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      This go-kart demos an electric alternative to gas ATVs and generators

      news.movim.eu / ArsTechnica · Wednesday, 26 April, 2023 - 14:25 · 1 minute

    An electric go-kart

    Enlarge / The kart places battery packs on either side of the driver. (credit: Abigail Bassett)

    LONG BEACH, Calif.—Honda has its hands in all kinds of businesses, from lawnmowers and power generators to IndyCar, go-karts, and consumer vehicles. Honda Performance Division (HPD) works explicitly on the high-performance and racing product line and builds, hones, and maintains everything from the hybrid powertrain we’ve seen in Acura’s LDMh race car to high-performance kart and motorcycle engines.

    With a commitment to going carbon neutral by 2050, Honda has focused its attention on moving everything in its product line toward hybrid and electric powertrains, including a brand new all-electric go-kart called the eGX Racing Kart Concept. The concept leverages Honda’s Mobile Power Pack, or MPP, and offers swappable batteries with plenty of power. We got a chance to drive the new eGX Racing Kart Concept on a small, multi-elevation track that Honda set up at the Acura Long Beach Grand Prix this month and zip around in the tiny, powerful, and quick vehicles to get a taste of the latest electric power plant from Honda.

    Swappable, shareable batteries and an electric motor

    The eGX Racing Kart Concept looks just like an e-kart you might see at a K1 Speed or other indoor karting track (minus the surround bumpers). It’s compact, simple, and minimal, and it can reach speeds of up to 45 miles per hour, according to Honda. It’s not Honda’s first electric kart, however, as the company built a kid's e-kart called the Minimoto Go-Kart , which ran on a rechargeable 36-volt battery and reached speeds of 18 miles per hour. Honda no longer makes or sells the Minimoto, but you can still find them on eBay and Craigslist.

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      VW and Redwood want to recycle your old laptop and cell phone batteries

      news.movim.eu / ArsTechnica · Tuesday, 4 April, 2023 - 15:00

    A battery collection box sits in front of an electric Audi at a dealership

    Enlarge / The recycling program will begin with 14 dealerships but expand throughout the year. (credit: Redwood Materials)

    Recycling old laptop and cell phone batteries will get a bit easier this Earth Day. Redwood Materials and Volkswagen Group will start rolling out collection bins for old batteries starting on April 22.

    Founded in 2017 by former Tesla CTO JB Straubel, Redwood has raised investment from Amazon and more recently was awarded a $2 billion loan by the US Department of Energy to expand its battery-recycling capacity.

    It has also signed partnerships with several OEMs, including Ford, Volvo , and VW , to help them close the production loop, recycling materials from their old batteries to make new ones.

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      Trashed lithium-ion batteries caused three garbage truck fires in California

      news.movim.eu / ArsTechnica · Friday, 9 December, 2022 - 18:16 · 1 minute

    Lithium ion battery in a press to demonstrate their fire-causing potential

    Enlarge / A safety seminar on lithium-ion batteries from May 2022 illustrates what happens when you subject charged batteries to pressure or puncture—or both. (credit: Getty Images)

    A firm that handles returned Amazon electronics has agreed to pay a $25,000 fine after lithium-ion batteries it threw away caused at least three different garbage truck fires.

    iDiskk, LLC, based in San Jose, California, agreed to a settlement with the district attorney of Santa Clara County in late November over civil charges regarding improper waste disposal, as noted by E-Scrap News . The company, according to the district attorney's office , "dismantles, recycles, and disposes of consumer computer electronics that are returned through Amazon, some of which contain lithium-ion batteries."

    On three different dates in 2021—September 22, October 6, and October 13—trucks picked up residential waste from iDiskk's office address in Campbell, California. A Google Street View look at the address shows a home with a driveway and garage on a tree-lined street. Dozens of lithium-ion batteries were included with typical recycling materials, allowing them to be crushed and compressed with other waste. "In each case, the ... garbage truck driver ejected the truck's load," the initial complaint reads, and the cause was found to be batteries.

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      BMW will invest $1.7 billion to make EVs in the United States

      news.movim.eu / ArsTechnica · Wednesday, 19 October, 2022 - 17:47 · 1 minute

    BMW's factory in South Carolina builds its X models—SUVs and crossovers—and now it's going to build electric ones.

    Enlarge / BMW's factory in South Carolina builds its X models—SUVs and crossovers—and now it's going to build electric ones. (credit: BMW)

    Domestic lithium-ion battery manufacturing has received quite a shot in the arm in 2022. In May, the Department of Energy announced it would spend $3 billion to increase battery-making here in the US. But perhaps more consequentially, in August the passage of the Inflation Reduction Act now ties an electric vehicle's tax credit to local battery production. As a result, automakers have been scrambling to build new battery factories in North America .

