Battery Electric Vehicle News / Enjoying the Transportation Revolution

Coastalwatch

This would be a welcome addition to the area and British manufacturing in general should it eventually come to fruition!

AESC looks at battery ‘gigafactory’ location in Sunderland

A UK government-sponsored feasibility study is investigating the construction of a new battery ‘gigafactory’ directed by the Automotive Energy Supply Corporation (AESC) at its site next to the Nissan plant in Sunderland.

The former Nissan battery subsidiary AESC is known to have been in the hands of the Chinese Envision Group since last year and has since been operating under the name Envision AESC. The company says it has a capacity of 1.9 GWh per year in Sunderland. What remains unclear is by how many gigawatt hours Envision AESC’s capacities will increase with the planned new plant. In the wake of the Corona crisis, AESC Envision recently cut 130 jobs in Sunderland. One-third of the workforce is said to have been affected.

https://www.electrive.com/2020/11/04/aesc-investigating-battery-gigafactory-location-in-sunderland/

Martyn1981

Some great news for BEV's in European sales last month, something I seem to say every month now.
France's numbers are great at 5.8% for October, though a fraction down on the running average of 6%, and Sweden hit 8.2% a fraction up on the annual average of 8%. So again, hitting disruption territory, and a decent number of people are buying 'learner' BEV's in the form of PHEV's too. 

France Hits Record 11.8% Plugin Share In October – Up 3.5x Year-On-Year

Sweden Hits New Record With Massive 36.2% Plugin Market Share In October

Martyn1981

Lots of fun news, it seems this morning.

So we have Bentley going full BEV by 2030, which I think makes great sense. An electric motor will be able to deliver the same (or more) power and torque at a fraction of the price, so even with the cost and weight of batts, a BEV Bentley may be cheaper and lighter than an ICEV, and deliver smoother and quieter driving.

Bentley to stop making petrol cars by 2030 and go fully electric

It will stop building cars with traditional internal combustion engines within six years, instead making hybrids and then its first battery electric cars in 2025. By 2030 it will sell only pure battery electric vehicles, with zero-carbon exhaust emissions.

Next we have an ickle BEV with a tiny price, selling very, very well in China

Wuling Mini EV Is #1 In China In September! Tesla Model 3 Still Far Ahead In 2020.

A big name for a small car, the Wuling EV scored a record 14,495 registrations last month, meaning that the production ramp up continues, so expect the tiny four-seater to continue growing in the next few months. The reason for the overnight success? Well, it is one of the cheapest EVs on the market ($4,200!!!), and yet, it’s not all that bad, as the SAIC-GM-Wuling joint-venture model can seat 4 people (or 3 people and a bit of cargo, or 2 with a fair amount of cargo — 741 liters) in a car that is a tad larger (2,917 mm/114.8 in) than a Smart Fortwo EV.

And lastly some cheekiness from MG poking fun at ICEV drivers, which hopefully we can all find funny, even though we also all know that moving to a BEV today is very hard on cost grounds, so this may be 'too soon' perhaps, or setting the scene for the future and the normalisation of BEV's ...... I don't know?

MG Makes Fun Of “Dinosaur Drivers” In UK

The British brand MG Motor, which is now owned by a Chinese company, is having a bit of a revival in the region thanks to its quite competitive and affordable MG ZS EV. And MG knows it. It has a humorous way of making some fun out of it, too. A new TV commercial in the UK.

The commercial, perhaps a bit risqué since it teases consumers, implies that people not driving electric cars “dinosaur drivers.” I love the joke, but I do wonder a bit how a normal person would view such a commercial.

JKenH

Government-funded UK electric battery centre nears completion

https://www.autocar.co.uk/car-news/industry/government-funded-uk-electric-battery-centre-nears-completion

JKenH

Taxi-maker LEVC starts UK electric van production

It is actually a hybrid (I think) but with a 31kWh battery is good for 60 electric miles.

https://www.dieselcar.com/news/taxi-maker-levc-starts-uk-electric-van-production/

Martyn1981

I keep thinking that I may be getting too excited and over optimistic about EV's (especially BEV's) and a forthcoming disruption, but the figures out of Germany, and the YoY comparisons are incredible, and thought provoking.

Germany – World’s 4th Largest Automarket – Now Above 17.5% Plugin Electric Vehicle Share!

October saw Germany further accelerate the electric transport revolution, with over 17.5% of auto sales being plugin electric vehicles. This is a lightning fast transition from the 3% share of 2019, defying all conventional expectations of the speed of disruption.

Let’s contextualize this record result to appreciate its significance. This time a year ago, the October 2019 result was an already shocking 4.1% plugin market share. And yet, just 12 months later, we’re now over 4x that result and climbing rapidly.

