This type of mild hybrid is a load of BS and nothing more. A disc-motor-generator mounted at the end of the crankshaft would function as a motor-starter and would generate power to charge the battery in recuperation mode; a further mode would be start / stop function. Such a solution would be truly beneficial and acceptable and eliminates the fuddling mechanics of belt drives screaming for maintenance. Do they employ engineers at VW or just super managing idiots with the capabilities of Winterkorn??

It is more than pleasing to see another competitor emerging on the market. It would also be pleasing to know if the price of this new offering is more than competitive of existing MFRCs. My wall-box is capable of 22 kw but the limiting charging factor of my e-golf is the factory OBC with 7.4 kw. I'm eager to reduce the charging time - for a reasonable price - to ca. 30% of what it is presently. Competition is always welcome.

Or trains, street-cars, busses, airplanes, and ships / boats,

It seems as though Austria has found a practical solution to reducing winter-time pollution. They are mandating that all new homes / buildings etc. are prohibited to install oil heating systems. Oil heaters that need to be replaced in older homes must be substituted by respective alternatives. These may be gas heaters, heat pumps and other sustainable sources. Anyway, it's a start in the right direction.

What do you expect of current times when there are enough fools and idiots about that ignore overwhelming evidence of reality and insist that the earth is a flat disc and not a sphere? So it's not really surprising that the top fool has enough disciples that support his completely irrelevant and abstruse convictions.

@ Davemart: 1" = 2.54 cm, Your 10 feet questioned = 120" or 120" x 2.54 cm = 304.8 cm. 1 meter = 100 cm. Hence, your 10 feet are just a wee bit more than 3 meters and not the stated 1.8 meters.

"..... whether the propulsion energy is generated from fossil or regenerative sources." They certainly meant renewables and not regenerative sources. Also, I think it is a bit illusionary to make such overall comparisons as previous commentators have done. In the big cities (locally) you have a concentration of emissions from ICEs that everyone suffers from regardless how high or how low they are; this certainly is not the case of EVs. In a global sense, this doesn't matter because they sum up to influence climate in a negative aspect. In the future, total emissions of EVs will constantly improve due to improved manufacturing processes of cells / batteries and an ever increasing portion of renewables on the entire production of electric power.

I would think that it is a step forward for both. Rivian has a better expertise on technical EV-evolution than Ford. Ford has mass production facilities at their disposal which Rivian does not have. Together, they can complement one another which is a gain for both.

".....or whenever BEVs become competitive with ICEVs." That depends entirely at which level you place competitiveness. The e-Golf I drive is sufficient for all my commute distances with a max. range of approx. 160 miles.

When the EEG-law (renewable energie law) was introduced in Germany back in 2000, the CEOs of the four big power utilities scoffed and joked about this effort. After two years had passed their faces started to mirror slight concerns; after further three years had elapsed they all panicked and visited Mrs. Merkel and begged her to intervene on their behaviour. They were losing market shares at a discerning and ever increasing rate and their financial resources dipped accordingly. Mrs. Merkel has always been - and still is - an intimate friend of big business (power utilities, car MFRCs, big oil etc.). Currently, renewables make up approx. 42% of the power production in Germany. Her good friends are being subsidized (directly and indirectly) with ca. €14 billion p/A. Nowhere in Europe is electricity as expensive as in Germany; this is the result of legislative activities passed by Mrs. Merkels government to protect her friends. This is also the reason why Germany is constantly failing to meet their emissions commitment as negotiated in Paris. If Mrs. Merkel would have had enough sense and had invested all those billions in a proper infrastructure in support of renewables, then Germany would have never had a problem of fulfilling their Paris-commitments. This whole sad story is not the result of lacking technical solutions or possibilities but is a result of failing political will and foresight.

The assertion of the article does not consider the fact that a smaller battery will have to be charged more often than a larger battery when commuting a constant distance. Due to the higher charge rate, the smaller battery will age more quickly than a lager one. The statement that 75 mi. of range is sufficient does not take the cycle aspect into account.

I harbor the faint suspicion that EMBATT is implementing the chemistry discovered by INNOLITH. This is the only MFCR that I know of that has a pilot project running with cells that do just fine without cobalt and use a unconventional electrolyte. IOW, the new battery expected to emerge on the market in2020 is based on the architecture implemented from Fraunhofer and on the chemistry from INNOLITH. As stated, a suspicion. https://insideevs.com/innolith-says-that-is-on-the-trail-of-1000-wh-kg-battery-energy-density/ INNOLITH is engaged in R&D only and EMBATT in manufacturing.

