Lithium News

Ariel is building a gas-turbine-electric 1,180bhp car capable of 0-100mph in 3.8 seconds.

The Ariel Hipercar started as a project put up, by Ariel, to Innovate UK under Innovate’s low-carbon vehicle R&D initiative.

Ariel received a £2 million grant and the new funding is expected to take the project through to first production in 2020.

Ariel plans to sell two versions – a four-wheel-drive model with 1,180bhp (880kW) and a 590bhp model driving just the rear wheels.

Both will use one 220kW motor unit on each driven wheel, complete with its own integrated epicyclic gearbox and inverter.

The magnets are arranged radially around the outside of the rotor like the spokes of a wheel – said tom improve the torque density by 25%.

The electric motor designer Equipmake and gas turbine provider Delta Motorsport are helping on the basis that they retain ownership of the IP they develop.

Delta designed a cooling system for the lithium-ion battery which feeds refrigerated water-glycol coolant to every cell in the battery. In the four-wheel-drive car it allows the battery to operate at 1,500kW with peaks of 1,200A and 750V.

Delta also developed the turbine which spins at 120,000rpm.

The first production model is scheduled for next year, with production starting in 2020. Pricing is not disclosed.

American Honda is taking a crack at another dedicated hybrid, reusing the Insight name and preferring not to do another hybrid variant of its Civic.

While it would have been relatively easy to do another hybrid version of its best-selling compact car – the new third-generation Insight rides on the current-gen Civic’s platform – it wouldn’t have been in keeping with the spirit of the Civic, says a top company official.

“The Civic is lightweight, sporty, fun-to-drive, and if you electrify the Civic I think you kind of take a lot of the character away, so it was a smarter idea to bring back an older nameplate from before and make it kind of a whole new vehicle,” Henio Arcangeli, senior vice president-Automobile Div. at American Honda, tells WardsAuto. Arcangeli was speaking in an interview last week during the 2018 North American International Auto Show, where Honda displayed a ’19 Insight prototype.

From his comments, it appears Honda’s new third-gen Insight has resolved the issues that made the first and second generations of the car launched in 1999 and 2009, respectively, slow sellers.

The new Insight is the biggest version of the hybrid yet, a long way from the tiny 2-seater of nearly 20 years ago. It also is much more upscale than the second-gen Insight, which was smaller than the Toyota Prius of that time and had worse fuel economy.

“The first generation was a bit of an engineering marvel,” Arcangeli says. “The first hybrid on the market. It had approximately 70 miles per gallon (3.4 L/100 km). The second Insight was I think the least expensive hybrid on the market at the time.”

In a departure from the last-gen’s value-hybrid positioning, Honda considers the new Insight a “premium compact,” placing it above the Civic in its U.S. lineup.

The new Insight also will have many of today’s creature comforts, including Android Auto and Apple CarPlay connectivity, as well as an 8-in. (20-cm) capacitive touchscreen with customizable app tiles.

Leather seating will be available, as will Honda’s LaneWatch technology on EX and above grades. Standard is Honda Sensing, the automaker’s suite of advanced driver-assist safety (ADAS) technologies that includes lane-departure warning, adaptive cruise control and collision-mitigation braking.

All this technology is packaged in a sleek sedan body style, not a stubby coupe or hatchback as were the first- and second-gen models.

Honda expects combined fuel economy “in excess of” 50 mpg (4.7 L/100 km), placing it in the ballpark of the current Prius sedan, which nets 52 mpg (4.5 L/100 km) in most grades, but 56 mpg (4.2 L/100 km) in an Eco grade with low-rolling-resistance tires and aerodynamic add-ons.

The automaker says the Insight will have class-leading power, although it releases no specifications. The ’18 Prius sedan puts out a total of 121 hp between its engine and two motors.

The new Honda hybrid will use the third generation of the automaker’s 2-motor hybrid system, which mates a 1.5L Atkinson-cycle gasoline 4-cyl. to two electric motors and a lithium-ion battery pack. This propulsion system already is in use in the plug-in version of Honda’s Clarity sedan, making 212 total system horsepower in the car.

In a change from the second-gen Insight, Honda says the ’19 model will operate only on electric-power in “most conditions,” either using energy from the engine acting as a generator or the battery pack.

Honda will build the Insight at its Greensburg, IN, plant where it assembles some units of the Civic and CR-V.

The Insight, going on sale in late 2018, is important to fulfilling Honda’s goal for two-thirds of its global vehicle sales in 2030 to be electrified models, Arcangeli says.

