EV market

For more than a decade the established auto industry, despite their product launches, had been quietly dismissing the pure electric vehicle — and then along came Elon Musk. Most of BEST’s readers know the story from there, says Gerry Woolf.

Use small 18650 cylindrical lithium-ion cells and it's possible to build a large battery pack that’s safe, with built-in cell failure redundancy - and you get a sexy pure electric car that sells to boot!

UK transport company Wrightbus has installed Lancashire-based Torotrak’s Flybrid flywheel kinetic energy recovery system (KERS) in a bus prototype.

KERS captures and stores energy that is otherwise lost during vehicle deceleration events. When the vehicle slows down, kinetic energy is recovered and stored by accelerating a flywheel. By gathering speed, energy is released from the flywheel back into the driveline.

The Association of European Automotive and Industrial Battery Manufacturers (EUROBAT) fears the European Commission will not extend the exemption for lead batteries from the End of Life Vehicles (ELV) Directive by another five years.

The Directive aims to ban lead in new cars. According to EUROBAT president Johannes Dempwolff, the extension period for the exemption for lead batteries will probably be less than five years.

Canada’s graphene products developer Grafoid has bought lithium-ion automotive battery maker Braille Battery.

Grafoid acquired 75% ownership interest in US-based Braille Battery, which produces lightweight lithium-ion batteries and AGM lead-acid batteries for IndyCar, NASCAR, Formula 1 racing cars, motorcycles and batteries for the marine industry. Braille Battery’s founder Blake Fuller will remain president and chief operating officer.

The Malaysia Automotive Institute (MAI) is to start producing lithium-ion battery prototypes for electric vehicles (EV) and energy storage by 2015.

"There are only a handful of lithium-ion battery manufacturers on a global level. We're currently conducting research on producing a prototype for the local market and possibly export,” said MAI chief executive officer Madani Sahari.