    Now BMW is the latest OEM to join the list. On Wednesday, BMW Chairman Oliver Zipse announced that the company, which wants to have sold 2 million EVs by the end of 2025 , is going to invest $1.7 billion in US EV manufacturing. $1 billion of that will be used to build out EV production lines at BMW's factory in Spartanburg, South Carolina. The remaining $700 million will go toward a new battery assembly plant in Woodruff, South Carolina.

    And BMW also announced a partnership with Envision AESC, which is going to build a lithium-ion cell-manufacturing plant with an annual capacity of 30 GWh/year, also in South Carolina. BMW says that this plant will produce newly developed round cells, specifically designed for BMW's sixth-generation EVs. (The recently introduced iX and i4 are its fifth-gen EVs.)

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      Honda and LG are investing $3.5 billion in new Ohio battery factory

      news.movim.eu / ArsTechnica · Tuesday, 11 October, 2022 - 16:36

    Between 2024 and 2027, Honda plans to sell many new EVs in North America, starting with this, the Prologue.

    Enlarge / Between 2024 and 2027, Honda plans to sell many new EVs in North America, starting with this, the Prologue.

    A key component of the revised electric vehicle tax credit is a requirement for an ever-increasing amount of domestic content in those EVs' battery packs. Automakers and battery manufacturers were already in the process of setting up US manufacturing to be closer to locally built EVs, and that trend has accelerated ever since.

    At the end of August, Honda and LG Energy Solutions announced that they were forming a joint venture to build a US battery factory. And on Tuesday, the pair announced that the factory would be in Fayette County, Ohio, about 40 miles (64.4 km) southwest of Columbus.

    Honda and LG will spend $3.5 billion on the new plant after regulatory approval. Assuming that happens relatively rapidly, the plan is to begin construction in 2023 and finish the building work by the end of 2024. Honda said that by the end of the following year, the factory should have an annual capacity of 40 GWh. Honda and LG also said the factory should create 2,200 jobs in the area.

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      Honda is the latest automaker looking to build a US battery factory

      news.movim.eu / ArsTechnica · Monday, 29 August, 2022 - 14:52 · 1 minute

    A Honda worker assembles a battery pack.

    Enlarge / A Honda worker assembles a battery pack. (credit: Honda)

    North American lithium-ion battery production is set to soar over the next decade. The Biden administration and Congress have both put policies in place to incentivize domestic manufacturing over imports, and startups, battery companies, and automakers are responding. Honda and LG Energy Solutions are the most recent to make moves; on Monday morning, the companies announced that they are forming a $4.4 billion joint venture to build a US battery factory.

    "Our joint venture with Honda, which has significant brand reputation, is yet another milestone in our mid- to long-term strategy of promoting electrification in the fast-growing North American market," said Youngsoo Kwon, CEO of LG Energy Solution. "Since our ultimate goal is to earn our valued customers' trust and respect, we aspire to position ourselves as a leading battery innovator, working with Honda in achieving its core initiatives for electrification, as well as providing sustainable energy solutions to discerning end consumers."

    In May, the Department of Energy announced $3 billion in funding to boost domestic battery production . Much of that battery production will be destined for electric vehicles, particularly since President Joe Biden signed the Inflation Reduction Act into law this month. The law ties an EV's tax credit to where its battery pack was made —if an ever-increasing proportion of the pack is not domestic, there is no credit.

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      It’s possible no electric vehicles will qualify for the new tax credit

      news.movim.eu / ArsTechnica · Monday, 8 August, 2022 - 22:11 · 1 minute

    Volkswagen is one of several automakers that are already assembling their EV battery packs locally. But the value of the materials that go into the pack will determine whether it qualifies for the revised clean vehicle tax credit.

    Enlarge / Volkswagen is one of several automakers that are already assembling their EV battery packs locally. But the value of the materials that go into the pack will determine whether it qualifies for the revised clean vehicle tax credit. (credit: Volkswagen)

    The Inflation Reduction Act of 2022 passed the United States Senate on Sunday and heads to the House of Representatives, where it is expected to pass easily. It contains numerous changes to the tax code, meant in large part to prevent the worst effects of climate change.

    Among these is a revision to the existing tax credit for new plug-in electric vehicles. As we detailed last week , the IRA introduces income caps for the tax credit, and it will only apply to sedans that cost less than $55,000 and other EVs that cost less than $80,000. The bill also drops the 200,000 vehicle-per-OEM cap on the tax credit, which would benefit both General Motors and Tesla.

