The Elements of Innovation Discovered
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On track for key goal in 2024, headed steadily onward in aims for 2025. Nextgen solid-state battery tech leader QuantumScape has started customer shipments of its Alpha-2 prototype battery cells, on target for its 2024 goal. Toward achieving its mission to transform energy storage with solid-state lithium-metal battery technology, the company began shipping its A0 prototypes to potential automotive customers for qualification at the end of 2022. The company's new Alpha-2...
The current industry standard for electric vehicle batteries targets a 20% capacity loss over 700 charging cycles, which means an EV that rolls off the lot with a 250-mile range could end its life with a range of 50 fewer miles per charge by the time the odometer clicks to around 150,000 miles. (For some vehicles like the Tesla Model S, the pricier 100-kilowatt-hour batteries degrade faster than 85- and 70-kWh options.) Meanwhile, U.S. company QuantumScape's solid-state cell...
Metal 3D printing tech developed for fusion energy gains popularity. Metal 3D printing company Seurat Technologies has received orders for 25 tons of metal printed parts. In addition to surpassing the capacity of its pilot facility, the company says this level of interest demonstrates a historic shift for a metal printing technology born from the quest for fusion energy. Founded in 2015, Seurat Technologies was the product of the development of a new kind of metal 3D printing...
While most leaders in the clean energy sector strongly indicate the concept of solid-state batteries is better, a few hurdles have long held this superior rechargeable battery in the realm of pacemakers and smartwatches, and out of electric vehicles where they are desperately needed. Solid-state technology replaces the liquid electrolyte in lithium batteries with a solid ceramic or polymer material. This increases energy density, stability, and heat resistance. For EV...
Setting up in one of North America's fastest-growing lithium-ion battery development zones, Volkswagen Group has foreseen the potential and has opted to build its next gigafactory outside of Europe in the city of St. Thomas, Ontario. The St. Thomas factory is a joint venture between VW and PowerCo SE, a new independent company created by the automaker to oversee its massive $20 billion battery initiatives. With two other gigafactories currently in development, this latest...
Vulcan publishes feasibility study that checks off next milestone along path to 2025 production. With five offtake agreements with some of Europe's largest carmakers, such as Stellantis, Volkswagen, and Renault Group, as well as Umicore and Korea's LG Electronics, Vulcan Energy Resources Ltd. has announced the results of its definitive feasibility study for phase one of the company's Zero Carbon Lithium project in Germany's Rhine River Valley. Aiming to become the world's...
After partnering together mid-2022, Volkswagen Group of America, Inc., has expanded its existing collaboration with Redwood Materials Inc. by adding Redwood recycling bins at participating Volkswagen dealerships to conveniently recycle rechargeable devices or lithium-ion batteries. "Volkswagen's goal is to provide more accessible and more sustainable electric mobility for American drivers," said Andrew Savvas, executive vice president, chief sales and marketing officer,...
Branching into the edge field of quantum computing, Volkswagen Group has partnered with Canadian quantum technology company Xanadu to answer a single question: can quantum computers help design batteries? As the known world and its elemental makeup have been thoroughly dissected, humanity has reached the point where it is slightly cumbersome to discover new ways to utilize the elements on the periodic table. Existing classical methods have been the cornerstone of...
Manganese-rich battery cathode recipes could stretch the other ingredients While not as talked about as other battery ingredients such as cobalt, lithium, and nickel, manganese is an important stabilizing ingredient in the cathodes of the nickel-manganese-cobalt lithium-ion batteries widely used in electric vehicles and electronics. "Their composition helps determine how long you can talk on the phone, how far you can drive an electric car, how fast a battery can recharge and...
Redwood Materials Inc. has partnered with yet another auto giant, Volkswagen Group of America, Inc., to create a new circular supply chain for recycled Volkswagen and Audi electric vehicle batteries in the United States. After announcing a partnership with Toyota Motor North America in late June, it was not long before Volkswagen – which has already been taking steps to prepare for its end-of-life EV batteries for some time now – sought the California battery recycler to loc...
Car titans Volkswagen Group and Ford Motor Company have expanded their e-mobility partnership with Ford planning to produce another electric model for the European market based on Volkswagen's modular electric drive matrix platform, as well as doubling its planned MEB volume to 1.2 million units over the next six years. "Our strategic alliance with Volkswagen is an important element of Ford's commitment to offer an all-electric range of vehicles that are uniquely Ford and desi...
Powering up its mission to become the world's leading manufacturer of electric vehicles, Volkswagen Group has established a European public company to consolidate activities along the EV battery supply chain – from processing raw materials, to developing a unified Volkswagen battery, and managing the five European gigafactories the company has in the pipeline. The German automaker's new battery business will be headquartered in Salzgitter, Germany, which is the site of V...
