E-Power Is Picking Up Speed!

“White Oil vs Black Oil”

The world has been under a blanket of a pandemic for more than a year already, but this doesn’t mean it’s a-slumber…the globe is on the go and gearing to run on “white oil”!

Electric cars and other vehicles powered by electricity from lithium rechargeable batteries, are being developed and manufactured at full throttle as sale-bans of new fossil-fuel or “black oil” vehicles loom in countries like Norway by 2025, Ireland, UK, the Netherlands and Denmark by 2030 and France around 2040.

People are generally interested to go green but “range anxiety” remains a major concern.

“The number one barrier to the adoption of electric vehicles is no longer cost, it is range anxiety,” said Doron Myersdorf, CEO of StoreDot. “You’re either afraid that you’re going to get stuck on the highway or you’re going to need to sit in a charging station for two hours. But if the experience of the driver is exactly like fueling [a petrol car], this whole anxiety goes away.” And this experience is precisely what StoreDot managed to achieve.

Quick Fill Up With White Oil…

The Israeli lithium-ion battery engineering firm founded in 2012, has just released their first battery requiring only five minutes to charge. They have already demonstrated the fast charging of scooter, drone and cell phone batteries and their press release in January 2021, holds the promise of dynamic new technology to transform the industry.

Heavy weights like BP, TDK, Samsung and Daimler have invested in StoreDot to raise $130m for research and development financing.

StoreDot’s Chinese partner, EVE Energy, presented the sample cells from an existing mass production line and not a prototype from a lab, emphasizing its commercial viability. The new technology compounds nano-scale metalloids to replace graphite in battery cells, making them safer, faster and UN38.3 compliant for shipping.

StoreDot is driven to have these new batteries commercially available in 2025.

However, the new batteries will need high-powered chargers at charging stations and StoreDot is collaborating with BP who understands that their 18,200 fossil-fuel forecourts will eventually become obsolete as battery power is the new oil. At this stage, charge stations would ideally enable electric vehicles a range of 100 miles /160.93 kms.

Photo BP Chargemaster

Tesla, Sila Nanotechnologies and Enevate are also among the industrious companies developing fast charge batteries. StoreDot also plans to use silicon in their batteries which is cheaper and have it available in prototypes later this year.

And on another speedy futuristic track…engineers at the University of Stanford are working on the concept of electric vehicles that recharge themselves on the go, that could make charge stations redundant altogether. With this new prototype EVs charge themselves while in motion via wireless transmission. Maybe years away still…or not, but wireless charging may very well become a game-changer in the switch to all things running on white oil.

Professor Chao-Yang Wang from the Battery and Energy Storage Technology Centre at Pennsylvania State University confirmed that they possess the technology where $25,000 EV’s can “race like a luxury sport car, have 10-minute rechargeability and are safer than any currently on the market”. This technology, developed by Wang’s company EC Power, increases the temperature of the battery slowly to 60C. When charged rapidly, ions get congested, may turn into metal and short circuit a battery but with this slow increase in temperature now, the ions still move fast but damage to the battery caused by heat can be limited or avoided. This process allows a full charge in ten minutes.

Wang also said that fast charging a battery this way should be able to be repeated 500 times without the degrading of the battery. Doron Myersdorf, CEO of StoreDot, claimed their battery can be recharged 1000 times and retain 80% of the battery while Wang confirmed their EC Power battery can manage 2500 charges.

According to Wang, their future looks bright and “…our technology is simple but elegant.”

Other Interesting Global Battery News …

• Since shipping companies are now required to address their carbon footprint and with lithium-ion technology becoming more affordable, a new ship solely running on lithium-ion power will come to the Japanese coastline in 2022. The 60 meter “e5” tanker from Tokyo-based Asahi Tanker, will however carry marine diesel to refuel other cargo vessels in Tokyo Bay. The “e5” will be powered by a battery system of 3.5-Megawatt hour that can be compared to 40 battery packs of Tesla’s Model S.

• Jenax in South Korea has developed J.Flex, a lithium-ion battery that is ultra-thin and highly flexible. “Putting batteries into locations where they couldn’t be before”, Jenax is working with B2B firms in logistics, health, medical and consumer electronics to remodel batteries according to their product needs.

• According to Phil Horlock, CEO of Blue Bird Corporation this school bus manufacturer has now surpassed the distribution of400 electric-powered school buses.

• During 2021, a recycling plant of $175 million, will be constructed in Rochester NY on the grounds of the former Eastman Kodak complex. Construction company Li-Cycle, from Canada, will implement a zero-emissions and zero-wastewater process to manage a capacity of 25 metric kilotons. Elements like lithium, cobalt and nickel will be recovered.

Photo Li-Cycle

Best for Last…Great News yet for E-Scooters!

Quality e-scooters have become big and heavy due to their strong built with large batteries to satisfy the demand for sumptuous performance and range.

Imagine a massless battery that outperforms previous versions as well as reduces the weight of a top-notch foldable e-scooter…

In an article published by www.sciencedaily.com on 22nd March 2021, researchers from Chalmers University of Technology have produced such a structural battery.

In EV’s, the weight of batteries has an impact on the design of the frame enveloping and transporting this energy storage system. If the frame of the vehicle could hold the energy, the future design of electric transport could be revolutionized to make them more compact and lighter. Think electric vehicles, bicycles and scooters, but satellites, ships and aircraft will also benefit, well…massively!

"The next generation structural battery has fantastic potential. If you look at consumer technology, it could be quite possible within a few years to manufacture smartphones, laptops or electric bicycles that weigh half as much as today and much more compact” says Leif Asp.

Can we expect to see a light but thoroughbred performance e-scooter

in the near future of electric mobility?