To successfully electrify fleets, it’s crucial to implement adaptable electrical infrastructure that addresses current and future needs. Selecting and integrating the appropriate EV charging infrastructure today is vital to avoid the expensive renovations of tomorrow.

Join this webinar at the next Virtual Conference on EV Infrastructure, presented by Eaton, to learn more about:

• Comprehensive infrastructure requirements for fleet electrification
• Right-sizing electrical systems for present and future needs
• Strategic planning and budgeting for future requirements
• Design strategies to create more flexible fleet charging infrastructure

The goal of this presentation is to help fleet managers and owners to enable access to convenient, reliable and affordable EV charging infrastructure for sustainable transportation.

Reserve your spot—it’s free!

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See the full session list for the June Virtual Conference here.

Broadcast live on June 10-12, 2024. This virtual event will span all things EV charging in two main tracks:

• Track 1: Deploying EV Infrastructure & Fleets
  Content for fleet/facility managers, charging network operators, public transport planners, etc.

• Track 2: Design & Manufacturing of Charging Systems
  Content for engineers who are building, testing, and manufacturing charging systems.

The free-to-attend conference will feature live presentations, interactive Q&As, on-demand webinars, and whitepaper downloads. All live webcast sessions are free to attend and will be recorded and available to watch on-demand after the event. Register to reserve your spot to watch it live or on-demand.

Source: Electric Vehicles Magazine

EV charging cable manufacturer Philatron Wire and Cable has installed a giant planetary cabling assembly line designed for the production of mega-size EV charging cables.

The new line accommodates seven 50-inch (1,270 mm) diameter reels, each capable of holding and dispensing individual conductor and tubing footage of up to 5,000 pounds.

The giant planetary advanced design ensures that the reels carrying conductors and tubing rotate to prevent unwanted twisting and torsion, a critical feature for large-size EV cables and those containing liquid cooling tubing.

Philatron’s mega-size EV charging cables are designed to support fast charging for large EVs such as buses and heavy-duty trucks. These UL-listed cables, sold under the Philaflex brand, are available in various American Wire Gauge (AWG) sizes, including 2, 1, 2/0, 3/0, 4/0, 250 MCM, 350 MCM and 500 MCM. They’re designed to withstand temperatures ranging from -60° to 105° C.

Source: Philatron Wire and Cable

Source: Electric Vehicles Magazine

Singaporean lithium-ion battery manufacturer Durapower has launched its digital battery management system, DP Pulse.

The DP Pulse ecosystem comprises four parts: a battery monitoring and management system; a charging management system; an energy monitoring system and a battery passport that contains information about its production, testing and recycling. DP Pulse will be integrated with all Durapower battery systems into a single platform to track and trace battery lifecycles and provide business and operational insights.

The system monitors operational depth-of-discharge and its machine learning capability uses battery and application parameters to estimate a battery’s remaining useful life.

“DP Pulse uses our monitoring and analytics systems to provide a holistic battery diagnostic and drive operational efficiency,” said Sanjay Bakshi, Director of Digital and Innovation at Durapower. “Digital solutions like DP Pulse will enable predictive analytics to help us address customer pain points and further enhance the efficacy of our batteries.”

Source: Durapower

Source: Electric Vehicles Magazine

Amazon’s electric delivery trucks, which the retail giant developed in cooperation with Rivian, are becoming common sights in many parts of the US. Now the company is adding fifty Class 8 EVs to its drayage fleet in Southern California.

Amazon’s Volvo VNR Electric tractors will haul both cargo containers and customer package loads in Amazon’s first- and middle-mile operations. They’ve already started hitting the road at the ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach, and a dozen are expected to be in service by the end of the year.

The Volvo VNR Electric has a range of up to 275 miles, and a gross combined vehicle weight rating (GVWR) of 82,000 pounds. Safety features include active collision mitigation, blind spot detection, lane departure warning, lane keeping assist and adaptive cruise control.

As Electrek’s Jo Borrás notes, Amazon is giving itself a pat on the back for deploying the emissions-reducing electric trucks, but in fact the company has little choice—thanks to California’s new Advanced Clean Fleets regulation, deploying new ICE trucks in drayage applications will effectively be banned soon. (Enforcement of the regulation is currently on hold pending a decision from the EPA, but this is expected to be resolved within a year.)

“We’re proud to launch our largest fleet of electric heavy-duty vehicles yet in California,” said Udit Madan, VP of Worldwide Amazon Operations. “Heavy-duty trucking is a particularly difficult area to decarbonize, which makes us all the more excited to have these vehicles on the road today. We’ll use what we learn from deploying these vehicles as we continue to identify and invest in solutions to reduce emissions in our transportation network.”

Source: Electrek

Source: Electric Vehicles Magazine

Toshiba Electronics has launched a motor control driver IC that implements a gate driver and a CPU core together for driving three-phase brushless DC (BLDC) motors and permanent magnet synchronous motors (PMSM) more efficiently.

The TB9M003FG is the first device in Toshiba’s Smart Motor Control Driver (SmartMCD) family, designed for applications including electric pumps, fans, body control and thermal management systems in automotive. The device uses Toshiba’s advanced mixed-signal process technology, combining an Arm Cortex-M0 CPU with a vector engine co-processor and pre-drivers to control external B6 N-channel MOSFETs. For 30-1000 W BLDC motor systems, it is housed in an HTQFP48 thermal enhanced package measuring 9.0 × 9.0 mm. The device connects directly to the battery and local interconnect network (LIN) bus, has a vector engine co-processor to enable precise field-oriented control, and reduces the load on the CPU. The high-speed PWM frequency and advanced control algorithms reduce vibration and noise.

