Battery-integrated chargers offer a cure for America’s weak electric infrastructure

Q&A with Alex Urist, Vice President of XCharge North America

Battery storage, once considered a nifty additional feature for large-scale charging infrastructure projects, is steadily becoming de rigueur for public and commercial charging deployments of all sizes. Adding batteries to the system offers several benefits: coupled with on-site generation, it allows charging to be offered at off-grid locations; it enables peak shaving to avoid utility demand charges; and in some cases it allows a site to avoid expensive grid connection upgrades.

XCharge considers battery storage to be an integral component of a charging site. Furthermore, the company draws a distinction between a battery-buffered solution, which needs the grid to operate, and a battery-integrated solution, which can operate on its own, and can be made bidirectional to send energy back to the grid in times of need. 

Alex Urist, Vice President of XCharge North America, explained to Charged how its solutions are specifically tailored to the American electrical grid. 

Charged: So, the difference between a mere battery-buffered charger and a battery-integrated charger is flexibility?

Alex Urist: Absolutely. What’s generally out there in the wild now is a battery-buffered system—something like a FreeWire or an ADS-TEC, where you’re taking a lower voltage from the grid, it’s going into your battery, and then it’s being boosted into your DC fast charger. A battery-buffered system is just taking energy from the grid. There’s no component of bringing that energy from either the car or from the battery back to the grid.

A battery-buffered system is just taking energy from the grid...But a battery-integrated system has a little bit more flexibility in its usage, because the battery can function separately from the charger applications. 

When we think about the ability to buffer charging, that’s obviously a key and integral component of the unit—it requires less of a grid connection. But a battery-integrated system has a little bit more flexibility in its usage, because the battery can function separately from the charger applications. 

What we manufacture is a bidirectional battery-integrated DC fast charger. The important point is that you can take energy from the grid to the battery, but you also can take energy from that battery and dispense it back to the grid. You can take energy from a vehicle, dump it into a battery, and it can be held in the battery either for charging other vehicles with the operator taking an arbitrage off of the pricing, or that energy can be placed back into the grid for arbitrage opportunities, resiliency, you name it. Looking forward, that can also apply to V2X applications. There’s also the benefit of being able to take energy from photovoltaics, store it in the battery, and then sell that energy back to the grid or use it to charge a car. 

Charged: Tell me more about DC-to-AC conversion.

Alex Urist: Coming in from the grid, it’s AC. An energy storage solution is a DC system. You’re going AC to DC, and there is an efficiency loss associated with that. It works, but you should be prepared to lose some of the energy that you’re taking off the grid and paying for. A battery-integrated system has AC-DC bidirectional modules. The power is coming into the system via an AC-DC bidirectional module, and then any communication between the battery and the charging ports is generally through a DC-DC module. 

If nobody uses the energy, there’s still ancillary grid services that can be taken advantage of, being able to put energy back into the grid.

It is similar to what you would find on an ADS-TEC or a FreeWire battery-buffered solution. However, those are not bidirectional modules. The FreeWire system can be input on split phase. ADS-TEC is still 480 three-phase. Everybody has their own niche that they fit into, but we like to think that a battery-integrated solution offers a little bit more flexibility in terms of what you can earn from an ROI perspective. If nobody uses the energy, there’s still ancillary grid services that can be taken advantage of, being able to put energy back into the grid.

Choosing the right charger

Charged: You have three different charger models. How do they differ?

Alex Urist: The Net Zero Series [NZSis the only product with a battery integrated into it. The other two units are standalone DC fast chargers. There are three different output ranges for our units in different install applications. The standalone DC fast charger, the C6, is a platform we’ve had since about 2016. It has been deployed globally across 25 different countries. For the North American market, we modified the C6 to run on 208-volt three-phase to offer more flexibility in terms of install applications. With that, we’re able to put that charger in a lot more environments that you generally wouldn’t be able to put a DC fast charger into. Think about multifamily dwellings or hotels. Places you generally look to put in four Level 2 chargers, you can now put in one DC fast charger. Revenue opportunity is higher, your cycle count is higher, and the general utility to the public is also higher.

What we do see though, is that there are demand charges from the utility if there’s a sudden influx of usage on the charger and it’s not a steady rate. That’s why battery-integrated solutions became a priority. The output of our first product line, the C6, is in the 50- to 150-kilowatt range. Then the NZS fits in that 200- to 300-kilowatt range. When we look at gen three, we have the C7, which we’ll be releasing in the US soon, which is in the 400-kilowatt range. That’s really designed for a charge point operator, a big public charging network operator that needs a lot of power. 

It’s important to point out that ultra-high output is not necessary for everybody. Your 400-kilowatt chargers matter for Interstate charging sites, they matter for heavy-duty EVs, but we don’t need them everywhere. That’s why our product mix plays into what the infrastructure constraints are in the US. We have a solution for every step along the way, but we like to understand what a customer is trying to solve with their charging infrastructure and how can we achieve that with our hardware, as opposed to, “Here’s the biggest and baddest charger out there, go and get that bad boy in the ground now.” That’s not how we operate.

Charged: One thing I like about your web site is that you have a table that shows the charging times for some selected EV models, because this is something I see all the time from EVSE manufacturers. They say, “It can charge an EV in X minutes.” But there are so many variables that a figure like that is practically meaningless.

Alex Urist: There’s so much that goes into estimating charging times. There’s the state of charge you’re coming into the charger with, whether the battery’s been preconditioned, even what the temperature is and how long you’ve driven that day. If we look at charging data, for an output of 300 kilowatts for example, you’re getting that for the first minute or three minutes of your charge cycle and then you’re dropping. You get a lower amount for another six to eight minutes and then you’re dropping again to something around the range of 50, maybe 40 kilowatts.

Everybody wants the biggest and baddest toy in town, but two to three minutes, that’s just a couple more minutes in line at the McDonald’s where you stop to charge, and it’s only practical to stop at those types of locations if the local infrastructure can support the charging rate. Ultimately, that’s not a reality if we want every charger on 480 three-phase, because you’re going to have to upgrade the utility interconnect. Whereas if you had a 208-volt solution, you can drop one or two chargers in an area. If you have a battery-integrated solution, you can drop one or two in an area and it starts to become a meaningful revenue stream locally as opposed to this idea of needing to build the gas station of tomorrow.

Integrating with solar

Charged: Obviously, to get the most out of the battery integration, and take the utility out of the equation, we need onsite generation. Tell us about that.

Alex Urist: The NZS is capable of direct integration with photovoltaics in our generation-three unit, which is slated to be ready for customers in July of next year.

Charged: Integrating directly with photovoltaics avoids a DC-AC conversion?

Alex Urist: Bingo. It’s a DC-coupled solution. You don’t have to go through a separate DC-AC-DC solution. That’s how it would generally work if you were, say, integrating a battery-buffered solution with photovoltaics right now. That’s another benefit of the battery-integrated solution: it’s meant to be the central hub for everything you’re completing as a grid service. It’s not like the battery on your phone that can only function with your phone. It’s supposed to provide some ancillary service or ancillary charging ability.

Charged: Is there a formula for how much generation you would need for a particular charging hub? For example, let’s say I’m going to have X number of EVs per day charging at this site. Can you say, “Then you need Y square feet of photovoltaics?”

