Magna International will invest more than $790 million to build the first two supplier facilities at Ford’s BlueOval City supplier park in Stanton, Tennessee. In addition to the two West Tennessee locations, Magna will also build a stamping and assembly facility in Lawrenceburg, Tennessee. Ford’s on-site supplier park will allow... Read more →

A team of researchers from the Georgia Institute of Technology, led by Matthew McDowell, associate professor in the George W. Woodruff School of Mechanical Engineering and the School of Materials Science and Engineering, is using an aluminum-foil-based anode in a solid-state Li-ion battery to create batteries with higher energy density... Read more →

NOVONIX Limited announced that its Battery Technology Solutions division successfully commissioned its 10 tonnes per annum (TPA) cathode pilot line. The cathode pilot line’s first product, a mid-nickel grade of single-crystal cathode material (NMC622), produced using NOVONIX’s patent-pending, all-dry, zero-waste synthesis technology, matches the performance of leading cathode materials from... Read more →

After four years of design, modeling and simulation, a team of 25 people comprising CNRS (French National Centre for Scientific Research), Stellantis and Saft engineers and researchers unveiled an innovative prototype of an energy storage battery that integrates the inverter and charger functions. Integrating the inverter and charger functions creates... Read more →

Researchers from the University of Bialystok (Poland), the University of Texas at El Paso (UTEP) and colleagues have achieved the highest specific capacitance value reported of 638 F g−1 in aqueous acidic solutions by combining spherical carbon nanostructures with covalent triazine-based frameworks. An open-access paper on their study is published... Read more →

Tata Sons will build a 40GW battery cell gigafactory in the United Kingdom (UK). The investment of more than £4 billion (US$5.2 billion), will deliver electric mobility and renewable energy storage solutions for customers in UK and Europe. JLR and Tata Motors will be anchor customers, with supplies commencing from... Read more →

Lithium-ion battery electrodes are usually made using a wet slurry with toxic solvents, an expensive manufacturing approach that poses health and environmental risks. Early experiments at the Department of Energy’s Oak Ridge National Laboratory have revealed significant benefits to a dry battery manufacturing process. This eliminates the solvent while showing... Read more →

The Office of the Assistant Secretary of Defense (ASD) for Industrial Base Policy (IBP), through its Manufacturing Capability Expansion and Investment Prioritization office, will award Graphite One (Alaska) $37.5 millon to support the development of a domestic advanced graphite supply chain solution anchored by the company’s Graphite Creek resource. The... Read more →

KULR Technology Group and Cirba Solutions, a battery materials and management processor for end-of-life EV batteries and gigafactory manufacturing scrap, are collaborating to develop a safe transportation platform for original equipment manufacturers to store and transport prototype, end of life, damaged, defective, and recalled lithium-ion batteries up to 2.5 kWh... Read more →

Demand for battery raw materials in Europe will increase rapidly between now and 2050/ The region can curb the expected consumption of key metals from electrifying passenger transport by up to 49% over that period, according to new analysis. Environmental NGO Transport & Environment, which conducted the study, said governments... Read more →

Canoo Technologies, an advanced mobility company, announced that the US Department of Defense’s (DoD’s) Defense Innovation Unit (DIU) significantly expanded the scope of its previously announced partnership. The company says it has leveraged it advanced commercial battery and integration expertise to deliver to the Department of Defense partners a technologically... Read more →

FREYR Battery has been awarded a €100-million grant from the European Union to support development of FREYR’s Giga Arctic project in Norway. The grant will be funded through the EU’s Innovation Fund (EUIF) as part of the EU’s efforts to promote localized production of battery solutions. Giga Arctic, which has... Read more →

Fortum Battery Recycling has started to examine the feasibility of installing a production facility for sustainable secondary battery materials in the industrial area of Artern, Thuringia, Germany. The black mass facility will be Fortum Battery Recycling’s second hub in Central Europe. In March, Fortum Battery Recycling started its first commercial... Read more →

Vianode, a Norwegian producer of advanced battery materials with a greener footprint (earlier post), has been selected for a €90-million EU Innovation Fund grant preparation for a large-scale plant to upscale innovative production of synthetic graphite. The grant is awarded by the European Commission through the EU Innovation Fund and... Read more →

SABIC, a global diversified chemicals company, headquartered in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, has introduced SABIC PP compound H1090 resin and STAMAX 30YH611 resin, two materials well-suited for sheet extrusion and thermoforming that offer a unique alternative to traditional sheet metal forming, compression and injection molding, allowing customers to form large, complex... Read more →

Poland-based battery systems maker Impact Clean Power Technology unveiled a visualization of GigafactoryX—a large-scale battery factory for electric vehicles and energy storage which will be launched in the city of Pruszków, near Warsaw. The Li-ion battery systems to be manufactured will include LTO, LFP and NMC technologies. Its construction will... Read more →

Sion Power has reached a development milestone with its Licerion Electric Vehicle (EV) technology (earlier post), producing more than 18,000 multilayer, 6 Ah to 20 Ah lithium-metal cells for commercial evaluation. Licerion EV directly enables longer range with lighter and smaller batteries. This technology incorporates Sion Power’s protected lithium anode... Read more →