“With North America being the largest market, that’s an area we have to invest in,” he says, adding with the Insight, the forthcoming Accord Hybrid, and Honda’s three-model Clarity lineup made up of plug-in hybrid, EV and hydrogen-fuel-cell variants, the automaker is off to a good start.

A panel headed by cabinet secretary P.K. Sinha has recommended commercial use of ISRO’s lithium-ion battery technology under the ‘Make In India’ initiative for electric vehicles, official sources said.

The committee of secretaries also recommended that the power ministry should initiate “requisite power tariff and access policies” for enabling development of charging infrastructure, in consultation with the Central Electricity Regulatory Commission and others concerned.

Officials said that the panel has firmed up the strategy for increasing use of zero emission vehicles to lower India’s dependence on oil imports and improve the ambient air quality.

The panel, they said, has advised that “ISRO may consider transferring” its lithium-ion battery technology used in electric vehicles to interested parties on a “non- discriminatory basis for commercialisation with Make in India condition”, after obtaining approval of the space commission and other authorities.

In October last year, Niti Aayog member V.K.Saraswat had said that India has to set up large lithium-ion batteries manufacturing plants to become a global player in electric vehicles (EVs) technology market.

At present, lithium-ion battery is not manufactured in India on commercial basis and the country has to depend on imports from Japan or China.

To curb vehicular pollution and bring down the Rs7 trillion annual crude oil import bill, the government is emphasising the need for vehicles run on alternative fuel, including electric vehicles.

Government’s think-tank Niti Aayog has also come out with a vision document on electric vehicles. The meeting of the committee held on 8 January to discuss the “strategy to scale up transformative mobility for uptake of zero emission vehicles and ancillary technologies” was attended by secretaries from nine departments, Niti Aayog CEO, representatives from the department of space and cabinet secretariat, officials said.

The panel also made a case for an empowered mission under Niti Aayog for overall policy formulation and for driving the programme to boost uptake of zero emission vehicles, the officials said.

However, individual initiatives may continue to be driven by ministries/departments concerned. In its wide ranging recommendations, the panel has also said the ministry of petroleum and natural gas may examine the possibility of leveraging the existing retail network of oil marketing companies for scaling up public charging infrastructure.

The ministry of road transport and highways may consider issuing an advisory to states for ensuring that registration of zero emission vehicles (ZEVs) is facilitated, recommended the panel.

The committee suggested that steps may be taken in regard to the monitoring structure proposed by Niti Aayog for “providing leadership and inter-ministerial coordination”.

Further, the ministry of new and renewable energy may pursue the development and promotion of energy storage technologies with focus on grid scale operations, recommended the panel.

Recruiters and employers say job opportunities in Kalgoorlie-Boulder’s resources sector are continuing to rise, as new data shows advertised vacancies in the mining industry increased by more than 30 per cent in WA last year.

National firm DFP Recruitment’s mining and resources jobs index shows demand for labour in the industry climbed almost 40 per cent in Australia in 2017, coming after a prolonged decline in demand for employees.

It is the best level the national market has hit in more than three years, since April, 2014.

While demand for mining employees in WA remains 17 per cent lower than in November, 2013, when DFP ran its first survey, DFP Kalgoorlie branch manager Robyn Steenbach said demand for workers was now strong in Kalgoorlie-Boulder.

“I think there’s a greater demand in Kalgoorlie for people as well … and there are more people coming back into town,” she said.

“In the last year it’s harder and harder to get the right people for the jobs that are out there because the demand is so much greater.

“There have been people that have been over East or in the Perth area who have been unemployed for quite a while who have come into Kalgoorlie and been able to pick up quite a bit of work, which is fantastic.”

About 46 per cent of all resources job vacancies are in WA, with opportunities in the State’s mining sector up 32.9 per cent during 2017.

That has also opened opportunities for new entrants to the market, including KCGM process technician Talitha Barry, who arrived to town from Mandurah last year and secured work at the Super Pit after making inquiries with labour hire contractor Corestaff.

The mother-of-four joined her husband in the mining industry after coming to Kalgoorlie-Boulder, having faced a tough employment market in the FIFO sector.

“Our only option to get into mining was to do FIFO, but having no experience it was really difficult to get in,” she said.

“Moving to Kalgoorlie it opened a whole lot of doors for us.”

Graeme Wilmot, owner and director of local contractor Wilmot Engineering, said his business had rebuilt steadily on the back of increased mining activity around Kalgoorlie-Boulder.

