including Martin Daum, the head of trucks at Daimler, who told Bloomberg that “for now, the same laws of physics apply in Germany and in California.”

Tech luminary Bill Gates is among those with doubts about trucking going electric; he went so far as to say he doesn’t see them working quite yet. But Daimler sounds bullish on electric.

Daimler Trucks North America president and CEO Roger Nielsen

“The road to emissions-free transportation is going to be driven with battery-electric vehicles,” said Daimler Trucks North America president and CEO Roger Nielsen, as part of the keynote address to the annual ACT fleet conference in April. “I believe the future is electric.”

At that time Daimler called natural gas “an interim solution,” and stated that while it sees the potential for fuel cells it doesn’t see near-term viability. It stressed that three things need to happen: a common vehicle charging infrastructure; cheaper, lighter, and more powerful batteries; and incentives to strengthen electric’s ownership-cost advantages.

Those might not be the only eCascadias to soon be placed in duty. Daimler says that it will put 50 commercial EVs into use by the end of the year in North America, and more deliveries of trucks from the Electric Innovation Fleet will continue through the year.

Freightliner eCascadia electric semi and Freightliner eM2 short-haul truck

The longer-hauling electric truck gets its name from the Cascadia, which is the best-selling Class 8 heavy-duty truck, and both electric Freightliners will be built in Portland, Oregon, with full-scale production in 2021.

Tesla has followed a different strategy. It’s been getting the Semi out for customer test drives—including a long tour last year visiting big-name reservation-holders such as UPS and J.B. Hunt. Tesla hasn’t recently provided a formal update on the Semi, but Green Car Reports has reached out to the company for comment.

The two trucks could actually reach the market within months of each other. The Tesla Semi is now expected for first deliveries in late 2020, while Daimler is targeting full-scale production in Portland, Oregon, beginning in 2021.

Rivian might build upcoming Ford electric SUV

Rivian could be entrusted to build an upcoming Ford electric SUV—due within the next few years—at the startup’s former Mitsubishi assembly plant in Normal, Illinois.

“It would be counterproductive for us to try and make what they have capacity to do in the beginning here, because they've got a factory in Illinois that meets a lot of our criteria,” Ford CEO Jim Hackett told MotorTrend, in a story published Tuesday.

That's a departure from what was announced in April, with the formation of a strategic partnership between the two companies. At that time, Ford said that it will build an all-new battery electric vehicle using Rivian’s flexible skateboard platform, and that the companies would develop this next-generation vehicle together.

Rivian R1T, R1S chassis

The Ford truck project, which is now sounding more like an electric SUV than an electric pickup, will leave much to Rivian. It's due to share all of Rivian’s core components, such as its battery pack, power electronics, electric motors, and electronic architecture, but Ford will develop what sometimes in industry terms is called a top hat—a different or fully differentiated body that fits onto the skateboard, with all the key technical components shared.

Ford may have a little more influence in Rivian’s platform as it moves toward production, however—and potentially, many more models. The partnership was spearheaded by a $500 million minority investment from Ford, and under that, Ford President of Global Operations Joe Hinrichs was given a seat on the Rivian board.

Ford emphasized that the deal doesn’t affect its existing $11 billion investment toward electric and electrified vehicles, including the upcoming Mustang-inspired electric crossover, which is due to arrive next year, or work on a fully electric version of the Ford F-150 pickup.

The Rivian R1T pickup is due to arrive in late 2020, with the R1S SUV to follow in 2021—and the Ford product after that.

Silicon wafer batteries promise lower cost, better stability

In an effort to make longer-lasting, safer, and more affordable batteries, Washington-based XNRGI aims to build lithium batteries on plentiful, off-the shelf silicon wafers.

Last week, the company announced plans to bring new batteries based on its patented technology to market in 2020, in a new stationary storage battery.

Most such batteries today are used in commercial installations such as at utility transformer stations or at grid-scale power plants, especially for wind and solar.

XNRGI Powercell silicon wafer battery design (from company video)

Some, however, are used to store lower-cost electricity for electric-car DC fast-charging stations. Tesla and other companies also sell them for home installations, which can help EV owners use solar power to charge their cars.

XNRGI claims its new silicon-wafer Power Chip cells have four times the energy density of conventional lithium-ion cells and cost half as much.

Lithium batteries already use silicon anodes. XNRGI's technology, which has been in development for 15 years, imprints a 20-by-20 micron honeycomb onto commodity cells, then coats them with lithium and other materials to form the cathodes of millions of “microbatteries.” The company says the wafers can accommodate various lithium chemistries.