Alex Urist: There’s partners that we would work with to help run through the equations on that. It’s dependent on a lot of different factors. There are restrictions on how large of a system you can effectively integrate into the NZS. Also, it’s going to be very hard to get a photovoltaic array that’s going to make up the entire energy that you need to power a charging hub. The best way to think about integration of photovoltaics is to cut the dependence on energy from the grid. Effectively, it’s like ancillary peak shaving as well. You’re able to put more energy into the car that’s not coming from the grid and you can set your eco mode accordingly, which is all controllable via the OCPP backend or via the software that we provide with the units.

The additional value is that you can feasibly take in lower-cost energy overnight, then sell that energy back into the grid during peak hours, or use that to charge vehicles so you’re playing better off of your arbitrage. It is all algorithmically controlled via the backend and how you set your limits on when you want your charge and discharge times.

Different sites, different charging scenarios

Charged: Can you tell us a little bit about how the architecture differs for different kinds of charging sites? For example, a public charging site versus a bus depot versus a fleet of trucks?

Alex Urist: In any circumstance, it’s important to look at the infrastructure constraints on site to begin with, as opposed to trying to think about creating a solution for a given property or a given use case. From a public charging perspective, having the battery-integrated sites allows you to pack more charging assets in a given location on less energy. At 80 amps of 480 three-phase, you can get up to 194 kilowatts output on the current iteration of the Net Zero Series. That will be increasing in the next iteration.

You’re generally looking at a 200- or a 300-amp breaker on a 75- to 150-kilowatt DC fast charger. You’re going to need a smaller breaker size with the battery-integrated assets. There’s some really good studies on what Tesla has done for their load balancing and load management. It’s like 250 amps on the breaker that go in and that allows them to effectively control their demand chargers throughout the day that way.

A battery allows you to control your demand charges, which helps mitigate your overall operational costs, making more money on an Interstate location. When you take that same type of rationale to a bus depot, a depot is going to have heavy spikes of energy usage, given that it’s off-duty-cycle times. Generally, the buses are not going in and out all day—there’s a period where they’re charging on one cycle and then they flip, and the next cycle comes in. It’s generally a longer charge period. 

With the Net Zero Series, or our standalone DC fast chargers, you can set a longer charge period. You can set load balancing across the entire site to say, “We only want to consume X amount of electricity,” and that’ll balance across all of the assets. Again, it depends on the constraints of the site, and what you’re trying to accomplish with the infrastructure you have. If you need more energy, put an NZS in because you can connect on 480 and it’s already there, but depending on where you are in the process of your electrification journey, it might make more sense to put a couple 208 assets in there—that can be a bridge solution. 

For a fleet of trucks, a 208-volt solution is very interesting. Effectively, it’s like a Level 2 charger for a heavy-duty truck. If you’re looking at municipal fleets that are using heavy-duty trucks, battery-integrated assets are great because you can provide power back to the building. That’s one big benefit, particularly for government sites, that you can provide that as emergency energy storage.

There are a lot of benefits to having battery-integrated solutions, but it really is dependent on what infrastructure constraints you’re given. There’s not going to be a carbon copy best layout for every single property around America. That’s just not how our grid is designed. It’s finding the best hardware for the constraints that you’re given. That’s what we offer in the flexibility of our product line.

XCharge’s Net Zero Series at Smart Energy Week in Osaka, Japan

Charged: What about a totally off-grid location? How would the architecture there differ from a more typical grid-connected charging hub?

Alex Urist: You’d be eliminating any of the interconnection from the grid to the unit, but what you would still be looking at with the bidirectionality is providing an AC load back to a building, which the NZS is capable of. Powering a building from the battery. But effectively, the way that you’d be looking at it is DC-coupled photovoltaic solution pulling in solar, pulling it into the DC input, which is separate off of the charger itself. Then you’d be able to pull in solar, ideally running the asset off of that. You would be limited in the total amount you can charge per day. The battery’s 233 kilowatt-hours, so you can generally charge about four to six cars per day off of that.

Charged: Can you just add more battery storage to serve more vehicles in that case?

Alex Urist: Yep. You can add another pack for up to 466 kilowatt-hours in the current iteration of the NZS. Effectively, you could stack more assets in a given property, but they won’t run in series necessarily. You would have to have the photovoltaic arrays connected to those assets independently.

Loosening the utility bottleneck

Charged: That leads neatly into my next question, which is about utility interconnects. Say a fleet customer wants to deploy 50 EVs, but they don’t have enough power, and the utility tells them it’s going to take two or three years to upgrade the connection. I know you’ll say to talk to the utility early in the planning stages, but what other advice would you give as far as mitigating that bottleneck?

Alex Urist: Obviously, it is talking to the utility company early in the process and that’s what I’m always going to say. I think another thing is to be creative around the solutions that you can deploy and don’t be set on something as the only solution. We will only see increasing problems with timelines on utility service upgrades with demand increasing, particularly as you see NEVI projects coming online.

The other thing that’s important is understanding how much capacity you have available on site to begin with. There is a solution to be made. If you have limited power available on site, you just need to know how much that is and what your duty cycle is, how many cars are you trying to charge, what’s your scaling plan.

Electricity is super-complicated. I’ve talked with a ton of folks in the utility industry and I cannot even begin to imagine trying to plan out some of the stuff that they have to deal with.

There’s really nothing we can do about the utility companies and how long they’re going to take on upgrades until there’s a significant increase in the workforce, and frankly, the bureaucratic nature of utility companies to make that happen. Electricity is super-complicated. I’ve talked with a ton of folks in the utility industry and I cannot even begin to imagine trying to plan out some of the stuff that they have to deal with. I wish it was as easy as just plugging in a charger to the grid, but it doesn’t work that way, unfortunately.

Different regions, different challenges

Charged: You sell in several different regions. What can you tell me about the difference between those markets? How would your pitch to a customer differ if they were in a US state or maybe different regions of the US versus in Europe?

Alex Urist: The US pitch versus Europe versus the Asia-Pacific region would be entirely different. I mean, just look at voltage in general. Any time you’re putting in a DC fast charger in the US, you’re going to need to get the utility involved or some step-up infrastructure involved, something to get you to 480-volt three-phase. However 480 three-phase in Europe is very commonly available. It’s not as much of a difficulty to get you to where you need to go, given that everything is based off of 240.

Obviously, looking at the difference of 120 or 240, US versus Europe and the rest of the world, there’s differences. I think they face much more of a constrained grid market in Europe. But one thing that’s quite interesting is that you see a lot of chargers deployed in Europe that are not like our massive 400-kilowatt chargers. They’re starting to come out more, but a lot of that early infrastructure is actually within the 60- to 120-kilowatt range, which is quite fascinating when our policy and all the regulation that’s been released in the US is really predicated around that 150-kilowatt minimum and our European counterparts, who are further along in the electrification journey, are not mandating those output requirements. Both APAC and Europe, we don’t see as high an output requirement. Hence, the C7 came about.

Also, in the European market, the customer type varies greatly from the US. There’s definitely a lot more emphasis in the US on the independent business owner and the individual being able to reap the benefits of public incentives to get charging infrastructure in. In Europe, a lot of the customers are utility companies or charge point operators. We have a lot less of this “go and get the public incentive to get your charger at your property” type of situation going on there, so it centralizes the purchasing patterns a little bit more.

Charged: Are you saying that in Europe, for a given project, there are likely to be fewer organizations involved? I know in the US, it seems like a lot of infrastructure installations, there could be 10 different companies and government agencies involved by the time it’s done.

Alex Urist: Yeah, it definitely feels consolidated more. Most of the time in Europe, you’re working with a public agency who’s going through an RFP process or something of the like. In the US, there are a lot more private market players. You have the site host, the utility company, your EDC engineering, design and construction partner. Sometimes there might be a turnkey partner involved who’s actually the customer contact, then you have the manufacturer, and your OCPP backend. Everybody wants to have their piece of the pie when it comes to developing projects in the US. Whether that makes projects more efficient or less efficient, time will tell.

