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Many people expect electric vehicles to be fixtures in a future world that relies on renewable energy. But not many EV companies started out as renewable energy companies.

One company trying to pull off that feat is Bangkok-based Energy Absolute. The biodiesel producer and renewable energy company branched into the commercial EV business in 2019.

In March of this year, Thailand set a goal of 1 million electric vehicles on its roads by 2025 — and it hopes that figure will grow to 15 million a decade later. That would include not just private automobiles but commercial vehicles — delivery vans, trucks, buses and the like.

A former securities trader, Somphote Ahunai, started Energy Absolute in 2006. He took the company public in Thailand in 2013 and began expanding into energy storage in 2016, when the company acquired shares in Taiwan-based Amita Technologies, an energy storage manufacturer. It’s now in the final stages of building a $3 billion battery gigafactory project to make lithium-ion batteries.

Ahunai told CNBC’s “Managing Asia” that the government’s efforts to promote EV adoption in Thailand have helped him to start the project, and now he says he’s urging the government “to open up the market and create a favorable policy for the EV market.”

However, the pandemic has affected the company’s foray into EVs. An order for 3,500 five-seater hatchbacks was canceled by a local taxi company as tourism dried up. Ahunai made a quick pivot to focus on commercial vehicles and battery storage instead.

“Many manufacturers, they are focusing on the passenger car. Not many people are focusing on the commercial vehicle yet, because they cannot overcome how to make the vehicle charge faster and make the battery last longer,” Ahunai said.

Ahunai’s plan is to install 1,000 charging stations nationwide in the next few years.

A charging sign sits at an Energy Absolute Anywhere charging station in Bangkok, Thailand, 2019.
Nicolas Axelrod | Bloomberg | Getty Images

“We have rolled out almost 500 charging stations nationwide, mainly in Bangkok and vicinity,” Ahunai said, adding that the company holds almost 80% market share for charging stations in Thailand.

His focus on commercial vehicles is in line with Thailand’s policy to put some 70,000 commercial electric vehicles on the road annually.

“If we successfully secure [the commercial electric vehicle] segment … then we create economies of scale for us to go into the other segments,” such as passenger cars, Ahunai said.

Japanese, American and German automakers all have manufactured vehicles in Thailand, but despite the country’s auto-making expertise, it doesn’t have an internationally recognized vehicle brand of its own. Ahunai said he believes EVs could change that. He wants Energy Absolute to be front and center on that effort.

“We believe that by using [our] technology and Thailand’s [auto-making] infrastructure, we can use that to be the springboard to the global market,” Ahunai said. “At least, we can go into the ASEAN market, which has almost 600 million population. So, that is a good market for us at the beginning, to start with.”

Right now, the bulk of the company’s revenue still comes from renewable energy such as wind and solar, but Ahunai said his foray into commercial EVs will be an important source of future revenue.

“If you look at what we are investing [in] now,” he said, “it will totally change the revenue structure of the company in a few years’ time.”

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Tesla is forced to remove 64 Superchargers on NJ Turnpike, Musk claims ‘corruption’

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Tesla is forced to remove 64 Superchargers on NJ Turnpike, Musk claims 'corruption'

Tesla is being forced to remove 64 Superchargers at stations along the New Jersey Turnpike as the local authorities have decided to go with another provider.

Elon Musk claimed corruption without any evidence.

The New Jersey Turnpike is a system of controlled-access toll roads that consists of a 100-mile section of important New Jersey highways. 

In 2020, Tesla signed an agreement with the New Jersey Turnpike Authority (NJTA)and built 64 Supercharger stalls at 8 stations along the turnpike.

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The agreement has now expired, and instead of renewing it, the authority decided to give an exclusive agreement to Applegreen, which already operates in all service areas on the turnpike.

Tesla issued a statement saying that it is disappointed with the situation, but that it has prepared for this by building new stations off the turnpike for the last few years:

The New Jersey Turnpike Authority (“NJTA”) has chosen a sole third-party charging provider to serve the New Jersey Turnpike and is not allowing us to co-locate. As a result, NJTA requested 64 existing Supercharger stalls on the New Jersey Turnpike to not be renewed and be decommissioned. We have been preparing for 3 years for this potential outcome by building 116 stalls off the New Jersey Turnpike, ensuring no interruption for our customers. The map below outlines the existing replacement Superchargers, and Trip Planner will adjust automatically.

Tesla CEO Elon Musk went a step further and called it “corruption” without any evidence.

The automaker’s agreement with NJTA expired, and they decided to go with a sole provider. Applegreen will reportedly deploy chargers at all 21 turnpike service stops.

Here are Tesla’s replacement Superchargers off the turnpike:

Electrek’s Take

I don’t like the decision from the Turnpike authorities. More chargers are better than fewer chargers. However, I also don’t like Musk calling everything he doesn’t like fraud or corruption.

