Planned roll-outs of fast chargers have highlighted the main issues and challenges for their design and development. Nick Flaherty reports.

Over the past five years, the number of fast chargers available worldwide has increased tenfold, and over the next five the aim is to have one fast charging station available for every 100 electric...

EV users who need to prioritise safety and running costs should look to onboard chargers. Rory Jackson examines the engineering and technology inside them.

The viability of electric and plug-in hybrid vehicles depends on how quickly, efficiently and safely their battery packs can be recharged. At the moment, the charging times are...

Rory Jackson details the development of this combined all-electric truck and refuse collection system.

When the owners of the Lion Electric Company first set their eyes on engineering specialised commercial vehicles for niche users who have distinct operational and cost requirements, they spent an initial five years on planning and r&d for their...

The latest trend in radial flux motor design is to boost power density while reducing cost. Nick Flaherty explains how it’s being done.

The radial flux motor is the workhorse of e-mobility. The basic structure of a static rotor (stator) driving a moving rotor in a radial magnetic field is used in different form factors and power ranges for all kinds of...

Peter Donaldson relates the development of this tractor’s powertrain, which is designed to operate in confined spaces.

When Dynium Robot decided to rethink the tractor to work in the confined spaces of orchards and polytunnels, the off-road robotics specialist turned to racecar engineering company Performance Projects to design the vehicle from...

Kuhn Schweiz in Germany has developed an electrified mining truck that does not need external charging; instead it powers its batteries using captured energy (writes Nick Flaherty).

The company took a 111 tonne mining truck from Komatsu and replaced the diesel engine with a...

While lithium-ion battery chemistries continue to improve rapidly, a number of rival technologies and their developers are tantalising the EV industry with promises of much higher energy densities, but always with a caveat or two in other critical areas (writes Peter Donaldson).

Some of these technologies represent improved...

The accurate analysis of inverter waveforms without interference from switching noise is a key part of evaluating the motor drive circuit, driving the need for a class of test equipment called a ScopeCorder (writes Nick Flaherty).

Between 16 and 18% of the total power in an electric car is consumed as losses in the...

Nick Flaherty explains the issues involved in developing inverters for different types of vehicle.

The design of an inverter for an electric vehicle depends very much on the application. Full electric, hybrid, commercial bus and...

Williams Advanced Engineering has developed a battery pack that combines different types of batteries to balance out the needs of peak and sustained power (writes Nick Flaherty).

The first version of the Adaptive MultiChem design combines lithium-ion nickel, manganese, cobalt (NMC) pouch cells to provide...