Charged: Just to clarify, what you need as an input for your chargers is a 480-volt three-phase connection, and that is the norm in Europe, but in the US, that usually requires some kind of a step-up transformer, correct?

Alex Urist: Generally, you need a service upgrade in the US every time you’re dealing with 480 three-phase, and that’s the norm for DC fast charging infrastructure that’s being deployed in the US. What we’ve created is the ability to install on 208-volt single-phase, which is available at about 95% of commercial locations across the US.

Charged: We hear a lot about having to have a service upgrade, but does that always mean more power, or might it just be a case of needing 480 volts?

Alex Urist: It’s generally both. A service upgrade will generally be pulling a new line of service from the substation, to a transformer that then puts that into 480 three-phase for you. If a CPO comes into a property, they will generally go and get a new line of service put in. A service upgrade will also generally involve a capacity increase where you’re increasing the total capacity of energy that you can deliver to a site, for example going from 1,000 amps of service to 1,500 amps of service, and you’re often going to need to do a panel upgrade—but the panel upgrade is definitely cheaper than having to put in a transformer and do a service upgrade.

Charged: Are utility interconnect bottlenecks more of an issue in certain parts of the US than others? Is that a regional thing?

Alex Urist: Definitely. I mean, it’s a problem everywhere. Anywhere you’re thinking of more congestion, that is certainly an issue. The service upgrades also come in and where you…have more people trying to do more activity on the grid, that congestion increases those upgrade times as well.

Charged: Are areas with higher population density likely to have more problems?

Alex Urist: Correct. But then the other side of that is that rural areas, where there’s not a demand, also have a long period. Because the substation might be a ways away and they previously had no reason to have any 480 V service on site. Just getting that pulled out there can be quite a challenge.

Charged: A different set of problems depending on where you are.

Alex Urist: Yes, different set of opportunities.

Turning to Tesla

Charged: What about this rush to adopt the Tesla connectors? We all know the Superchargers are more reliable, but I’m a little skeptical that is still going to be the case when everybody’s hooking up to it. 

Alex Urist: I would definitely echo some of your concerns. I think there’s going to be some kinks to shake out for auto manufacturers and for Tesla on interoperability. Adopting the NACS cable is not a fix-all for charging reliability per se. I think a lot of that issue comes with the interoperability questions. A lot of it comes with payment solutions and integration. 

At XCharge we’ve been manufacturing NACS cables and deploying them on our chargers since March. Our rationale is that 70% of EVs on the road are Teslas, so we would be foolish not to service them to begin with. I think we’re going to see a lot wider availability of charging options generally. Sure, the Supercharger will be a preferred place for Tesla drivers because it’s their network, but I think there are going to be some issues early on with opening up that network that are going to turn off some other drivers. Having solutions on other networks and other hardware is important too. We’ve definitely stood by.

It’s not that the technology is necessarily better, it’s that the Tesla charging network has operated more efficiently.

Technologically, I don’t think it’s more efficient necessarily. It’s not that the technology is necessarily better, it’s that the Tesla charging network has operated more efficiently, but the Tesla charging network has had no payment terminals on their devices and they haven’t had to deal with other manufacturers with different voltage architecture in their batteries. The Tesla network is only rated up to a 650-volt architecture, so when you get into the 800-volt architecture of the Hyundais and the Mercedes, you might have a little bit of a diminished charge rate in those vehicles or potentially spiking issues going on.

Going bi

Charged: Everybody I talk to, I ask about bidirectional charging, and I get different answers. Some people say it’s a huge game-changer, but some, mostly on the utility side, say they think it has limited application. But one thing everyone seems to agree on is that, right now, vehicle-to-grid is a pilot-stage technology.

Alex Urist: I think it’s still within the pilot phase. There are distinct applications in the school bus space, fleets, and then there’s something to be said about residential play as well. I still have questions. What central remuneration platform is there? If I’m providing my energy, how does that play out on the virtual power plant side of things? Who’s the broker of that energy buyback? Are the utility companies directly purchasing it from, say, a residential user or from a corporate user? There are a lot of logistical questions that go into the payback process, aside from any of the technological components.

I don’t think it’s going to be as clear-cut as people think, like you have all the cars plugged into the grid and this is how much energy you have to pull on. I think there’s a lot of demand signals that are going to have to come into play for the remuneration to even happen, and then how much remuneration are we talking about? Is it cents on the dollar, or is there actually a meaningful payback? It’s really hard to judge at this current stage. It still needs to go through more pilots.

Is it a virtual power plant play? Is it more akin to a Tesla Powerwall type of play, where you have solar that’s generating into the battery and then Tesla can say, “Hey, we’re going to sell this back to the Texas grid because we have a virtual power plant agreement and then we’re going to pay you out a fraction of what we’re able to get?” That seems like that would be the best way to run it, but then that’s one company that’s aggregating the assets across that. That’s what we would say is the play for our battery-integrated assets as a stable asset. There’s one identifying authority that’s trading the energy back.

But when you bring in individual private landowners, there’s got to be an aggregating authority that’s going to handle the payback, but then how much of a margin are they taking? Is there a way to opt into other services? Are you stuck with, say, ChargePoint’s V2G program because you put in a ChargePoint charger? What’s the overall process? Do they have an interconnect agreement with a utility? I think that’s just where a lot of the questions are being shaken out.

Charged: But your hardware is technically capable of V2G any time that everybody else is ready to get on with it?

Alex Urist: Yep, exactly. It’s effectively a software enablement at this point.

This article first appeared in Issue 66: October-December 2023 – Subscribe now.

from Charged EVs https://ift.tt/gvTjeO8

Kyocera AVX’s new A-Series surface-mount antennas enable wireless BMS

Electronics giant Kyocera AVX has released a new line of surface-mount automotive antennas.

The new A-Series low-profile SMT antennas meet AEC-Q200 standards, and are designed for automotive applications, including wireless battery management systems, telematics control units and vehicle access key fobs. They support GNSS L1/L2/L5/L6, ISM, WiFi 6E, Bluetooth, cellular, LTE, 5G and UWB wireless technologies at frequencies from 617 MHz to 8.5 GHz. The surface-mount devices are also designed for reception-critical applications. They are available in stamped metal, FR-4, ceramic chip and ultra-small chip packages, all of which are RoHS-compliant. 

Certain new A-Series antennas also use Kyocera AVX’s Isolated Magnetic Dipole (IMD) technology for smaller designs. Two of those antennas can operate on- and off-ground. This is essential for strongly metallic environments like wireless battery management systems (wBMS), in which the antenna connects the battery cell monitor chip to the BMS control unit wirelessly.

The A-Series is also available with International Material Data System (IMDS) and Production Part Approval Process (PPAP) documentation for the automotive manufacturers.

“The new A-Series provides automotive design engineers with antennas tested in accordance with AEC-Q200 standards, and manufacturers are already taking note,” said Carmen Redondo, Director of Global Marketing for Antennas at Kyocera AVX. “One of the A-Series antennas, the A1001013, has been selected for inclusion in Analog Devices’ (ADI) wireless battery management system (wBMS) reference design.”

Source: Kyocera AVX

from Charged EVs https://ift.tt/AZmnwx7

EnviroSpark has installed over 7,800 charging plugs. Here’s what the company has learned.

