Lithium News

Andreas Pinkwart, the Economics Minister of the German state of North Rhine-Westphalia, and Tobias Meyer, the Board of Management member who oversees Post & Parcel Germany, presented the 10,000th StreetScooter that will be used in DHL’s parcel-delivery operations at an event in Cologne.

The DHL Group’s e-fleet has now traveled more than 100 million kilometers, saving 36,000 tons of CO₂ each year in the process.

The StreetScooter fleet is complemented by 12,000 e-bikes and e-trikes. Deutsche Post DHL Group has also installed about 13,500 charging stations at its depots and delivery bases.

By comparison: Germany currently has merely 20,650 public and semi-public charging points across the country, according to the Bundesverbandes der Energie- und Wasserwirtschaft (BDEW – the German association of energy and water industries). As a result, Deutsche Post is the largest private operator of a charging network in the country.

What ingredient for electric-car batteries is currently in a state of oversupply?

And which electric-vehicle brand from the past dusted off the mothballs and claimed a 1,000-mile range?

This is our look back at the Week In Reverse—right here at Green Car Reports—for the week ending August 30, 2019.

On Friday we brought you some reassuring news about Tesla. It has gained a purchase tax exemption on all of its vehicles—although it could still be facing some tariff trouble over the Model S, Model X, and others that it might import from the U.S.

That was just some of the news we brought you this week from China, the world’s largest vehicle market (and EV market). Nio, which has planned to enter the U.S., is offering free battery swapping in its home market. And Polestar, the electrified performance brand related to Volvo, is asserting more independence by ramping up its own factory in China.

Meanwhile back in the U.S., Polestar will be considered a standalone automaker for federal EV tax credit eligibility. And we looked ahead about a month to October 1, when GM—with all of its brands counted together—will be faced with another drop in the amount buyers of eligible vehicles like the Chevy Bolt EV can claim.

In California, the biggest electric-car market in the U.S., Tesla launched a new insurance product—although it doesn’t appear to be quite as data-driven as Elon Musk suggested several months ago.

Before Tesla was taken all that seriously, a completely different electric-vehicle idea was gaining traction. Ten years later, Aptera is returning with essentially that same idea, but with modern battery tech and a range of up to 1,000 miles.

Lincoln is seeking to bolster its demographics by making the most luxurious model in its Aviator SUV lineup a robust plug-in hybrid—albeit a sort of placeholder in the lineup. Meanwhile the closely related Ford Explorer Hybrid, which skips the plug-in range, has been rated at up to 28 mpg, according to the EPA.

Also later in the week we considered several future vehicles, through the spy shots of our partner site, Motor Authority. A Toyota RAV4 plug-in hybrid could take some of the brand’s experience with the Prius Prime and expand it to one of the most popular vehicle segments. And the Volkswagen ID 4X—the ID Crozz as we knew it as a concept—could also arrive in that same popular size class as the RAV4.

With the Frankfurt auto show just a couple weeks away, several more concept-car teasers gave us some glimpses of the future. An Audi AI:Trail concept could show how autonomous driving and off-roading could coexist, while Lexus might finally enter the electric vehicle fold with an urban EV.

Bollinger Motors isn’t headed for mass production, hasn’t gone with outside investors, and isn’t aiming to make passenger vehicles. It is planning to show the production-intent prototypes of its B1 electric SUV and B2 electric pickup at an event in Michigan September 26.

Battery suppliers are facing an unexpected glut of lithium, although other problematic materials like nickel and cobalt will likely keep battery prices from falling any faster than already anticipated.

And on the subject of battery suppliers—and coming back full-circle to China—we started the week off with the news that Tesla has chosen LG Chem to be its primary supplier for vehicle production in China.

Autocar spent two days at Ford HQ in Dearborn, Mich. learning about where Ford is going, told in the words of seven top-level Ford execs including company chairman Bill Ford, Jr. and CEO Jim Hackett. The resulting article is a long read but well worth the time, with Ford still in the early phases of an immense product reorganization that will last into the 2020s, and many still not clear on how the automaker plans to capitalize on the plans that have been announced.

