Audi and Jaguar are the first manufacturers to have presented their Formula E racing cars for the coming season. For the first time, Season 7 will only be held in 2021 instead of across the calendar due to the Corona pandemic. Audi will be starting with its own powertrain for the first time.

ABB has secured a contract worth around 150 million US dollars to supply the complete power and drive package for cruise ships built by Italian shipbuilder Fincantieri. The electric drives will still be powered by diesel engines, but are said to reduce fuel consumption by 20%.

In the USA, a lobby organisation has been founded to advocate that only purely electric vehicles should be sold nationwide from 2030 onwards. There are 28 founding members of the Zero Emission Transportation Association (ZETA), including Tesla.

ABB Marine & Ports has selected XALT Energy to supply battery systems to power two hybrid ferries for the British ferry company P&O, which are expected to operate regularly on the English Channel between Dover in the UK and Calais in France from 2023.

ABB offers a new 11-kW bidirectional charging station specially designed for Vehicle-to-Grid in partnership with French company DREEV, a joint venture between EDF and Nuvve. The first target market is France, followed by the UK, Italy, Belgium and Germany.

ABB has officially entered into a charging infrastructure partnership with Lion Electric. ABB will make its complete portfolio of charging solutions available to the Canadian electric commercial vehicle manufacturer for distribution in North America under the new Lion Energy division.

The UK-based Gridserve announced several new partnerships with retail, service and technology companies to deliver improve the customer experience at the UK’s first Electric Forecourt due to open near Essex in November.

ABB announces the transition to an all-electric vehicle fleet in the UK by 2025. The Swiss-Swedish supplier of charging infrastructure runs 500 cars in its fleet in Britain.

Supermarket chain Aldi Süd has announced the construction of a further 1,500 charging stations in the parking lots of its stores. This would mean that more than 75 per cent of the discounter’s stores would have at least one charging point.

The Japanese company e-Mobility Power (eMP) has ordered 250 units of the recently introduced Terra 184 rapid-charging station. With these, eMP primarily intends to replace existing slower charging columns.

The Swiss technology group ABB has begun construction of a new production facility for charging infrastructure in the Italian municipality of San Giovanni Valdarno in Tuscany. The 16,000-square-meter facility is expected to go into operation at the end of 2021.

Hitachi ABB Power Grids has presented Grid-eMotion Fleet, a ‘grid-to-plug’ charging system for electric buses with a system-based approach. The solution has been developed to charge more vehicles with less infrastructure.

The eCharge4Drivers project is to conduct demonstrations across key cities in the EU to understand better consumers’ perspective on EV charging infrastructure. As one of 32 stakeholders, ABB will test new DC charging stations to EU standards.

ABB has introduced a new rapid charging station that will enable charging capacities of up to 180 kW. With its small footprint, the Terra 184 should be particularly suitable for use in the city and cheaper than similarly powerful models.

Last year, the Swiss Federal Roads Office (ASTRA) awarded five bidders the contract for the construction of rapid charging stations at 100 Swiss rest stops. The first of these fast chargers has now been opened on the A2.

ABB has received a major order for charging infrastructure worth around five million US dollars through the Chinese charging specialist Chargedot: The Chinese manufacturing joint venture GAC Toyota is ordering several thousand AC wall boxes.

US American shipbuilder Vigor Fab has selected ABB to supply hybrid drive and battery systems for Washington State Ferries’ newest ships. The new ‘Olympic Class’ ferries can carry up to 1,500 passengers and 144 cars.

With over 14,000 DC charging stations installed, the Swiss ABB group is among the biggest suppliers of charging infrastructure. The market is developing quickly and will continue to change at a rapid pace in the coming years.

ABB has received orders worth more than $180 million (about €166M) from rail vehicle manufacturer Stadler to supply traction and battery technology for more than 160 trains and locomotives in Europe and North America.

ABB has agreed with Norway’s largest food wholesaler ASKO and its owner NorgesGruppen to supply the charging infrastructure for its growing fleet of electric vehicles.

ABB has received an order from Jönköping in Sweden to supply ten 450 kW pantograph rapid chargers. The installation is scheduled for the first half of 2021 with operation starting by mid 2021.

FreeWire Technologies announced the successful closing of a $25 million Series B and venture debt financing round. The funding was led by existing investor BP Ventures, together with new investors ABB Technology Ventures and Energy Innovation Capital.

ABB has signed an MoU with Hydrogène de France (HDF) to jointly manufacture megawatt fuel cell systems for powering shipping vessels. The two partners want to optimise the production of large systems in order to be able to build fuel cell power plants in the megawatt range for ships.

Until now, ABB used the name Terra for DC charging stations, but now the Swiss company has expanded its range with the Terra AC Wallbox for charging electric cars at home. The new wall box offers up to 22 kW and is scheduled to be available worldwide from May 2020.

Brazil’s EV charging infrastructure is moving ahead with both public and private actors. Volvo, BMW and Portugal-based energy firm EDP are among them, along with Volkswagen, Audi, Porsche, Siemens, ABB and Electric Mobility Brazil from Sao Paulo.

ABB has installed more than 100 electric bus rapid charging stations for public transport operator Qbuzz in the Netherlands. Most of these are cabled charging stations in depots, but there are also a few pantograph fast chargers.

ABB will deliver the power supply infrastructure from the local grid to the production facilities for Northvolt’s planned battery cell factory in Skellefteå, Sweden. This is not Northvolt’s first collaboration with the Swiss-Swedish group.

ABB has received a follow-up order from charging network provider Ionity for an additional 324 HPC charging stations. The columns with the new Ionity design will be installed in 24 countries during the second phase of the Ionity grid expansion by the end of 2020.

ABB has been awarded a €157 million contract to supply power, propulsion and digital solutions for six cruise ships from Genting Hong Kong. The hybrid vessels will be built in Germany.

In the UK, Birmingham Airport has put six Volvo electric buses into operation to replace the diesel buses it has used to date. ABB is supplying the charging infrastructure for the vehicles.