The emerging consensus around zero emission mobility is that battery-electric vehicles will command the personal transportation market well into the future. Nevertheless, some of the world’s leading automakers continue to promote hydrogen fuel cell electric cars and SUVs. That’s a real head-scratcher, but BMW’s messaging for its iX5 Hydrogen SUV could provide some insights into […]
Materials technology and recycling company Umicore will introduce a new generation of its proprietary battery recycling technology in 2022, and has reached an agreement with Automotive Cells Company (ACC) to provide battery recycling services.
Umicore says the new generation of its battery recycling technology recovers 95% of the cobalt, nickel and copper from batteries, as well as most of the lithium. The company also says its automated material flow reduces manual handling, which supports process efficiency.
The new technology will be installed at an ACC pilot plant in Nersac, France.
“Our pilot plant in Nersac aims to test all our product and process solutions before mass production in our future Gigafactories. The agreement between ACC for Nersac and Umicore fits perfectly into this framework, allowing us to improve our expertise, locally, regarding the recycling of our production waste,” said Gilles Tardivo, Vice President of ACC’s pilot plant.
Volvo Cars plans to invest SEK 10 billion ($1.07 billion) in its Torslanda manufacturing plant in Sweden over several years, in preparation for the production of its next generation of EVs. The company will introduce a number of new technologies and manufacturing processes at the plant, including the Tesla-pioneered technique of megacasting of aluminum body parts.
Casting major parts of the floor structure of the car as single large aluminum part reduces vehicle weight and manufacturing complexity.
Volvo also plans to upgrade the Torslanda plant’s paint shop with new machinery and painting processes, which the automaker claims will reduce energy use and emissions. A new battery assembly plant will place cells into modules and packs, and the assembly shop will be modified to accommodate EV-specific processes such as attaching the battery pack to the vehicle structure.
The Torslanda plant, which opened in 1964, has an annual production capacity of 300,000 cars and employs around 6,500 people.
Volvo recently revealed plans for a joint venture with Northvolt, which will invest some SEK 30 billion to build a battery factory near Gothenburg. Construction will start in 2023, and the plant is expected to open in 2025. Annual capacity will be up to 50 GWh—enough to equip 500,000 EVs.
“With these investments we take an important step towards our all-electric future and prepare for even more advanced and better electric Volvos,” said Volvo Cars Chief Executive Håkan Samuelsson. “Torslanda is our largest plant and will play a crucial role in our ongoing transformation as we move towards becoming a pure electric car maker by 2030.”
“Our future as a company is all-electric and that requires a variety of upgrades across the plant, to ensure that Torslanda can continue to build premium electric cars of the highest quality,” said Javier Varela, Head of Engineering and Operations.
Adopting digital prototyping techniques to explore the full design space and reduce the typical trial-and-error approach of physical prototyping, has been stifled by the limited computational resources available to engineers. Local computing power does not scale up on-demand, nor offers continuously evolving full-spectrum simulation and analysis capabilities. In this whitepaper, we discuss how the availability of cloud-native engineering simulation software mitigates these longstanding bottlenecks for engineers who design and test thermal management solutions for electronics.
The whitepaper discusses how cloud-native CAE equips teams of designers and engineers with a simulation platform to investigate heat and fluid flow in order to develop the best thermal management strategies and predict design performance in the early stages of product development when. By accessing the practically unlimited power of the cloud, engineers can simulate and analyze high-fidelity models with complex physics with unprecedented accuracy in results, efficiency in design collaboration, and versatility in the vast range of electronics cooling applications that can be solved.
Siemens has unveiled a concept for an EV charging structure designed for fleets and high-demand charging applications. The idea behind the new VersiCharge XL concept is to electrify new or existing parking lots and building structures quickly and efficiently by using a modular, scalable design.
The new charging system houses all necessary electrical infrastructure components in an above-ground enclosed structure. It’s designed to be added to existing parking lots with minimal installation work.
The VersiCharge XL concept uses proven power distribution technologies used at indoor locations such as data centers and industrial facilities and elevates them above-ground in a weather-resistant, outdoor enclosure. It can be used with Level 2 or DC fast chargers in outdoor environments.
The vertical structure that supports the Siemens Sentron Busway systems that connect to power the chargers is made from a building material called Nexiite, which manufacturer Nexii Building Solutions says has properties comparable to those of concrete, but embodies significantly less carbon.
“With the ever-increasing demand for EV infrastructure, we recognize a real need for fast deployment, scalability, easy upkeep and reliability,” said John DeBoer, Head of Siemens eMobility, North America.
“Construction and transportation are two of the biggest sources of carbon emissions driving climate change today,” says Stephen Sidwell, co-founder and CEO of Nexii. “Bringing together Siemens and Nexii demonstrates the power of rapid ideation and development of solutions to some of the world’s biggest problems.”
