GM’s driverless car bet faces long road ahead

SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) – It’s one of the biggest bets going in the world of cars. A Cruise self-driving car, which is owned by General Motors Corp, is seen outside the company’s headquarters in San Francisco where it does most of its testing, in California, U.S., September 26, 2018. REUTERS/Heather Somerville Since May, General Motors… Continue reading GM’s driverless car bet faces long road ahead

Dyson electric car will be built in Singapore in 2021

Dyson is working to produce its cars with solid state battery technology. This advanced battery chemistry, which uses higher energy density cells that are quicker to charge and store more energy than current liquid cells, is predicted to make it to market in time for the brand’s second car, possibly at the start of the next decade. This would… Continue reading Dyson electric car will be built in Singapore in 2021

Risk of fire from coolant problems: BMW recall increases to 1.6 million cars

AP Million recall at BMW because of problematic air conditioning systems Because of problems with the air conditioning needs BMW Get more than one million more vehicles into the workshop worldwide. It is in this context already the second call this year, as the car maker announced on Tuesday. In the affected diesel vehicles could… Continue reading Risk of fire from coolant problems: BMW recall increases to 1.6 million cars

BMW Group expands technical campaign

BMW Group expands technical campaign Munich. Internal BMW Group investigations have revealed that in the case of some diesel vehicles glycol-leakage from the EGR- (Exhaust-Gas-Recirculation-) Cooler can occur. In combination with typical soot deposits and the high temperatures normally present in the EGR module this might result in smoldering particles. This could lead in very… Continue reading BMW Group expands technical campaign

BMW sets up end-to-end battery recycling in Europe

Prototype production of battery modules for BMW Group’s fifth-generation electric powertrain
Teaming with a new Norwegian battery supplier and a Belgian recycling company, BMW is aiming to build a fully sustainable future battery supply chain.

The company announced on Monday that it formed a partnership with Northvolt, which is building Europe's largest battery factory for electric cars in Sweden.

At the same time BMW is working with Belgian materials processing company Umicore to develop battery reuse and recycling systems. Then end goal is to dismantle battery packs down to their cells and recycle the cell materials into new cells to be built by Northvolt.

DON'T MISS: BMW Vision iNext electric concept redefines German luxury flagship

In between, the spent battery packs may be used as grid or home storage until they have no useful life left, according of a report in Automotive News Europe (subscription required.) .

Besides its environmental advantages, the system could have several other advantages for BMW. It could bring down the price of new battery materials which have seen a dramatic increase since 2015. Automakers in Europe and other parts of the world are also responsible for ensuring the batteries they install are properly disposed at the end of their life. Reusing the harvested material could lower the company's bill for such disposal.

READ THIS: BMW will have 25 electric cars, plug-in hybrid models by 2025

The new agreement could also indicate that BMW will turn to Northvolt to supply batteries for its future electric cars, in place of the Samsung batteries it uses now.

Northvolt is planning to invest $4.6 billion to build a battery factory to rival Tesla's Gigafactory, capable of eventually producing up to 32 gigawatt-hours of batteries per year.

No timeline was given to develop BMW's end-to-end battery recycling system. Northvolt plans to begin producing as much as 8 gigawatt-hours worth of batteries in 2020 and to have its plant fully operational by about 2025.

TomTom – Volvo cooperation ended

The map service provider TomTom from the Netherlands loses the Swedish automaker Volvo as a customer. There are currently major fluctuations in the traffic segment. HERE Has Google Maps pushed off the throne. Meanwhile, Google Maps is stepping up its engagement and Apple’s maps are coming soon no longer existent. Now also has the map… Continue reading TomTom – Volvo cooperation ended

Drive Now is electrifying its car-sharing fleet

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ChargePoint users can now access networks in Canada, Europe

2014 BMW i3 REx fast-charging at Chargepoint site, June 2016 [photo: Tom Moloughney]
Plugging in an electric car should be as easy as making a call on a cell phone—only it isn't always.

Now a series of new agreements—similar to cell-phone roaming agreements that let users make calls on other networks—are beginning to make that easier.

The latest, announced Tuesday morning, is an agreement between ChargePoint, America's largest charging network, and FLO, the largest network in Canada.

DON'T MISS: ChargePoint commits to build charging stations for 2.5 million cars by 2025

The agreement will allow electric-car drivers with ChargePoint accounts to see FLO chargers in their ChargePoint apps when they're traveling in Canada and to plug in to any one of them using their ChargePoint account—and vice versa.

ChargePoint signed a similar agreement last Tuesday with EV Box, one of the leading providers of charging stations in Europe. The EV Box agreement will allow travelers renting an electric car on either continent to use their ChargePoint or EV Box account from the other. EV Box operates in 45 countries.

READ MORE: ChargePoint launches electric-car charging activated by smartphone (2017)

Such interoperability agreements depend on a common set of new charging standards used by networks, automakers, and charging station producers called Open Charge Point Interface.

It bundles billing, account, charger location and availability information, among other things into a common protocol communicated between the car, the charging station, the network, and its app to allow drivers simply to plug in and go.

Before drivers show up at a charger on any of the apps, they can see whether the charger is available, working, or in use, and the price to charge.

Behind the scenes

The announcements come on the heels of an announcement by Hubject, another company working behind the scenes to integrate the data streams of different chargers and charging networks and their apps into one common standard to enable agreements like those between ChargePoint, FLO, and EV Box.

Hubject has promoted such interoperability movements across Europe and in Israel, Japan, and Canada, and announced in June that it is setting up shop in the U.S., to bring such agreements to North America. The company works with EV Box and Ionity, a large fast-charging consortium supported by automakers in Europe. Its service includes integrating navigation directions to available charging stations within the network's apps.

The eventual goal, Hubject executives say, is for drivers not to even have to get out a credit card, but for payment to be handled automatically when the car is plugged in.

Press Releases – Brexit: auto industry urges negotiators to avert worst-case scenario

Brussels, 17 October 2018 – Ahead of this evening’s Brexit summit, Europe’s auto manufacturers and suppliers have come together to issue a stark warning on the potentially far-reaching impacts of a no-deal scenario on their sector, which would threaten their very business model. Automobile production plants – be they in the EU27 or the UK… Continue reading Press Releases – Brexit: auto industry urges negotiators to avert worst-case scenario