Among the key takeaways:

Ford plans to invest $11 billion in electric vehicles by 2022 to get 40 EVs in its global lineup. Darren Palmer left his role overseeing a performance portfolio of traditional ICE vehicles to become the product development director of Project Edison, which would work up ideas for a range of high-performance EVs. He told Autocar that Ford is “hitting our biggest icons first” in the move to electrification that will open next year with the Mustang-based crossover expected to be called the Mach E (prototype pictured). Sometime after that, we’ll get an electric F-150 and an EV Transit, but Palmer was mum on the possibility of a battery-powered Bronco or Ranger.

Palmer says Ford won’t need to tack on huge MSRPs to these electrified “icons,” because it plans to make its EVs “extremely desirable, but at an attainable price.” That’s a fantastic goal, and Ford knows its numbers better than we do, but when various analysts predict a “profit desert” for electric powertrains, autonomous driving and connectivity, we’re keen to see how Ford manages to do that without asking un-Ford-like sums.

As for electric range, Palmer said, “A car’s range in miles begins with a 1, 2 or 3. Our research shows that when it’s a 3 anxiety drops away fast. A 300-plus capability is something we’re aiming at.”

One step back from full electrification, Joe Hinrichs, the head of Ford for the Americas, said one of the company challenges was getting “consumers to see hybridisation as tried and tested technology, not a science project but the vehicle they love with a more efficient powertrain.”

Additional tidbits in the Autocar story include Ford of Europe boss Stuart Rowley explaining the declining sedan segments and more details about Ford’s five-platform strategy for all the brand’s models that aims to save $26 billion and introduce new cars more quickly. Bill Ford Jr. also talks about how the previous “One Ford” initiative might have gone too far and CEO Jim Hackett lays out the vision for “human-centred design,” which, in Autocar’s words, wants “to reduce the ‘design gap’ between truth and perception by finding the particular sources of difficulty and refining them away.” In five years, these will be the lines in the sand the company will be judged on.

Sometimes, in the long development cycle of new, greener vehicles, automakers hit an awkward stopping point. Pencils down—it’s time to turn in your work.

Sometimes that stopping point leaves us with vehicles that don’t advance the notion of cleaner cars very much.

The 2020 Lincoln Aviator Grand Touring plug-in hybrid has caught engineers with some answers left blank on their test. Ford has mapped out a multi-pronged electric-car strategy—but in the meantime, will launch the plug-in Aviator with about 18 miles of electric-only range.

Twenty miles offers a fig leaf that some drivers will use to justify their desire for a more environmentally sensitive luxury SUV. Those who want a truly efficient alternative will have to wait a little longer from Lincoln, though. The 2020 Aviator Grand Touring plug-in hybrid is a placeholder, not a game-changer.

Aviator hybrid performance: It’s (slightly) electric

The Aviator joins the Ford Explorer on a new rear-drive architecture that’s been planned with electrification in mind, with some battery-pack space beneath the rear passenger floor. It’s an architecture that will spawn a generation of new vehicles, so don’t be surprised to see a plug-in Mustang, or at least a hybrid, from the same platform soon.

The 2020 Aviator Grand Touring has a much bigger (13.6 kwh) battery pack than the 1.5-kwh one used in the non-plug-in hybrid Explorer. Here a 75-kw electric motor assists the twin-turbo V-6 that generates 400 horsepower when it stands alone in non-hybrid Aviators. The combination nets the Aviator Grand Touring some 494 hp and an awesome 630 lb-ft of torque, and strong acceleration to 60 mph in about six seconds. Or, it lets the Aviator go electric-only in some conditions.

That’s all well, but the Aviator battles a couple of factors in its posit as a green machine. Its staggering curb weight—batteries and full array of luxury features included—of 5,673 pounds blunts a serious efficiency play as much as its rorty twin-turbo V-6. Then there’s the pack size and placement itself. There’s not much space for more battery, which leaves the estimated 18-mile electric-only range at the bottom of today’s plug-in hybrid charts. (Official EPA ratings for range and MPGe aren’t yet available.)

