Follow PSR’s team of analysts as they track the rapidly expanding global battery electric power market, including, battery technology, transportation, eMobility, mergers and acquisitions and more.
John Krzesicki speaks with Will Jones, the project manager for the University of Michigan’s Solar Car Team.
Transcript
Hello! My name is John Krzesicki. It’s my pleasure to host the Power Systems living on the edge series. The show is where we have conversations with industry experts on their insights into mobility’s future and impact on cities and industry. As a business development manager with PSR, I can talk with our clients about how they prepare for the future. Our clients and their suppliers are going through a significant paradigm shift as they move from an entirely Internal combustion engine to alternative power. As we all know, today’s designs incorporate technology and software to be more innovative, competitive, and efficient. Our clients are looking for cutting-edge alternative power to power their equipment. Today’s topic is Solar Cars.
Zio Holdings, a South Korean company engaged in the production and sale of electric motorcycles, says it has completed an electric motorcycle factory in Bac Ninh Province in northern Vietnam.
The factory covers an area of 1,300 m2 and has an annual production capacity of 12,000 units. The factory will receive parts supplied from original brand factories in Vietnam and China and will assemble the parts at ZIO EV’s factory in Vietnam.
The electric bikes to be manufactured at the new factory will be named “EDEN” and “MEVOYEZ,” and will use LFP batteries (lithium-ion iron phosphate batteries). The maximum speed is 55Km/h, and the driving range is over 150km. The selling price is expected to be 30 million VND (approximately 176,000 yen).
In the October issue of PSR’s Alternative Power Report, read about Ideanomics’ new quick charger, a new super fast rechargeable battery and a cost analysis of diesel vs. hydrogen power.
Toyota has launched the Corolla Altis, India’s first flex-fuel engine. This car will be able to run on petrol or ethanol as well as electric power. It is part of a pilot project developing Flexi-Fuel Strong Hybrid Electric Vehicles in India.
Because of the great diversity in India’s consumer population, especially its per-capita income disparity, and multiple applications of vehicles, India might not use one technology but might use a combination of technologies involving various fuel types.
The Indian market can’t simply shift from petrol/ diesel engines to EVs over the next few years. Hence, many OEMs are working on CNG/ hydrogen/ hybrid vehicles. Toyota has launched this new vehicle for the Indian market as part of these efforts.
At 27%, the transport industry is the largest contributor to greenhouse gases in North America and Europe and within the transport sector, passenger cars contribute the most emissions followed by medium and heavy-duty trucks which contribute emissions at around 26% of the transportation industry. The move to reduce or eliminate emissions is one of the biggest priorities within the industry.
In a first, Ideanomics has announced that it successfully tested WAVE’s 500kW ultra-fast wireless charger at the Port of Los Angeles, which can charge class 8 electric trucks in less than 15 minutes. Installation of the wireless electric chargers is already underway at the Port of LA, and Ideanomics expects the first chargers to be ready for use in 2023
An international group of researchers has demonstrated an aqueous zinc battery with excellent performance in terms of capacity, rate capability, specific energy, and output voltage. The battery is a hybrid supercapacitor-battery hybrid device which has demonstrated an unprecedented cycling stability of 99.2% capacity retention after 17,000 cycles at 100% depth of discharge.
This battery technology has been explored as a promising alternative due to its low cost, safety, environmental friendliness, and intrinsic non-flammable nature. However, their widespread adoption has been held back by their low Coulombic efficiency (The Coulomb efficiency is usually used to describe the released battery capacity. It refers to the ratio of the discharge capacity after the full charge and the charging capacity of the same cycle) and the notorious dendritic growth (dendrites are basically whiskers of minerals that grow inside batteries and can cause the devices they’re powering to lose power more quickly, short out, or in some instances, catch fire ) at the zinc-based anodes, along with the fast capacity fading of the cathodes.
Hydrogen fuel cells are still a bit mysterious and likely are unattainable in the near future, but you can actually buy them right now, whether in vehicles or as parts. To demonstrate how practical they are, Alfonso Delgado Ollero built a miniature hydrogen fuel cell to power an RC truck.
The practical concerns of producing the hydrogen in the first place and the energy density being relatively low are relevant when talking about the future of the automotive industry, but according to Alfonso Delgado Ollero, they shouldn’t prevent makers from experimenting with hydrogen fuel cells.
The September 2022 issue of the Alternative Power Report from PSR discusses Cummins new energy storage system, battery electric forecasts and EV shipping applications. PSR
With the exception of 2022 (+7.6%), Battery Electric as a power source is expected to grow between 10% and 17% throughout the forecast period, while ICE growth rates start the period at -2.3% and then grow at less than 1% for 2023 to 2025.
Battery Electric is expected to grow from 12.8% of the market in 2022 to 21.2% by 2027, while during the same period ICEs are expected to decline from 85% of the market to 75%. PSR
Guy Youngs is Forecast & Adoption LeadAnalyst at Power Systems Research
Consumer adoption of EVs has gathered momentum this year, spurred by higher global oil prices. The Russia-Ukraine war has made EVs suddenly more appealing to many car buyers, accelerating adoption globally. The higher oil prices are driving EVs closer to cost parity with internal combustion engine (ICE) vehicles. In Bloomberg New Energy Finance’s most recent Electric Vehicles Outlook 2022 report, it projected EV sales to hit 20.6 million units by 2025.
On Tesla’s most recent earnings call, Elon Musk admitted, “We do not have a demand problem but a production problem.” Other car manufacturers such as Ford, for instance, says it can build its F150 Lightning and the Mustang Mach E fast enough to keep up with demand