Using the silicon wafers solves several challenges, the company says. Each wafer structure, houses 36 million of these microbatteries on each 12-inch chip. The tiny active batteries carry a small enough charge and has enough space between cells to avoid the dendrite growth that causes traditional batteries to lose capacity over time, and eventually cause shorts that can lead to fires. XNRGI expects its batteries should last three times as long as conventional lithium batteries.

The company says the chips can safely be stacked to store up to 100 kilowatt-hours of electricity.

This resistance to dendrite growth can also reduce the need to slow down chargers when batteries get close to full. Today fast charging is measured in how fast a car can get to 80 percent of a charge, based on the power of the charger.

Tesla aside, the most powerful chargers—and the cars designed to accept the fastest charges—can operate at about 150 kilowatts, or an 80 percent charge in about 20 minutes. The quickest-charging cars coming in the next year will cut that time in half. That's still more than twice as long as it takes to fill up with gas. Speeding up that last 20 percent can go a long way toward making electric cars more competitive with gas.

XNRGI Powercell silicon wafer battery design (from company video)

XNRGI claims an energy density of 400 watt-hours per kilogram (1,600 watt-hours per liter) for its batteries, more than twice as much energy per pound as the best batteries on the road today.

The other benefit XNRGI claims for its cells is reduced cost. The company says it can build the cells for $150 per kilowatt hour, regardless of the application. It has already sold 600 of them for grid storage applications, but the company says they are just affordable for electronics.

Since the batteries can be made in existing silicon wafer plants, XNRGI claims the cost of a battery factory can be reduced by 95 percent.

The company has not revealed when its new battery format might be used for testing in cars themselves.

The fastest Porsche SUV ever is a plug-in hybrid

As Porsche ramps up for the launch of its Taycan electric sedan late this year, today it has a new cheerleader for the performance boost of electric motors at the top of its SUV lineup: the 2020 Porsche Cayenne Turbo S E-Hybrid.

Although the Turbo S E-Hybrid has the same 14.1-kwh battery pack and 2.4-hour charge time—and the same 134-horsepower electric motor—as the Cayenne E-Hybrid we recently drove, the Turbo S substitutes in the Cayenne Turbo’s 541-hp, twin-turbo V-8.

With a total output of 670 hp and 663 lb-ft of torque, the Turbo S E-Hybrid can hit a top speed of 183 mph and accelerate to 60 mph in 3.6 seconds. Available in standard Cayenne or swoopier Cayenne Coupe body styles, it’s Porsche’s fastest, quickest, and most powerful SUV ever.

In the meantime, the brand is aiming to make more than half of its fleet—by sales volume—electrified, so hybrids and plug-in hybrids will be a big part of that. A fully electric Porsche Macan will arrive by 2022, and farther off in the future Porsche is still considering an all-electric platform for the next-generation Cayenne.

2019 Porsche Cayenne E-Hybrid

Market-wide, plug-in hybrid technology is increasingly popular for high-performance models, as it allows owners to go tailpipe-emissions-free in their community, or for most of the commute, while boosting mileage the rest of the time in hybrid mode.

The Turbo S E-Hybrid, which starts at $163,250, hasn’t yet been rated for fuel economy or plug-in range. The Cayenne Turbo with that same V-8 rates at just 17 mpg combined, according to the EPA, so expect in the vicinity of 20 mpg. And it’s likely, as the E-Hybrid, to be rated for about 20 all-electric miles.

That doesn’t necessarily make it a green car, but it’s one worth celebrating for showing some very strong positives for plug-in hybrid tech—and for setting the path for many more electric Porsches.

EU engine-tech project could help gas catch up with gasoline

Some biofuels, like biogas from landfills—or synthetic methane—are attractive for use in vehicles as they have a potentially low energy cost to produce. They also have lower criteria emissions, of the sort that affect human health and cause smog.

These engines should easily be cross-compatible with those using compressed natural gas (CNG). Up until now, however, passenger-car engines haven’t been optimized for these fuels (even natural gas, in most cases) and those designed to burn these fuels have often been adapted versions of gasoline engines, with some traits of diesels added.

As a result, gaseous-fuel-burning engines have lagged gasoline engines in thermal efficiency, despite their potential to do better than gasoline.