PDF Solutions, a provider of comprehensive data solutions for the semiconductor and electronics ecosystems, has acquired Lantern Machinery Analytics, a privately-held provider of automated image analysis and feature extraction AI/ML software for critical inspection and metrology steps at battery cell development and manufacturing processes for the electric vehicle industry. Machinery... Read more →

Dutch energy technology and storage solutions specialist EST-Floattech has delivered a 2.2 MWh Green Orca Li-ion battery system (earlier post) for the electric event vessel Oceandiva London. The vessel’s batteries are charged by both green fast charging shore power and onboard solar panels, with a biofuel generator as back up... Read more →

Researchers from Technische Universität Darmstadt, Universität Stuttgart, Justus-Liebig-Universität Giessen, and Universität des Saarlandes have developed a two-step recycling approach for all-solid-state Li-ion batteries (lithium ASSBs). The process, which uses citric acid as the leaching agent to separate and recover the individual components, is presented in an open-access paper in the... Read more →

POSCO Holdings recently began construction at the Yulchon 1st Industrial Complex in Jeollanam-do (South Jeolla Province, S. Korea) of the country’s first lithium hydroxide plant, which will produce secondary battery materials using lithium produced from brine in Argentina. We will enhance our global competitiveness in lithium and other mineral resources... Read more →

Altilium Metals, a UK-based green technology group, signed a non-binding Memorandum of Understanding with Marubeni Corporation, Japanese trading and investment group. Under the framework of the MOU, the two companies will work together to explore opportunities to jointly develop EV battery recycling businesses in the UK. (Earlier post.) This will... Read more →

Lotte Chemical plans to invest up to 3 trillion KRW ($2.3 billion) through 2028 to boost production of copper foil for EV batteries, the company said. In March, Lotte completed the 2.7-trillion KRW (US$2-billion) acquisition of electric foil manufacturer Iljin Materials, and changed Iljin’s name to Lotte Energy Materials, in... Read more →

General Motors has acquired substantially all the assets of Israel-based battery software startup ALGOLiON Ltd. for an undisclosed sum. The acquisition was led by the newly formed Technology Acceleration and Commercialization (TAC) organization, a group within GM that works to identify emerging technology that can support GM’s leadership position in... Read more →

Stellantis N.V. and Australia-based Kuniko Ltd announced the signing of a binding offtake term sheet agreement securing a 35% future production offtake of nickel sulfate and cobalt sulfate from Kuniko’s Norwegian exploration projects for a term of nine years. Kuniko’s projects located in Norway are targeting three fundamental metals for... Read more →

Swedish sodium-ion battery developer Altris presented a pure Prussian White cathode material with a capacity of 160 mAh/g, making it the highest capacity declared to date. This marks an important milestone on Altris’ commercialization journey, as the capacity of cathode materials is crucial to increase the energy density and deployment... Read more →

BASF has opened Europe’s first co-located center of battery material production and battery recycling in Schwarzheide, Germany. The inauguration of a production facility for high-performance cathode active materials (CAM) and the unveiling ceremony for a battery recycling plant for the production of black mass represent steps toward closing the loop... Read more →

Aqua Metals, a developer of sustainable lithium-ion battery recycling, announced the successful completion of its Li AquaRefining recycling pilot; transition to 24/5 operations; and production of high-purity, saleable quantities of sustainably recycled battery materials. The company completed the pilot facility commissioning with the recovery of both cobalt and manganese dioxide,... Read more →

Researchers at Argonne National Laboratory have developed a fluorinated cation electrolyte that could enable high-voltage lithium metal batteries. An open-access report on their work is published in Nature Communications. Fluorides have been identified as a key ingredient in interphases supporting aggressive battery chemistries. While the precursor for these fluorides must... Read more →

GM Energy announced product details and specifications for its initial suite of upcoming Ultium Home offerings. The Ultium Home product offerings will be the first solutions to be made available to residential customers through GM Energy, and are designed to provide greater energy independence, resiliency and value, enabling the use... Read more →

GM Defense, a subsidiary of General Motors, was selected by the Department of Defense’s (DoD) Defense Innovation Unit (DIU) to prototype an energy storage unit. GM Defense’s solution will meet the requirements of DIU’s Stable Tactical Expeditionary Electric Power (STEEP) program. STEEP seeks to support tactical microgrid and energy management... Read more →

The BMW Group broke ground for a new high-voltage battery assembly plant in Woodruff, South Carolina. (Earlier post.) The BMW Group Plant Woodruff will produce sixth-generation batteries to supply fully electric vehicles at nearby BMW Manufacturing in Spartanburg. More than 300 jobs will be created onsite at Plant Woodruff with... Read more →

Rechargeable batteries store electricity in their electrode materials, while redox flow batteries use chemicals stored in tanks attached to the electrodes. Researchers have now developed a battery system based on a hybrid cell, which not only stores and provides electricity but also produces valuable chemicals in a flow system. During... Read more →

