GM and PG&E offer an incentive package for managed EV charging program

Pacific Gas and Electric (PG&E) and GM Energy are offering an incentive package for PG&E customers who buy or lease a new Chevrolet, GMC or Cadillac EV and choose to sign up for a managed charging program.

The Smart Charge Bundle, available at participating dealerships, includes a GM Energy PowerShift or PowerUp 2 home charger at no additional cost, and $15 in monthly bill credits on customers’ PG&E bills after installation.

The PowerUp 2 charger delivers everyday Level 2 charging, while the PowerShift Charger can be paired with GM Energy equipment and a compatible EV to support bidirectional charging.

Through PG&E’s EV Charge Manager program, participating customers can receive a $15 monthly bill credit, and may save up to an additional $50 per month, by shifting charging to periods when electricity costs and demand are lower. Managed charging automatically schedules charging during lower-cost periods. Customers can override a managed-charging session when necessary.

WeaveGrid supplies the grid orchestration software that optimizes charging and helps prevent localized strain on the grid.

“Customers don’t want to think about when their car charges,” said Apoorv Bhargava, CEO and cofounder of WeaveGrid. “They just want it to be ready and affordable. This bundle makes everything simple and easy.”

Source: Pacific Gas and Electric

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ABB E-mobility and elexon partner to offer EV charging infrastructure for commercial fleets in Germany and Austria

ABB E-mobility and elexon are collaborating to offer EV charging infrastructure for commercial fleets in the German and Austrian markets.

ABB offers a vast variety of EV charging solutions, including systems for the electrification of electric bus and truck fleets. elexon focuses on integrating efficient energy and load management systems and supplying electricity from renewable energy sources.

As a certified ABB E-mobility channel partner, elexon is qualified to install, commission and service ABB’s charging solutions. Together, the companies offer fleet operators a single source for hardware, software and services, from analysis and strategic consulting to technical planning and implementation to operation, service and long-term support of the charging infrastructure.

“The depot decides whether an electrified fleet makes economic sense,” said Bruno Bourguet, President EMEA at ABB E-mobility. “Operators have to coordinate hardware, construction, grid connection and operation themselves, and that is exactly where projects fail. With our charging technology and elexon’s on-the-ground experience, they instead get one point of contact for a dependable depot.”

“Fleet operators need more than charging hardware—they need a reliable, integrated solution that works seamlessly from grid connection to daily operation,” said Marcus Scholz, CEO, elexon. “By partnering with ABB E-mobility, we combine world-class charging technology with our expertise in planning, energy management, implementation and long-term service.”

Source: ABB E-mobility

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California enacts laws to streamline EV charging projects, offer EV purchase subsidies and promote electric trucking

As the federal government completes its eradication of every law or program encouraging transport electrification (including decades-old emissions regulations), California has stepped into the gap with a spate of pro-EV policies.

Governor Gavin Newsom recently signed a package of legislation that aims to accelerate California’s EV transition on several fronts.

• SB 969 is designed to streamline the installation of public chargers. This law modernizes the inspection process, allowing manufacturer-tested chargers to get online faster.
• SB 1283 cuts red tape for charging projects. EV charger installations often require related work such as trenching, electrical upgrades, solar canopies or battery storage. This law clarifies that California’s streamlined permitting rules for charger installations also apply to such related work.
• AB 1820 reduces permitting barriers and fees for charging projects at apartments and mixed-use developments.
• SB 1213 improves transparency in state incentives for zero-emission trucks. Unlike passenger automakers, truck manufacturers often do not publicly disclose their prices. This enables them to charge higher prices to smaller fleets, and potentially to capture state subsidy money as additional profit instead of passing on savings to buyers. The new law requires OEMs to make prices public as a condition of qualifying for state subsidies.
• SB 1267 is designed to clarify liability issues for EV chargers, removing an incentive for homeowner associations to block EV charging infrastructure projects.
• SB 615 aims to provide consumers with clearer EV battery information when comparing vehicle options.

The MyFirstEV program provides purchase incentives for first-time EV buyers. Eligible Californians can receive an instant rebate of up to $3,500 toward a qualifying new EV, or up to $1,750 toward a qualifying used vehicle. The program is supported by a $135.5-million state investment that is matched dollar-for-dollar by participating automakers.

The MyFirstEV instant rebate is part of a $600-million investment funded through Cap-and-Invest revenue and smog-abatement fees. The state’s Clean Cars 4 All program helps income-qualified drivers replace older, higher-polluting vehicles. The Clean Truck and Bus Voucher Incentive Project helps fleets purchase cleaner trucks and buses. The Carl Moyer Program supports replacement of high-polluting engines and equipment.

Source: California Governor’s Office

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Parker expands CoolTherm line with three new thermal adhesives

The Performance Materials Division of Parker Hannifin has launched three new thermal adhesives, expanding its CoolTherm portfolio for EV and industrial electrification applications.

The new materials:

• CoolTherm UR-2800 Thermally Conductive Urethane Adhesive—designed to provide improved bonding to a wider variety of substrates, higher bond strengths and quick cure time.

• CoolTherm UR-2400 SLW Thermally Conductive Urethane Adhesive—a slow-cure adhesive offering approximately 2.0 W/m·K thermal conductivity, moderate-to-high strength, high toughness and extended time for rework.

