Lithium News

The economies that once thrived off the petroleum age will soon no longer do so, and in their place wealth is set to flow along the supply chain of batteries and the technologies they enable.

This projected shift in the distribution of wealth and power has sparked a global race to build a ‘super battery’.

Meanwhile, demand for lithium-ion batteries continues to increase, and their application to electric vehicles, large-scale batteries and household batteries is changing the way that we think about energy storage.

In an interesting and honest comment about their effort to go electric, VW CEO Herbert Diess said that Tesla has an important advantage over legacy automakers when it comes to electric vehicles; they don’t have to worry about protecting their gas-powered car business.

The fact that Tesla only sells all-electric vehicles and only worries about selling electric vehicles give them an important advantage.

Diess made the comment in an interview with Financial Times:

“I think Tesla is doing a good job. They don’t have to care about the legacy. They don’t have to care about the next generation of gasoline in motors and so they can really focus on the future. It’s an advantage.”

The CEO appears to be saying that while they see electric vehicles as the future, but they still have to worry about their legacy business, gas-powered cars, as they invest in electric vehicles.

Nonetheless, Volkswagen is heavily investing in electric vehicles and Diess believes that their mass manufacturing experience is going to help them catch up:

“Some of our competitors have much more speed when it comes to software — software deployment and capabilities where we are still lagging behind. But we are good at scale and so we have a chance.”

VW plans to manufacture up to 3 million electric vehicles by 2025.

Chinese scooter manufacturer Niu has selected French battery system expert Forsee Power to provide smart battery systems for its vehicles.

The new partnership between the two companies will see the first battery deliveries in the Q1 2019, and will continue until 2022. The agreement will see Forsee Power provide lithium-ion batteries for N-Series, M-Series and U-Series scooters from Niu.

Forsee Power batteries will meet the Niu range requirements in excess of 80km (50 miles), and will be covered by a two-year warranty. Forsee Power plans to build more than 100,000 batteries for Niu at its Zhongshan facility in Guangdong province.

“This contract confirms the capability of Forsee Power to supply one of the largest stakeholders in the personal mobility market,” said Frederik Baudrier, director of the Smart Life Division at Forsee Power.

“Our longstanding expertise in this market and our understanding of the issues involved are the assets that have enabled us to win this encouraging contract.

“The reliability of our products and the quality of our technologies were also influential factors in our customer’s decision, confirming the effectiveness of our Asian and European market strategy.”

OVER THE PAST few years, the global auto industry has come to something of a two-part consensus: First, the future of driving involves running on electrons, not exploding petroleum. Second, the best way to package those electrons is in the kind of vehicle people really want: an SUV. Audi has the E-tron, Jaguar the iPace. Cadillac is leading General Motors’ electrification scheme with an SUV. Porsche just announced its small SUV, the Macan, will soon come with a battery. And as you might guess from those company names, these vehicles do not come cheap.

Polestar has a different approach. Volvo’s electric- and performance-based brand today unveiled the Polestar 2, which makes a point of not being a luxury SUV. “They already have enough coming,” CEO Thomas Ingenlath says of customers who want the pricey, hulking things. His team has spent more than three years working on a midsize, five-door fastback, a sedan-like design for a vehicle aimed not exclusively at the fancy. It’s a car that has a lot in common with the one Elon Musk has been busy building.

As the oh-so-creative name indicates, this is Polestar’s second vehicle, though the Polestar 1 functioned more like a proof of concept for the relaunched brand: It was a hybrid rather than a full electric, was based on an old Volvo concept, and cost $155,000—more than an Audi R8. This new EV is meant to be the brand’s proper first car, all-electric and original.

On the spec front, the Polestar 2 holds its own. Pulling power from a 78-kWh battery, the two motors produce more than 400 horsepower and nearly 500 pound-feet of torque. They can get the car to 62 mph in less than five seconds and take it 275 miles between charging stops. Inside, you get an 11-inch center screen that runs on Google Android software, which should make for a more pleasant user experience compared with most automakers’ native systems.

