Battery Metals

A battery-powered train is thought to have broken a UK record during a test journey. Great Western Railway (GWR) has been trialling its FastCharge battery, which it hopes will eventually eliminate the need to use diesel. On 14 February, a test train travelled 86 miles on battery power alone without charging, through Gloucestershire, Warwickshire and Worcestershire. […]

Caterpillar Oil & Gas announced the launch of the Cat Hybrid Energy Storage Solution to help drillers and operators cut fuel consumption, lower total cost of ownership (TCO) and reduce environmental impact in today’s oil and gas operations. The custom-designed battery storage system stores excess power from the job site and then discharges it as […]

When you fire a laser at a solid-state battery, it turns out the particles inside aren’t tossed into chaos. This has surprised a team of US and UK researchers. The team has found “persistence of memory” in the ions (charged atoms) that help move electricity around a solid-state battery. The discovery improves understanding of solid-state […]

Electric vehicle (EV) range anxiety could soon be a thing of the past thanks to a breakthrough in battery technology, which could give EVs a range of more than 620 miles (1,000 kilometers). Today’s EVs have a maximum range of 300 miles (480 km) on average. Even the longest-range electric car, the Lucid Air, runs […]

Low lithium prices are “unsustainable” and will have to rise in order to trigger the supply investments needed to meet long-term demand growth, according to Albemarle Corp., the world’s biggest producer. Lithium suppliers around the world are reining in spending and, in some cases, production after demand for the key component in electric-vehicle batteries slowed […]

Cordless tools have been making strides over the past few years, as batteries become more advanced, smaller, and lighter. Lithium ion batteries have been slowly increasing their capacity and run time while shrinking in size and weight. But there’s a new material on the market for cordless tools: graphene, a lightweight material that has changed […]

One of the interesting technological changes from the late 1980s to the present day is how much more we collectively interact with batteries. The first solid-state batteries, developed in the 1800s, were a scientific curiosity: the handiwork of one Michael Faraday. Thirty years ago, you needed C-size batteries for flashlights, AAs for a Walkman or […]

Chinese automakers and battery giants, including BYD, CATL, and NIO, are teaming up to form an “all-star” lineup aimed at developing all solid-state EV batteries. In a move that could revolutionize the EV market, China’s leading auto and battery manufacturers are forming an alliance to commercialize all solid-state batteries. According to Nikkei Asia, the China […]

A battery energy storage complex that could provide the energy needs of 300,000 homes concurrently is being proposed 22 miles to the southwest of Manteca. The 400 megawatt storage facility would tie into PG&E’s Tesla substation near the Alameda-San Joaquin county line. As such, one day it could store electricity needed to help power homes […]

Industrial metals are all trading below levels seen this time last year and while nickel’s rout has been grabbing headlines, copper’s bad start to the year after a disappointing 2023 points to broader weakness. China consumes more than half the world’s metals and an even greater proportion of iron ore and battery raw materials – […]