U.S.Approves New Electric Vehicle Charging Station Standards

The U.S.
President's Administration has released a new set of standards that will make it easier for the country to meet its goal of installing half a million charging stations by 2030.
The document includes guidelines for states on contracting to install charging stations - instructing contractors to provide the most user-friendly infrastructure available to a wide range of consumers.
It also describes projects that won't qualify for federal subsidies - particularly proprietary stations that only fit cars from one manufacturer.Image source: Mikes Photography / pixabay.comThe White House previously announced its intention to spend $5 billion to create a network of charging stations, the so-called \"alternative fuel corridors,\" on 265,155 miles of the National Highway System, which covers 49 states and the D.C.
metropolitan area.
States have until Aug.
1 to apply for the program, and the Federal Highway Administration will approve those that qualify by Sept.
30.
At the same time by the end of fiscal 2022, $612 million will be allocated for the program.The issue is relevant to the U.S.: the country has 41 thousand charging stations with 100 thousand charging spots, but the owners of electric cars have to work hard to find a working at the moment or not located in the closed territory.
The program will allow the White House to ensure that as the network expands, the problem will become irrelevant.The standards call for stations every 80 kilometers along major federal highways and no further than 1.6 kilometers from them.
States will need to ensure that charging infrastructure is built not only in densely populated areas, but also in rural areas and in Indian communities.
Station operators will be required to provide customers with up-to-date information and notify them of occupied or faulty locations.
A minimum of four 150 kW DC ports must be installed at each site.Participants in the federal program are also prohibited from requiring any subscriptions from drivers for charging access.
Of the range of connectors, the most popular with automakers should be installed.
Tesla and Rivian, with proprietary standards, are building the infrastructure for their customers themselves, although this practice could also be affected by the authorities in the long run.
U.S.
Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg said the initiative aims to develop a single charging port for electric vehicles and provide facilities with adapters for all makes of cars.

UK carmakers will find it difficult to rely on local production of batteries for electric vehicles

Spurred by new global environmental initiatives, the migration to electric vehicles poses serious challenges to carmakers in different countries, which cannot always be answered with standard solutions.
The UK, due to its geographical isolation and historical tradition in car production, will be painful and slow to migrate to local production of traction batteries.Image source: Bentley MotorsThe specifics of traction battery production, which are quite bulky and heavy in finished form, and quite dangerous to transport, force car manufacturers to actively move towards localization of lithium battery production in the vicinity of the car assembly plant.
In the case of Great Britain, this process is exacerbated by the need to refuse imports of batteries of Asian origin for economic reasons in some perspective.Experts predict that the British car industry will need at least six large plants for the production of traction batteries for electric cars if the current volume of vehicle production is maintained.
In order to produce about 3 million cars a year, the United Kingdom must locate on its territory by 2035 companies capable of producing traction batteries with a combined capacity of 175 GWh per year.
By the end of this decade, this figure should reach 56.9 GWh, but local companies are still very far from this level.
Nissan's Sunderland site produces batteries with a cumulative capacity of no more than 1.9 GWh per year.
In cooperation with China's Envision AESC, the Japanese automaker expects to build another plant to produce batteries with a total capacity of 9 GWh per year with the prospect of expanding to 25 GWh per year.
Britishvolt intends to localize the production of 38 GWh per year.
This is considerably less than the figures set by other countries in the region.
British automakers sell the bulk of their products in continental Europe, so from 2027 it will be difficult for them to supply this market with electric cars based on batteries that are not manufactured in Europe or Great Britain.
However, the supply of finished batteries from the UK to European car assembly plants will also not be particularly profitable, so British automakers find themselves in a difficult situation.A similar situation arises in the case of European-made batteries being exported to the UK.
Only manufacturers of expensive electric cars like Bentley, which relies on supplies of Northvolt batteries from Sweden, will be able to justify such logistics.
Representatives of the company even told Reuters that the problem of the British car industry is the diversity of the model range of cars.
Each type of electric car requires batteries of its own size, and it is not possible to localize their production in the country while maintaining profitability.
Bentley believes that it would be more reasonable to unify the sizes of its batteries following the example of French brands to produce universal power sources for electric cars in Great Britain.The second native British carmaker, Jaguar Land Rover, now owned by Indian investors, has not yet decided on a source of traction batteries, but claims that they will be supplied from India as well.
BMW is going to supply British-built Mini electric cars with batteries sourced from Germany by the end of the decade.
British carmakers provide about 170,000 jobs in the country, and if the industry fails to meet the challenges of electric migration, they could be lost.

Samsung SDI and Stellantis will build a facility in Indiana to produce traction batteries

While LG Energy Solution and SK On already have facilities in the US and are building new ones, Samsung SDI will launch its first North American site only in the first half of 2025, when it and Stellantis will build a traction battery manufacturing facility in Indiana.
The project budget will range from $2.5 to $3.1 billion.Image source: Samsung SDIIn the first phase, as explained by Bloomberg, the joint venture between Samsung SDI (51%) and Stellantis NV (49%) will be able to produce battery cells with a combined capacity of 23 GW‧h annually, but later production capacity can be increased to 33 or even 40 GW‧h per year.
The plant will employ about 1,400 people, and the location is convenient for Stellantis because transmissions and internal combustion engines for the company's cars are already manufactured nearby, and cars are assembled nearby in Ohio and Illinois.
Obviously, as Stellantis transitions to electric cars - by 2030 Stellantis expects to convert at least half of its U.S.
sales to electric power - employees will migrate from traditional to new facilities, but their rights are closely guarded by the union.
The Indiana government is ready to provide its partners with at least $186.5 million in subsidies and Kokomo municipality and other local structures will provide additional support.Stellantis itself intends to launch at least five large enterprises in Europe and North America by 2030 that could eventually produce traction batteries with a combined capacity of 400 GWh per year.
By the end of the decade, the automobile concern intends to sell 5 million electric cars per year worldwide.
By then, the entire European range of passenger cars will be converted to electric power.
In March, Stellantis reached an agreement with LG Energy Solution to build a facility to produce traction batteries in Canada.
The competitor Samsung SDI has facilities in China, South Korea and Hungary, and the Indiana plant will be its first in the United States.