2021 will see the arrival in Germany of the Tesla Model Y, the VW ID.4, the BMW iX3 amongst many other BEVs and PHEVs. All will prove extremely popular in Germany. Could we see some months reaching 30% plugin market share in 2021?

A year ago – with cumulative share standing at 2.9% – monthly results of 30% might have seemed totally unrealistic for 2021. Now it seems perfectly possible, even likely.

Martyn1981

UK BEV sales are also doing extremely well, and a large increase on 2019.

UK Hits Record 12.1% Plugin Electric Vehicle Market Share In October

Another month gone, another electric vehicle market share record is broken. The UK surpassed 12% share in October, the highest yet of any “normal” (non covid lockdown) month, well above the 10.5% result of last month. Year-to-date cumulative plugin share is now 9.1% and is tracking to break 10% by year’s end.

The combined 12.1% plugin result comprised mostly full battery electric vehicles (BEVs) at 6.6% of the total market, with plugin hybrids (PHEVs) gaining 5.5% share. This is a slight increase in weighting of PHEVs over the year-to-date contributions of 5.5% BEV and 3.6% PHEV. The cumulative tally for 2020 so far stands at 9.1% plugin share, up from just 2.7% at this point last year.

Year to date, the UK’s plugin market share now stands at a cumulative 9.1% and is quickly being lifted higher by the record performance of the past two months, each seeing share climb above 10%.

November and December in the UK have traditionally seen a huge upswing in plugin sales over and above the rest of the year. 2019 saw October share at 4.4%, November at 5.8% and December at 6.6%.

Martyn1981

Norway with 61% BEV sales in October, goes to show what can be achieved when you have national and public support for BEV's, and when demand can be met by supply - something not yet possible for the larger European markets, but improving every day. I'd guess that those still buying ICEV's in Norway must now have to consider residual values carefully, as the second hand market for vehicles will be rich in BEV's too.

Norwegian Plugin Market Share Over 79% In October And PHEVs Stagnate

As usual in Norway, full battery electric vehicles (BEVs) did the heavy lifting, taking almost 61% of the auto market, with plugin hybrids (PHEVs) taking 18%. This is a significant shift towards BEVs from the year-to-date tallies of 52% BEV and 20% PHEV. As a reminder, 2019 finished with 56% combined plugin market share.

JKenH

Carmakers want to ditch battery packs, use auto bodies for energy storage

Today, batteries account for a substantial portion of the size and weight of most electronics. A smartphone is mostly a lithium-ion cell with some processors stuffed around it. Drones are limited in size by the batteries they can carry. And about a third of the weight of an electric vehicle is its battery pack. One way to address this issue is by building conventional batteries into the structure of the car itself, as Tesla plans to do. Rather than using the floor of the car to support the battery pack, the battery pack becomes the floor.

But for Greenhalgh and his collaborators, the more promising approach is to scrap the battery pack and use the vehicle’s body for energy storage instead. Unlike a conventional battery pack embedded in the chassis, these structural batteries are invisible. The electrical storage happens in the thin layers of composite materials that make up the car’s frame. In a sense, they’re weightless because the car is the battery.

The battery has always been an addendum, a limiting factor, and a parasite. Today, it’s vanishing before our eyes, melting into the fabric of our electrified world. In the future, everything will be a battery, and stand-alone energy storage will seem as quaint as landline telephones and portable CD players.

https://www.wired.com/story/the-batteries-of-the-future-are-weightless-and-invisible/

michaels

JKenH said:

Carmakers want to ditch battery packs, use auto bodies for energy storage

Today, batteries account for a substantial portion of the size and weight of most electronics. A smartphone is mostly a lithium-ion cell with some processors stuffed around it. Drones are limited in size by the batteries they can carry. And about a third of the weight of an electric vehicle is its battery pack. One way to address this issue is by building conventional batteries into the structure of the car itself, as Tesla plans to do. Rather than using the floor of the car to support the battery pack, the battery pack becomes the floor.

But for Greenhalgh and his collaborators, the more promising approach is to scrap the battery pack and use the vehicle’s body for energy storage instead. Unlike a conventional battery pack embedded in the chassis, these structural batteries are invisible. The electrical storage happens in the thin layers of composite materials that make up the car’s frame. In a sense, they’re weightless because the car is the battery.

The battery has always been an addendum, a limiting factor, and a parasite. Today, it’s vanishing before our eyes, melting into the fabric of our electrified world. In the future, everything will be a battery, and stand-alone energy storage will seem as quaint as landline telephones and portable CD players.

https://www.wired.com/story/the-batteries-of-the-future-are-weightless-and-invisible/

Cool