The higher the complexity of an engine rises, the higher the possibility of engine failure rises. The increase of failure increases maintenance and repair (MTBF); that's excellent for business. An EV decreases complexity and subsequently lowers the possibility of failure and maintenance and repair; that's bad for business. Mechanical complexity is the credo for MFRCs; simplicity is the credo for users and the environment.

Daimler is a part of a joint venture called EMBATT. Members of this joint venture are Fraunhofer, Daimler, Thyssen-Krupp and IAV. Embatt will enter mass production in 2020. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l_glx79wJyE

Almost fifty years too late. This vehicle should have been introduced to the market after the worldwide oil crisis in 1973 and 1975. However, it doesn't effect me as I'm mobile with electrons.

The company where I was employed - until my retirement - built a tank-farm management system for Saudi-ARAMCO. The flow of fuel from the manifold area of the refinery to the tanks constantly changed in the course of a day. Additionally, the tanks were constantly visited by tank trucks withdrawing fuel from the tanks. The fuel flow from the manifold to the tanks changed from normal gasoline to diesel and to super etc. etc. and to the respective tanks. The purpose of this system was to monitor the activities filling and withdrawing so that at a glance it could be determined how much fuel and respective type went into and out of the tanks and what was the remaining balance at the end of the day. It seems that the system functioned so well, that it was just a matter of time until it was transferred to gasoline stations. The traffic at the gas stations was monitored and relayed to a central monitoring point and gathered. Was the traffic high, then the price went up accordingly; was traffic low, the price dropped in the same manner. Apparently, this system was adopted world wide resulting in price changes within seconds. The monitoring computer can be fed with the respective software parameters within which the price changes occur. A clever method to squeeze profits to an absolute maximum and a good example of ample misuse deviating from the original intention.

And here is a further innovation for industrial application. ECOP rotational heat pump: https://www.google.de/search?source=hp&ei=aByrXJ7SBrSEwPAPo8aBuAo&q=ecop+rotation+heat+pump&oq=ecop+heat+pump+&gs_l=psy-ab.1.1.0i22i30l2.1882.9318..16344...0.0..0.82.900.15......0....1..gws-wiz.....0..0i131j0j0i10j0i19j0i22i30i19j0i22i10i30i19j0i22i10i30.rBvhuf7WWpE

@ mahonj: https://ecourbanhub.com/artificial-muscles-power-saarland-air-conditioners/ "The efficiency of the novel technology is unquestionable. It can produce as much as thirty times more cooling or heating power than the mechanical energy it takes to load the wires."

Who TH is Rick Perry? Oh, another Trump-fart.

@ mahonj: I don't share your opinion at this point. I'm convinced that a heat pump does that job very fine. Use a heat pump in the winter for heating and reverse the function during summertime to cool. There are astonishing "heat pump" innovations in the pipeline due to penetrate the market in short time with double the efficiency of current heat pumps. Why keep on messing with fossils?

I'm so sorry to disappoint you Harvey but EMBATT will be entering the mass market in 2020 with a battery better than that.

I had no idea that there were 6,500 fools on the road propagating more than 6,500 fool cells.

New aircraft carriers use an electric booster to get the planes aloft. I assume that installation of such boosters are easier to implement on an airfield than on a carrier. Most energy is needed for take-off; cruising needs far less energy than take-off. And during landing, recuperation lowers the energy consumption even more than either take-off or cruising.

I'm well aware of the fact that coulombic (CE)- and energy efficiency (EE) is not the same. The charge efficiency of electron transfer within cells / batteries is meant with CE and is the ratio of the total output extracted from a cell / battery to the total input charge covering a complete cycle. Under normal operating conditions LIBs achieve a CE over 99%. Energy efficiency is entirely dependent on a moderate charge and discharge rate. High charge and discharge rates (multiples of the recommended C-rate) will result in a rather lousy energy efficiency. It was not my intention - and still is so - not to write a book in this comment section. Evidently you cannot or refuse to read between the written lines and interpret everything as is to your liking.

@ EP: LIBs are charged in a 3 or 4 step procedure. The more steps the higher the time consumption for a complete charge. The first steps occur in constant current mode; the final step at constant voltage (4.25V). This charging mode is employed in almost all charging modi. If you were charging a single cell only you can charge completely at constant voltage mode without encountering enormous heat losses. A complete battery with cells switched in parallel and series circuitry and charged in constant voltage mode would encounter tremendous heat losses but not in a step by step charging procedure. The nominal cell voltage is given at 3.6V; peak voltage at 4.25V.