Tech talk-through for gaseous-fuels emissions reduction

That was the subject of a $26 million EU project called Gas On. The four-year project just concluded in March, with more results revealed in May. The goal was to design a gas-only internal combustion engine that reduced carbon-dioxide emissions (and thus fuel consumption) by 20 percent compared to best-in-class 2014 vehicles using compressed natural gas (CNG), with a “gasoline-like vehicle driving range.”

Aiming to step up efficiency for light vehicles

The project included a consortium of 20 members, including Volkswagen Group, Ford, Renault, and Fiat, and it sought innovative concepts for direct injection, ignition, and boosting systems, advanced exhaust aftertreatment, and systems that detect the gas composition and quality.

Volkswagen Group Lean CNG Combustion Concept

The best engine achieved the targeted 20-percent reduction in fuel consumption (based on WLTP-cycle calculations for a mid-size passenger car), with a peak efficiency of more than 45 percent and more than 40 percent efficiency reached over a wide operating range.

The efficiency gains are a step in the right direction, if the technology ever stands a chance, as gasoline development keeps nudging efficiency upward, battery electrics catch on, and energy experts continue to point to larger utility-scale power production as the best hope for these gaseous fuels.

Could be a hard sell for consumers, companies

With major gains for gasoline engines on one side, and growing momentum around electric vehicles on the other side, the industry faces some challenges for deploying biogas vehicles on any large scale.

2016 Toyota Prius Unveiling

The arrival of the fourth-generation 2016 Prius signalled the latest round of improvements for gasoline engines, as Toyota claimed a 40-percent thermal efficiency for its engine. The Hyundai Ioniq and Kia Niro that soon followed also claimed 40 percent. And now the Dynamic Force Engine that’s being installed in the new Camry and RAV4, among others, is rated at 40 percent in standard versions and 41 percent in hybrids.

Hyundai is reportedly targeting 50 percent for at least one next-generation engine. Meanwhile Mazda has claimed a thermal efficiency of up to 44 percent for its Skyactiv-X engine, which is likely to come to the U.S. in the next year or two, and it anticipates—from some reports—an efficiency in the range of as high as 56 percent for the next generation of its Skyactiv gasoline technology.

Better used for power generation?

Thermal efficiency is directly related to fuel economy and emissions and, simply put, how much work is produced from the fuel energy input. Natural-gas powered plants, while controversial at times, can already approach 60 percent efficiency.

2012 Honda Civic Natural Gas

Real-life use is also an important point. According to the EPA, EVs actually convert 59 to 62 percent of grid energy to power at the wheels, but typical internal combustion engines convert 17-21 percent. For some of those hybrids with the most efficient engines, the total-vehicle figure may be close to 30 percent today.

While the official part of the Gas On project is over, the next step will be for the automakers to conduct some real-world testing with fleets—echoing what happened about a decade ago when the last round of light-duty natural-gas vehicles, like the Honda Civic Natural Gas.

With electric cars more widely seen as a future replacing internal combustion gasoline tech, it’s going to be an even tougher argument this time around.

Nikola wins DOE fuel-cell development grant

Startup truckmaker Nikola, which plans to build fuel-cell-powered semi trucks in Arizona, won a $1.7 million grant to research improved techniques to assemble fuel-cell membranes, the company announced on Wednesday.

The company will partner with Department of Energy scientists from Carnegie Mellon University, Northeastern University, and Georgia Institute of Technology.

The heavy trucks that Nikola is developing require higher power output and greater durability than other fuel-cell vehicles, and require more advanced electrode structures in the fuel cells, the company said. Its trucks are expected to develop 1,000 horsepower and 2,000 pound-feet of torque. The company said it will begin testing its trucks on Arizona highways later this year and hopes to reach full production in 2022.

Nikola's research is expected to investigate new ways to assemble the interface between the electrode and the proton exchange membrane to make it more robust and reproducible. Nikola said it will include research into catalysts, ionomers, and gas diffusion layers.

Nikola Tre

“This award provides an opportunity for the…Nikola team to leverage expertise in academia and exceptional resources within the DOE Fuel Cell Consortium for Performance and Durability to accelerate a breakthrough that will benefit the entire hydrogen and fuel cell industry and community,” said Jesse Schneider, executive vice president of Hydrogen & Fuel Cell Technologies at Nikola.

The company is also working on a DOE grant to develop hydrogen fueling stations with its Norwegian partner NEL Hydrogen.

In April, Nikola announced plans to also produce a fully battery-powered semi, along with non-sleeper cabs for short-haul trucking routes in North America and Europe. Nikola could produce the battery-powered truck first, though it has made no announcement what models will make up its initial production.

