electric car and transport, wire news

[moinsdewatt]

Renault confirms an electric Dacia for 2021

Read https://www.automobile-propre.com/renau ... pour-2022/

[moinsdewatt]

Chronopost buys 420 electric Volkswagen E-Crafter

Tue 11/02/2020 engine engine - Fast and zero emissions.



After many factors have adopted electric Renault Kangoo, it is the turn of the Post's fast messaging subsidiary, Chronopost, to electrify its large vehicles. The company has just placed a very large order with Volkswagen, where it has retained the E-Crafter electric van. And it is not less than 420 E-Crafter that Chronopost will acquire. Deliveries will be spread over 2 years.

Chronopost already has trucks running on CNG, and in Paris, the company only uses vehicles with alternative engines. It plans to do the same in 18 other cities.

https://www.moteurnature.com/30240-chro ... lectriques

[moinsdewatt]

The Chinese battery manufacturer CATL will invest 4.7 billion dollars to multiply by 4 its production of Lithium-ion batteries, and they will supply Tesla in China.
CATL is the market leader with 28% of the market in 2019.

With Tesla deal set, Chinese battery maker CATL makes plans to quadruple output

Bradley Berman - Feb. 28th 2020

The world's biggest electric vehicle battery maker, CATL, will invest up to $ 3.7 billion to quadruple its production capacity for lithium-ion batteries used in cars and storage systems. In today's report from Japan's Nikkei, the financial publication tied CATL's announcement with its plans to supply batteries to Tesla.

China's CATL shipped the equivalent of 32.5 gigawatt-hours of automotive lithium-ion batteries in 2019. The company is the industry leader with a global share of 28%, according to South Korea's SNE Research. It supplies batteries to Daimler, Honda, Toyota, Volvo, and Volkswagen.

It will take two to three years for CATL's new facilities to come online. Capacity at a factory in Jiangsu Province will go up by 24 gigawatt-hours. And its output capacity in Ningde, Fujian Province, where the company has its headquarters, will increase by 16 gigawatt-hours. There will also be a new plant opened in Sichuan Province with a capacity of 12 gigawatt-hours.

CATL is already building its first overseas plant in Germany. This facility will have a capacity of 14 gigawatt-hours starting in about 2022.

Automakers, including Audi, Hyundai-Kia, Jaguar, and Mercedes-Benz, have acknowledged that constraints to their battery supplies have delayed or limited their EV production.

In early February, CATL said that it signed a deal to provide batteries to Tesla in China from July 2020 through June 2022. No terms were disclosed.

The EV battery wars are intensifying. Panasonic, which had been Tesla's sole supplier, this month announced that it had finalized a joint venture agreement with Toyota Motor. The Japanese automaker will take a 51% stake in the new battery company, to be named Prime Planet Energy & Solutions.

Tesla is ramping up battery capacity from multiplier suppliers, as it plans to deliver 500,000 cars in 2020. In its Q4 2019 conference call, Tesla CEO Elon Musk confirmed that the company was working with both CATL and LG Chem, in addition to Panasonic. Tesla also plans to make its own cells.

A couple of weeks ago, Reuters reported that Tesla is in “advanced stages of talks” to use batteries from CATL that contain no cobalt. That would mark the first time for Tesla to include lithium iron phosphate batteries in its lineup, a step to reduce costs.

Cobalt is also one of the most expensive metals in EV batteries, costing between $ 33,000 and $ 35,000 per ton. Wired reported this month that demand of cobalt could reach 430,000 tonnes in the next decade, which is 1.6 times today's capacity. There are also concerns about the limited supply of cobalt, as well as the ethics of its production.

https://electrek.co/2020/02/28/with-tes ... le-output/

[moinsdewatt]

Mired in software problems, the Volkswagen ID.3 could postpone its release

Michaël TORREGROSSA / 27 Feb 2020

In the grip of major software problems, Volkswagen could be forced to postpone deliveries of its compact 100% electric, initially scheduled for the summer. The manufacturer could be up to a year late with disastrous consequences for the group.

