Valeo has commercially launched a 48 V two-speed eAxle that replaces the mechanical rear driveline of a 4×4 with an electric rear axle. Launch customer Dacia is using the unit to power its new Hybrid-G 150 4×4 system on the Duster and Bigster, and plans to install it on the Striker as well.
At low speeds, the eAxle uses a short gear ratio, and delivers up to 1,800 Nm of torque to the rear wheels. At higher speeds, it shifts to a long ratio for efficient cruising at up to 140 km/h. The axle can be decoupled from the driveline when four-wheel drive isn’t needed, so it doesn’t sap efficiency on the highway. According to Valeo, the design resolves the long-standing trade-off between low-speed torque and high-speed efficiency that has dogged cheap electric axles.
Speaking of dogs, handling the gear change cleanly is the job of what Valeo calls its Smart Dog Clutch, which uses software rather than extra hardware to synchronize its engagement speed.
The unit delivers peak power of 31 hp, and weighs 41 kg, which Valeo says makes it the most powerful 48 V rear electric powertrain on the market. It is compact enough to drop into existing B-segment platforms, turning a mild hybrid car into one with electric rear-wheel drive.
A conventional mechanical 4×4 burns extra fuel, and the resulting CO₂ emissions carry a rising cost under European rules. Swapping the mechanical hardware for a more efficient electric drive offsets that penalty and keeps the system affordable on entry-level cars, Valeo explains.
Valeo says the eAxle and its control software enable the Duster and Bigster to stay in in electric mode during up to 60% of urban driving.
“This breakthrough technology preserves the iconic 4×4 DNA of the Duster while significantly reducing its CO₂ emissions,” said Xavier Dupont, CEO of Valeo Power Division.
Slate’s 180,000-plus reservation holders can now configure their trucks; here’s what they get.
Slate Auto, the improbable electric-truck startup, says it will deliver its first vehicles before the end of the year—and at the promised price of $25,000 (with one asterisk).
Slate unveiled its design for a small electric pickup truck in April 2024. The “Blank Slate” base model, built in just one color (grey), promised a back-to-basics pickup that blended small-truck design chops of the Eighties and Nineties with a very modern battery-electric powertrain.
This week, Slate announced more details about the truck—most importantly, its price—at a media event in Southern California. More than 180,000 reservation holders, who have put down a $50 deposit any time since April 2025, can now configure their specific vehicle online for an additional $250. Slate confirmed it will deliver its first customer vehicles in the fourth quarter of this year.
Here’s what we learned at the event.
MODELS and PRICING
The Blank Slate is a two-door, standard-cab pickup truck; its price will start at $24,950 before options and accessories. But two additional body styles are also offered, both SUVs, a fact that was somewhat lost in all the “small pickup” publicity.
Beyond the pickup comes the “Squareback” wagon. Cleverly, this is an add-on panel kit that removes the cab back, remounts it at the end of a longer roof panel to act as the tailgate, and adds a second-row seat. The result is a two-door wagon with a square roofline—a body style essentially lost to U.S. buyers. The cost is $5,000 higher, at $29,950.
The third version is the “Fastback”, a more sloping version of the Squareback idea that resembles the International Scout ‘Sportop’ accessory shell. The Fastback adds $7,000 to the Blank Slate, taking it to $31,950.
* The big asterisk on those prices
Slate confirmed that all three versions, built in the factory, will be available at launch for reservation holders to choose. Earlier, the company said the two SUV body styles would be available as flat-pack kits that could be shipped directly to owners who want to modify their pickups as a DIY project. (Auto enthusiast site The Autopian has suggested two further Slate alternatives: an extended cab back and a convertible pickup.)
Here’s the caveat on the prices above, however: They do not include the Destination or Delivery fee that every maker adds on top of the Manufacturers Suggested Retail Price, or MSRP. Those fees can range from $1,150 to more than $3,000. Slate told Charged it will reveal that fee closer to the time of its first deliveries.
But if it goes with the lowest $1,150 now on the market, the cost of a Blank Slate (before taxes and registration) would be $26,100. Could the company keep it down to, say, $995, so the price would be $25,945? We’ll have to wait and see.
The pricing and the two-door cab remains a bold gamble in small trucks. “Slate is making a $25,000 bet that drivers still want something simple,” said Ivan Drury, director of insights at auto-data firm Edmunds. “Our data show the market quietly walked away from that price years ago, so this is a real test of how much affordability still matters to today’s buyers.”
Powertrain, charging
All Slates will be powered by a rear-mounted motor producing 135 kilowatts (181 horsepower) and torque of 264 Nm (195 lb-ft). The company quotes a 0-to-60-mph acceleration time of 8.0 seconds, respectable if hardly Tesla Plaid performance.
