US Energy Department Aids Electric Car Industry

The US Energy Department has awarded more than US$10 billion in grants and low interest loans to manufacturers and suppliers of advanced vehicles, mainly battery-powered cars.

In an ironic twist - since the program was set up to promote US industry - more than 15% of funding to date has gone to US subsidiaries of foreign firms.

Among these are BASF Catalysts, a subsidiary of German chemical giant BASF SE; Compact Power, a subsidiary of South Korea's LG Chem; Saft America, part of Saft Groupe SA; and Nissan North America, the US manufacturing arm of Japan's Nissan Motor Company.

With the exception of Nissan, which has a joint venture with the NEC Corporation to make lithium-ion batteries for the Leaf EV, an electric car due out in December, no Japanese battery-maker has been awarded a Department of Energy grant or loan.

Japanese battery-makers - namely Panasonic, Sanyo Electric (now a subsidiary of Panasonic), Hitachi Automotive Systems, and GS Yuasa Corporation - account for 95% of 'secondary' batteries for hybrid and pure electric vehicles on the road today.

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Land-speed record set for battery-electric vehicles

A team of Ohio State University engineering students has set a world land-speed record for a battery-electric vehicle this week.

Professional driver Roger Schroer guided the university team’s Venturi Buckeye Bullet 2.5 car to an average speed of 307.7mph on 24 August 2010.

The lithium-ion battery-powered car eclipsed the previous 245mph world land-speed record for battery-electric vehicles, which was set in 1999 by White Lightning, driven by Pat Rummerfield.

The team anticipated making further tries at besting its time this week but decided to stop after trying to replace the vehicle’s broken clutch - too much torque from the motor ripped apart the half-inch steel teeth that connect the motor to the gearbox.

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Factory opens in Finland to supply lithium-ion batteries for up to 3,000 electric vehicles

The engineering and construction company M+W Group has successfully completed its first order to build a lithium-ion battery plant in Varkaus (Finland). The plant, which was commissioned by the Finnish battery manufacturer, European Batteries Oy, has now started full volume production.

The new factory in Varkaus has a surface area of 10,000 square metres and manufactures large, lithium-ion based battery packs and systems with an annual production capacity of around 100 megawatt/hours. This means that around 3,000 full-electric cars can be fitted with lithium-ion batteries, although a possible tripling of production is already planned.

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Ford Invests $135M In Green Parts For Hybrid Electric Vehicles

Ford Motor Company announced that it will invest $135 million in two Michigan factories to design, engineer and build key green vehicle parts for the next generation of hybrid-electric vehicles that go into production in 2012.

The investment will result in adding 170 jobs to its Rawsonville plant, while Engineers in Dearborn will design the battery packs and more than 50 engineers to its Van Dyke Transmission Plant in Sterling Heights in the next two years.

Ford would be pumping about $10 million at its Rawsonville components plant to produce lithium-ion battery packs for future hybrid vehicles, also moving its work to Michigan that is currently performed by Delphi in Mexico. About 40 new jobs will be created in the starting of 2012. As of now Ford employs about 780 at Rawsonville plant.

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Are Lithium Air Batteries the Future of Electric Vehicles?

Researchers at Argonne Labs are in the early stages of developing lithium air batteries, which according to some scientists, could be as much as 100 times more powerful than current electric vehicle battery packs.

With the first wave of plug-in cars set to hit the market later this year, there is still uncertainty as to whether consumers will balk at price tag and range limitations of early-model electric vehicles. Both of these drawbacks can be traced to the shortcomings of the current generation of lithium ion batteries, which have made huge strides in the last decade but are still perceived to not meet the needs of some drivers.

But what if lithium batteries could be lighter, cheaper and at least five times more powerful than those that will power cars like the Chevy Volt,Mitsubishi i-MiEV, or Nissan Leaf?

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