EnviroSpark runs its own EV charging network and helps others with installations, including Tesla, Volkswagen and Ford.

The parlous state of public charging reliability has emerged as a major roadblock to wider EV adoption, and the entire industry is going through a soul-searching phase, trying to identify the roots of the problems and correct them.

Contrary to what some might assume, most public charger malfunctions aren’t the result of drivers abusing or damaging the hardware. Numerous charging industry experts have told Charged that the seeds of reliability problems are often sown during the planning and installation process, before the first EV plugs in.

EnviroSpark is a vertically-integrated installer and operator of EV charging stations—it handles electrical design, permitting, inspections, construction and installation, and ongoing operation and maintenance. In addition to running its own network, the company is responsible for the installation of more than 7,800 charging stations for Tesla, Volkswagen, major utilities and others, and is currently working with Ford to deploy charging infrastructure at dozens of its US dealerships.

EnviroSpark’s design and installation teams have learned a thing or two about how to do it right the first time (and what can happen if somebody doesn’t). Founder and CEO Aaron Luque shared with us some of the insights his company has gained about how to design and build a charging project that will be efficient and reliable.

Charged: Would you describe what you do as a turnkey service?

Aaron Luque: It’s fully turnkey and it’s vertically integrated. We set out to be able to do everything in-house—we can find the sites, do all the site design work, pull the permits, dig the trenches, run the conduit, install the breakers, and do the utility coordination, as well as provide and maintain the chargers and software to operate them.

When we got into the industry in 2014, EV charging was a relatively new thing for electricians and general contractors to try to take on. And even to this day, I don’t know of any other companies that are contractors that specialize only in this type of work at a national scale. So I think we were able to provide a lot of value to those companies that were looking to do this at scale.  Over the last 10 years we’ve been held to the highest standards of quality and workmanship by groups like Tesla and Volkswagen, and we’ve been able to leverage that experience to be the best partner possible for our current and future clients.

Too many cooks 

Charged: I suspect that a big reason for the poor reliability of public charging stations is that a dozen different companies might be involved in installation and deployment. Does having everything in-house help to avoid reliability issues?

Aaron Luque: That’s a great point. What we found early on when the market was disjointed, let’s say somebody else had their electricians run the electrical wiring and we’re doing the final connections, we have no control over the quality of the design or the runs for the circuits. Maybe a station starts acting up, we send our maintenance guys out to look at it, and we determine there’s an issue with the circuit. Then maybe the electrician comes out and says, “No, it’s the charger.” And we say, “No, we’ve already tested the charger.” Meanwhile the stations aren’t working and everybody’s upset because you have people finger-pointing.

What we found early on when the market was disjointed…the stations aren’t working and everybody’s upset because you have people finger-pointing.

It’s the same thing with communication. If the client wanted to save a few bucks on the monthly fee for us to operate the stations for them, they could provide us access to their network. But then let’s say their IT team updates the firewall or something, or the router goes down, people are calling us, they’re angry our stations aren’t working, and then we have to get on the phone with their IT department.

It’s our name on the stations a lot of the time. And it actually wasn’t an issue on our end. So we prefer to do everything. We have our own wireless network that we’ve set up for the stations. Unless it’s somebody like Tesla that has their own network. 

Maintenance: Who, me? 

Charged: Even when a site gets designed and built efficiently, I imagine ongoing maintenance is still critical.

Aaron Luque: In the early days, when very few vehicles on the road were EVs, many sites that were hosting charging stations were only doing so because an incentive or rebate program was footing the bill. The early programs, whether through government, utilities or auto manufacturers, would typically only cover the initial hardware and installation, but not any of the maintenance or upkeep. The flaws in these types of programs didn’t present themselves until years later when the stations would start experiencing issues and there were no maintenance programs in place or funding available for repairs.

The flaws in these types of programs didn’t present themselves until years later when the stations would start experiencing issues and there were no maintenance programs in place or funding available for repairs.

The site hosts in many instances did not want to pay for repairs on something they received for free, which would lead to defunct and inoperable stations and ultimately less-than-ideal driver experiences. Another example is that early charging station manufacturers used to install 3G communication modules in all their stations. When cellular providers discontinued 3G service, 100% of these stations stopped being able to run transactions, report problems or be accessed remotely for troubleshooting. With tens of thousands of stations in the wild using 3G at the time of its discontinuation, you can see how this might present a reliability issue. The same issue about who should pay to resolve these types of problems after installation played out in this scenario as well. The good news is that all parties involved, including governments, utilities and EV manufacturers, have identified these challenges and are addressing them so that five years from now we will not be experiencing the same issues. Tesla is a great example of this.

Charged: It sounds like Tesla has done a good job of following up and making sure that the brand didn’t get damaged by reliability problems. Other companies not so much.

Aaron Luque: You’re right about that. So much of their brand and their ability to sell vehicles hinges on the strength of their charging network, and they’ve done a lot to ensure that confidence in their network remains high.

With regards to other companies, they are now fully aware of the impact of reliability, and they are all working diligently to try and attain the same levels of driver confidence that Tesla currently enjoys. The fact that most rebate and subsidy providers now demand a minimum 5-year maintenance plan as a part of the funding requirements doesn’t hurt either.

With Tesla’s Destination Charging we would help find sites as well as design and build them. With Supercharging it was more like they would already have the site identified and hand us a set of prints and say, “build this.”

Charged: You’ve done installs for Tesla on both Destination Chargers and Superchargers. In the latter case, you just do the install, right?

Aaron Luque: That’s correct. With Destination Charging we would help find sites as well as design and build them. With SuperCharging it was more like they would already have the site identified and hand us a set of prints and say, “build this,” and then we go pull the permit and we do the construction work for them.

In the old days we were a go-between. Now we are supporting the design part, and then Tesla is actually working directly with the client on the approvals. They’re basing it on our design, and then they have a direct contract that now solves that issue with the maintenance and the upkeep.

Connectivity is key 

Charged: I used to assume that charging networks wanted their stations connected to the internet because they wanted to gather data on their customers. But after talking with so many charging industry experts, I understand that it also provides resources for monitoring uptime and diagnosing problems remotely.

Aaron Luque: Absolutely. We used to install a lot of what you would probably call dumb stations, because I just wanted to do whatever was best for the customer and get them the basics of what they needed. Some would say, “Hey, I don’t care about the data, I just want people to be able to plug in and charge.” We used to see a lot more of that. Now the vast majority are smart chargers with that cellular component. 

This comes with a lot of benefits. We’re not relying on drivers to report problems, or on an internet connection provided by site hosts. We have direct access to the chargers. We can be proactive in our monitoring and in our maintenance agreements with the client. Our goal is for the client and drivers to never even know that there was an issue on a station. We can find out immediately if something doesn’t report in, or if it reports in with a problem.

A lot of times we can remotely troubleshoot now because everything is networked, and if we need to, we can get somebody out within 24 to 48 hours to fix it in most cases. The Level 3s are a little bit more nuanced and complex, and sometimes we have to get parts that we don’t have in stock to do repairs, but on the Level 2 side, we stock all the different Level 2 chargers. So if something needs to be repaired and it’s not checking in, we just show up and swap it out.

Charged: It sounds like dumb stations are on their way out, because you want to have that capability to monitor them.

Aaron Luque: Yeah, and I would think the customers would too. We’re really seeing the value in maintenance now. After installing 7,800-plus stations and maintaining those over time or getting the calls for the stuff that’s out of warranty, we have realized that there is significant value in having con-nectivity. 