The motor is powered by a 65 kilowatt-hour battery pack (63 kWh usable) that uses lithium-iron-phosphate cells supplied by Gotion, in packs assembled in Illinois. The completed packs are then shipped to the company’s assembly plant in Warsaw, Illinois.
Slate estimates the range of the Blank Slate will be 205 miles. When it unveiled its early prototypes more than a year ago, Slate said it would offer two battery capacities: a standard-range pack for 150 miles of range, and an Extended Range version for 240 miles. Those packs would have used NMCA cells from SK-On. That plan has been tossed; only the single LFP pack, estimated at 205 miles, will be offered.
Charging is done through a NACS port on the left-rear fender, with an onboard 11-kW AC charger that can take the pack from 20 to 100 percent in 4 hours. (LFP cells should regularly be charged to 100 percent, unlike NMCA chemistries, generally recommended to charge only to 80 percent where possible.) Slate’s fast charging isn’t the fastest we’ve seen, at up to 120 kW; recharging the pack from 20 to 80 percent will take 30 minutes.
Truck stuff stats
It’s a compact pickup, so the Slate is never going to tow an Airstream. But it’s rated to tow 2,000 pounds, meaning one or two riding mowers or motorcycles or jet skis or quad ATVs (depending on the trailer weight). Payload capacity is 1,550 pounds. Curb weight is 4,050 pounds for the pickup truck, which rises to 4,335 lbs for the two SUV models.
The pickup bed length is 5 feet (60.5 inches), which rises to 80.7 inches with the tailgate down. Every Slate has a front trunk holding 7 cubic feet, and the SUV models can hold up to 34 cubic feet behind the rear seat, or 58.4 cu ft with the second row folded down. All Slates come with 17-inch steel wheels.
Customized, personalized, unique
If you believe the marketing, the Slate isn’t actually a truck at all. It’s an innovative, modular platform for customization. Over time, Slate expects the majority of buyers to make their trucks or SUVs unique by choosing accessories galore—starting with full-vehicle wraps under $500 for customers who don’t want a grey truck. More than 100 colors will be available at launch, the company promises.
The Slate Marketplace will open with more than 200 accessories—and more than 80 percent of them will cost less than $500 apiece. (This is, presumably, how a $25,000 truck becomes profitable.) They include useful interior items like cupholders, consoles, mobile-phone mounts, power windows, zip-on seat covers, and stereos. You can get a roof rack, or multiple dress-up items like light covers.
Slate provided airfare, lodging, and meals to enable Charged to bring you this first-person report.
Contrary to what the anti-EV crowd would like you to believe, EVs are no more likely to catch fire than other vehicles. However, it is true that lithium-ion battery fires require special treatment. Compromised battery packs can enter thermal runaway without warning, and reignite unexpectedly long after the original incident. Suppressing these fires can also require significant volumes of water, which can create environmental and cleanup concerns after the scene has been cleared.
Responders need a way to safely contain and transport a compromised EV after an incident, and that’s where Ramp Container’s new EV RESCUE recovery and containment platform comes in.
EV RESCUE uses liquid cryogen technology—inert gases that have been liquefied to achieve extremely low temperatures—to help operators manage thermal risk and reduce operational exposure throughout post-incident recovery and transport, from the moment a vehicle is loaded until its final disposition.
EV RESCUE is designed to help operators:
protect personnel during recovery operations
reduce equipment exposure to thermal and chemical risk
support safer transport of compromised vehicles
minimize roadway disruption
manage reignition risk
limit environmental impact from suppression runoff and post-incident handling
Ramp Container is engaging with transportation agencies, emergency response organizations, towing operators and municipal partners to demonstrate EV RESCUE and discuss deployment opportunities.
“Battery incidents don’t end when the visible flames are extinguished,” said a Ramp Container spokesperson. “Recovery teams need practical, purpose-built tools that let them move a compromised vehicle safely, efficiently and with operational control, rather than simply hoping the danger has passed.”
German charging communication specialist chargebyte is launching the Charge Control V (CCV), which it says is the world’s first ready-to-deploy high-power charging controller built on the EVerest open-source firmware stack. The CCV is currently in pre-series status with samples available for pre-order.
The CCV is a 2-port charging controller for CCS-based charging stations, handling two charging ports while also integrating a dedicated safety co-processor and enough processing power to drive a high-resolution display directly. It includes extensive I/Os for peripheral devices and is positioned as both a platform for new charger designs and a drop-in replacement for legacy controllers. The board runs EVerest with full support for ISO 15118-20 and OCPP 2.1.0. Firmware maintenance is included in the product price, and because the underlying stack is open source, operators can modify or extend it freely without being tied to chargebyte for software updates or customization.