While it can recharge those batteries quickly—in about four hours on a Level 2 charger—the Aviator Grand Touring doesn’t seem to manage its additional electric power as well as other plug-in hybrids, even those from Ford. Its hybrid system places the electric motor ahead of the transmission, and the coupled-in battery power creates noticeable and frequent shift shock (despite the use of a torque converter to help with that). It’s not a luxury feel—and it’s all the more noticeable when compared to other less expensive plug-ins such as the Hyundai Sonata Plug-In Hybrid.

The plug-in Aviator is quieter when it taps its electric power, of course, and towing isn’t too far off the mark at 5,600 pounds, compared to 6,500 pounds on the non-hybrid model. It also rides more smoothly, perhaps because of its extra heft.

What it doesn’t do is hold enough energy to ensure a single day’s drive on electric power alone for most drivers—and with battery-electric SUVs already a reality, it’s a pencils-down moment that catches the Aviator Grand Touring before it feels fully realized.

Get thee to the plug

The Aviator Grand Touring clearly was conceived in the time before Ford took its big cannonball leap into electrification. Since it was signed off on years ago, Ford’s plans for electric vehicles have erupted in a half-dozen ways on at least three distinct branches, from home-grown architectures to global power plays in combination with Volkswagen. The Aviator Grand Touring amounts to a demographic play.

“The intention is not to only sell it in certain markets, but there are certain markets, certain customers, certain demographics—California is the best example—of customers who are just looking for that in their life,” Lincoln’s marketing manager for SUVs, Megan McKenzie, told Green Car Reports earlier this year.

That’s not cynical—it’s valuable. The Aviator hybrid does two important things for the brand: it gets Lincoln shoppers aware of electrified vehicles, and it gets them in the habit of charging vehicles, a critical step when the next step might be a plug-in Lincoln that doesn’t use gasoline at all.

The gas-free future for Lincoln will come in increments, with its plug-in future advanced this year with the introduction of the plug-in Corsair crossover hybrid. It’s a platform-mate with the new Ford Escape, and both will adopt a plug-in powertrain blessed with the superior integration and coding of Ford’s prior small hybrids, including the C-Max Energy and the previous Escape hybrid.

Beyond that, the upcoming Ford Mach E electric crossover—the one planned as a “Mustang-inspired” compact vehicle, arrives next year with a base price of about $45,000. The pure-electric Lincoln SUV promised for 2021 will be drawn from that architecture, with another larger Lincoln electric SUV, via Ford’s deal with Rivian, likely to follow a year later.

For the next 18 months or so, the Lincoln Aviator Grand Touring will be Ford’s most advanced plug-in car. It isn’t clearly an efficient car, by objective measures—it’s more of an inflection point for a luxury brand that must now pivot off its V-8-powered past.

In a recent article at Jalopnik, Jason Torchinsky (known in the internet auto enthusiast scene as “Torch”) explained how degraded but functional EV batteries could work great for school buses. In short, he suggests using low-cost conversion kits and reusing discarded batteries from other EVs to repower school buses, at a low cost.

While he’s known for his less-than-serious articles, like this one about using electric eels to power a Tesla Model 3, I think he’s really onto something with this idea. Also, I’m going to add a couple of ideas that could make EV school buses even more green.

The Basic Idea

Converting gas or diesel vehicles to run on batteries can be a big headache.

Take the original Tesla Roadster for example. The original plan was to purchase a slightly modified version of the Lotus Elise, share parts with other manufacturers, and take advantage of economies of scale even at low-volume production. During the design and engineering process, they had to change a thing here and a thing there to better accommodate the EV system, but it all added up. In the end, they only shared 8% of parts with the Elise and the vehicle cost far more than originally planned.

People converting cars to electric in their garages was the only way to get an EV until relatively recently, and is still a great way for the environmentally-oriented to keep older cars on the road. For older cars, like the original Volkswagen Beetle and Super Beetle, the conversion process isn’t that complicated. There’s not much in the way of electronics to deal with when converting. For newer cars, conversions get far more complicated, assuming you want to have things like a working speedometer. Regardless of age, though, finding nooks and crannies to put the battery cells in gets tough, and makes it hard to have a conversion with adequate range for most.

