electric vehicle

Tata Group is closing the loop as it builds battery manufacturing and recycling plants

Indian conglomerate Tata Group is proposing to build a battery manufacturing plant in the country bolstering its electric vehicle closed-loop potential, the company announced on 26 January.

The company plans to invest $113 million in the 200MW plant, which will have the potential to scale up to 2GW depending on domestic and global demand, news agency Reuters has reported.

India

Lithium-ion

Tata Group

battery

electric vehicle

closed-loop

IESA calls for lithium-ion battery tax cuts to match those of EVs and renewables

India Energy Storage Alliance (IESA) has called for tax deductions on lithium-ion batteries to help the country’s growing electric vehicle and renewable energy storage markets.

IESA has gone a step further in calling for a sales ban of internal combustion engine (ICE) two and three-wheelers in highly polluted cities.

India

Energy Storage Alliance (IESA)

Lithium-ion

batteries

electric vehicle

renewable energy storage

Battery materials firm hires lithium-ion expert to drive EV market penetration

Graphite One has appointed a lithium-ion battery expert as its new chief technology officer to lead the Canadian battery materials firm’s move into the electric vehicle market.

Dr. Shane Beattie will be responsible for leading the company’s plan to process and manufacture high grade coated spherical graphite products for electric vehicle batteries and energy storage systems.

Graphite One

Lithium-ion

battery

chief technology officer

Power multinational EDF reveals electric mobility ambitions with purchase of Pivot Power

EDF Renewables UK, a subsidiary of the French power firm EDF Group, is vying for top spot in the UK battery industry with the buy out of energy storage and electric vehicle charging firm Pivot Power.

UK firm Pivot Power, now a wholly owned subsidiary of EDF Renewables, says the move will help it build out 2GW network of transmission connected batteries in its C40 sites across the UK.

Indian Oil plans to use indigenous battery materials for new cell making plant

The state-owned Indian Oil Corporation and an unnamed ‘foreign’ start-up are reportedly set to build an electric vehicle battery plant in India using domestically-available, “non-lithium raw material”.

Indian Oil’s chairman Sanjiv Singh (pictured) told the country’s media the plant would have a production capacity of 1GW, but did not name the overseas partner.

Indian Oil Corporation

UL certification first for joint venture’s second-life ESS batteries

A Japanese company that reuses electric vehicle batteries in second-life energy storage systems has become the first to be certified to UL 1974— an evaluation standard for repurposing batteries.

4R Energy Corporation, a joint venture of Nissan Motors and Sumitomo Corporation, is the first company worldwide to receive the certification from US-based international testing and certification organisation Underwriters Laboratories (UL).

Japanese

electric vehicle

second-life

energy storage systems

UL 1974

Batteries.

OEM supplier Valmet Automotive to build battery packs in Finland

Tier 1 supplier Valmet Automotive is launching its first lithium-ion battery pack production facility in Finland within months to supply the electric vehicle market.

The facility, in a former Nokia plant, is scheduled to start commercialisation around October-November in the municipality of Salo— where it will produce around 600,000 battery packs per year.

South Korea to open dedicated lithium-ion EV battery recycling centre

South Korea has broken ground on the country’s first recycling centre dedicated to breaking and recycling electric vehicle battery packs.

South Korean company Earthtech will invest 24 billion won (US$20 million) in the recycling centre in Yeonggwang Country, South Jeolla Province, according to the country’s news outlet The Korea Bizwire.

Audi battery fire risk prompts E-Tron recall in US

German car manufacturer Audi is recalling its first all-electric vehicle rolled out in the US— the ‘E-Tron’— due to the risk of battery fires.

A spokesperson for the company, which is owned by Volkswagen, told BEST Battery Briefing “moisture could, in very rare cases, enter the high-voltage battery through the low-voltage wiring via the charging-socket grommet, due to production tolerances in the manufacturing of wiring harnesses”.

Audi unveils second-life BESS in Berlin

German car giant Audi has opened a 1.9MWh second-life battery energy storage system (BESS) in Berlin as part of a research project.

Audi said the facility on the EUREF campus— a “climate-neutral-powered” centre for start-ups and innovation— uses lithium-ion batteries from development vehicles to test “interaction scenarios between electric cars and the power grid”.

Audi

BESS

second-life

lithium-ion batteries