PSR Analysis: Isuzu has agreed to form a business alliance with Sweden’s Volvo in the Truck field and to acquire Volvo’s UD Trucks subsidiary. The amount of the acquisition depends on the negotiations, but Isuzu sees UD Trucks as a business size of 250 billion yen.
Doosan Heavy Industries & Construction (DHIC) announced on May 6 that it has signed a memorandum of understanding (MOU) with Libotec, which has a continuous pyrolysis technology for waste plastics, to develop hydrogen production technology using waste plastics.
Libotec will produce gas from waste plastic through continuous pyrolysis, while Doosan Heavy Industries will be in charge of developing equipment to reform the pyrolyzed gas into hydrogen and building the plant. Doosan Heavy Industries has developed a hydrogen reformer capable of producing about 300 kilograms of hydrogen per day, which will be installed and operated at Libotec’s plant. The company plans to conduct demonstrations and commercialize a technology that can produce more than three tons of hydrogen per day from waste plastic.
The New Energy and Industrial Technology Development Organization (NEDO) says it will launch a four-topic research and development project for the development of next-generation aircraft, including core technologies for hydrogen aircraft and drastic weight reduction of major structural components of aircraft.
By using Japan’s strengths in elemental technologies such as hydrogen and materials, the project aims to increase the ratio of participation in international joint development of airframes and engines (currently about 20-30%) and contribute to the decarbonization of the aviation sector. It will be implemented as part of the Green Innovation Fund project with a total of 2 trillion yen. The budget is 21.08 billion yen. Kawasaki will develop the core technology for hydrogen aircraft, while Mitsubishi Heavy Industries, Ltd. and ShinMaywa Industries, Ltd. will develop complex shapes and dramatically reduce the weight of major structural parts of aircraft.
On March 3, Hon Hai Precision Industry delivered its first EV, the Model T commercial bus, to a bus route operator based in Kaohsiung City in southern Taiwan. The company aims to deliver 30 buses by the end of this year to expand its EV business, which is a new entry into the market, and the key to its future growth will be the extent to which it can break away from its business model that relies on contracted production of iPhones.
The “Model T” was delivered to Kaohsiung Bus Company. The vehicle was developed by Hung Hua Advanced Technology, a new company jointly established with Yulon Motor Manufacturing (Yulon), a major Taiwanese car manufacturer. Everything about the Model T, from concept to design and manufacturing, was done in Taiwan.
More than 65% of the parts procured were supplied by members of MIH, a group of more than 1,000 cooperating manufacturers recruited by Hon Hai when it entered the EV market, as well as by Taiwanese manufacturers. The vehicle will begin operating on actual bus routes on March 16, the company said.
Hon Hai also plans to introduce EVs for personal use in the future. In addition to the Model C SUV, which will be the first EV for individuals, the company plans to introduce the Model E, a high-end sedan. The company has already announced a plan to achieve sales of 1 trillion Taiwan dollars (over 4 trillion yen) in five years.
Source: The Nikkei
PSR Analysis: Hon Hai moves very fast. Less than two years after announcing its entry into the EV business, Hon Hai delivered one of the company’s first three EV prototypes in October 2021.
The alliance they founded, MIH, has been in existence for more than a year since October 2020, and more than 2,000 companies from Japan and other countries have joined the development coalition. An alliance of unprecedented scale is about to bring about a major innovation in the automotive industry.
MIH (Mobility in Harmony) is an open EV ecosystem that promotes new collaborations in the mobility industry. MIH brings together strategic partners in the EV field, where the development and manufacturing processes are different from those of conventional vehicles, and promotes the creation of next-generation EVs, autonomous driving, and mobility service applications by opening up advanced hardware and software technologies.
Through the realization of reference designs and standardization of EV technologies, many alliance members intend to jointly create an open EV platform that will bring innovation to the industry by shortening development cycles and lowering barriers to entry.
The number of overseas companies outside of China and Taiwan participating in the MIH continues to increase. In addition to South Korea’s Kia and India’s Mahindra, Tier 1 automakers Continental of Germany and ZF are also participating.
