E-Mobility Monthly Update
E-Mobility Engineering
Independent and in-depth engineering content exploring the world of electric vehicles.
Welcome to the November edition of the E-Mobility Engineering (EME) monthly e-newsletter, serving you a selection of the top stories appearing on our website over the last month.
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Latest News
BMW opts into series #hydrogen
BMW Group has started series production of #electric #powertrains based on hydrogen #fuelcells, in a major step forward for the #technology. Previous production has been for prototype and test vehicles, using fuel cell technology developed in-house. BMW’s hydrogen #powertrain will now be used in the company’s iX5 Hydrogen, which will be built in a small series next year and used worldwide for test and demonstration purposes.
Tackling EV tyre particulates
The most supportable claim by EVs to environmental friendliness is that they lead to cleaner air in towns and cities because they emit no combustion products. The fly in that ointment is particles from tyre wear, of which #EVs tend to generate more because they are heavier than comparable IC-engined #vehicles and because many drivers are tempted to exploit their excellent acceleration with lead-footed enthusiasm. The Tyre Collective
Click here to read the full article.
GKN Aerospace has been working on cryogenic technology to boost the efficiency of hydrogen fuel cells and #electric #motors for #aircraft. The ‘hyperconducting’ systems proposed by the company use the liquid hydrogen stored in the aircraft as fuel as a heat sink, cooling the electrical conductors to temperatures below -200 ºC to dramatically reduce the electrical resistivity. That allows low-voltage power distribution with lower mass conducting cables, reduces. Using the hydrogen as a cooling system also boosts the efficiency of the electric motors to more than 99%.
48 V bidirectional charger for hybrids
Efficient Power Conversion has developed a reference design called the EPC9165 for a 2 kW bidirectional charger in 48 V #hybrid vehicles using GaN transistors. Mild hybrids running on 48 V require a 48 to 12 V bidirectional #converter, with power ranging from 1.5 to 6 kW. The EPC9165’s design uses a synchronous buck/boost converter with other supporting circuitry including current sensors and temperature sensor. The design also uses a controller board for the digital control and housekeeping power supply based around the dsPIC33CK256MP503 digital controller from Microchip.
New Products
Mahle announces new motor at IAA Transportation
MAHLE unveiled its SCT (Superior Continuous Torque) electric motor at the IAA TRANSPORTATION show last week. Mahle says the motor solves the dilemma between continuous and peak power. While previous electric motors can only produce their peak power for a short time and then drop to about 60-70%, the SCT motor can be operated continuously at more than 90% of its peak power.
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Ascend unveils new EV battery safety materials
Ascend Performance Materials has announced a new flame-retardant nylon for #EV safety applications. It says its Trinohex Ultra electrolyte additive, which it unveiled recently at The Battery Show North America, improves lithium-ion #batterysafety, extends cycle life and boosts performance.
Coherent announces integration of laser welding head vision system for EV battery and motor manufacturing
Coherent Inc. has unveiled HIGHvision, a machine vision system for laser-welding heads that it says greatly improves the efficiency of #manufacturing EV batteries and motors. HIGHvision is a turnkey system consisting of machine vision hardware and software that enables #laserwelding heads to align to software-defined features on the workpiece in milliseconds and with high accuracy. Coherent says it greatly accelerates welding throughput.
In Depth
Aurora Powertrains eSled
Increasing interest in preserving the world’s Arctic regions has generated strong demand among tour companies and eco-tourists for zero-emissions snow-going vehicles. An electric #snowmobile would be quieter, emissions-free, and far easier to maintain than an IC-engined version.
Unfortunately though, batteries and other electric systems suffer dramatic losses of performance in extremely cold climates. The degree of #thermalmanagement and #engineering needed is so great and complicated in fact that some leading EV experts believe snowmobiles could be the most difficult vehicles in the world to electrify.
Undaunted by these challenges, Finland-based Aurora Powertrains has recently unveiled its newest all-electric eSled, the seeds of which were planted in 2009 at the Lapland University of Applied Sciences (Lapland UAS).
Thirteen years of research and 5 years of successful #commercial activity have gone into optimising the eSled for speeding through the Earth’s coldest temperatures at up to 130 kph, running on a #lithiumion #batterypack of up to 21 kWh, and tackling ranges of up to 100 km between charges.
Battery Show Europe 2022
Advances in coating and materials were some of the key takeaways from one of Europe’s largest battery trade fairs.
Held in Stuttgart as June became July, the The Battery Show Europe and Electric & Hybrid Vehicle Technology Expo Europe had many highlights, including an advanced battery concept that boosts energy density using a physical architecture, new fire protection materials, dielectric coatings, a polymer crash structure unaffected by the heat of a #coating process, plus silicone and polyurethane materials for use inside batteries.
Further advances that grabbed our attention were a custom interconnect scheme stamped from thin aluminium sheet, and advanced #batterymanagement approaches based on computer models, intelligent algorithms and #powerelectronics.
Contributors include: Matti Autioniemi & Olli Haavikko at Aurora Powerstrains, Fabrice Giaume at DuPont, Åsa Persson at Henkel, Venkatakrishnan Umamaheswaran (UV) at SABIC, Esther Quintanilla Lujan, Paolo Diena & John McKeen at Dow, Randy Tan at Interplex, Ian Campbell at Breathe Battery Technologies, Stuart Grondel at Brill Power