As part of the ongoing pursuit to explore breakthroughs in materials science and recycling concepts in the support of electric mobility and sustainable transportation, Volkswagen Group of America's innovation hub in Knoxville, Tennessee has expanded its research collaboration with Oak Ridge National Laboratory. Reported Oct. 27, the first project involves testing Oak Ridge National Lab's new high-power wireless EV charging concepts with a Porsche Taycan. "We aim to leverage...
In a move that will shape the future of batteries powering electric Volkswagens, the German automaker has opened one of the most modern laboratories for cell research and development in Europe. This laboratory in Salzgitter, Germany, will help develop Volkswagen Group's unified cell, a format adaptable to various mixes of battery chemistries, and is compatible with all major upcoming product and production process innovations. This lithium battery, which is expected to...
Volkswagen Group is forging ahead with the use of innovative 3D printers in its production of vehicles, intending to use metal binder jetting to manufacture components at the company's main plant in Wolfsburg, Germany. "Despite the ongoing challenges of the coronavirus pandemic, we're continuing to work on innovation," said Christian Vollmer, a member of Volkswagen's board of management responsible for production and logistics. "Together with our partners, we aim to make 3D...
As part of a strategy to significantly lower the cost, improve the performance, and minimize the environmental footprint of batteries going into its expanding line-up of electric vehicles in Europe, Volkswagen Group has placed a US$14 billion order with Sweden-based Northvolt. This massive deal between the European e-mobility partners announced on the eve of Volkswagen Power Day, a March 15 event that laid out the German automaker's roadmap to making the electric car...
Furthering its ambitions to be a premium and sustainable battery solutions leader, Northvolt is investing US$200 million to build the largest energy storage systems factory in Europe. The first stage of the planned 50,000-square-meter (538,000 square feet) cutting edge battery systems factory being built in Gdańsk, Poland is already underway. This initial phase, expected to be completed next year, will be able to produce 5 gigawatt-hours of lithium-ion battery modules and...
Though Volkswagen does not expect any appreciable quantities of spent lithium-ion batteries for at least another decade, the German automaker has already constructed its first plant to recover more than 90% of the raw materials from these cells. Operated by Volkswagen Group Components, an independent entity formed by Volkswagen in 2019, this pilot plant that recently opened in Salzgitter, Germany aims to recycle more than 90% of the battery raw materials such as lithium, nicke...
Quebec has put in motion a plan to establish itself as a leader in the global transition to a green economy – by both lowering the eastern Canadian province's carbon footprint through the adoption of renewable energy and electric vehicles, and being a source of responsibly mined minerals and metals that make these technologies possible. Provincial officials recently unveiled the Quebec Plan for the Development of Critical and Strategic Minerals 2020-2025, which provides the f...
Nobel Prize winning co-inventor of the lithium-ion battery John Goodenough is teaming up with a new generation of scientists and entrepreneurs at Energy Exploration Technologies, or EnergyX, to make the next world changing battery storage discovery – solid-state lithium-ion batteries. From untethering our phones, computers, and power tools, to ushering in the era of renewable energy and electric vehicles, the rechargeable batteries pioneered by Goodenough and his colleagues h...
With the goal of selling more than 1 million electric cars per year by 2025 and having 75 all-electric models by 2029, Volkswagen Group is taking steps to ensure that the array of battery metals and rare earth elements needed for this e-mobility transition are sourced responsibly. The German automaker is also taking steps to minimize the carbon footprint of manufacturing its expanding line-up of EVs. Convinced that a sustainable supplier network is vital to long-term...
When a global automaker changes a name that has been a symbol emblazoned upon its American automobiles for more than 65 years in favor of a moniker emblematic of its electric vehicle future, there is no doubt that global transportation is at an e-mobility crossroads. Such a turning point was reached on March 30, when Volkswagen Group unveiled the official change of its U.S. brand name from Volkswagen of America to Voltswagen of America. “We might be changing out our K for a T...
The ambitious 2035 target for a complete transition to electric vehicle sales set by most global automakers hinges on establishing reliable and responsible supply chains for the batteries that will power this envisioned electric mobility future. To help meet the burgeoning EV sector's battery material needs, First Cobalt Corp. is moving forward with an integrated battery refining, recycling, and manufacturing park in Ontario. "We see serious strains in the automotive supply...
Reminiscent of America's gilded age, the world is priming itself for a new era of technology and energy centered on the electricity that sparked the imaginations of visionaries such as Nikola Tesla and Thomas Edison. This new era, however, sets aside more than a century of burning fossil fuels in favor of new clean sources of the electricity that will power human innovation into the 21st century and beyond. Solar, wind, hydro, and geothermal are but a few of the methods...