As Torchinsky points out, though, school buses are about as simple as a vehicle can get. You’ve basically got a diesel engine (occasionally gas), a transmission, a frame, a big and ugly metal box on top, and some seats bolted in. Under the bus between the frame rails, there’s tons of room for batteries, so energy density isn’t really a big deal. If that’s not enough, there’s also a lot of room under the hood (once the diesel engine is out) and lots of room under seats.

In these big spaces, you can install the worn battery packs, or cells from those packs, from other EVs as they come cheaply available. When a Tesla, LEAF, or Chevy Bolt loses too much range, the owner will either have the pack replaced or get rid of the car. The energy density has dropped, and there’s no more room for extra batteries to make up for the lost range. School buses, on the other hand, have room to take several such degraded packs and get the needed range.

But will this actually work?

The way school buses get used makes the idea even more workable. Sure, the average family sedan only goes a few dozen miles most days, but people don’t want a car with under 100 miles of range because they’re also occasionally used for longer highway trips. School buses don’t have that problem. They work a fixed route every school day, with average speeds of around 23 MPH and average lengths of around 32 miles. After working that route, the bus sits for 5-7 hours, and works the same route again. Then, the bus sits overnight.

Before anybody points out that buses are used for field trips out of town, or for away sporting events, take a closer look next time you see those buses. They’re often marked “Activity Bus,” and they tend to be larger diesel-pusher vehicles with two rear axles — kind of like a cheap version of a Greyhound bus. Yes, the activity buses are often used in a way that wouldn’t make them good candidates for a “redneck EV conversion,” so we can just leave those buses alone for now. As batteries come down in price, such buses could be replaced with EVs AND they may even be a good source for used batteries when the other buses need them.

Going back to the in-town buses, you basically couldn’t find a better use case for an EV with junkyard batteries. Yes, the bus is big and heavy, but it doesn’t go very fast and doesn’t go very far. To make those buses go 50-60 miles on a charge would probably require the cells from several degraded cars, and there’s plenty of room for that.

But what about charging?

Not a big problem. At all.

In the afternoon, the buses can charge on 220v and they have until the following morning to charge. There’s no rush. Once the morning run is done, they have several more hours to sit and charge. For routes where the overnight charge is sufficient for the morning run, but daytime charging isn’t enough for the afternoon, you’ll just need a bigger pack, which means more junkyard battery cells.

At the end of the day, it’s all about right-sizing the pack to the job that’s being done. Because the use of the bus is so predictable, it’s very easy to plan for.

Ways We Can Improve On This Concept

Reading the article gave me some other ideas that could prove useful. Or not. I’ll let the reader decide.

Heating

Living in the Southwest, the buses I grew up with and the ones my kids ride in don’t have heaters. They also don’t have air conditioning, which can be awful. Schoolbusfleet.comreports that the expensive EV buses in California generally do the same thing. If you skip the AC and heat, you don’t have to worry about impacts to range. I know from my travels, though, that you can’t get away with that in much of the country. The buses are going to need heaters in many places.

Currently, diesel school buses cycle engine coolant through pipes to a number of heater cores, just like a car. Each heater core has a blower fan, which circulates all of this leftover engine waste heat to safely warm the interior of the bus. But, take away the diesel engine, and you lose the heat source.

One option some New England districts are going for is just slamming a propane heater in. Yes, you lose the ability to brag on zero emissions, but the emissions from heating are much smaller than running a diesel drive engine. For converted buses, you can use a propane demand water heater to provide the existing coolant pipes and heater cores with hot water. Or, you could install a dedicated system. Either way, getting the heat from fossil fuels can be a good way to keep it warm without impacting range and driving up the cost of converting the buses to electric.

Solar

In places that get cold in the winter, but still have a lot of sunlight, solar heating systems could help reduce the use of heating fuel. The simplest way to do this is to put large black tubes on top of the bus and push air through them with fans. The sun heats the black tubes, which in turn heat the air pumped through them, which goes back into the bus. Some people do this with their homes and save a lot on their heating bill. There’s lots of room on top of a bus, so such a system is feasible.