Avoiding utility bottlenecks 

Charged: You work with a lot of utilities. I constantly hear people in your line of work saying, “These utilities take forever, they’re slow.” And then I speak to people at the utilities and they say, “Well, it’s not us.” I know the advice you’re going to give is to talk to the utilities early in the process. But what other tips would you give for somebody doing an install? How can they avoid those utility bottlenecks?

Aaron Luque: I hate to shamelessly use it as a plug for us, but I’ll say, use us or someone like us who has a relationship with the utility. That’s a benefit for us on multiple fronts, the fact that we’ve worked with most of the major utilities and permitting jurisdictions, so we understand on the utility side how we need to design things and who we need to call to get confirmation that we can build things the way we plan to. That’s a big part of what we do on the front end, verifying that we can build it the way that we want to, and that they can bring in the power that we need.

Especially these big installs. Anything on the DC fast 480 V side, you’re typically having to do some level of utility coordination of electrical upgrades. You can design it, but if the transformer doesn’t have adequate power or they can’t bring in power for whatever reasons, then you can slow down your time to deployment. 

It’s the same thing with the permitting office. I used to get laughed out of the permitting office when I would try to pull a permit for this stuff. They would say, “Why are you pulling it? I don’t even know what this is. Yeah, we’ll take your money and we’ll sign off on it.” But now it’s very rigorous what they require. And there are some jurisdictions (I won’t mention names) that are very, very difficult in terms of what they ask for in order to approve an EV charging project, and if you’ve never worked with that jurisdiction before it can be very difficult. So finding a design company, ideally with an electrical engineer on staff that’s familiar with that jurisdiction, you know, like at EnviroSpark, that can be helpful as well. 

…and then there were two 

Charged: The big news these days is that everybody’s going to add Tesla NACS plugs. I understand you’re going to be offering that as an option, so customers can have CCS or Tesla or both. How’s that going to affect the overall charging industry?

Aaron Luque: I’m really excited about this move to standardization. I think it will create a lot of efficiencies and eliminate barriers to adoption. They used to have CHAdeMO and CCS, but CHAdeMO is going away. So now instead of having three standards, you basically have two, and now that Ford and GM and others are going to start moving to the Tesla NACS standard, that’s going to continue to bring things closer to having one standard, and that’s the most efficient. Having driven multiple EVs with the different types of configurations, I can say NACS is the most efficient plug from a driver standpoint. 

The reason CHAdeMO probably went away first is because it was the least efficient. You had to have two different inputs on the car, one for your Level 2 and then one for CHAdeMO. The CCS is a little bit more convenient, but you still have to have an extra input in the car, whereas Tesla, it’s one plug for Level 2 and Level 3. It’s the cleanest. Also, when it comes to footprint and size—it’s the smallest plug, so I think we’ll continue to move in that direction. The one area I haven’t yet seen this move taking place is on the heavy-duty, fleet vehicle side. Vehicles like buses and delivery trucks still seem to be favorable to CCS from my experience.

A lot of the stations that we’re going to be putting in the future are going to be, especially on the fast charging side, the Tesla standard and the CCS standard. The way we explain it to a lot of clients is that it’s almost like iPhone and Android at this point. The good news is you can use either with adapters, so that was a really big announcement from Tesla that other people were going to be able to use Tesla’s network. 

Why is it taking so long? 

Charged: Another big complaint is the slow pace of some deployments. How about some tips on getting projects up and running on time?

Aaron Luque: Supply chain is still a major issue for the deployment of these charging networks. On a project we’re doing for one of our OEM partners, for example, there’s 28 sites that we need to build for. We could build 90% or 95% of the site in a month or a couple of weeks—we could be almost done, but then there could be one piece of equipment that would hold that entire project from getting fired up for a year. Sometimes it’s a utility transformer, because some utilities have them, some don’t. The ones that don’t, it’s typically at least a year out.  

So then you have that challenge. Do we build everything and have it ready, or do we wait until we have better visibility on the missing part and then start? I know some groups experienced this in the past—the stations are in, everything is ready to go except we’re waiting on the utility or some other gating factor. And then people would complain: “These things have been sitting here non-functional for six months.” And it has nothing to do with us. It has to do with maybe one part that we can’t get for a very long time.

Another woe that we saw early on with big national deployments was that visibility into the progress of a project has always been very difficult. We’ve done a lot of these big portfolios—Tesla, Volta, Electrify America, Racetrac, Starwood and others. A client might say, “I want charging stations at all of my sites by the end of next year,” and maybe they have a hundred locations or 200. We found that a lot of our clients wanted higher levels of visibility into their deployments. They would want to know things like: When did a project move out of permitting? When did the design get done? Where are we at construction-wise, how far along are we?

Taking 10 years of experience, we built a proprietary software application to allow our customers to track their portfolios throughout the entire construction process.

This was a problem, and there was really nothing out there to manage that part of the process specific to this industry. So, taking 10 years of experience, we built a proprietary software application to allow our customers to track their portfolios throughout the entire construction process. If something’s in design, they can use our software platform to see the notes on the design. If something’s going into permitting, they can see a copy of the permitting application. My advice to anyone looking to deploy charging stations at scale would be: “If you’re going to work with somebody, whether it’s us or anybody, verify the level of visibility you’re going to get before selecting a partner.”

We used to have to e-mail daily reports to our clients to provide them with the visibility they needed on active construction projects. Post-construction, we would have to provide them with access to their live stations through a separate charging station management portal. At one point I thought to myself, “Why not combine these two things into a single software platform?” So we did just that. To my knowledge EnviroSpark’s EnviroCore system is the only software in the industry that allows a client to fully track an EV charging project through engineering, design and construction while also providing direct station access and management capabilities after they go live, all in one place.

That’s a little bit different—any other charging software on the market that I know of, you only get visibility into the station once the light comes on. But as we’ve said, the install time can take a year, and there’s probably a lot of people wondering how those installs are doing and what we’re waiting on.

This article first appeared in Issue 66: October-December 2023 – Subscribe now.

from Charged EVs https://ift.tt/fF0sj1y

China’s CBL to invest $420 million in Indonesian nickel mining and EV battery manufacturing

Chinese EV battery company Ningbo Contemporary Brunp Lygend (CBL) has agreed to invest $420 million in Indonesia’s nickel mining and EV battery manufacturing industries.

Coordinating Maritime and Investment Affairs Minister Luhut Binsar Panjaitan said that CBL has partnered with state-owned diversified miner PT Aneka Tambang (Antam) and battery maker PT Industri Baterai Indonesia (IBC). CBL is a consortium and a subsidiary of China’s Contemporary Amperex Technology (CATL). The collaboration between Antam and CBL aims to develop and operate an industrial zone for the EV battery ecosystem in East Halmahera, North Maluku.

“It’s been signed. [The deal is worth] around $420 million, so even though nickel prices have slightly dropped, progress has been made,” Luhut said during an online press conference.

Source: Jakarta Post

from Charged EVs https://ift.tt/FAC9X0e

BVG Berlin orders 50 Solaris electric buses

Polish bus manufacturer Solaris has received an order for 50 of its Urbino 18 electric buses from Berlin public transport company BVG, which currently operates more than 120 Solaris Urbino 12 and Urbino 18 buses.

Delivery is scheduled for 2024 and 2025. The contract is part of a framework agreement that can be extended over the coming years.

The new buses are supplied with 240 kW asynchronous motors. They are also equipped with eSConnect, Solaris’s proprietary system designed to increase efficiency and streamline servicing.  

