"Voltage, nominal 31.2 V" What am I missing? Is this really a 12 volt battery and that's just a typo?

Herman, the cabin heater in the Leaf (at least the early model I am renting) is quite inefficient. The Think City EV originally came with a similar bottle heater and conventional heater core with antifreeze, but a recall upgraded that to a direct heater element (positive temperature coefficient) which is insanely fast and hot while using much less power. Of course a heat pump is the real deal, and I have heard that many newer EV models are using a heat pump. Toyota even had a heat pump in the old Rav4 back in 1999 or so, if I can believe what I am told. But you are right, winter is a big hit to EV range unless you wear long wool underwear and keep a hot water bottle in your lap.

I am not aware of anyone left in the on-road space with this technology except possibly Parker-Hannifin. Perhaps it will succeeded in the off-road market. The safety issues in case of a high speed crash is maybe less of a concern in off-road? I am curious why it has not caught on. It seems roughly equivalent to a super-capacitor based electric hybrid.

My Think City EV weighs 1.066 metric tonnes. But when it is power by nuclear fusion via PV solar panels, what difference does it make?

This is old news, no? Euro VI performs much better, particularly in urban driving cycles compared to Euro V and earlier. And what is the difference between a Euro III engine with SCR and DPF added, and a Euro VI engine? Not much. Same as US10 after treatment, which happened in North America long before Euro VI when into effect in Europe. US10 NOx limits are still more strict than Euro VI.

OK, so this is really about improving superCAPACITORS, despite the headline which mentions superCONDUCTORS? That makes more sense, but you might want to fix the headline.

Patrick, several US standards such as SAE J2847, J2931, etc. fully specify communication between the vehicle and the grid. The mobile phone network is not the only option for the communications medium. These US standards are coordinated with the European IEC standards on a regular basis, the same way SAE J1772 is fully compatible and interchangeable with IEC 62196 Type 2. I do not see any mention of reverse power flow in this article. Apparently this demonstration is only about so called "down regulation", so there is no issue with increased wear on your battery here, only increased time to a full charge. But the driver is in full control of whether they want to participate, the only trade off being cost to charge. Reverse power flow is coming, giving the driver the opportunity for far greater savings (if not the occasional opportunity to actually get paid to charge) at the risk of slightly increased battery wear. But I don't see them talking about that here. There are significant issues to overcome in the regulatory area before mobile reverse power flow will be allowed to interconnect widely.

I remember many years ago watching the television industry fretting over how long it took to roll out high definition and flat screens. It took far longer than anyone imagined, and the view was that maybe no one cared about better picture quality. Well it came and it got cheap and who even remembers a CRT anymore? OK, plasma screens are dying, other technologies never made it, LCDs just kept getting better. What difference does it make if the 18650 cells end up being the long term solution the way LCDs ended up? I think 18650 is improbable, but who cares? Electrification is coming. One way or another. I know my wife will never drive another gas car, it is like smoking cigarettes. No thanks. Can't afford it. On many levels.

I don't think that is the biggest solar car port going in at an automotive facility, but it is impressive.

BYD is certainly interesting to watch but it must be an extremely heavy bus, are they selling well in hilly locations? Or only where it is flat? Lithium iron phosphate? I am not sure that is forefront anymore but it does have some advantages. Not specific energy nor volumetric density perhaps. But some things are easier.

And the most daunting trade-off is serviceability, that would be my guess. What happens if you need to replace a cell and there are no screws? Didn't poor battery serviceability give the BAE hybrids with early lithium batteries a bad reputation? Still, it sounds good if the reliability is high. Very good indeed.

OK, worst joke ever, but I can't resist: "Who would have thought you could get high like this on tobacco?" Seriously, how do these yields compare to classical biodiesel crops?

Biocides have been often needed in 100% petroleum diesel for a long time if I recall, you can buy the stuff at WalMart. Biocides have been around in hydraulic fluid for many decades, even metal working fluids have the stuff. Why is this a surprise that biocides might be needed in gas storage tanks too? Even with a biocide added, E85 is probably still far less toxic to you the customer than 100% gasoline. Are pipes more important than you are?

