Understanding lithium demand, page-260

Ahh, But are they,

Power tool-ready ?

“Pickup truck will have power outlets allowing use of heavy duty 240V, high power tools in field all day. No generator needed,”

Maybe they might consider a conversion job like this Landcruiser or Hilux in future if they can't part with their beloved F150's,

Electric Landcruiser converted for Australian mining industry goes viral

When a photo of a converted electric Landcruiser posted by NSW-based auto electrical group GB Auto to Facebook went viral last week, it was the last thing anybody expected.

The mining industry is a heavy user of diesel vehicles and machinery, so the potential for electric vehicles to assist the industry transition to cleaner technology has been recognised by a number of industry-related companies – but GB Auto didn’t realise it could spark so much interest.

The post has attracted more than 800 shares and more than 1,200 comments, and reached in excess of 340,000 people – not bad for a humble Landcruiser that has had its guts ripped out and replaced with a battery.

GB Auto GM Bill Dunlop sat down with The Driven to explain how the NSW auto electrical group got involved with Landcruiser conversions, and where it is going from here.

By virtue of its work with the mining industry, the NSW group has secured an exclusive deal with Netherlands-based Tembo to help develop and distribute the Dutch company’s converted Landcruiser and Hilux vehicles locally.

Landcruisers, which are hands down the most commonly used vehicles in the mining industry thanks to hardy architecture, present a great deal of potential for the industry, where exposure to particulate pollution from diesel vehicles and machinery is of great concern for workers.

As electric conversions, they offer an easy transition for mining companies from a fleet perspective, says Dunlop.

Speaking with The Driven, Dunlop explains that the fact that the industry already has access to untold numbers of spare parts and dead vehicles lead GB Auto to cut the exclusive deal with Tembo to trial converted Landcruisers in the Australian mining environment.

​

“The interest comes from the existing fleet, it’s an easy transition from a fleet point of view and availability of spare parts – that’s a big part of it,” says Dunlop.

Additionally, there is the thought that the converted vehicles are easier to integrate into existing fleets due to familiarity.

“All the guys are learning is that its a converted vehicle, there’s no all new driver training,” says Dunlop.

But the desire to move away from diesel is also key.

“It’s not necessarily about climate change – of course that is relevant but the primary driver in the mining industry is around emissions and health,” says Dunlop.

“For the guys that are working underground and driving underground, to be able to provide a zero emission option has been a big winner.”

With two vehicles shipped in from the Netherlands currently being prepared for on-site deployment and another vehicle – that has been bought and stripped locally – GB Auto has set up an offshoot, GB Electric Vehicles, that will in time undertake conversion for the industry here in Australia.

While the standard configurations on Tembo’s website include two options – a 28kWh battery with about 80km of range or a 56kWh battery with about 160km range, these can be adjusted by GB Auto according to site requirements, says Dunlop.

“Configuration is pretty much on a customer basis – it really becomes a balance between range, charge time, weight and power, essentially.”

The third, locally bought vehicle, is the turning point for GB Auto, which has been working with Tembo for the past 12 months.

“The vehicle that is currently in the Netherlands, that is an Australian specced vehicle,” says Dunlop.

“We took the existing driveline out and shipped it to the Netherlands because there’s actually a lot of difference between 6 cylinder and 8 cylinder left hand drive and right hand drive markets underneath in terms of chassis strength and 5 star rating and so on,” he says.

With the batteries placed both in the front and the back, the weight distribution does not differ from the combustion version of the vehicle.

​

GB Auto, which has 30 years experience in auto electrics, has also played a key role in converting the Landcruisers for the RHD drive.

“There’s a lot of wiring that needs to change in terms of the electric drive system, including electric components including air con – all that has to change over,” he says. “That adds a whole other layer to the program.”

Will electric Landcruisers take hold in Australia? Dunlop thinks so.

“Obviously there’s going to be a transition – that transition has to happen, it’s already under way and there are trials overseas,” says Dunlop.

Next week, GB Auto will deploy its current two vehicles for on-site trials, and in a few more weeks will receive the third vehicle for deployment.


Daimler prepares Oregon factory to start electric truck manufacture in 2021

Daimler Trucks North America (DTNA) said Wednesday that it will convert its Portland, Oregon, factory so that it can begin making its all-electric trucks there from 2021.

The plan to convert the Portland factory, where the truckmaker already makes its Freightliner trucks, is the next step for the company whose CEO Roger Nielsen told attendees at an expo in Long Beach last month that,

“The road to emissions-free transportation is going to be driven with battery-electric vehicles. I believe the future is electric.”

DTNA says the conversion of the factory will include setting it up to run on 100% renewable energy from the very start of production of its battery electric Freightliners, as well as sustainable ” zero waste to landfill protocols”.

​

The decision to use the Portland factory as its key all-electric truck production facility is, according to Oregon Live, because of its proximity to California, which has a large truck market and due to the fact of its strict air quality regulations is a growing market for zero and low emissions vehicles.

In addition to converting the Portland plant for electric truckmaking, DTNA says it will also incorporate a battery storage facility and develop a program with which to assist customers transition fleets to all-electric trucks.

As reported by The Driven last month, Daimler is the supplier of 52% of trucks in North America, accounting for around 750,000 vehicles in total.

It has big plans for long haul transport in North America, having also advertised to fill a position for a senior engineer to assist with the development of a massive 3MW high-powered charging system for trucks, and according to Oregon Live, DTNA will hire an additional 200 staff, largely at its Portland facility, to develop self-driving trucks.