General Motors and Australia-based Element 25 Limited announced an agreement for Element 25 to supply up to 32,500 metric tons of manganese sulfate (MnSO4) annually to support the annual production of more than 1 million GM EVs in North America. Under the agreement, GM will provide Element 25 with a... Read more →

The US Department of Energy (DOE) recently announced it would provide $3.9 million in funding to 13 projects through its High Performance Computing for Energy Innovation (HPC4EI) program to advance performance, efficiency, and vitality of the US manufacturing sector and drive economy-wide decarbonization. These short-term, collaborative projects between industry members... Read more →

Umicore inaugurated one of the world’s largest and most advanced solid-state battery material prototyping facilities in Olen, Belgium, which will expand and accelerate its innovation and technology development. The initiative acquired strong research expertise with the support of the Flemish government (VLAIO - Agentschap Innoveren & Ondernemen). Solid-state batteries are... Read more →

Saudi Arabia has cut a number of deals recently that coud make the country’s lithiu-ion supply chain the most developed in the Middle East, according to an analysis by Benchmark Mineral Intelligence. Saudi Arabia’s ambitions for an EV supply chain are part of the diversification of the national economy away... Read more →

RecycLiCo Battery Materials, a battery materials company specializing in the development of novel and environmentally friendly lithium-ion battery recycling and upcycling technologies, recently entered a 50-50 joint venture with Taiwan-based Zenith Chemical Corporation to build a 2,000 metric ton per year lithium-ion battery recycling plant in Taiwan. The initial plant,... Read more →

Volvo Trucks North America is working with the University of Minnesota (UMN) to conduct extreme weather testing for its Class 8 VNR Electric model to analyze the impact of ambient temperature on a truck’s battery life. UMN has teamed up with Murphy Logistics Solutions (Murphy) to test the battery-electric trucks... Read more →

The US Department of Energy’s (DOE) Loan Programs Office (LPO) announced a conditional commitment for a loan of up to $9.2 billion to BlueOval SK LLC (BOSK) for the construction of three manufacturing plants to produce batteries for Ford Motor Company’s future Ford and Lincoln electric vehicles. (Earlier post.) Together, the plants,... Read more →

Ford Performance is heading to the 101st running of “The Broadmoor Pikes Peak International Hill Climb brought to you by Gran Turismo” with the all-new, improved electric Ford SuperVan 4.2. Ford Performance and the experts at STARD (Stohl Advanced Research and Development) joined forces once again to create SuperVan 4.2... Read more →

Elcora Advanced Materials has successfully delivered its first order for 500 metric tons of 37% + high-quality manganese from Morocco. (Earlier post.) In March, Elcora began operations on the 16 km² manganese mining concession in Morocco for which it had acquired exclusive rights earlier. Already extracted Manganese (Mn) piles on... Read more →

Panasonic Energy Co., Ltd. and Mazda Motor Corporation agreed to enter into discussions on establishing a medium- to long-term partnership to meet demand for battery EVs and automotive batteries in a rapidly expanding market. Panasonic Energy and Mazda will commence concrete discussions with a view toward Panasonic Energy supplying Mazda... Read more →

At an Investor Day event in Seoul, Hyundai Motor said that it will accelerate its transition toward becoming a smart mobility solution provider by securing a large-scale investment of KRW 109.4 trillion (US$85 billion) over the next 10 years, including KRW 35.8 trillion (US$27.8 billion) for electrification. The company aims... Read more →

Volvo Trucks is now introducing new, more powerful batteries for its medium-duty electric truck range (the Volvo FL and Volvo FE Electric). The new batteries offer 42% extra energy capacity and can as a result deliver up to 450 km (280 miles) total range from one charge. This means that... Read more →

Torqeedo GmbH announced a new battery option for its Deep Blue series of marine electric drives: Deep Blue Battery 80. The new battery leverages lithium iron phosphate (LFP) chemistry and delivers 80 kWh of energy storage, twice the capacity of the previous generation of Deep Blue batteries. The new battery... Read more →

Mercedes-Benz presented a new sports car study, the Vision One-Eleven. Its technical highlights include the extremely powerful and highly efficient axial-flux motor developed by electric motor specialist YASA. The British company has been a 100% subsidiary of Mercedes-Benz AG since July 2021. (Earlier post.) YASA axial flux electric motor (left)... Read more →

Globally, the battery industry needs to invest at least $514 billion across the whole supply chain to meet expected demand in 2030, and $920 billion by 2035, according to a new analysis by Benchmark. Demand for lithium ion batteries is forecast to grow to 3.7 terawatt-hours by 2030, up from... Read more →

Nordic energy company Fortum and battery chemicals producer Terrafame have signed an agreement for an experimental project in which metals recovered from the black mass of EV batteries by Fortum will be utilized in Terrafame’s battery chemical production. Under the agreement, Fortum will supply nickel and cobalt recovered from the... Read more →

Lithium Power International Limited has entered into a binding agreement to sell its wholly-owned Australian subsidiary, Western Lithium Ltd (WLI) (100% owner of a number of tenements, including through its subsidiary, CMC Lithium Pty Ltd, in Western Australia) to Albemarle Lithium Pty Ltd (an Australian subsidiary of Albemarle Corporation). WLI... Read more →