All that space on the roof of the bus gives us another option for improvement: photovoltaic cells. For a normal length school bus, there’s about 8’x 35′ of roof, or about 280 square feet. Assuming 20 watts per square foot (for good quality, high efficiency cells in 2019), that’s around 5600w of max output. Cutting that in half for inefficiencies and losses still gives us 2800w of electricity for a vehicle that’s always left outside. On most days, the vehicle could probably generate 28 kWh of electricity. Assuming 2 miles per kWh, that gives about 56 miles of range per day.

For some routes, it may be possible to run the bus entirely on solar. For many others, it may be possible to put a serious dent in the electric bill with rooftop solar. Even better, the bus company or school district could probably have the cells installed with a power purchase agreement that gives a lower per-kWh price than the local utility company.

With cheap batteries, cheap conversion kits, and cheap electricity from solar power, it would make a lot of sense to start converting school bus fleets. This is an idea schools and bus companies should seriously consider.

Researchers at the Ohio State University Center for Automotive Research have created new computer models to predict the life and performance of batteries that could power some passenger airplanes – a step forward for cleaner, more efficient air travel.

The models show that adding lithium-ion batteries to a regional airplane could reduce that airplane’s fuel needs by up to 20 percent, the researchers said.

The team presented the findings last week at the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics Electric Aircraft Technologies Symposium in Indianapolis.

“We are working on ways to make air travel less carbon-intensive,” said Marcello Canova, a co-presenter and associate professor of mechanical and aerospace engineering at Ohio State. “Lithium-ion batteries, including the technology that is commercially available today, appear to be a promising option.”

The research is conducted under NASA’s University Leadership Initiative program, and focuses on evaluating the trade-offs between fuel savings and a battery pack’s size, weight and costs, while also including the carbon impact of the electricity necessary to recharge the battery pack. The models and tools developed were a joint effort between researchers at Ohio State and Georgia Institute of Technology, and could help airplane and airplane battery designers better understand how an aircraft’s design affects its ability to be powered by a battery.

In preliminary designs, the researchers focused on lithium-ion battery packs that could supplement the power produced by the engines of a regional jet – one traveling 600 or fewer miles, carrying 50 to 100 passengers.

Their model showed in tests that a battery has the ability to power about 30 percent of the total power required for an airplane to climb to cruising altitude, and about 20 percent of the power required to cruise.

That could reduce levels of carbon dioxide – a primary driver of climate change – that airplanes contribute to the atmosphere. Air travel contributes about 2 percent of the carbon dioxide humans put into Earth’s atmosphere, according to the Air Transit Action Group. This research team, led by Ohio State and four other universities, has been funded by NASA to find new, less carbon-intensive ways to power air travel.

“Our team is focusing on evaluating the feasibility and economics of introducing lithium-ion batteries to air travel,” Canova said. “And we’re working on the ways to make that safe and reliable.”

Their work also considers how to make batteries for air travel more efficient. Batteries that power automobiles differ from those that help power airplanes, Canova said: Airplane batteries must abide by more-strict weight, safety, durability and reliability standards.

But batteries deteriorate with use, offering less power over time and decreasing the range an airplane can travel. That deterioration also means less power is available to help an airplane accelerate and reach its maximum speed. Temperature affects batteries, as well.

To lay the groundwork for a better battery, Canova said, the team built a computer model of an electro-thermal battery pack and added an algorithm that simulated the effects of time and use on batteries. Then they tested to see how that model performed after repeated use and under various temperatures.

The team planned for the battery to be used for six flights per day, and calculated the power necessary for takeoff, climbing, cruising, landing and taxiing to the runway. They allotted one hour between flights to charge the battery pack, and assumed that the pack could be used for two years, 24 hours a day, seven days a week.

They found that a battery pack’s performance is limited by capacity fade, a term used to describe energy loss in a battery over time. And they found that time, not use, is the main driver of battery deterioration.

What they developed, Canova said, is essentially a tool that can be used to predict the effect stressors such as aging and use might have on a lithium-ion battery powering a regional aircraft, which is a very important factor when evaluating costs and benefits of introducing this technology in air travel.