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For Greg Glatzmaier, the road between innovation and implementation runs along a dusty stretch of highway about a dozen miles south of Boulder City, Nevada, where his patented idea could solve an industry problem. The destination for his idea is Nevada Solar One, an outpost in the desert where 186,000 parabolic shaped mirrors tilt to capture the sun’s rays.

Greg Glatzmaier tests the high-temperature thermal/mechanical stability of sealants that are being used in equipment installed at the Nevada Solar One power plant. The process reduces trace levels of hydrogen in the power plant and maintains its original design efficiency and power production. Photo by Dennis Schroeder, NREL

“When the plant first opened, there was nothing around it but open desert with mountains to the west and east,” said Glatzmaier, a senior engineer in the Thermal Energy Science and Technologies group at the National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL). “The only other landscape feature is a dry lakebed north of the plant.”

Since Nevada Solar One began operations in the summer of 2007, other utility-scale solar power plants have opened in that lakebed. Nevada Solar One is the only concentrating solar power (CSP) plant in the region, however, and the technology faces a unique set of challenges.

The CSP facility uses concentrated beams of sunlight to heat a fluid flowing through 20,000 tubes to as high as 752 degrees Fahrenheit. The process creates steam to spin a turbine that powers a generator and produces electricity. Over time, however, the heat transfer fluid begins to break down and form hydrogen, which reduces the effectiveness of the process. Tiny metal pellets in the tubes absorb the hydrogen, but after about seven years they become saturated and cannot be removed and replaced. Glatzmaier developed a method to address the hydrogen problem.

“To try to go in individually and address the situation for each tube is not really practical,” Glatzmaier said. “So, the method that I’ve developed, and what’s in that patent, and what this project has been all about, is to reduce and control the level of hydrogen that’s in the heat transfer fluid.”

NREL applied for a patent on Glatzmaier’s invention in the fall of 2017. The U.S. Patent and Trademark Office last May granted patent protection to what is simply called “Hydrogen sensing and separation.”

Laboratory Filed 188 Patent Applications

Glatzmaier’s patent was merely one of the 40 U.S. patents issued to NREL during fiscal 2020, a bump from the 32 issued during the prior fiscal year. Of the 269 disclosures filed with the laboratory’s Technology Transfer Office as the first step toward either patent or copyright protection, 153 fell in the category of a record of invention and 116 in the area of software.

“We continue to see strong engagement from researchers who submit their ideas for evaluation, with especially strong growth in software,” said Anne Miller, director of NREL’s Technology Transfer Office. “It’s great to see such growth because it tells us that the outreach to the lab to get people to report their innovations and work with us in getting them protected and deployed means that it’s working, that people know who to contact. Hopefully, it means that they have some confidence in our ability to be helpful and steer them in the right direction.”

Anne Miller, director of NREL’s Technology Transfer Office, speaks to laboratory employees at a 2019 event. Photo by Werner Slocum, NREL.

NREL filed 188 patent applications in FY20, up from 124 the year before.

Lance Wheeler, a research scientist at NREL, has about a dozen patent applications in the pipeline tied to the discovery several years ago of a way to turn windows into solar cells. The technology relies on perovskite solar cells that enable the glass to darken and generate electricity, and also switch back to a clear pane. The most recent patent approved, for “Energy-harvesting chromogenic devices,” was granted in November, or almost four years after the provisional application was filed.

“It’s much different than writing a paper because you can write a paper and get it published within months,” said Wheeler, who shares credit on the patent with colleagues Joey Luther, Jeffrey Christians, and Joe Berry. “You’ll never get a patent awarded in months. It’s usually at least a year, and three is not crazy.”

Buildings across the United States account for nearly two-thirds of energy used, so the notion of using these “smart windows” to take advantage of sunlight could bring that energy consumption down.

The patents issued so far for Wheeler’s dynamic photovoltaic windows cover foundational aspects of the technology and sprang from the initial research. A series of patent applications followed.

“When you write the first patent application, you don’t know everything,” Wheeler said. “As you learn more and especially for very particular market needs, or what a product might look like, you learn what’s important and you continue to protect the things that are working. Then you make more discoveries, and you patent more things, but they’re all aligned in the same area.”

Perovskite Composition Earns Patent Protection

Alignment, as it turns out, is a key part of making perovskites most effective in capturing the sun’s energy. Unlike widely used silicon, which is a naturally occurring mineral, perovskites used in solar cells are grown through chemistry. The crystalline structure of perovskites has proven exceptionally efficient at converting sunlight to electricity.