Major players include Microsoft, Arm, LG Electronics, ON Semiconductor, Oracle, Kaspersky Lab, Samsung Electronics, Siemens, TomTom, and Dell Technologies.
At the time of MIH’s inception, the impression was that Taiwanese and Chinese companies accounted for more than 95% of its members, but now, one after another, a diverse group of members have gathered from around the world, greatly enhancing its development capabilities.
The unprecedented scale of the MIH is symbolic of the global interest in next-generation mobility, such as EVs and autonomous driving.
It is easy to imagine that this power of MIH has been a major driving force in the development of the EV buses this time around. All eyes are now focused on the future actions of this huge alliance on an unprecedented scale. PSR
MOSCOW–The fourth annual Heat and Power Show was conducted here Oct. 22-24, and a significant part of the fair was dedicated to small generation and co-generation applications.
Although at the moment this fair is rather small, it has a good potential to become a large international show because it is only fair in Russia with such a specialization. There were about 100 participants from 12 countries.
The global energy structure has accelerated the adjustment to green energy, and the investment in traditional energy is insufficient. Under the influence of COVID-19, energy supply and demand are disrupted, exacerbating the contradiction between supply and demand, resulting in global power shortage.
China recovered from the epidemic earlier than many other countries and is now almost the only major manufacturer, so industrial power consumption has increased significantly. Power rationing is mainly to alleviate the power shortage and achieve the goal of energy conservation and emission reduction. China is dominated by thermal power generation, and there is a serious shortage of clean energy. There are still big problems in the energy structure.
Source: Weixunso Read The Article
PSR Analysis: In 2021, China’s electricity demand will grow by more than 10%, which greatly exceeds the previously estimated demand growth of 6% to 7%. At present, the substantial growth of power demand has put great pressure on power supplies. Coal accounts for about 70% of China’s electricity consumption, but the output of coal is far lower than the demand for electricity.
Rolls Royce Holdings’ 2022 Annual Report shows significant performance improvement compared to 2021. Its four business units posted revenue of £12.691 m (£10.947 m in 2021), gross profit of £2.477 m (£1.996 m in 2021) and operating profit of £652 m (£441 m in 2021). Civil aerospace business unit made 49% of the revenue, Defense 29%, and Power Systems 26%.
The Power Systems business unit is the home for the mtu brand developing and manufacturing power systems and solutions for commercial marine, industrial, defense and yachts as well as power generation. Headquartered in Germany, it closed the year with a record revenue of £3.347 m, a gain of 23 % comparing to the prior year. Orders for 2022 were £4.3 billion, 29% higher than the orders placed in 2021.
SUMMARY: Gen-set sales in Q4 2019 rose 3.5% from Q3 2019, driven primarily by growth in the middle power ranges. The 21-50kW range experienced the fastest growth at 7.5%, followed by 10-20kW at 3.7% and 101-300kW at 3.5%.
When looking at this growth by application, we see that standbys were the only application to experience meaningful growth this quarter, ending with a strong 7.5% increase. Unlike previous quarters, this increased demand came from more than residential consumers. Institutional and industrial consumers increased their demand by 2.5% and 3.75%, respectively. This is the strongest fourth quarter showing for these consumer types in the last five years.
R&D World magazine recently examined the global market for lithium-ion batteries and concluded that there could very well be a shortage in the next decade. They projected that recent investments will ensure supply keeps ahead of demand for at least the next two years, but that the demand for lithium in 2030 will be 2.3x higher than the global output in 2019, and investments may not be happening at the pace needed to meet it.
The main bottleneck is that it takes 5-10 years to bring a new lithium or cobalt mine online, but their low prices right now remove some of the incentive to make those investments.
In the absence or shortage of those investments, control of current resources will play a critical role in the production costs of lithium-powered equipment, including on-highway vehicles. In this area, as in many others, Tesla appears to be a leader. The electric car maker has made a number of moves recently to pursue vertical integration, including, most recently, signing a supply deal with Hanwha for battery production equipment. But they are also making moves to secure ownership of the raw materials needed for battery production.
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