1.2 MJ is about a third of a kWh, less than a standard Prius battery's energy but much higher power. Full power for ten seconds by my calculations, and 120 kW is 161 horsepower. 5.5 wH/kg is more than an order of magnitude below battery standards, but this is a power solution, not an energy solution. Still compares poorly to super capacitors. 2 kW per kg is nearly an order of magnitude better than batteries, but still not good compared to super capacitors. Durability might be an interesting comparison. So far I don't see the value proposition.

750 VDC is very important for heavy EVs (class 8 in the US) and I expect it will go much higher when the technology can support it in a cost effective way. There are many other projects using silicon carbide semiconductors though, this is far from unique. Nice that someone is bothering to publicize it for once.

And what voltage does the starter (and presumably the air conditioning) operate at?

I do not usually see such misleading and ambiguous headlines here. To anyone in the heavy diesel industry, that headline suggests that Scania figured out how to meet Euro VI particulate emission limits without a DPF. Oh, they just dumped the EGR? Presumably they still retain the DPF? Back to Euro V technology for NOx there, but how do they manage to meet NOx limits in urban drive cycles? Euro V was notoriously worse than Euro IV in urban drive cycles due to lack of EGR as I understand it.

0.12% fade per cycle is "very low"? As in 74% capacity loss after 100 cycles?

This sounds like it is aimed at the Euro V engine fleet, where it was recently discovered that urban drive cycles produced more NOx than the older Euro IV engines. As I understand it this problem was solved in Euro VI engines (the same way it was prevented from ever happening in the US) by a combination of EGR which works well enough in urban drive cycles and urea based SCR which works very well in highway driving. SCR works so well on the highway that it actually improves fuel economy significantly. So this is a retrofit attempt. Ugh.

Production volumes in amp hours is meaningless. How about kWh please? Or perhaps giga-joules, since no one can keep kW and kWh straight? Does the name "Sinopoly" imply they produce lithium polymer batteries?

Yes, the AC Propulsion drive train produced 150 kW peak, continuous was less than half of course. But I never felt a need for more power with that thing.

Selective Catalytic Reduction was added by most on-road truck OEMs selling in North America in 2010, yielding a significant fuel economy improvement and reduced (or eliminated) regeneration of the particulate filter. However, EGR was not abandoned as it was in Euro V, there is a mix of SCR (with urea injection to generate ammonia) and EGR in US10 spec diesel engines. This gives much lower emissions in stop and go driving than the SCR only solution of Euro V, which was actually worse than Euro IV in most urban drive cycles for NOx emissions. (Euro VI fixes this, and is very similar to US10 regulations.) Today, all North American diesel trucks use SCR, as International gave up on its Massive-EGR strategy, which had problems with heat rejection and never did meet US10 targets for NOx. Some agricultural diesels use higher urea injection rates than on-road trucks and get even more dramatic fuel economy improvements, which is a good trade-off since urea is cheaper than diesel. But regulations still require the urea tank to last twice the distance as the diesel tank, even though urea (called DEF in the US) is now ubiquitous. Perhaps this will change soon, and give another bump in MPG.

I work with CARB regulations often and from the industrial side. I find CARB to not only be reasonable, but also largely a benefit to industry. All the players know we need to advance our game, and CARB plays the role of an arbitrator. Industry proposes new goals, making clear what is and is not feasible as the technology progresses, and then CARB boils all the comments down and makes a level playing field in form of regulations. Everyone in the automotive field has benefited from the OBD regulations as they get customers back on the road faster after repairs. It is indisputable that cars are more reliable than they used to be, and a large part of this is OBD. And the exhaust after-treatment systems (EATS) allow engines to operate over a much wider range of conditions, because the EATS gets the exhaust back into a very narrow range. Some people complain at being forced to clean up their act, others rejoice at the results. Industry in the US can be very proud of the progress we have made over the recent decades. If you want a look at what life would be like without CARB, travel to a major city in China and breathe deeply.

A thermal fuse is cheaper than a sensor and interface, but it does pose a mission stop risk. Better than burning down the house but not as good as just slowing down the charge rate. Then again, you really should use a hard wired EVSE at home, and save the plug-in NEMA 14-50 for travel. I keep telling myself that but I still plug into an outlet... Back to Tesla, doing something fast is priceless. No one but Tesla would respond this fast, that's my guess.

"more than 99% storage capacity retention per cycle". If that means 99.5%, then after 100 cycles you have lost 40% of the capacity? It is not clear what degrades, hopefully the fluid, not the rest of the system?