Most commercial HPC controllers ship with proprietary firmware, creating ongoing dependency on the vendor for protocol updates, feature additions and certification maintenance. Building on EVerest—which is maintained as a community project under LF Energy—gives integrators a path to genuine software independence at the controller level.
chargebyte is also debuting two MCS (Megawatt Charging System) controllers at Power2Drive aimed at e-trucks and heavy-duty commercial vehicles. The CCL MCS sits on the vehicle side, handling charging communication and safety logic between the charging inlet and vehicle electronics per ISO 15118-20. The CCY MCS mirrors that capability on the infrastructure side. Together they form an end-to-end MCS solution covering both vehicle and charger integration.
JEDEC’s JC-70.2 Silicon Carbide Subcommittee has published two new free guidelines—JEP203 and JEP204—standardizing how engineers evaluate and qualify SiC power devices in EV inverters, industrial drives and energy infrastructure.
JEP203, Guideline for Short Circuit Evaluation in Power Conversion Transistors, addresses short-circuit capability testing for power MOSFETs. Short-circuit behavior is a particular concern with SiC: unlike silicon IGBTs, SiC MOSFETs typically have shorter short-circuit withstand times, which puts tighter demands on protection circuit design and gate driver response. Without a standard test methodology, results have varied across vendors and test labs, complicating design decisions for system engineers. JEP203 provides a shared evaluation framework to improve protection design consistency and make device-to-device comparisons more meaningful.
JEP204, Catalog of Stress Procedures for Silicon Carbide Devices for Power Electronic Conversion, is a broader reliability reference covering stress procedures across reliability, environmental and ruggedness categories. It gives qualification engineers and device manufacturers a common testing vocabulary for evaluating long-term SiC device performance—something the industry has lacked as SiC adoption has outpaced formal standardization.
Both documents are available for free download from JEDEC’s website.
JEDEC’s JC-70 committee now has more than 70 member companies—up from 23 at its founding in October 2017—including SiC and GaN semiconductor makers, power device users and test and measurement suppliers.
“JEP203 and JEP204 are landmark guidelines for SiC power conversion, enabling the industry to confidently adopt silicon carbide in demanding power electronic applications,” said Dr. Donald Gajewski, Wolfspeed Senior Director Reliability Engineering and chair of the 702_1 Task Group. “JEP204 provides a comprehensive framework of best practices for stressing SiC power devices, offering significant value to both users and suppliers.”
ROHM Semiconductor has launched the TSC3PAK, a new package for SiC MOSFETs that delivers heat dissipation performance comparable to conventional TO-247-4L through-hole packages while being fully compatible with automated surface-mount assembly. Mass production started this month.
Through-hole SiC packages like the TO-247 dissipate heat well but require manual mounting, can’t support pick-and-place automation, and have a taller profile that limits board density. Surface-mount alternatives have existed but typically traded away heat dissipation to get there. ROHM’s TSC3PAK (14.00 × 18.58 × 3.50 mm) uses a top-side heat dissipation structure—the heat spreader faces up rather than down toward the PCB—to achieve comparable thermal performance to TO-247 in a surface-mount footprint.
The package incorporates ROHM’s proprietary groove structure to achieve a 6.66 mm creepage distance, supporting AC peak voltages up to 1,200 V in a Pollution Degree 2 environment. That voltage rating matters for OBC and electric compressor applications, where the 800 V battery systems increasingly common in EVs push voltage requirements well past what conventional 650 V or 900 V packages can safely handle. The devices inside use ROHM’s 4th Generation SiC MOSFETs, which the company says deliver low on-resistance and high-speed switching to reduce switching losses in power conversion stages.
Automotive applications include onboard chargers and electric compressors. Industrial applications include PV inverters and server power supplies.
Taiwan-based SINBON Electronics has developed a European-standard EV charging product portfolio for the European market, including Type 2 AC charging cables, CCS2 DC charging cables, CCS2 liquid-cooled charging cables and CCS2 charging inlets.
Included in the portfolio is an upgraded lightweight CCS2 DC charging cable designed to enhance user convenience and ergonomic design while maintaining high power output and compliance with European safety standards.
SINBON has also partnered with Swobbee, a European battery-swapping infrastructure platform and Taiwanese hydrogen technology firm Nexcellent Energy to develop an integrated urban energy solution encompassing battery swapping and hydrogen refueling.
Swobbee provides battery swapping services for micro-mobility vehicles, while Nexcellent Energy specializes in hydrogen technology R&D.