Tesla is also planning to put a battery-powered semi truck into production later next year, and Toyota has a pilot program to build short-haul fuel-cell-powered semis for use at the Port of Los Angeles.

Nikola said it has 14,000 orders for its fuel-cell semis, including an order for 800 trucks from Anheuser-Busch,

Nio looks to shed other businesses to keep building cars

After laying off 70 workers and closing an office in the U.S., Chinese automaker Nio is searching its cupboards for cash.

EV sales have foundered in China this year after generous subsidies expired. and several companies have delayed or abandoned expansion plans. Nio seems to be no exception, except that it has other resources it can look to cash in.

Nio is reportedly seeking a buyer for its power systems in China, including its charging stations and battery swap station, mobile power delivery vans, charging technology integration services, and charging station maps. The company said it has invested $290 million in the operations. Nio's power unit is on track to operate 1,100 charging stations and 1,200 power delivery vans by 2020 in cities across mainland China, and it aims for the launch of an independent app for Nio Power in the next two months.

The company also operates a venture investment fund in the U.S. and is seeking new opportunities to invest in new electric car technologies in the U.S. and overseas, according to the South China Morning Post. The fund is reportedly worth $1.5 billion and is has reportedly raised another several hundred million dollars from unspecified sources.

Nio Formula E race car, EP9, ES8 and Eve concept car

The automaker is known as the Tesla of China, and is one of the country's most successful luxury electric carmakers, It currently sells two SUVs in China, including the six-passenger ES6 and the slightly larger eight-passenger ES8. Nio recently recalled nearly 5,000 ES8s in China after a series of battery fires.

Nio showed two new vehicles at this year's Shanghai auto show: the ET Preview sedan, and the ET7 concept coupe, which previews the company's next-generation battery system. It also entered into a production agreement with larger Chinese automaker GAC, which has its own electric-car interests, to produce cars for it in the future after the Chinese government cracked down on the number of startup electric automakers with new restrictions.

French company makes EV conversions easy for old clunkers

Off-the-shelf EV conversions aren't just for classic cars like Prince Harry's Jaguar anymore.

French startup Transition One plans to make it easy to convert a wide variety of average old cars in the country to electric power by building a standard conversion kit. The company says the kit will fit several top-selling models in Europe, including the Renault Twingo II, Fiat 500, Citroën C1, Peugeot 107, Toyota Aygo, and VW Polo.

The kit will sell for about $9,400 (8,500 Euros), and buyers can receive a 3,500 Euro tax credit in France, bringing the equivalent cost down to about $5,500. The company plans to complete each conversion in about four hours, once production is up and running.

The company has started by building a prototype electric car from a 2009 Renault Twingo, a small hatchback about the size of a Toyota Yaris. It uses Tesla battery modules in three packs under the hood, along with the motor and power electronics, and two more battery packs where the gas tank once sat.

Classic Mini Cooper electric conversion by Swind

The packs weigh 265 pounds, giving it about 18 kilowatt-hours of energy, which the company says will deliver about 112 miles of range in the Twingo.

In an interview with Bloomberg, company founder Aymeric Libeau said, “I’m selling to people who can’t afford a brand new 20,000 Euro [$22,200] electric car.”

The plan might be compared to that of Montreal's Ecotuned—aiming to convert old Ford F-150s with dying gas powertrains to electric power for fleets. The types of large, body-on-frame trucks that Ecotuned converts are as plentiful in North America as the small cars that Transition One plans to convert are in Europe. Other conversion companies—and some automakers—have begun focused conversion efforts on certain classics, such as the Jaguar E-Type, Porsche 911, and the original Mini Cooper.

Libeau still needs to get his conversions approved by European regulators, which he says he expects to receive by the end of the year. Transition One is also seeking financing to buy a factory to produce up to 400 of the conversions a year, and plans to open orders in September to test the market demand.

Automotive supplier tests immersion-cooled batteries for EVs

The two biggest challenges for electric cars—battery life and charge times—come down to battery cooling.

Now British auto parts supplier Ricardo is working with partners to come up with a new type of cooling technology that the company hopes will allow automakers to pack more energy into cars' batteries and to charge them faster. The technology, called immersion cooling relies on coating the batteries with dielectric cooling gel, called MIVOLT, used as electrical insulation in other applications.

If it's successful, the technology could prolong battery life in electric cars and accept higher current rates while charging without overheating them, and potentially bring charge times down closer to the time it takes to refill a gas tank.