NREL researchers have explored possible combinations for perovskite formulas to find the best. That work resulted in a patent issued in April 2020 for “Oriented perovskite crystals and methods for making the same.” The process begins with a small crystal that’s attached to another crystal and then another and on and on. The crystals are also oriented in the same direction. Kai Zhu, a senior scientist and one of the inventors, uses bricklaying as an analogy.

“You lay one layer down, you put one next to another, you align them perfectly,” he said. “You have to do this in order to build a very large wall. But if you have some randomness in it, your wall will collapse.”

The patent, which covers the composition of the perovskite, was issued to Zhu, Berry, and Donghoe Kim of NREL and to a scientist in Japan. NREL filed the patent application in 2017. Compared to a perovskite solar cell made of crystals allowed to grow randomly instead of in a specific orientation, the NREL-developed composition has been proven to have fewer defects and able to move charge carriers quickly. The result is a perovskite solar cell capable of reaching the highest efficiency.

“This represents the current best performing perovskite composition for the single-junction solar cell,” Zhu said.

Software Filings Reach New Record

NREL’s Technology Transfer Office received 116 software record (SWR) disclosures in fiscal 2020, establishing a new record and marking a big increase from 72 the prior year. The growth in submittals is partly due to more software being developed and authorized for free open-source release. One software record approved for closed-source licensing last year and now available for commercial users is the Electric Vehicle Infrastructure Projection tool, or EVI-Pro. A simplified, open-source version, known as EVI-Pro Lite, also has been released.

The core of EVI-Pro allows users to forecast the demand for electric vehicle charging infrastructure in a particular area. The predictive nature of the software also enables users to determine in advance how an influx of electric vehicles might affect the grid and energy demand. EVI-Pro relies on real-world information.

Eric Wood, the NREL researcher who oversaw the development of EVI-Pro, said it is not enough to simply consider how many charging stations were installed in an area previously and make an educated guess based on that information.

“That misses some key points,” he said. “The vehicle technology is evolving. The charging technology is evolving. And the behavior of individuals that own these vehicles is evolving.”

Early adopters of electric vehicles could charge them at home, in their garage. As the market expands, Wood said, people living in apartments or who have to park on the street need to have a place to plug in.

“The role of public charging infrastructure is going to continue to elevate as the market grows,” he said. “Continuing to develop the software with an eye on reflecting the latest situation in the market is one of the challenges that we face, so keeping EVI-Pro relevant and current is important.”

From the Laboratory to the Outside World

For Glatzmaier, the journey to see how well his invention could perform at isolating and removing hydrogen from the concentrating solar power plant was not a quick one. Grounded from flying because of the pandemic, last year he made four trips to the Nevada site by car. Each trip took about 13 hours one way.

Scientists typically keep close to their laboratory space, with companies able to license ideas that sprang from the inventive minds at NREL. Often, with license in hand, a company will conduct research using its own people. In Glatzmaier’s case, Nevada Solar One signed cooperative research and development agreements that have kept the scientist and company working closely together since 2015.

Glatzmaier initially planned to address the hydrogen buildup using two processes: one to measure the amount of the gas, and a second to extract it. Laboratory-scale tests showed his ideas would work, but he still expected some hesitation from company executives when it came time to trying out the devices on a much larger scale.

“I was thinking, they’re going to be very reluctant because companies tend to not want to make changes to their power plants once they are up and running,” he said. So he proposed installing the mechanism to only measure hydrogen buildup. Instead, the company wanted him to move ahead and tackle both problems at once. From the initial idea to installation has been a long road, but it does not end in Nevada.

Glatzmaier said 80 concentrating solar power plants exist around the world, and talks are in their final stages to license the technology for its use in these plants.

Learn more about licensing NREL-developed technologies.

—Wayne Hicks

Article courtesy of the NREL, The U.S. Department of Energy.


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Tesla (TSLA) delivery estimates are all over the place

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Tesla (TSLA) delivery estimates are all over the place

Tesla (TSLA) is about to finish its quarter, and it is a confusing one for Wall Street. Delivery estimates are all over the place.

We reported earlier this month on Tesla analysts falling over themselves to downgrade their delivery estimates for the quarter.

Tesla has been growing deliveries at a roughly 50% rate per year until last year, when it started to slow down. Unlike other companies, Tesla doesn’t give clear guidelines, and therefore, analysts are left to try to figure out themselves with the available data.

