For the first time, the Swiss-Swedish group ABB has given details of its announced research and development centre for electromobility. In the future, 120 employees are to develop new next-generation solutions for charging infrastructure.

Plug-in hybrids have been losing their allure as bridges to a new era of clean transport with many analysis finding real-world consumption and CO2 emissions far from type-approval values. Fraunhofer ISI and the ICCT just prove this to hold globally and across models.

Three UK-based zero-carbon automotive projects have secured Government funding via the Advanced Propulsion Centre. The combined award of £25.4m was provided by the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy and delivered by Innovate UK.

The research platform for electrochemical energy was officially launched today. Researchers from various disciplines will now be working on high-performance and environmentally friendly energy storage systems at the Center for Electrochemical Energy Storage Ulm & Karlsruhe (CELEST).

ABB and the research organisation SINTEF of Norway are investigating whether fuel cells are a feasible energy source for main ship propulsion. The partners will model a complete marine power system in a megawatt-scale propulsion plant.

Women make smarter choices a new study suggests. Researchers looked at how perceptions and attitudes towards electric vehicles differ by gender and other variables in Scandinavia and found that highly educated women would make an ideal target group for EVs. Yet they are largely overlooked.

EU funded INN-BALANCE project sees nine partners strive to optimise auxiliary components in fuel cell vehicles since last summer. Now they report significant progress, specifically when it comes to design and cooling.

Kiel University and RENA Technologies are jointly developing silicon as storage material for batteries. The partners are working on anodes made from 100% silicon that could replace graphite. Stability was achieved through targeted structuring.

Researchers at Fraunhofer ISC have embarked on a collaborative effort to develop a low-cost method for mass production of solid-state batteries using sol-gel. Funded with 3.2 million euros, first results are due in a year with the project running until 2020.

Researchers at the University of Warwick have developed a method to assess the maximum current for commercial 18650 Li-ion batteries and found that much higher currents than the manufacturers’ maximum could be applied.