“Solaris has already provided a significant number of battery buses to the BVG, which are in daily service on the streets of Berlin, thus contributing to a more sustainable environment within the city,” said Christian Goll, Managing Director of Solaris Deutschland.

Source: Solaris

from Charged EVs https://ift.tt/mKxozjJ

Sion Power raises 75 million to commercialize its Licerion EV battery tech

Sion Power, a developer of next-generation batteries for EVs, has secured $75 million in Series A funding. The round was led by battery manufacturer LG Energy Solution, and included participation from Euclidean Capital and Hillspire.

Sion Power’s Licerion technology uses compression in a lithium metal battery to enhance safety, lifetime and recharging rates. Sion has successfully demonstrated Licerion in high-capacity battery cells (up to 20 Ah), and it is currently in development to reach 56 Ah.

Licerion batteries are produced at scale in large-format cells that deliver specific energy up to 500 Wh/kg.

Sion Power says it will use the new capital to achieve technical and market validation of its technology. The company plans to build a fully automated manufacturing line to produce large-format lithium-metal cells for testing and market development by automotive OEMs and cell manufacturers.

“Licerion directly addresses the anxiety that consumers feel about finding chargers by delivering up to twice the energy as conventional lithium-ion cells,” said Tracy Kelley, Sion Power’s CEO. “The support from our investors is a testament to how mature our technology is and the value of our approach towards enabling lithium-metal cells.”

“We’ve invested in Sion Power because its strong IP portfolio is critical to enable lithium-metal technology on a commercial basis. Its technology is superior to that of a conventional battery, with a scalable manufacturing process that offers a faster and lower-cost solution,” said Jim Simons, Chairman of Euclidean Capital.

Source: Sion Power

from Charged EVs https://ift.tt/7qNFsiz

Emporia launches program to simplify EV charger installation

US energy management technology company Emporia has launched a program designed to streamline the installation of Level 2 EV home chargers, which can involve a complex process of research and comparing installation companies to ensure that a home’s electrical limitations are properly assessed before a vehicle is purchased.

Emporia is partnering with selected installers that include HelloTech, OnTech, Kopperfield and Treehouse. The program is intended to provide customers with fast and easy installation, transparent pricing and education on cost factors, quality of workmanship, availability of support, and access to necessary information for installation.

“By partnering with the best installers in the industry,” said Emporia CEO Shawn McLaughlin, “we aim to provide our customers with peace of mind, competitive pricing and an excellent customer experience from start to finish.”

Source: Emporia

from Charged EVs https://ift.tt/zQuiyYV

Battery cell qualification for EVs: Lucid’s cell specialist discusses the complicated process

Q&A with Lucid’s Battery Cell Technical Specialist Maithri Venkat.

When it comes to battery cells for EVs, one size definitely doesn’t fit all. The properties of a particular cell act as constraining factors for every aspect of a vehicle’s design—and not only for vehicle performance parameters such as range and power, but for the development of manufacturing processes as well. 

Lucid Motors has a team of battery specialists that collaborates closely with cell suppliers to evaluate and test battery cells at every step from vehicle design through mass production. Charged spoke with Lucid Battery Cell Technical Specialist Maithri Venkat about how cell evaluation works, and how OEMs and cell suppliers can work together to improve the process.

Charged: Could you tell us about yourself and your journey to your present role at Lucid Motors?

Maithri Venkat: I have been working in lithium-ion cell development for automotive applications for the past eight years. In my current role as a Technical Specialist at Lucid, I lead next-generation cell selection, qualification and key supplier partnerships for the Gravity SUV. I have worked on multiple aspects of battery development, from cell material evaluation to design tradeoff assessments to performance optimization and new product introduction.

Previously, I worked at XALT Energy, where I benchmarked cell designs and sub-components for high-energy cells for transportation and marine requirements. I have also collaborated with top-tier OEMs and national labs for 12 V Li-ion start/stop battery development. 

For performance applications, a company needs to know how to push the limit. For economy options, the cells are the biggest cost driver in the vehicle.

Charged: Can you elaborate on why battery cell development is so important for electric vehicles?

Maithri Venkat: As automakers commit to electrification, the market requirements are becoming more diverse for different types of EV products—longer range, faster charging, sports car-level performance numbers and long life. The battery cell impacts all of these. 

How one designs, tunes and manufactures the battery cells also impacts their effectiveness, performance and cost. For performance applications, a company needs to know how to push the limit. For economy options, the cells are the biggest cost driver in the vehicle. 

Battery cell development is critical at every step of the development of a vehicle, but especially at the beginning conceptual design phase, where the vehicle-level product definitions are translated into cell-level technical specifications. Technical assessments and commercial requirements are evaluated by EV manufacturers during cell selection and qualification. Once the cell design is finalized, it is fine-tuned further for energy efficiency, fast charge capability, power capability and lifetime requirements, prior to deployment in packs and vehicles. This early stage of cell development paves the way for best-in-class technological advancements.

Once the cell design is finalized, it is fine-tuned further for energy efficiency, fast charge capability, power capability and lifetime requirements, prior to deployment in packs and vehicles.

Charged: Can you walk us through the preliminary stages of the cell qualification process? What do we need to consider even before going into cell selection?

Maithri Venkat: Cell development for automotive applications needs to happen years in advance. This ensures that we have enough time to iterate through cell design changes. In general, cell development begins with the creation of vehicle-level performance targets. 

For example, a vehicle’s intended usable range is a key metric in the qualification process. Target range requirements are defined based on an array of research, including marketing surveys and consumer feedback. With those established, we can apply technical constraints such as vehicle and powertrain efficiency, pack sizing and vehicle weight class, to transform range into usable energy per cell. 

Prior to defining battery pack constraints, we need to analyze and balance performance, durability and cost. This requires in-depth collaboration among cell engineering, systems, vehicle integration, efficiency, software and marketing teams. 

Following vehicle definitions and alignment on cell performance objectives, specification sheets are sent over to cell suppliers. This creates an iterative feedback loop between OEM and cell supplier, and triggers gap analysis between requirements and technology readiness. 

Identifying these performance gaps and quantitatively understanding the limitations of specific cell chemistries helps with future cell development. For instance, for high-energy cell design, material-level changes such as silicon for anodes, high-nickel cathodes, or solid-state chemistries could be considered. This would enable technological advancements and define clear actionable objectives to bridge the differences between current-generation and next-generation technologies.

Charged: You mentioned the need to translate vehicle-level requirements into cell-level targets. How do we accomplish that? 

Maithri Venkat: Once the vehicle conceptual design has been finalized, requirements trickle down to pack and module levels before getting down to cell-level definitions. 

Every high-level target can be tied to an individual parameter of the battery cell. For example, pack size, efficiency and range can be defined as energy requirements for the cell. 20-80% SoC (state of charge) charging times can be translated to fast charge capability of the cell. Product warranty requirements [can be translated to] lifetime performance of the cell, and so on. Form factor selection can be dependent on pack sizing strategies, thermal management systems for cooling, ease of manufacturability, and even ease of repair. 

Cell peak or continuous power targets are related to the 0-60 mph vehicle performance requirements and towing capacity. Detailed power capability assessment is helpful to provide the necessary performance when you want to—for example—tow your jet ski to Lake Tahoe. Or, on the way home, roll down a hill and regeneratively brake at freezing ambient temperatures for over an hour.

Charged: What are the steps a company takes to qualify a new cell supplier?

Maithri Venkat: We evaluate cell suppliers for several top priorities, including safety, quality, cost, performance, volumes, technology roadmap and technology capabilities. 