Over the last few weeks, there’s one thing that analysts do agree on when it comes to Tesla: deliveries are going down.

In comparison, Tesla had record deliveries of 484,507 vehicles last quarter for a 20% year-over-year growth rate, and it delivered 422,875 in Q1 2023.

For Q1 2024, delivery estimates on Wall Street have been consistently reduced over the last few weeks.

Yesterday, Wedbush was the latest firm to update its estimate to 425,000 deliveries – down from 475,000. But the numbers are all over the place. Electrek has found estimates between 420,000 and 480,000 deliveries during the quarter.

Troy Teslike, one of the analysts with the most data-driven estimates, has been consistently downgrading his estimates as more data has been coming in. He is now down to an estimate of 420,000 deliveries:

The overall Wall Street consensus has come down quite a bit since this report, and it is now closer to 458,500 deliveries. However, as you can see, some suspect that it could be way lower.

Tesla is expected to release its Q1 2024 delivery and production numbers early next week.

Electrek’s Take

I think anything below 450,000 would be pretty bad for Tesla, but 420,000 would be awful. It would not only be way down from last quarter but even down year-over-year after an entire year of Tesla adding production capacity.

It’s also Cybertruck’s first full quarter of deliveries, but we shouldn’t expect it to contribute significantly.

420,000 would likely mean Tesla inventory growing, which would be difficult for Tesla’s financial results at the end of next month.

Now, Tesla does have a few excuses, especially the arson attack on Gigafactory Berlin, but at this point, I think it’s clear that demand is the problem.

I wouldn’t be surprised if Tesla ends up using the excuse of Elon’s request to perform FSD Beta test drives before each delivery, which is undoubtedly going to increase the delivery workload at the end of the quarter.

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Ford drastically cuts workforce at F-150 Lightning EV plant amid ‘much slower’ demand

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Ford drastically cuts workforce at F-150 Lightning EV plant amid 'much slower' demand

Starting April 1, one-third of the workforce will remain on-site at Ford’s Rouge EV plant in Michigan. Ford is drastically cutting its workforce at the facility where the F-150 Lightning is built, with demand “much slower” than expected.

Ford cutting F-150 Lightning workforce

Ford initially announced the reduction in January, citing “slower than expected” demand. Although Ford’s Lightning was the best-selling electric pickup last year, topping Rivian’s R1T, the EV truck faces new competition in a challenging market.

According to Ford spokeswoman Jessica Enoch, one-third of the 2,100 workers will remain at the plant starting April 1, 2024.

Enoch told The Detroit Free Press that 700 workers will be transferred to its Michigan Assembly plant to help build the Bronco and Ranger. Meanwhile, the remaining 700 can either take the $50,000 retirement package from the 2023 contract negotiations, or be reassigned to is Michigan Assembly plant.

Ford’s workforce reduction at the F-150 Lightning plant will not include job losses. Instead, workers are being reassigned or offered retirement.

In January, Spokesperson Martin Gunsberg told Electrek that the facility had been running with three crews working two shifts. Starting next week, it will go down to one crew working one shift.

Ford-cutting-Lightning
Ford F-150 Lightning production (Source: Ford)

“Their intentions were to build 180,000-plus units. Right now, we’re looking at 55,000 units they’re gonna build,” according to Todd Dunn, president of UAW Local 862.

The move comes after Ford said it would ramp up Lightning production just a year ago. However, the automaker has been rotating shifts at the facility since October.

Enoch said new vehicles have been held for quality review since early February. Shipments are expected to begin in April.

Ford introduced significant incentives on the 2023 F-150 Lightning to make room for new models. The 2023 Lightning Lariat, XLT, and Pro trims are eligible for a $7,500 retail credit.


2024 Ford F-150 Lightning trim
Price Range
(EPA-est miles)
Pro $54,995 240
XLT $64,995 240
Flash $73,495 320
Lariat $79,495 320
Platinum $84,995 300
Platinum Black $92,995 300
2024 Ford F-150 Lightning price and range by trim

Ford also made several adjustments to 2024MY Lightning prices. The base Pro trim, starts at $54,995 with 240 miles range. The lineup also gained a “Flash” trim in 2024 with a tech-focused interior, Ford’s Tow Tech package, and up to 320 miles range. It starts at $73,495.

Ford-affordable-EV-pickup
2024 Ford F-150 Flash (Source: Ford)

Electrek’s Take

The workforce reduction comes as Ford shifts plans from larger EVs to smaller, more affordable ones.