• CoolTherm TC-2080 Thermally Conductive Adhesive—developed to maintain key CoolTherm TC-2002 properties while removing glass spacers, and for very large dispensed beads, increasing sag resistance.

“As battery architecture evolves, EV and industrial electrification manufacturers need proven, production-ready thermal adhesive solutions that improve reliability, manufacturability and design flexibility,” says the company. “Parker Lord is addressing these needs with new CoolTherm urethane and acrylic adhesive technologies.

“We developed these products to address the growing need for robust, thermally conductive bonding solutions that can support electrification platforms across diverse global applications,” said Jonathan Halbur, Srniot Product Engineer, Performance Materials Division.

Source: Parker Hannifin

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Princeton NuEnergy plans closed-loop recycling of SK Battery America’s manufacturing scrap

Princeton NuEnergy (PNE) will receive battery manufacturing scrap from SK On subsidiary SK Battery America (SKBA) under a planned expansion of the companies’ ongoing collaboration on closed-loop recycling. The scrap will come from SKBA’s EV battery plants in Commerce, Georgia, which have a combined annual production capacity of about 22 GWh.

PNE is exploring the possibility of building a recycling facility near SKBA’s manufacturing site. Designed to process battery manufacturing scrap, the facility would recover and rejuvenate cathode active material for potential return to battery manufacturing. The companies say they are continuing discussions on the technical and commercial framework of the collaboration.

Conventional recycling breaks battery materials down into their constituent elements. PNE says its direct recycling process, which it calls Cathode-to-Cathode, is instead designed to preserve and rejuvenate the engineered structure of the cathode material.

The US Department of Energy (DOE) has selected PNE to enter award negotiations for up to $50 million in support of a proposed $110-million project to build a Cathode-to-Cathode rejuvenation facility in the US. PNE’s announcement of that selection, which we covered, placed the facility in Commerce and sized it at 3,000 tonnes per year of nickel-based battery manufacturing scrap. That plant would use PNE’s low-temperature plasma-assisted separation (LPAS) technology. Neither PNE release says whether the facility it is exploring near SKBA’s site is that DOE-backed plant.

“By leveraging PNE’s Cathode-to-Cathode process, we aim to support a more localized and circular domestic battery materials supply chain,” said Chao Yan, co-founder and CEO of PNE.

Source: Princeton NuEnergy

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Otovo and InCharge Energy partner to offer solar, battery storage and EV charging services

Otovo, a provider of behind-the-meter energy services for homes and businesses, has announced a service partnership with InCharge Energy, a provider of EV charging installation and maintenance services. By combining their service offerings, Otovo and InCharge can provide commercial customers with a single service relationship covering solar, battery storage and EV charging equipment in the US.

Together, Otovo and InCharge will offer each other’s preventive maintenance plans, and each company will dispatch its own technicians. Otovo will bring its Endurance platform to the shared work, so a job originating with either company will be logged, dispatched and closed against one record of the site.

“A customer shouldn’t need multiple vendors just because their energy assets came from different systems,” said William J. Berger, CEO of Otovo. “By joining forces on commercial energy service, we can seamlessly integrate work orders through Endurance, giving customers one call and one relationship instead of separate vendors and contracts for every system on site.”

“Technology alone doesn’t keep critical energy infrastructure operating—it takes highly-skilled people in the field,” said Rich Mohr, CEO of InCharge Energy. “Otovo and InCharge have both made significant investments in technical talent and electrical field service capabilities, and we will continue to invest as these systems become more critical to our customers’ operations. By using InControl and Endurance together, we can bring better asset intelligence to our field teams and enable a more proactive approach to how EV charging, solar, battery storage and supporting electrical infrastructure are managed and maintained.”

Source: Otovo

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Wolfspeed adds Premium 200 mm n-type silicon carbide substrate to its materials line

Wolfspeed has made its Premium 200 mm n-type silicon carbide (SiC) substrate commercially available. The company says the higher-grade starting material is designed to improve device yield through reduced defects and greater wafer-shape stability. It joins the 200 mm SiC materials portfolio that Wolfspeed brought to commercial availability in September 2025.

The new substrate has fewer than 0.01 micropipes per square centimeter, or fewer than three per wafer, as validated by X-ray topography using what Wolfspeed calls the industry-standard method. Wolfspeed describes its threading screw dislocation count as low but didn't give a figure.

A micropipe is a hollow-core screw dislocation that runs through the SiC crystal and propagates into the epitaxial layer grown on top of it. A device that sits over one will typically fail when it blocks high voltage. The odds of a die landing on a defect rise with die area, so substrate defect density weighs more heavily on yield for large, high-current dies.

According to Wolfspeed, the better bare-wafer quality, combined with its wafer-shape and lot-to-lot consistency, carries through to better epitaxial performance within customers' existing epitaxy processes. Taking variability out of the starting material raises the odds of first-time design success and cuts qualification delays.

Wolfspeed is taking orders for the substrate and says it has dedicated capacity, a product expansion roadmap and the ability to ramp new capacity within its existing SiC manufacturing facility.

"We're giving customers a stronger foundation for developing increasingly demanding silicon carbide devices, backed by the manufacturing experience and scale to support them as needs grow," said Cengiz Balkas, Wolfspeed's Executive Vice President of the Materials Business Unit.

Source: Wolfspeed

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