For example, when it comes to cell quality inspection, production batch lot-to-lot variation must be within the defined engineering specifications, and process variations should be within Six Sigma control limits. In the initial stages, routine cosmetic and electrochemical inspections need to be conducted on available samples. Cell dimensional properties and appearance of dents, rust or scratches should be thoroughly assessed to understand manufacturing process capability. For electrochemical inspection, it would also be advantageous to conduct regular testing for performance characteristics like energy and resistance. If cell-to-cell energy variations exceed certain threshold values, there are risks in terms of battery pack imbalances. 

Another aspect to consider is the supplier timeline. Auto manufacturers need to ensure that their development timeline aligns with the cell manufacturer’s milestones for concept, design and process validation stages. Cell mass production should be well in advance of the product introduction timeline. 

Charged: Once a cell design is finalized, what are the next steps to be considered? What types of tests are appropriate for each developmental phase?

Maithri Venkat: Following cell design finalization, multiple workstreams happen in parallel as part of the product development cycle. I am currently leading and facilitating these efforts for Lucid’s Gravity SUV platform. These include fast charge, durability, process capability, cell parameterization for software controls, and testing for state of health/thermal modeling. Here are some examples of that process flow at Lucid:

Parameter measurements: Once representative cells are available from the manufacturer, an extensive suite of cell testing and data processing is kicked off for Equivalent Circuit Modeling (ECM) development. The cell parameter datasets obtained from testing are essential for accurate state of charge (SoC) and state of health (SoH) estimation. 

Using actual cell testing data, we can get insights into setting up control limits, and trace how the gaussian energy distributions would scale up at pack level when cells are distributed in series and parallel connections.

Variability studies: From the process capability side, it is essential to track cell-to-cell variability through design validation, process validation and final mass production phases. This helps vehicle systems modeling, integration and product teams gauge the estimated range and performance for the final product. It’s also important to characterize nominal capacity and energy distributions after analyzing representative drive profiles with discharge/regeneration pulses incorporated within testing intervals. Using actual cell testing data, we can get insights into setting up control limits, and trace how the gaussian energy distributions would scale up at pack level when cells are distributed in series and parallel connections. 

Optimization: Miles charged per minute defines fast charge capabilities. Comprehensive testing is done at cell, module and pack levels to understand the failure modes and lithium plating thresholds over the cell lifetime. This facilitates the selection of fast charge profiles and helps push the performance boundaries. 

Modeling: State of health (SoH) for lithium-ion batteries needs to be predicted accurately for software controls and for prolonging cell usable lifetime. Physics-based cyclic and calendar aging capacity decay models are developed to capture loss of positive/negative electrode material and lithium inventory over battery usage.

Charged: What are some common misconceptions about defining cell specifications for automotive usage scenarios? 

Maithri Venkat: Cell engineering specification sheets are extremely conservative in certain cases. As an example, laboratory cell cycling with 1C charge and 1C discharge could trigger unexpected degradation modes like lithium plating and gas generation. In the case of the Lucid Air Dream Range edition, the vehicle’s range is 520 miles at top of charge, and 1C discharge would mean depleting 520 miles in one hour. This is an impossible scenario in the real world, even if we assume the lowest efficiencies during discharge. Cells are far more capable when we conduct experiments under the range of conditions accessible to a customer. It is therefore important to consider that testing under the right conditions can help access more representative limits of performance boundaries. As an analogy, Olympic teams don’t pick their marathon runners based on their performance in a 100-meter dash!

Furthermore, certain supplier specification sheets are based on consumer electronics, for which energy estimations are calculated with extremely low constant-voltage cutoffs at the end of charging sessions, or cells are cycled continuously between zero and 100% state of charge. Users of EVs rarely charge to 100% and then drive down to zero. As a result, it doesn’t always make sense to perform testing and specification setting with such usage patterns.

Charged: How can automotive companies help cell suppliers develop specifications?

Maithri Venkat: We should ensure that supplier specification sheets match automotive use cases. I acknowledge that it is challenging to specify an exact automotive use case. However, it would still be valuable to rewrite the specifications to conform more closely to what customers might experience. 

At Lucid, battery data scientists use fleet telemetry data to understand realistic usage profiles. Fast charge performance boundaries are evaluated based on the preferred charger type, temperature regimes and state of charge (SoC) for session beginning and end. Automotive companies can teach cell suppliers a lot that may go back into their development processes and help them make a better product.

Therefore, it would be beneficial to have continuous communication between cell manufacturers and OEMs for incorporating consumer usage profiles in engineering specifications. 

Lastly, it would be beneficial for automotive companies to drive specifications development. Eventually, this serves the best interests of both cell suppliers and OEMs.

Charged: You mentioned realistic profiles earlier. How do we incorporate real-world aging into laboratory testing? Is there a way to strike a balance between using aggressive aging vs realistic aging profiles for cell evaluations? 

Maithri Venkat: It is of paramount importance to understand the tradeoffs associated with using aggressive vs realistic aging profiles prior to determining the design of experiments for laboratory cell assessments. Testing methods involving slower charge/discharge, reduced depth of discharge and average temperatures can be ideal for replicating typical EV usage. Under these conditions, lithium-ion batteries would experience the degradation mechanisms such as solid electrolyte interphase (SEI) growth that are observed in real-world driving. However, this would also imply much longer test timelines to obtain capacity loss and resistance growth data. 

On the other hand, using accelerated aging could result in lithium plating on the anode due to diffusion limitations or gas generation from electrolyte solvent reduction reactions. While the testing time is reduced, the failure modes are not representative or even achievable for these corner cases. 

Ideally, one needs to choose intermediate charge/discharge rates with rest steps incorporated between cycles for effective performance scale-up. 

Charged: What are the cell sample quantities necessary for each developmental phase?

Maithri Venkat: Cell sample size required will increase through the developmental phases. For supplier evaluation and cell design screening, it could be sufficient to start with hundreds of early R&D sample cells. However, once the design is confirmed, performance optimization and durability testing would require thousands of cell samples. After this, we get into module and pack testing. The cell quantity required for this is 10 times more compared to the previous phase. Subsequently, the final vehicle testing phase would require over 100 times more from the mass production line compared to initial R&D evaluations. It is important to remember that larger quantities for cell allocations need to be available far in advance of the start of vehicle production.

Charged: Why are representative battery packs required for vehicle testing months in advance of the start of production?

Maithri Venkat: This is related to the type of vehicle validation and regulatory tests being conducted. Having an early start to validation helps offset longer lead times associated with testing and data procurement. Examples include vehicle fleet deployment, hot/cold weather climate testing, homologation and SoC/SoH software algorithm validation. Electric vehicles need to go through mileage accumulation and standardized durability testing to ensure consistent long-term performance, reliability and warranty assurance. 

Charged: Eventually, the goal is to get cells into cars. What would be some of the key tasks that we need to track while moving towards manufacturing scale-up during EV production?

Maithri Venkat: Even after completing performance optimization and reliability assessments, we still need to be mindful of new product introduction in the factory. As we move towards production ramp-up, we need to consider cell integration into modules and packs at the manufacturing stage. Each cell type needs to have a distinct manufacturing part number, equipment settings, and even data handling. Even mundane changes like barcode placement on a cell box can dramatically impact yield if process controls are not thoroughly optimized. 

Another example is the implementation of fully automated in-line inspection methods for checking key cell characteristics. These high-speed measurements, along with mid-process and end-of-line measurements, help us ensure that the processes involved in building modules and packs have not impacted the integrity or performance of our cells. 

