Supporters of vehicle electrification point to the more than 140,000 EV charging stations currently deployed across the United States – including Level 2 AC and Level 3 DC fast chargers and both public and restricted access units – as a sign that a budding system to support our transportation transformation is in place. Continue reading
Electric vehicle markets are growing globally – in total IDTechEx’s latest master electric vehicle report “Electric Vehicles: Land, Sea & Air 2022-2042” finds 35.7 million electric vehicles (EV) were sold in 2021 and predicts this will rise to over 74 million by 2030. Continue reading
The conductive fast-charging system as we know it today has drawbacks such as long dwell times, high power demand from the grid, availability and reliability issues, and the need for end-users to deal with heavy cables, dirty connectors, and buggy user interfaces. Battery-swapping is an emerging technology that aims to address all of these shortcomings. Besides easily upgrading battery technology, reducing the purchase price of EVs (by decoupling the cost of the battery from the EV), and massively decreasing charging times, it is also important to note that the battery swapping stations themselves can become independent energy storage facilities with grid-balancing ability. As we electrify the various vehicle segments, can battery swapping be considered a viable recharging strategy for them all? Continue reading
While Norway, the Netherlands and Germany are leading the race on electrification and infrastructure provision with a planned ratio of 3 EVs per public charge point, many European countries are lagging behind. In contrast, there are currently 22 EVs per public charge point in Ireland, and 27.2 EVs per public charge point in the UK. Increasing the number of grid-tied chargers is often a difficult, lengthy and cost onerous process because of grid constraints and aging infrastructure. Continue reading