Up to 300 bugs per day
According to the German media Manager Magazin, the testers in charge of testing the prototypes report up to 300 bugs per day on the software which equips the car. Information confirmed by Automotive News which indicates that the concerns encountered would be linked to the “basic architecture” of the car software. According to some of the group's engineers, its development was carried out “too hastily”.

In practice, these problems are not new. A few months ago, Manager Magazin already mentioned these difficulties. The latter indicated that the manufacturer was storing the thousands of cars already produced in large car parks while awaiting a software solution that the technicians would have to install manually.

Disastrous consequences
If Volkswagen wanted to be optimistic a few months ago about the keeping of the announced calendar, the fact that these problems persist raises the doubt on its ability to meet deadlines.

According to some media reports, the Volkswagen ID.3 may be up to a year behind the original schedule. A scenario that would prove disastrous for the manufacturer in terms of image but also of regulation, the ID.3 being considered as one of the main levers of the group to meet the CO2 objectives imposed by Europe.

Software difficulties which could also cause delays on the launch of the models of the other brands of the group, supposed to take again the same software architecture as the compact of Volkswagen.

https://www.automobile-propre.com/embou ... sa-sortie/

Tesla took the opportunity to build its German factory.

[sicetaitsimple]

In the same style (bug) this news on the Corri-Door charging network, mainly located on motorways:

"Charging your electric car is often like a Stations of the Cross, especially on long journeys. A situation which unfortunately will not get better, since a good part of the ambitious Corri-Door network has been definitively stopped.

With its 217 50 kW fast-charge stations in France, the Corri-Door network has so far been one of the most attractive for electric car users. On the motorway, it even appeared as often essential. But since February 7, it took a big hit in the wing: 189 of these terminals were stopped after the discovery of a security problem. A situation which is unfortunately not ready to be resolved. Izivia, the EDF subsidiary which commercially operates this infrastructure in France, has just announced that it would never put these problematic installations back into service!

Only 40 to 50 term terminals
In the immediate future, there are therefore only 28 functional terminals left. And if Izivia intends to replace part of its infrastructure, the Corri-Door network will never regain the scale it had: ultimately, only 40 to 50 terminals are planned."

https://www.automobile-magazine.fr/voit ... ses-bornes

[Eric DUPONT]

50 kw sockets, soon replaced by liquid nitrogen pumps. it's on my roadmap.

[sicetaitsimple]

50 kw sockets, soon replaced by liquid nitrogen pumps. it's on my roadmap.

This is essential, it will give balm to the heart of EV owners who sometimes make long journeys.
Uh, when is the widespread deployment, on your roadmap?

[Eric DUPONT]

50 kw sockets, soon replaced by liquid nitrogen pumps. it's on my roadmap.

This is essential, it will give balm to the heart of EV owners who sometimes make long journeys.
Uh, when is the widespread deployment, on your roadmap?

I baptized the system the systema corona, it will go quickly enough.

[ENERC]

New dry electrode batteries from Tesla. Much of it comes from Tesla's acquisition of Maxwell.
Translation

Electrek has learned more about Tesla's secret “Roadrunner” project: applying the “machine that builds the machine” strategy to produce cheaper battery cells on a large scale.
$ 100 per kWh has been described as the target price for batteries to allow electric vehicles to reach parity with gasoline cars without subsidies.

If combined with mass production, it is considered the “holy grail” of electric vehicle adoption, as it would enable high volume production of relatively affordable and / or high margin electric cars.

Tesla's partnership with Panasonic has led to an advanced battery cost, but the automaker is looking to go further by creating its own cells.

Tesla has been rumored for several months to be working on manufacturing its own battery cells for its electric vehicles.

It started with the acquisition of Maxwell, a supercapacitor maker with battery cell technology, and later at its annual shareholders' meeting, Tesla practically confirmed that it would make its own battery cells. .

This is a serious source, all the more so since they have vacancies for the new production line.

Original version: https://electrek.co/2020/02/26/tesla-se ... ive-scale/

[Eric DUPONT]

Fortunately, the fast recharging terminals for electric vehicles can be supplied with electricity by a system producing energy with liquid nitrogen.