Like nearly all global automakers, BMW has decided it doesn’t want to manufacture battery cells. How does it maintain an edge on the battery side—and characteristics that are a good match for the automaker—when it’s potentially using what look like the same “commodity cells” as other automakers? The answer to... BMW and VW aim for close control over batteries, don’t want to make them
Like nearly all global automakers, BMW has decided it doesn’t want to manufacture battery cells. How does it maintain an edge on the battery side—and characteristics that are a good match for the automaker—when it’s potentially using what look like the same “commodity cells” as other automakers? The answer to... 
The federal government wants to know more about Tesla’s batteries, its charging, its software upgrades, and incidents relating to reported fires—among many other details concerning the majority of Tesla Model S fastbacks and Model X SUVs ever built. In a letter, dated October 24, the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration notes... 
Dyson, you might say, has gone back to the vacuum—and to many other things. But not cars. In an update yesterday that now occupies what formerly was a teaser for the automotive project, James Dyson, the company’s founder, called the car they’d developed “fantastic,” yet explained that “though we have tried very... 
Earlier this month at the Frankfurt auto show, Mercedes-Benz announced that it would source battery cells from carbon-neutral production for the first time. The CO2-neutral sourcing is via a newly inked partnership with Farasis Energy, of China, and Mercedes’ parent company Daimler says that it will save more than 30 percent of the carbon... 
Volkswagen announced Monday that it has started a pilot line for manufacturing battery cells, with the aim of keeping electric-car battery development and production resources in Germany. That will lead to the creation of more than 1,000 new jobs by 2024 surrounding the facility in Salzgitter, Germany—including 300 in VW’s development... 
Battery research revealed earlier this month and affiliated with Tesla could suggest that the company is well on its way to bringing a million-mile battery to market. The result could last three times as long as Tesla’s current cells—6,000 cycles, across a wide temperature range—and be the electric-car brand’s “secret... 
China’s Contemporary Amerex Technology Co., better known as CATL, has in the past several years become a global battery giant. Last week one of its senior executives revealed to Reuters that the company is considering a manufacturing expansion into North America, even though the market for EVs will lag that of China and Europe. The company... 
All those rusty buoys, boats, and piers along the world’s coastlines could be doing something much more useful, say scientists at CalTech and Northwestern University. They could be generating electricity. In a paper released in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences last month, chemistry professors Tom Miller from CalTech and... 
Lithium is a critical ingredient for today’s electric-vehicle batteries. Although a host of chemistries show promise—such as sodium-ion, fluoride-ion, or iron-ion—lithium-ion is proven, and the demand for it has been increasing rapidly as electric cars take off. And yet lithium has become unexpectedly plentiful and a lot cheaper...