Lithium-ion batteries

Nikola asks customers with electric trucks under recall for potential battery fires to return them to its plant.

Many argue that the disposal of electric vehicles’ lithium-ion batteries after maximizing their use could potentially be just as harmful to the environment as carbon emissions.

A container fire at the ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach has led to a Coast Guard investigation of four companies for possible shipping violations.

High-tech manufacturer Enovix is not outsourcing production to Asia, unlike many predecessors. Its assembly line arrived in California on a giant plane.

Tesla is focusing on making more cars, securing battery cells and finishing gigafactories in Texas and Germany. The Semi is again in the background.

North America is expected to mine only 5% of the world’s lithium by 2025, making Battery Resourcers’ recycling strategy important for domestic EV manufacturers.

Several significant steps on the road to electric vehicles have occured just in the past few months.

Also called “white petroleum,” lithium has become a critical element in the global tech and electric vehicle industries.

Hydrogen fuel cell electric truck startup Nikola Corp. is touting a high-storage battery that could increase the current range of electric passenger cars from 300 to 600 miles with no increase in battery size.

Electric vehicle firm boosts battery capabilities with the purchase of Toronto-area company specializing in high-volume manufacturing.

Daimler Trucks and Buses has entered a long-term supply agreement for lithium-ion batter technology for its coming range of electric trucks.

NTSB will look at the potential for hazmats such as lithium-ion batteries as a contributing factor in last week’s Atlas Air crash.

DHL showcased its Resilience360 platform at the 2019 LINK Conference in Orlando

Hundreds of manufacturing firms in China seek to take advantage of the vast national investment directed at renewable energy and battery storage technology. This motivates China to capitalize on metal resources necessary for launching the electric vehicle industry.

Lithium is going to be in there, the industry wants cobalt out or lowered, and a few other metals are lining up to take its place in the next generation of batteries.

The success of electric vehicles lies in the cost efficiency and scalability of its batteries. The supply of lithium and cobalt over the next decade would end up defining the extent of that success.

At the Future of Transportation World Conference, ZapGo described its carbon ion battery solution that has the potential to charge an electric vehicle to full capacity in five minutes, while a Lithium ion battery takes hours to do the same.

It’s estimated that Tesla produces battery packs at a cost of $157/kwh, and the company has stopped claiming that it can dramatically reduce their cost. This puts the 1 mw Tesla Semi battery at $157k.

Current and former Tesla engineers are blowing the whistle on the company’s sloppy manufacturing processes, citing problems with testing, assembly, and employee qualifications. 

Electric car manufacturers need cobalt for their batteries, a metal that’s scarce, subject to geopolitical threats, and mined by children.