CEO Jim Farley revealed Ford was developing a low-cost EV platform. Led by Alan Clarke, a top engineer for Tesla’s Model Y and 3, Farley said it has “some of the best EV engineers in the world” developing the platform.

Ford’s CFO, John Lawler, reiterated these plans at the BofA Auto Summit Tuesday. Lawler said, “The game will not be fought and won with larger vehicles.” Smaller, more affordable ones will win in the long run.

The new EV platform will have multiple “top hats,” enabling new electric SUVs, trucks, sedans, and vans.

According to Bloomberg Businessweek, a smaller, cheaper electric pickup and SUV will be the first to launch on the platform. The first model is expected to be available in 2026, with starting prices around $25,000.

Lawler said the ultimate competition will be low-cost EVs from China, like BYD, and Tesla, which is planning a $25,000 EV of its own.

Ford’s CFO said Ford is matching capacity with demand. He added “demand is much slower than the industry expected.”

Meanwhile, Ford faces stiff competition in both the electric pickup and mid-size electric SUV market. New electric pickups like the Tesla Cybertruck and Chevy Silverado EV are rolling out while Rivian continues building R1T capacity.

Ford’s Mustang Mach-E is among the most popular EV segments, along with Tesla’s Model Y, the Hyundai IONIQ 5, the Volkswagen ID.4, and the Kia EV6. New electric SUVs like the Honda Prologue and Acura ZDX are joining the market.

Have you been eyeing Ford’s all-electric models? Now may be the perfect time to start shopping with significant savings. You can use our links below to find great deals on Ford’s EVs at a dealer near you.

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XPeng (XPEV) launches two EVs in Germany with plans to enter more EU nations later this year

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XPeng (XPEV) launches two EVs in Germany with plans to enter more EU nations later this year

Chinese EV automaker XPeng Motors is making good on its vow to enter new European markets this year, beginning with Germany. Beginning today, two all-electric XPeng models are available to German customers as the automaker targets an ambitious market share in a land home to several huge names in legacy OEMs and shows no signs of slowing down in its expansion through Europe.

Following a relatively quick rise to fame in its native China in a few short years, XPeng Motors ($XPEV) set its sights on global expansion in hopes of becoming a global EV brand. Part of that globalization process began in Europe, particularly in Norway with its P7 sedan, commencing deliveries in the summer of 2021.

As an encore, XPeng also shared plans to send its G9 SUV overseas. We got to drive the P7 and the G9 during two separate trips to the Netherlands, another EU territory XPeng has entered.

That 2022 market entry was part of multiple retail agreements in new markets in addition to Norway and the NL, including Sweden and Denmark. During IAA Mobility held in Germany last fall, XPeng vice chairman and president Brian Gu shared some insight about where the Chinese automaker will go next, citing three additional European markets.

One of those new markets included Germany, and beginning today, the two XPeng EVs mentioned above are available to those local consumers.

XPeng Germany
The G9 SUV, now available in Germany / Source: XPeng Motors / Weibo

XPeng G9 and P7 EVs now available in Germany

Per its Weibo page, XPeng Motors has officially launched its first two BEVs in Germany – acknowledged by the Chinese automaker as “the world’s most competitive automotive market.” By entering Germany to compete against the likes of BMW, Mercedes-Benz, Audi, and Volkswagen, XPeng hopes to make an impact in the market.

Per the post, it is targeting a 3% market share in Germany by the end of 2024. The G9 SUV launches in three trims: A rear-wheel drive standard range model for 57,600 euros ($62,300), a rear-wheel drive long-range version for 61,600 euros ($66,600), and an AWD drive long-range trim starting at 69,600 euros ($75,275).

The XPeng P7 sedan, which recently saw a 2023 refresh, also launches in Germany in three separate trims: A rear-wheel drive long-range EV for 49,600 euros ($53,650), an AWD drive performance version for 58,600 euros ($63,350), and the AWD Wing Edition, starting at 69,600 euros ($75,275).

In addition to a beautiful launch video showcasing the G9 around the Alps, XPeng’s recent Weibo post reiterated its following plans for Europe. Beyond Germany, XPeng said it will soon begin selling its EVs in France, Italy, and the UK. Per previous comments from Brian Gu, XPeng’s G6 SUV will specifically debut in the UK as the automaker’s first right-side driving EV to compete with the Tesla Model Y.

XPeng’s continued expansions through Europe are part of a larger strategy to launch approximately 30 new and refreshed EV models by 2027. That’s a tall order.

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