Having pared his workforce to a bare-bones 15-odd employees when the downturn hit hardest around 2014, Mr Wilmot said he now had about 40 workers on the books, although about 60 per cent of those are casual.

“We probably reduced our workforce down to the bare minimum and we’ve slowly just built up from there again,” he said.

“We changed to having a lot of casuals employed as we started to build up.

“I would say the casual labour market is still quite an important part of the town because a lot of employers are not willing to have large workforces because situations can change quite quickly.”

According to DFP, demand is up 66.8 per cent for engineers, while Ms Steenbach said it remained difficult to source qualified boilermakers and heavy diesel fitters.

Mr Wilmot said he had the capacity to put on another six or seven permanent employees, and was searching for four boilermakers himself.

But he said workers were still often unwilling to move to Kalgoorlie-Boulder from the coast.

There were more positive signs of economic green shoots in the Goldfields yesterday, after the Department of Mines, Industry Regulation and Safety revealed program of work applications in WA — required before exploration is undertaken on a mining tenement — climbed to their highest level in five years in 2017.

The department received 608 applications in the December quarter and 2575 during 2017.

That figure was 40 per cent higher than the 1799 applied for in 2016, and greater than the 2565 applications made in 2012, when the statistics were first compiled.

DMIRS strategic projects senior adviser Graham Cobby said the surge was driven by rising interest in gold and lithium exploration.

Typically, a large proportion of WA’s drilling applications are made around the resource-rich Goldfields region.

Taking a cue from automobiles and cell phones, the ice fishing industry has turned to a new power source: lithium-ion batteries.

Craig Storms, a New York based fishing guide and all around dabbler in the outdoors, connected the dots not too long ago in his search for a battery for his flasher. Storms is the front man for Dakota Lithium batteries, a Seattle-based company that sells lithium batteries (assembled in Grand Forks, N.D.) and has seen a big jump in demand for their 12 volt line from outdoorsmen.

Storms said he found a different lithium battery for ice anglers on the market a few years earlier, but the price point was so high it was unattainable by most anglers. Instead, he found Dakota Lithium and pushed the company in a new direction – affordable lithium batteries that gave users a higher performing battery for their electronics.

The advantages of lithium are numerous. Weight is a big selling point for some anglers. “Lithium batteries are about a quarter of the weight of a lead acid battery. For guys that do hole-hopping and tournament guys, it’s just incredible,” Storms told me. “The coolest thing was during the 2017 St. Paul Ice Show, saying ‘here, pick this up’ and watching people go ‘whoa!’ each and every time. It was just incredible.”

Beside the weight savings is the consistency in power. Lithium batteries provide a consistent 12 volt power source until they are dead. “Lead acid batteries have a depreciation, kind of like driving your brand new car off the lot,” Storms explained. “Once you first use that lead acid battery, you’ll never get it back to that original charge. It will always be degrading, and degrading, and degrading, until it loses power. With a lithium battery, you’re getting a full 12 volts during the entire time that you are using it.”

The difference a lithium battery provides often shows up at the end of the day. “When you are using your flasher all day, at the end of a day with a lead acid battery, you start seeing lines that you think are interference,” Storms says. “That’s your lead acid battery starting to weaken. With a lithium battery, you don’t get that. It stays clean and sharp, all day. You can use your electronics the way they were intended to be used.”

For ice anglers that use newer electronics, lithium batteries are the way to go. Anglers using liquid crystal displays and underwater cameras that have limited run time with fully lit monitors on sealed lead acid batteries can get an entire day from one lithium battery. Instead of having to charge and bring along two batteries, these anglers can get by with a single lithium battery.

Some anglers are concerned about what happens when their batteries get cold, as some may have experienced drawbacks with other lithium batteries. Drill conversion plates and specialized ice drill attachments that operate on cordless drills may have batteries with cores made of various lithium compounds. Those drills and their batteries may have been designed for use driving screws on home building projects in warm places. Dakota lithium batteries, Storms tells me, have a different chemistry that make them not susceptible to the cold.

The final selling point for converting to lithium batteries is life expectancy. “With a sealed lead acid, you’ll get about 400 recharge cycles. With a lithium battery, you’ll get about 2,000 cycles,” Storms says. Dakota Lithium sold out of their 12 volt batteries in a day and a half at the St. Paul Ice Show and the demand has been steady.

Battery makers must rethink their technology if predictions for a wave of self-driving vehicles pan out, according to one of the inventors of the lithium-ion battery.