The Polestar 2 now starts at $63,000, and in about a year, Polestar aims to have a version available for $45,420. Even that’s a luxury price point, but add in a $7,500 federal credit and rebates from various states, and the cost of the car can drop closer to $30,000—still not cheap, but far below the Audi and Jaguar EVs that start around $70,000.

When you look at its price, specs, and size, you see that the Polestar 2 has one obvious competitor: the Tesla Model 3. Elon Musk’s car for the masses currently starts around $42,000 and beats the Polestar by a bit on acceleration and range. But while you could call Polestar a Tesla-fighter, the electric category is becoming a bit crowded. So it’s a Jaguar-, Audi-, Mercedes-, BMW-, and more-fighter too.

Hyundai announced today its intention to build a dedicated electric vehicle platform that will be used for a new electric car set to be released in 2020, according to CNET. The platform, part of a planned $40 billion investment into innovation, will move the car manufacturer away from using chassis that are shared with gasoline-powered vehicles like the ones used with Hyundai’s current EVs, including the Kona Electric and Ioniq.

Creating an all-electric platform from the ground up will play a major role in enabling Hyundai to achieve its broader goal: introducing 44 EVs in the next six years. South Korean car maker intends to be one of the “world’s top three EV manufacturers” by the time 2025 rolls around. The company hasn’t released any specifics about its future fleet of electric vehicles, though it has previously stated that it is aiming to produce EVs with 250 miles of range by 2020 — a goal it accomplished already with the Kona Electric.

Electric vehicles will be a major focus of Hyundai’s recent massive investment in research and development, but the company will also explore autonomy. Part of the five-year plan for the carmaker includes developing a fleet of autonomous taxis that will be deployed in South Korea. The company is setting 2021 as the target for that initiative.

Ford is trying to hype up its upcoming first electric vehicle built to be electric from the ground up: a Mustang-inspired all-electric crossover.

Executive Chairman Bill Ford says the vehicle will ‘go like hell’ – a reference to what his uncle, then-President Henry Ford II said when the automaker was trying to beat Ferrari at Le Mans.

Ford said that the vehicle, which is now sounding like a performance car, “is going to go like hell,” via Automotive News.

He said that the company now sees EVs as having evolved enough to not have any trade-off when it comes to performance:

“When we first started talking about electrification, there was this thought that there had to be a trade-off: It was either going to be green and boring and no fun, or really exciting but burn a lot of fossil fuels. Electrification has come to the point that you can do both.”

Last year, Ford said that it was going ‘all-in’ on EVs following the ousting of CEO Mark Fields and appointment of Jim Hackett.

Hackett formed a new internal team, called ‘Team Edison’, to oversee electric car programs. He also shifted one-third of internal combustion engine investments to electric cars, but the company is still investing more in the former than the latter.

Ford confirmed that its first next-gen electric vehicle will be inspired by the Mustang.

Not much is known about the vehicle at this point other than it will be a crossover inspired by the Mustang with a targeted range of 300 miles.

It doesn’t even have a name at this point.

The vehicle was first codenamed Mach 1, but Jim Farley, Ford’s president of global markets, confirmed that they dropped it after having a “strong reaction” from Mustang fans:

“We put that out there to evaluate it. There are pros and cons. I don’t want to handicap it at this point, but we got a very strong reaction from people.”

It has been rumored to be potentially called the ‘Model E’.

Tesla first wanted the call the Model 3 – Model E. It would have joined the models S and X in Tesla’s lineup to make “S-E-X” with the Model Y to follow later.

The name stuck for a while, but during the shareholders meeting in July 2014, Tesla CEO Elon Musk revealed that the company had to drop its “Model E” trademark after Ford threatened to sue over having a similar naming scheme. At the time, Musk said that “Ford tried to kill sex.”

Now Ford could aim to use the name for its own electric vehicle.

Last month, the automaker released the first image of the vehicle – pictured above.

The Mustang-inspired all-electric crossover is expected to hit the market as soon as next year.