Learning from the OPEC experience, the United States needs to be taking strong steps now to ensure that it develops a strong and robust domestic electric vehicle (EV) battery manufacturing industry. Working with its North American partners, the federal government should be developing policies that rapidly spur the development of the EV battery supply chain. By moving with a strong plan and set of policies, the U.S. can benefit from significant job growth and economic activity as well as well as enhancing national security by not becoming dependent on foreign sources for key materials and resources. While the Biden administration is sending strong signals for leadership in this area, it’s important that a broad based industry coalition, from mining companies to vehicle manufacturers, also be involved in advocating for policies that will spur innovation and encourage domestic manufacturing and resource development. This presentation will outline specifics steps and actions that the U.S. should be advancing to accelerate the growth of the EV battery supply chain and industry in North America.

The li-ion battery industry production is growing fast due to high demand, especially from the automotive and grid storage segments. Aligned with production capacity growth, there are large investments in R&D development for the next battery generations behind the ordinary li-ion battery technology. Our presentation will discuss the battery technologies that have a good chances for breakthrough and will review the main startups developing that technology.

The presentation will provide a market overview that will focus on technology and use cases for for a combination of heavy duty BEV, charging infrastructure and vehicle to grid applications.

Heavy-duty vehicles and off-road equipment are responsible for much of California’s particulate, smog-forming, and climate change emissions, and the associated health impacts. This is why California is taking bold actions to transition to a cleaner transportation system by adopting regulations that establish manufacturer and purchase requirements for trucks, transit buses, and airport shuttle buses. Governor Newsom’s Executive Order N-79-20 raised the bar by setting ambitious sales and fleet turn-over targets to transition 100 percent of the medium and heavy-duty fleet to zero-emission by 2045. All the while, California’s incentive programs have been instrumental in helping to develop and advance zero-emission technology in several heavy-duty sectors, preparing them for commercial market entry.  This talk will focus on California’s near-term and long-term goals for heavy-duty and off-road vehicles and equipment, and the regulatory and incentive programs designed to help us achieve them.

This presentation provides a review of class 8 work in our local ports and beyond through the various grants that started at TransPower. In addition, we will discuss battery performance over the last 10 years to lay the ground work to explore how different levels of improvement can achieve different applications. It will discuss the evolution of vehicle performance requirements as technology has improved and contrast them against the diesel benchmark. Finally, the question of what levels of performance are required to fully replace the diesel class 8 truck might look will be presented.

Volvo LIGHTS (Low Impact Green Heavy Transport Solutions) is part of California Climate Investments, a statewide initiative to work reducing greenhouse gas emissions, strengthening the economy and improving public health and the environment—particularly in disadvantaged communities. The total project cost is $90 million, with a funding award of $44.8 million. The project is a collaboration between the South Coast Air Quality Management District, Volvo Trucks and other organizations to develop and demonstrate heavy-duty electric vehicles and charging infrastructure critical for the commercial success of battery electric trucks and equipment. Over a three-year project period, Volvo LIGHTS will demonstrate the ability for heavy-duty, battery electric trucks and equipment to reliably move freight between two major ports and warehouses with zero emissions.

Since 2017 with the introduction of Toyota’s Alpha proof of concept, Toyota Motor North America has revolutionized zero emission heavy duty trucking by bringing fuel cell electric powertrains to the main stream. Following on the success of two generations of Mirai light duty fuel cell electric vehicles, Toyota will provide an update on how adapting that very same technology in tandem with more efficient batteries will transform the freight industry as Toyota transitions into a zero emission mobility company.

This presentation will focus on Hyundai's ZEV trucks and it's North America focus on fuel cell class 8 applications. In addition, battery applications in Korea will be reviewed.

The defense sector recognizes outstanding progress in EV domain and confirms its advantages for a wide spectrum of military applications. Many NATO initiatives are trying to integrate the performance of electromobility into operational concepts.

Due to the size of their batteries and driving schedules, electric school buses are the perfect application for Vehicle-to-Grid (V2G) technology. The first results from early V2G school bus deployments are now available. This session reviews the technical variance of an AC implementation on bidirectional onboard chargers versus a DC implementation with fast charging stations, as well as the economic results from each configuration.

This presentation will examine what is coming up next and why the industry is growing and changing so rapidly. In addition, the environmental, social, and economic impacts of this growing/changing industry will be presented.

San Diego Gas & Electric (SDG&E) is working on a vehicle-to-grid (V2G) pilot to understand how SDG&E can utilize electric vehicles (EVs) as a distributed energy resource (DER) to improve SDG&E’s load factor, reduce greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions and reduce local air pollution. V2G is the process of discharging energy from the EV battery to the electric distribution grid. Typically, the EV battery is discharged during normal vehicle driving. However, this V2G pilot will be deployed at a school and the vehicle batteries will be discharged to transport students and discharged back into the distribution grid to pilot the utilization of V2G.

Wireless charging presents a practical and economical solution for EV adoption and solves limitations such as battery size, cost, recharge speed, vehicle range, and space constraints of charging infrastructure. With commercial deployments at 250kW for public transit enabling over 6 million miles, a recent 500kW demonstration for a Class-8 drayage truck, and a 1MW wireless charger in development for regional haul Class-8 trucks, it’s time to revisit the battery pack specifications (chemistry, C-rate, cost) needed to support this extreme fast charge. 

There have been significant improvements in the energy density of supercapacitors in recent years. Several of these high energy density devices from Skeleton Technologies and Aowei China Have tested. Carbon/carbon cells exhibited energy density about 10 Wh/kg and hybrid lithium supercapacitors had energy densities up to 70Wh/kg. Applications of these new cells in various hybrid and electric vehicles have been assessed via vehicle simulations. 

The NTSB conducted investigations of EV fire events and issued a report with safety recommendations to NHTSA, vehicle manufacturers, and responder associations in January of 2021. This presentation reviews the progress and issues raised in that report. The evolution and status of emergency response guides for vehicles with high voltage Li-ion batteries is discussed.

This presentation will discuss the electric school bus market and how it fits into the medium- and heavy-duty sector. Specific opportunities to leverage the existing supply chain from battery suppliers to OEMs and dealerships have yet to be achieved. The session will link policy, incentives, and industry processes to outline next steps to electrify U.S. school buses.