Pedro Lima

Enevate wants to enable electric vehicles to charge as fast as refueling gas cars and is now closer to make it happen. This Californian company just announced a new production license agreement with the South Korean battery cell maker EnerTech International to commercialize Enevate’s silicon-dominant anode battery technology. Commercialization is scheduled for 2022 and pre-production batteries have already been built and tested by Enertech’s existing lithium-ion battery manufacturing equipment. IRVINE, Calif. – June 08, 2021 – Enevate, a pioneering battery innovation company featuring extreme fast charge and high energy density battery technologies for electric vehicles (EVs) and other markets, announced a new production license agreement with EnerTech International to commercialize Enevate’s silicon-dominant, XFC-EnergyTM battery technology in the transportation, mobility and reserve power markets. Silicon Battery Commercialization Scheduled for 2022.

At the InterBattery 2021 event in Seoul, South Korea, Samsung SDI finally announced that it’s already producing high-nickel content battery cells. Moreover, Samsung SDI confirmed that its new cylindrical and prismatic cells have different nickel concentrations. Nickel concentration in cathode of new Samsung SDI battery cells Cylindrical form: 91 % - 670 Wh/L Prismatic form: 88 % - 630 Wh/L With the cylindrical battery cells Samsung SDI is probably aiming to supply Tesla in China, while the Gen 5 prismatic battery cells will likely be used first in Europe later this year.

BYD sent the first 100 units of the Tang EV to Norway, which is BYD’s most expensive passenger BEV. This is a big SUV that seats 7 persons and has AWD (All-Wheel Drive). Rotterdam, Netherlands – BYD, the world’s leading New Energy Vehicle (NEV) manufacturer, and one of the first to produce one million electric passenger cars globally, is today shipping the first 100 European-specification BYD Tang SUVs for customers in Norway.

During this summer, 30 pre-production units of the Mégane E-Tech Electric will be driven by Renault engineers for final testing before mass production begins. Revealed during Renault eWays: The Challenge towards Zero Emissions, Mégane eVision showcar announced Renault’s first step on C-segment electric vehicles ; enhancing a comprehensive lineup of fully electric passenger cars: with the A-segment Twingo E-Tech Electric, and the B-segment bestseller ZOE.

CALB (China Aviation Lithium Battery) aims to become a top battery cell maker very soon, but right now world’s biggest EV battery cell maker is CATL by a large margin, as we can see from the Q1 2021 results below. Global electric vehicle battery application in Q1 2021 CATL: 15,1 GWh (31,5 %) LG Energy Solution: 9,8 GWh (20,5 %) Panasonic: 8 GWh (16,7 %) BYD: 3,2 GWh (6,8 %) Samsung SDI: 2,5 GWh (5,3 %) SK Innovation: 2,4 GWh (5,1 %) CALB: 1,3 GWh (2,7 %) AESC: 1 GWh (2,1 %) Guoxuan: 0,9 GWh (1,9 %) PEVE: 0,6 GWh (1,3 %) While the Japanese and Korean companies are slowly losing ground, multiple Chinese companies are aiming to reach the top 3 in few years.

Sono Motors Sion is an unique electric concept car that is covered by “more than 248 solar cells”. According to the advertised specs, at peak performance, all these solar cells should be able to provide up to 1,2 kW. However, in the real world we shouldn’t expect the solar production peak to be much higher than 400 W, even on a sunny day.

MG has been selling the ZS EV in Europe for a while now. The ZS EV belongs to the first generation of MG electric cars and honestly I never payed much attention to it. As most first generation electric cars, the MG ZS EV isn’t very efficient and only gets a WLTP range of 263 km from a 44,5 kWh battery pack made with CATL cells. Its front grill makes it look like a gas car and suggests that GM didn’t care much about aerodynamics when designed it.

Made in Belgium, the Volvo C40 Recharge is now available to order in Europe. Volvo Cars has officially opened order books for the C40 Recharge, the company’s latest fully electric model. A landmark car for the company’s recently announced new commercial strategy, the C40 Recharge is available online via volvocars.com in markets across Europe* as of this week. Customers can order from the comfort of their own home or place an online order together with their retailer.

Currently, LG Chem supplies NCM 811 battery cells to Tesla in China, but starting next month, there will be a change to the NCMA chemistry. The Tesla Model Y MIC (Made in China) is set to become the first production electric car to get a NCMA battery. Previously, it was expected that GM would be the first automaker to use the NCMA chemistry from LG Chem, with the introduction of its Ultium batteries.

Sodium-ion batteries (NIBs) are coming with potential to revolutionize grid energy storage and indirectly help EVs in a big way. Let’s see how! Recently CATL announced that it’ll begin to produce NIBs in July. However, the giant Chinese battery cell maker didn’t tell us much about this battery technology, only that NIBs will be temporarily more expensive than lithium-ion batteries (LIBs) because they are a new concept. Nonetheless, in the long run - with efficient mass production - NIBs will be considerably cheaper (around 30 % less) than LIBs. The main advantage of sodium-ion batteries is their use of abundant, cheap and benign materials.

The production of the LETIN Mengo started last month with first units rolling off the production line. Now, this small A-segment electric car that seats 4 persons is ready for first deliveries. Powered by LFP (LiFePO4) batteries, this cute electric car has a starting price of 29.800 yuan (3.815 euros). This is exactly the same starting price of the Changan Benben E-Star. #Levdeo #Mango officially enters market, price at ¥ 29.8K-54.9K, #China media reports.https://t.co/g07I17Z4hi

The Changan Benben E-Star is now available in a new low-cost version called National Edition with a starting price of 29.800 yuan (3.792 euros). Yes, you seen it right, it costs less than 4.000 euros and makes the popular Wuling Hong Guang MINI EV look overpriced… The biggest downside of this low-cost edition is that it’s based on the old model, the exterior and interior don’t look as modern as the refreshed edition, as you can see in the image below.