The i-CoBat immersion cooling project aims to reduce the size and cost of cooling systems to allow automakers to build denser battery packs without increasing the heat buildup.

2019 Audi e-tron battery pack

Today's liquid cooling systems rely on cooling plates with pumps to circulate ethylene glycol or another coolant. If it proves effective, the immersive cooling technology could split the difference between those bulky, heavy systems and simpler air-cooled systems such as in the Nissan Leaf, which has been more prone to heat-related battery issues than other electric cars.

Nissan, for instance, has limited the number of times the cars could fast-charge to prevent damage to the batteries, which made it difficult to take the cars on long trips that would require more than one or two DC fast charges, although the cars were equipped with CHAdeMO fast-charge ports. (Nissan has since issued a software update for the cars to allow them to use DC fast chargers more frequently.)

With simpler, cheaper cooling systems, electric cars could use bigger batteries that charge faster and last longer. The MiVOLT immersive coolant is also biodegradable, unlike ethylene glycol, which is also used as coolant in most gas engines.

Nissan electric-car battery

Ricardo is working on the project with British materials company M&I Materials and WMG, a manufacturing effort of the University of Warwick, in Britain as part of the British government's Faraday Challenge.

The project isn't the first to work on immersive cooling systems. A similar project launched in Taiwan in 2017.

“Power, performance, practicality such as fast charging times, and price are key determinants in persuading consumers to opt for an EV rather than a liquid-fueled vehicle when they next change their car,” said Neville Jackson, Ricardo's Chief Technology and Innovation Officer. “With current cell technologies, thermal management is a crucial enabler for improvements in these areas in order to reduce or eliminate range anxiety, and promote consumer acceptance of electric cars.”

Tesla hiking prices for “Full Self-Driving” by $1,000 for some owners.

Tesla announced in an email to owners on Wednesday that it will boost the price of its “Full Self-Driving Capability” suite of driver-assistance features starting Aug. 16. The increase applies over-the-air upgrades for existing Tesla owners who already have some of those features in the Enhanced Autopilot package.

The move is the first step in what CEO Elon Musk has promised will be a steady escalation of prices for Tesla's Full Self-Driving Capability features on the way to turning the company's products into a fleet of self-driving robo-taxis, Starting Aug. 16, buyers who already have Enhanced Autopilot will have to pay $4,000 rather than the current $3,000 upgrade charge.

Despite the name, the Full Self-Driving Capability package is not yet capable of driving the car itself. Before the cars can do that, the company has to perfect its Navigate on Autopilot system, which allows Teslas to control speed, follow lanes, and change lanes to drive from a highway on-ramp to off-ramp with minimal driver input as long as the driver is touching the steering wheel. However, various reports have indicated that drivers still have to intervene frequently. The company also has to convince regulators to approve letting its cars on the road without drivers.

Enhanced Autopilot is no longer offered, and its features have migrated to Autopilot, which became standard earlier this year, and FSD, which is the now the only available driver-assistance package. Enhanced Autopilot was an optional package that included adaptive cruise control, automatic emergency braking, and active lane control. Last fall, it added Navigate on Autopilot, but then it was discontinued this spring.

Consumer Reports Tesla Model 3 Navigate on Autopilot ready for right-lane pass [CREDIT: CR]

At that time, Tesla made Autopilot standard. It now includes automatic emergency braking and active lane control, but adaptive cruise control and automatic lane changing are reserved for the Full Self-Driving Capability option, which costs $6,000 when ordered on a new car. Those features, along with automatic parking, summon, automatic lane changes, and a link to the navigation system to enable Navigate on Autopilot make up the current set of features of the Full Self-Driving Capability option that are currently active. In the future, Tesla wants to add an advanced summon feature, automatic driving on city streets, and the ability to recognize and respond to traffic lights and stop signs.

Musk tweeted last month that the company would begin ratcheting up prices on the FSD option to reflect the cars' higher future earning potential.

This price increase represents the first bump up that apparent ladder, and it means buyers will have to pay more for the company's top level of driver-assistance software as the auto industry aims for true full self driving, which may be years away. Effectively, Tesla is adding cost in anticipation of buyers using their cars as taxis to make money, which many drivers won't do.

Last week, Musk announced that Tesla will begin rolling out a new version of its operating-system software, Version 10, which he said will improve the system's ability to recognize stop signs and lights on surface streets and eventually allow the cars to drive themselves to provide some degree of self-driving on city streets.