Category: Automotive

EVgo and Electrify America sign interoperability agreement to allow drivers to charge on both networks

Electrify America and EVgo have announced an interoperability agreement that allows drivers to charge their EVs at both EVgo and Electrify America charging stations without additional fees, using their existing accounts. Drivers will be able to access public chargers on either the EVgo or Electrify America networks without having to create new memberships, registrations, or… Continue reading EVgo and Electrify America sign interoperability agreement to allow drivers to charge on both networks

Aptera Is Back: Most Efficient EV To Date With 1,000 Mile Range

If it manages to get to production this time, hopefully. EV fans had a huge blow when Aptera Motors filed for bankruptcy in 2011. After all, it would deliver a car that was able to run 100 miles on a single charge with a really small battery pack. It would have been an incredible feat… Continue reading Aptera Is Back: Most Efficient EV To Date With 1,000 Mile Range

More Affordable NIO ES3 To Debut In 2019

With the ES8 and ES6 already on the Chinese market, NIO is busy at work to introduce a third smaller and more affordable model. According to NIO co-founder and president Qin Lihong, by the end of this year, the company will unveil its third all-electric model, the NIO ES3. It will be a compact 5-seat… Continue reading More Affordable NIO ES3 To Debut In 2019

Employee Spotlight – Stanley Fok

Employee Spotlight – Stanley Fok 2019-08-15 Meet Stanley Fok, Engineering Group Leader in the Infotainment Software group, based out of our Canadian Technical Centre Markham campus. 1)  How long have you been at GM and what is your current role? I’ve worked at GM for just over two months now. I’m an Engineering Group Leader… Continue reading Employee Spotlight – Stanley Fok

Employee Spotlight – Negin Lashkari

Employee Spotlight – Negin Lashkari 2019-08-15 Meet Negin Lashkari, a Controls Development Engineer in Advanced Vehicle Prognostics, as a part of the Autonomous Driving and Active Safety team, based out of our Canadian Technical Centre Markham campus. 1) How long have you been at GM and what is your current role? I have been at… Continue reading Employee Spotlight – Negin Lashkari

GM Defense Awarded $1 Million Contract for the U.S. Army’s Infantry Squad Vehicle (ISV)

GM Defense Awarded $1 Million Contract for the U.S. Army’s Infantry Squad Vehicle (ISV) 2019-08-27 WASHINGTON — The U.S. Army has awarded GM Defense LLC a $1 million contract to develop its new Infantry Squad Vehicle (ISV) for prototype testing and evaluation.   Following recent field tests at Fort Bragg, North Carolina, the Army selected… Continue reading GM Defense Awarded $1 Million Contract for the U.S. Army’s Infantry Squad Vehicle (ISV)

Driven by Waymo, Designed with Trust

By: Ryan Powell, Head of UX Research & Design We’ve had members of the public riding in our fully self-driving vehicles for over two years, first as part of our early rider program and more recently through our Waymo One commercial ride-hailing service. Now, we have over a thousand riders in Waymo One, some who… Continue reading Driven by Waymo, Designed with Trust

Report: Faraday Future could soon undergo restructuring, shed CEO

Although the future looks brighter this year for the electric-vehicle hopeful Faraday Future, with a new line of funding revealed in April to help them get through the year and to the long-awaited production of its FF91 electric SUV, a recent report suggests that there may soon be more upheaval to come.

The company’s CEO and founder, Jia Yueting, could be stepping down as part of a restructuring plan, according to the China-based, English-language tech-media site Pandaily.

Faraday is quite a different company than it was in 2017, when it revealed the FF91 to much fanfare at CES, or even last year, when a $2 billion round of financing was announced from Hong Kong–based Evergrande Health. Several months later Evergrande still hadn’t produced the first $700 million of the promised funding, as part of a dispute.

Evergrande ended up seeking elsewhere to build its own electric-vehicle empire—with a controlling interest in National Electric Vehicles Sweden (NEVS), a Chinese company that bought the rights to Saab’s former vehicle designs (but not the name).

Some of the company’s top and founding executives have left the company, including Peter Savagian, the senior VP at Faraday and once chief engineer of the GM EV1. But the CEO, who goes by YT Jia, has remained at the company and in the U.S., where he reportedly can escape some of his own financial woes in China (part of the controversy in and of itself).

Faraday Future plant in Hanford, California

Faraday spokesman John Schilling declined to comment to Green Car Reports on what he called “speculation about our executives,” or on future plans for the company. But he confirmed that the company remains committed to the completion and launch of the FF91, and that it continues the development of the FF81 for launch in 2021.

It still has a place for that. The company gave up earlier plans to produce its vehicles at a North Las Vegas, Nevada, facility and opted for a smaller former Pirelli facility in Hanford, California—where, if this round of funding goes smoothly, the company could start building vehicles again sometime next year.

EV battery suppliers face glut of lithium, tight supply of other materials

Lithium is a critical ingredient for today’s electric-vehicle batteries. Although a host of chemistries show promise—such as sodium-ion, fluoride-ion, or iron-ion—lithium-ion is proven, and the demand for it has been increasing rapidly as electric cars take off.

And yet lithium has become unexpectedly plentiful and a lot cheaper this year. According to the Financial Times [subscription req’d], lithium prices are in a slump—due to a drop in demand from China, as government subsidies expire, combined with a rapid increase of production from new mines in Australia.

Bloomberg noted in July that supplies of lithium from Australia alone are expected to rise by 23 percent in the next two years, and six new mines have been opened there since 2017, partly to accommodate what suppliers, automakers, and the industry anticipate will be about a tenfold increase in lithium demand for batteries.

Flat lithium-ion battery back for next-generation Mercedes-Benz electric cars

Prices for the core raw-material product, lithium carbonate are down 13 percent this year; and the Solactive Global Lithium Index, which tracks the performance of companies active in exploration and mining of lithium, is down more than 50 percent since January. Other major producers are reporting earnings and profits down significantly.

The FT anticipates that in 2021, 56 percent of the world’s lithium-ion battery capacity will be in China, with 19 percent in Europe and 14 percent in the U.S.

Although future innovations pertaining to battery cathodes could help increase energy density—with a different balance of cobalt, nickel, and manganese—lithium will remain the preferred electrolyte. And even in a migration to solid-state cells with a solid electrolyte, lithium is anticipated to be the favored one for many years.

Average li-ion battery price by year – Bloomberg New Energy Finance

Don’t expect complete automotive cells to go way down in price because of the lithium glut. The concerns over cobalt supply (and its troubled sourcing from the Democratic Republic of Congo) haven’t gone away. Nor has the surge in nickel prices this year, which may be linked to battery supply issues seen earlier this year.

Electric vehicles remain on a track toward affordability and cost parity with gasoline cars in the next decade, although Bloomberg New Energy Finance has projected that the rapid affordability gains for batteries in EVs will slow somewhat over the next few years. The average electric-vehicle battery pack price, it has reported, is still falling significantly from today's $176 per kwh, to $94/kwh by 2024 and $62/kwh by 2030.