Charged: What about the overall timing? How much time do we typically need to qualify a cell for automotive usage? 

Maithri Venkat: Cell development for automotive applications happens years in advance. Since every cell has unique characteristics, it is essential to conduct detailed testing throughout the qualification stages to probe into cell degradation mechanisms and evaluate performance thresholds. 

We would need to evaluate the development timeline on an individual basis. The time required would be dependent on requirements, technology readiness, cell chemistry, manufacturing feasibility, and the intended EV application and market. Speaking generally, it is a few years. 

It is also possible that even a mundane process change from a cell manufacturer could have unintended yet severe impacts downstream for an automotive maker. Therefore, every single change to a cell needs to be scrutinized.

Let’s also consider a scenario in which the cell chemistry is frozen, and there is a change with respect to a minor process during manufacturing. While this might create a significant improvement in yield, the team still needs to evaluate if it has an impact on performance or safety. For this example, it is possible that an entire re-qualification of the cell is not required, and the change can be quickly approved. However, it is also possible that even a mundane process change from a cell manufacturer could have unintended yet severe impacts downstream for an automotive maker. Therefore, every single change to a cell needs to be scrutinized. I want to highlight that every cell is unique. Qualification strategies and developmental timelines need to be evaluated on a case-by-case basis. Battery cells can be one of the most critical path items in your EV development. 

This article first appeared in Issue 66: October-December 2023 – Subscribe now.

from Charged EVs https://ift.tt/woML84W

Merchants Fleet adds Chevrolet Silverado electric pickup trucks to fleet lineup

US fleet management company Merchants Fleet has expanded its lease and rental fleet with the addition of 250 new 2024 Chevrolet Silverado EV work trucks. 

The trucks have an EPA-estimated range of up to 450 miles, a towing capability of up to 10,000 pounds, and a payload of more than 1,400 pounds.

Merchants offers the vehicles with a range of leasing and rental options. Its Electrification and Consulting team assists customers with TCO, deployment of charging infrastructure, and the securing of grants, incentives and tax rebates.

“Given the unique requirements of each fleet, we are committed to delivering flexibility and top-tier solutions across the board,” said Hari Nayar, VP of Electrification and Sustainability at Merchants Fleet.

Source: Merchants Fleet

from Charged EVs https://ift.tt/E2F7QZx

Webinar: Building an EV reverse logistics ecosystem – how to avoid the 7 deadly sins

Planning, designing and executing an end-to-end EV battery return program doesn’t need to be difficult if you have the right gameplan. This session will highlight best practices and practical solutions ranging from:

• Regulations
• Package design
• OEM and supply chain management
• Data and reporting technology
• Carrier considerations.

This webinar will be hosted by CHARGED on Thursday 7 March at 11am US EST

Register now, it’s free!

from Charged EVs https://ift.tt/dLTCPzF

Biden vetoes bill that would stall US funding of public EV charging stations

To paraphrase a past American president, every pro-EV policy is only one legislative or court decision away from extinction. President Biden’s IRA and BIL (and pro-EV measures in California and other states) have been under attack on multiple fronts since their inceptions.

Uncle Joe recently wielded his veto pen against legislation aimed at delaying investment in public EV charging stations under the 2021 Bipartisan Infrastructure Law.

At issue is a temporary waiver of Buy American requirements for government-funded EV charging stations. Under the BIL, federally-funded EV chargers must be manufactured in the US, and at least 55% of their materials, including iron and steel, must come from domestic sources. However, a Federal Highway Administration rule specifies that the materials part of this requirement won’t take effect until July 2024.

Senate Joint Resolution 38, sponsored by six Republican senators, would block this waiver. The bill passed the Senate 50 votes to 48. Democrats Joe Manchin of West Virginia, Sherrod Brown of Ohio and Jon Tester of Montana joined almost all the Republicans in voting for the bill. (Rand Paul of Kentucky voted Nay, and two other Republicans did not vote.)

US states and companies have said that supply chain constraints would make it difficult or impossible to meet the Buy American standards immediately. The Biden Administration says the short-term waiver will allow for EV charger installation to proceed quickly.

“This resolution would harm my administration’s efforts to encourage investment in critical industries and bring high-quality jobs back to the United States,” Biden said in a veto statement. It would “delay the significant progress being made by my administration and the states in establishing the EV charging network.”

According to Reuters, the Senate is expected to vote to try to override Biden’s veto in the coming weeks, but given the two-thirds majority needed to override a veto, and the slim margin by which the bill passed, an override seems extremely unlikely.

Source: Reuters

from Charged EVs https://ift.tt/hACmdqX

The Vintage Ride | English Story for Kids

TeraWatt and New Mexico DOT secure $64-million grant to deploy heavy-duty EV charging along I-10 corridor

TeraWatt Infrastructure, in partnership with the New Mexico Department of Transportation (NMDOT), has been selected to receive $63.8 million in federal grant funding via the US DOT’s Charging and Fueling Infrastructure (CFI) grant program. TeraWatt’s grant is one of 47 awarded to projects nationwide in the first $623-million tranche of the CFI program, part of the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law.

TeraWatt announced plans to build heavy-duty shared charging infrastructure along the I-10 corridor in 2022, and was competitively selected by NMDOT to design, build, operate and own the two charging centers.

TeraWatt’s I-10 electric corridor project envisions a network of high-powered charging centers for heavy-duty trucks running from the Port of Long Beach in California to El Paso, Texas. As the selected contractor for the project, TeraWatt will construct two EV charging centers for medium- and heavy-duty commercial EVs in Lordsburg and Vado, New Mexico. Each site will have 9 pull-through stalls. Once completed, the sites will be able to provide about 300 truck charges per day.

“The electrification of I-10 will transform travel on this New Mexico highway,” said Governor Lujan Grisham. “With local matches, these grants will result in over $84 million of infrastructure along I-10 and in the communities of Lordsburg and Vado as well as smaller investments in Santa Fe County and the Town of Taos.”

“We are grateful for our strong partnership with the New Mexico Department of Transportation, who selected TeraWatt as its project partner to deliver this key infrastructure project,” said Neha Palmer, TeraWatt’s CEO and co-founder. “Together, we are leveraging combined public-private expertise and federal funding to accelerate the development of heavy-duty charging infrastructure along the I-10 corridor.”

Source: TeraWatt Infrastructure

from Charged EVs https://ift.tt/dZnX8wp

Veolia completes refuse truck vehicle-to-grid trial in the UK

Veolia, a water, energy and waste recycling services multinational headquartered in France, has presented the results of a successful vehicle-to-grid (V2G) trial that enabled two specially designed bidirectional vehicles to be charged and then to discharge 110 kW of energy, or enough to power 110 households for over two hours during peak evening hours. 

Turbo Power Systems, Magnetic Systems Technology and Fuuse were partners in the project. Technology supplier Advantics provided support.

Veolia says it intends to expand the trial to a real-world pilot program using Westminster Council waste collection vehicles. The company also says it plans to electrify its entire fleet of 1,800 refuse collection vehicles in the UK by 2040. This would allow it to provide the grid with a daily flexible power capacity of about 200 MW.

Collection vehicles are ideally suited for V2G applications, says Veolia,  because their batteries are six times larger than those in an average car, and the fleet is typically parked at peak energy consumption times.

“By enabling electric vehicles to become active players in the power grid,” said Veolia CEO Estelle Brachlianoff, “we are harnessing their potential to balance energy supply and demand, reduce carbon emissions, and promote renewable energy.”

Source: Veolia

from Charged EVs https://ift.tt/vSCeoi4