Features such as 1-shunt sensorless measurement, reduced component count and smaller program code size contribute to lower overall system costs. The operating temperature range of the AEC-Q100 (Grade 0) qualified device is -40° C to +150° C for harsh automotive environments. The SmartMCD incorporates current limiter, overcurrent, VBAT overvoltage, overtemperature protection circuitry and fault detection for undervoltage, external power MOSFET open/short failure and overheating.

Source: Toshiba Electronics

Source: Electric Vehicles Magazine

Three US-based companies, EV charging software provider EV Connect, parking technology provider Flash and EV charger installer Qmerit, have announced a partnership to combine their services to provide a seamless reservable parking and charging driver experience and simplified management for infrastructure owners and operators.

EV drivers will be able to use Flash’s network of more than 10,000 parking assets through one of its native integrations to access chargers on the EV Connect network and vice versa, allowing them to find, reserve, access and pay for charging when they park via a single platform and payment.

EV Connect will provide management and customer service for asset owners and operators and Qmerit will provide installation and maintenance support.

The three companies’ plans call for new agreements with major operators in the hospitality, events and mixed-use sectors to be announced over the next 12 months, along with details about where and when the unified system of parking and charging will become publicly available.

“The transition to EV in this decade requires all hands on deck,” said Flash CEO Dan Sharplin, “especially as the next generation of EV adopters make the switch. And we can’t rely on public charging infrastructure alone. Facilities with private parking are a key part of the solution, and must be prepared to meet EV driver expectations.”

Source: Flash

Source: Electric Vehicles Magazine

New session topics for the June 2024 Charged Virtual Conference on EV Infrastructure are out now.

This virtual event will span all things EV charging in two main tracks:

• Track 1: Deploying EV Infrastructure & Fleets
  Content for fleet/facility managers, charging network operators, public transport planners, etc.

• Track 2: Design & Manufacturing of Charging Systems
  Content for engineers who are building, testing, and manufacturing charging systems.

For full access, register here. It’s free!

The free-to-attend conference will be broadcast June 10 – 12, 2024, featuring live presentations, interactive Q&As, on-demand webinars, and whitepaper downloads. All live webcast sessions are free to attend and will be recorded and available to watch on-demand after the event. Register for a session to reserve your spot to watch it live or on-demand.

Sponsorships and promotional opportunities are also available. Learn more here.

Do you have practical expertise in designing, planning, or deploying EV infrastructure? Share it with the EV industry at our Virtual Conference: Call for Speakers.

Source: Electric Vehicles Magazine

Element 25 (E25) has agreed with Veolia North America to secure a site for its planned high-purity manganese sulphate monohydrate (HPMSM) refinery in Louisiana.

The plant will have the capacity to produce 135,000 tons of HPMSM annually for US EV battery manufacturing, in partnership with automakers GM and Stellantis. GM has committed $85 million in debt financing to the project.

The site is located next to a sulfuric acid production and regeneration facility owned and operated by Veolia, which will provide the facility with a local source of raw material supply. Veolia will supply sulfuric acid at agreed contract rates over a 20-year term via a pipeline.

E25 operates the Butcherbird Manganese Project in Western Australia and is in the process of expanding its production to approximately 1.1 million tons per year of medium-grade, high-silica manganese ore.

“Construction of our HPMSM facility in the US requires a project site with the necessary services and utilities and access to sulfuric acid as a key reagent, to allow the project to proceed,” said Element 25’s Managing Director Justin Brown.

Source: Element 25

Source: Electric Vehicles Magazine

Netherlands-based FCL Components has introduced the FTR-E1-HC, a lightweight higher-voltage switching relay for automotive and power applications.

As there is no specific polarity requirement for the connection of load terminals, and a low power consumption of approximately 1.2 W at rated coil voltage, the FTR-E1-HC removes the need to reduce the voltage applied to the coil to the holding voltage. This avoids the cost and space requirements of a holding voltage coil drive circuit, according to the company.

The FTR-E1 offers twice the insulation properties of similar relays, FCL said, providing a dielectric strength of 5,000 VAC between coil and contacts, and 2,500 VAC between contacts. Non-polarized contacts enable the FTR-E1-HC to switch between charging and discharging the load, making it suitable for a range of applications including EVs, fast charging stations, photovoltaic power generation systems, hybrid construction machinery and battery systems.

The FTR-E1-HC also features FCL Components’ Arc Extinguishing Technologies, which use a permanent magnet to extend the arc’s path within the same airgap to save space while ensuring safety.

Source: FCL Components

Source: Electric Vehicles Magazine

US public fast charging network EVgo plans to start deploying North American Charging Standard (NACS) connectors—in the process of being standardized as SAE J3400—on its network later this year.

Charging stations included in the rollout will serve vehicles that use CCS and NACS connectors. Deployments will begin in markets with high NACS vehicle penetration, enabling the company to maximize charger utilization. Overall utilization on the EVgo network in the first quarter of 2024 was approximately 19%, up from approximately 9% in the first quarter of 2023.

“The shift in the competitive landscape for EV charging has opened new opportunities to drive usage on the EVgo network and accelerate our network expansion by fostering new site host partnerships,” said Badar Khan, EVgo’s CEO.

Tesla and future non-Tesla NACS vehicles will be able to use Autocharge+, EVgo’s payment feature that allows drivers to plug in and charge without using an app, credit card or RFID card. Autocharge+ mirrors the Plug & Charge experience and is available to over 50 vehicle models, including all Tesla models that are compatible with Tesla’s CCS adapter.

Source: EVgo

Source: Electric Vehicles Magazine