Electric vehicles

A full profile of Elaphe Technologies, conducted by IDTechEx's Dr Peter Harrop.

Polestar, the electric performance brand, has opened its first production facility, a key milestone for the rapidly growing car company. Polestar also announces its World Manufacturing Identifier, which officiates the brand as a standalone car company.

IDTechEx will be hosting a free webinar on Thursday 12 September 2019 titled Extracting Value from Second-life Electric Vehicle Batteries.

Embraer unveiled, on the eve of its 50th anniversary, images of the demonstrator aircraft with 100% electric propulsion technology, which is currently under development.

The world's largest all-electric ferry, named E-ferry Ellen, made its first commercial trip connecting the ports of Søby and Fynshav, on the islands of Aerø and Als, in southern Denmark.

Toyota Motor Corporation , worldwide partner of the Olympic and Paralympic Games, will provide a full line-up of electrified vehicles. Toyota, together with the Tokyo Organising Committee of the Olympic and Paralympic Games, aims to achieve the lowest emissions target level of any official fleet used at the Olympic and Paralympic Games, and thereby also helping to reduce the environmental burden of the Games.

Opel is the first automobile manufacturer in the world to offer a battery-electric vehicle for customer rally sport. The electric competition car is based on the Opel Corsa-e. Opel and the ADAC will start the ADAC Opel e-Rally Cup, the first rally brand cup for electric cars in the world.

The new Hyundai Tucson switches off the engine when coasting or braking at under 30kph. This is a bridge to the 48V full hybrids that IDTechEx foresaw some time ago. IDTechEx correctly predicted that they would come sooner rather than later and not just as cars - thus the title of the new IDTechEx report embracing it all, "48V Mild Hybrid and 48V Full Hybrid Vehicles 2020-2030".

The series version of the Mercedes-Benz EQV is celebrating its debut. The next member of the Mercedes EQ family combines emissions-free mobility with impressive driving abilities, high functionality and aesthetic design as the first fully-electric premium MPV from Mercedes-Benz.

UL announced that 4R Energy Corporation, a joint venture of Nissan Motors and Sumitomo Corporation focusing on the effective reuse of EV batteries for energy storage systems, is the first organization worldwide to be certified to UL 1974, the Standard for Evaluation for Repurposing Batteries.

Plug-in hybrids are an important milestone on the road to zero-emissions driving. Mercedes‑Benz Cars is pushing ahead with the development of its plug-in hybrids under the EQ Power label.

Sam Elliott, living in Texas, has a YouTube channel called Innovative Sustainable Solutions where he has recently been showing videos of his progress in creating a portable electric vehicle charging station.

The Air Quality Control Commission has adopted a zero-emission vehicle standard for Colorado. The move is directly aligned with the commission's mission to achieve the cleanest air practical in every part of the state.

The electric vehicle market is growing very quickly. IDTechEx forecast that the total market will exceed $1,000bn value within the next 5-years across all categories: land, sea, and air. This huge growth is resulting in a large amount of turbulence within the supply chain. In particular, the material considerations are different to traditional internal combustion engines and provide a significant opportunity or threat - depending on your viewpoint.

As a source of inspiration, aquatic creatures such as fish, cetaceans, and jellyfish could inspire innovative designs to improve the ways that manmade systems operate in and interact with aquatic environments. Jellyfishes in nature propel themselves through their surroundings by radially expanding and contracting their bell-shaped bodies to push water behind them, which is called jet propulsion.

The need for electric vehicles in military applications is strong. The speed of advance of an army is still limited by speed of providing fuel and other "materiel" as they call it. 20% of deaths are suffered simply providing fuel. The US Military has a program to reduce fuel consumption by 70% because of this.

An overview of technologies, players and market forecast

Electric motor drive is key to all electric vehicles and it is taking new forms. See IDTechEx report, "Electric Motors for Electric Vehicles Land, Water, Air 2019-2029".

The Solaris Bus & Coach company has won another zero-emission order for Solaris Urbino 12 electric buses in Italy. Following the agreement recently signed with ATM Milan, in line with which up to 250 vehicles of this type will be delivered in Milan, the Polish manufacturer has received an order from the transport operator ACTV SPA Venezia for 30 urban electric 12 electric buses and infrastructure for battery charging. The total value of the contract acquired exceeds 20 million euros.

Torqeedo is the market leader for electric propulsion in leisure boating and is now diversifying to small commercial vessels.