    At least it will if their EV batteries are mostly made within North America, with at least 40 percent of the materials used having been extracted and processed within North America or a country with a free trade agreement. Now, instead of being based on battery capacity, half the credit ($3,750) is tied to where the pack is made, and the other half its supply chain. And that will be a problem if you're looking to buy an EV in 2023.

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      Here’s one way we know that an EV’s battery will last the car’s lifetime

      news.movim.eu / ArsTechnica · Monday, 11 July, 2022 - 17:19 · 1 minute

    close-up of a mechanic's hands disassembling an electric car battery on top of a trailer inside a mechanic shop

    Enlarge / An EV's battery represents as much as 25 percent of the cost of the car, so it's understandable that people are nervous about longevity. (credit: Aranga87/Getty Images)

    It's often said that the easiest way to get people to buy an electric vehicle is to let them test-drive one . But here in the US, EVs only accounted for 3 percent of the 15 million new vehicles sold in 2021. That means there are an awful lot of misconceptions out there when it comes to these newfangled machines.

    The top concern is probably range anxiety, a fear that is usually dispelled as someone gets used to waking up to a full battery every morning. I won't dwell on that today, but the next-most common point of confusion about EVs has to be the traction battery's longevity, or potential lack thereof.

    It's an understandable concern; many of us are used to using consumer electronic devices powered by rechargable batteries that develop what's known as "memory." The effect is caused by repeatedly charging a cell before it has been fully depleted, resulting in the cell "forgetting" that it can deplete itself further. The lithium-ion cells used by EVs aren't really affected by the memory effect, but they can degrade storage capacity if subjected to too many fast charges or if their thermal management isn't taken seriously.

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      What Is Battery Management System (BMS) In Electric Cars?

      pubsub.do.nohost.me / FossBytes · Wednesday, 24 March, 2021 - 11:08 · 2 minutes

    Battery Management System BMS In Electric Cars (1)

    The Battery Management System (BMS) is a system that manages and protects the battery for its well-being in any electronic device. It monitors multiple factors like the voltage, current, state of charge, temperature, and more.

    However, there are three main functions of a Battery Management System.

    • Protection of Battery Packs: It protects the battery from getting damaged by being overcharged (when the voltage gets too high) or discharge (the voltage gets too low). BMS constantly monitors all the cells in the battery pack by calculating whether a safe amount of current is going in (charge) the cell and coming out of it (discharge).

    It maintains the safe limit for both charging and discharging of the cells, thus, preventing them from getting damaged.

    • Calculation Of State Of Charge (SoC) : This simply tells us how much energy or charge is left in the battery. It does it by monitoring cell voltages and calculating the amount of energy drained.
    • Safety of Battery : BMS also looks after the safety of batteries by checking and informing if there is any loose connection, any issue with wire insulation, damaged cell, short circuit, or any other fault.

    Battery Management System (BMS) In Electric Cars

    Battery-Management-System-In-Electric-vehicles Image: Shutterstock

    In addition to the aforementioned functions, BMS does a lot more for maintaining batteries in electric cars.

    • Maintaining Temperature: BMS plays a vital role in maintaining the temperature of the battery pack. It monitors the proper functioning of the fan or thermal fluid in case it’s liquid-cooled. This way it regulates the battery temperature and keeps it in an optimized range.
    • Cell Balancing: Sometimes cells in a battery pack get charged more than others. In this case, BMS intelligently releases excess energy from the overcharged cells to balance the cells.
    • Display Real-Time Values : Most importantly, with the help of BMS, you get real-time values like miles your car can cover, battery percentage, the time required for a full charge, temperature, etc. right on your screen.

    For the proper functioning of BMS, calibration is required. Let’s have a brief overview of it.

    What Is BMS Calibration?

    If you are an electric vehicle user, then sometimes you may notice that the display containing battery information isn’t showing the correct values.

    For example, it may not show the correct percentage or the distance it can cover. This happens when the BMS fails to recalibrate itself successfully. Therefore, to rectify this, the BMS needs to calibrate itself.

    There are different ways of calibrating BMS and you will need support from the automaker to do this. However, here are some of the most common practices:

    • Leave your car overnight by completely turning off the power, allowing it to deep sleep.
    • Slowly charging your vehicle up to 100%.
    • Avoid charging your vehicle frequently or every night.

    If this doesn’t work or improve the calibration process, then contact your company.

    Anyway, this was a brief overview of the Battery Management System in electric cars. We hope this will be helpful for you.

    The post What Is Battery Management System (BMS) In Electric Cars? appeared first on Fossbytes .