Last year, DTNA unveiled two all-electric trucks in June made by its subsidiary Freightliner, the eCascadia and the Freightliner eM2.

​

In addition to making all-electric trucks in Portland, DTNA says it will also assemble Proterra-powered Thomas Built electric school buses in North Carolina.


Electric Mini Cooper proves massive towing power by pulling Boeing cargo plane

Claims that electric cars cannot tow have yet again been blown out of the water, this time by the diminutive all-electric Mini Cooper which has been teased in a video by automaker BMW towing a Boeing 777F cargo plane.

Diminutive in size, perhaps – but not in torque and sheer capacity to prove electric vehicles have plenty of oomph and grunt.

Due to be released on to the auto market later in 2019, the Mini Cooper SE shares its electric powertrain with parent company BMW’s i3, delivering a decent 270Nm of torque.

​

The disparity in size is nothing to be concerned about – in the video, which was filmed in collaboration with German airline Lufthansa, the Mini Cooper SE (which is based on its combustion equivalent, the Cooper S) reverses up to the front of the Boeing and easily pulls the cargo plane a short distance.

While it’s not the first time a full-size aircraft has been towed by an electric car (in May 2018 Australia’s Qantas published a video of a Tesla Model X 100D pulling a Boeing 787-9 Dreamliner), it is a good show of the abilities of electric cars can deliver with the instant torque afforded by electric drivetrains.

For the record, the Mini Cooper SE has less than half that of the Model X 100D, which delivers 660Nm torque.

Yes, granted, pulling aircraft of this size (the Boeing 777F has an unladen weight of 150 metric tons) will significantly reduce driving range – but then again most people are not going to be towing a cargo plane.

However, given the Coalition’s penchant for insisting that EVs will “ruin the weekend”, we would like to mention again that time Australian tech entrepreneur Simon Hackett used his electric car to pull – you guessed it – his Pipistrel electric plane.

​

It also seems from this video that Mini is readying itself for an official launch of the Mini Cooper SE – just last week another all-electric Cooper SE was captured driving around the streets of LA for a photoshoot.




Why there may be more than 1 billion electric flying taxi flights by 2030


Don’t look now, but in a decade the skies above our head in big cities might be getting busy – with air-borne commuters. According to some predictions, there could be more than one billion electric air taxi flights completed across the world by 2030, in an industry predicted to be worth more than $2 trillion.

The potential 1 billion electric air taxi flights by 2030 is predicted by Boston Consulting Group, which points to increased traffic congestion that will force electric transport off the ground and into the skies.

Air taxis – such as Lilium’s all-electric 5-seater praised by Tesla CEO and founder Elon Musk last week – are set to start testing in locations such as Dubai, Los Angeles and Singapore next year, and may be operating in other major cities within 4 years.

However, they face major challenges in obtaining regulatory approvals, as well as the infrastructure and sensors to ensure they fly safely in a low altitude environment. Some major companies are already climbing on board.

“The first flying taxis are set to take off in major cities starting in 2023, at the latest.

Bosch plans to play a leading role in shaping this future market,” said Harald Kröger, president of the Bosch Automotive Electronics division in a statement issued by the company.

The potential for the air taxi market, according to financial services firm Morgan Stanley, could reach up to 1.35 trillion euros ($A2.2 trillion) by 2040, and Bosch believes the potential for its sensors is significant.

https://thedriven.io/


Porsche Taycan

Available: Q3, 2020

Porsche's production version of its Mission E concept, the Porsche Taycan is a high-performance luxury all-electric sportscar with 405km real world range, a top speed of 250km/hr and the ability to recharge in 15 minutes using ultra fast 350kWh chargers. It is expected to arrive in Australia by mid-2020.

Final testing of all-electric Taycan: “It drives like a true Porsche”

“Before the Taycan is launched on the market at the end of the year, we will have covered approximately six million kilometres across the globe,” says Weckbach. “We are already very happy with the current status of the vehicles.”

In an in-house interview last August, he said:

“The Taycan drives like a Porsche, looks like a Porsche, and feels like a Porsche,” Weckbach said.

“It just happens to have a different type of drive. Even an electric sports car can be puristic and highly emotional. We don’t consider that a contradiction.

With its advanced 800-volt charging system that can allow ultra fast charging at 350kW, the vehicle can add 100km to its driving range in as little as 4 minutes.

Porsche has definitely put the electric sportscar through its paces – out of its 6 million total kilometres, 2 million of these have been during endurance runs.

When it is released on the market in September 2019, there are already 20,000 buyers who have expressed serious interest in the vehicle, the carmaker says.

Expected to arrive on the Australian market in mid-2020, it is the production version of the Mission-E which was on show at Sydney’s Barangaroo in October last year.

With the carmaker reporting that over 20,000 people have pre-ordered its first full electric vehicle, the Taycan will come equipped with an 800-volt system that will charge at rates of 350 kW – making recharging its battery a task that will take as little as 4 minutes to add an extra 100km range.

The interest has been so great that Porsche have already doubled initial production from 20,000 to 40,000.

Stefan Weckbach, head of battery electric vehicles at Porsche, says the emphasis in creating the Taycan has been on ensuring it is not set apart from its ICE counterparts by virtue of its electric powertrain.

​

“As the first fully electrical Porsche, the Taycan has to show that it is a fully-fledged member of the Porsche brand,” he says. “Of course, this is a great challenge – and a huge expectation, both internally and externally.”'



Now Compare the Pair, I know which one i'm Buying with my 'Manono Money'




GLTAH

Cheers

Frank

p.s. - No it's Not the Panda, Hopefully