While I agree with Tesla that it is unreasonable to force them to remove the stations, it appears to be an oversight on Tesla’s part not to have included stipulations in their agreement to prevent such a scenario from happening in the first place.

Who signs a deal to deploy millions of dollars worth of charging equipment with only the right to operate them there for 5 years?

It looks like Tesla knew this was coming since it specifically built several new Supercharger stations off the turnpike to prepare for this.

On the other hand, I don’t like the Turnpike Authority using the term “universal charger” as if this is a positive for Applegreen. They are going to use CCS, and everyone is moving to NACS in North America.

Yes, for a while, only Tesla owners will have to use adapters, but that will soon change and the current NACS Supercharger will be even more useful.

At the end of the day, the stations are already there. Let them operate them.

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E-quipment highlight: ZQUIP heavy equipment battery swap demo [video]

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E-quipment highlight: ZQUIP heavy equipment battery swap demo [video]

ZQUIP is working hard to bring more smart, efficient, modular power solutions to commercial job sites everywhere – and at the core of their vision for the future is battery-swap technology. You can see just how easy it is make that happen here.

MOOG Construction’s energy skunkworks ZQUIP made headlines last year by bringing the cordless power tool battery model to the world of industrial-grade heavy equipment.

“The 700V ZQUIP Energy Modules are at the core of this innovation, said Chris LaFleur, managing director for QUIP. “ZQUIP modules are interchangeable across any machine we convert regardless of size, type, or manufacturer, and will enable a level of serviceability, runtime, and value that is far greater than current battery solutions.”

At this year’s bauma equipment show in Munich, Germany, however, ZQUIP followed up that headline by making it even easier for job sites to make every kilowatt count by enabling them to switch from diesel power, to electric, and back again, on the same machine, on the job site.

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Why you want that


ZQUIP Adds Diesel Option to All-Electric Construction Vehicle Conversions
ZQUIP generator prototype on Caterpillar excavator; via ZQUIP.

Most machines on most sites sit idle most of the time, but converting all those machines to battery electric power means that megawatts of battery capacity are being wasted. By utilizing swappable batteries, job sites can do what technicians and contractors have been doing for years with power tools: quickly get the energy they need to the tool they need when they need it, without the need to have a dedicated battery for every tool.

If you need to be able to run the machine non-stop and don’t have a reliable way to recharge your batteries quickly enough, a 140 kW diesel generator is built into a package the same size and shape as the batteries. In fact, if you look closely at the CASE excavator below (on the right), the “battery” on the right is, in fact, a diesel Energy Module.

The demo video, below, shows a pair of CASE-based electric excavators – one wheeled, one tracked – operating on ZQUIP’s Energy Modules. It takes less than two minutes to remove one battery, and presumably about the same time to swap another one in, for a 5 (ish) minute swap.

Even if you call it ten, by eliminating the need to get the entire machine up and out for charging (or for service, if there’s an issue with the battery/controllers), the ZQUIP battery swap construction equipment solution seems like a good one.

ZQUIP HDEV battery swap


SOURCE | IMAGES: ZQUIP.


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Trump administration is convinced massive Alaska energy project will find investors despite steep cost

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Trump administration is convinced massive Alaska energy project will find investors despite steep cost

Energy Sec. Wright on Alaska LNG project: Financing is straight forward if you have customers

The Trump administration is confident that a massive liquified natural gas project in Alaska will find investors despite its enormous cost.

President Donald Trump has pushed Alaska LNG as a national priority since taking office. Alaska has already spent years trying to build an 800-mile pipeline from the North Slope above the Arctic Circle south to the Cook Inlet, where the gas would be cooled and shipped to U.S. allies in Asia.

But Alaska LNG has never gotten off the ground due to a stratospheric price tag of more than $40 billion. Trump has pushed Japan and South Korea in particular to invest in the project, threatening them with higher tariffs if they don’t offer trade deals that suit him.

“If you get the commercial offtakers for the gas, financing is pretty straightforward,” Energy Secretary Chris Wright told CNBC’s Brian Sullivan in Prudhoe Bay, Alaska. “There [are] countries around the world looking to shrink their trade deficit with the United States, and of course, a very easy way to do that is to buy more American energy,” Wright said.

Energy analysts, however, are skeptical of the project. Alaska LNG “doesn’t have a clear cut commercial logic,” Alex Munton, director of global gas and LNG research at Rapidan Energy, told CNBC in April.

“If it did, it would have had a lot more support than it has thus far, and this project has been on the planning board for literally decades,” Munton said.

Defense Department support

Wright said the project would be built in stages and initially serve domestic demand in Alaska, which faces declining natural gas supplies in the Cook Inlet. Interior Secretary Doug Burgum said the Department of Defense is ready to support the project with its resources.

“They’re ready to sign on to take an offtake agreement from this pipeline to get gas to our super strategic, important bases across Alaska,” Burgum said of the Pentagon in a CNBC interview at Prudhoe Bay.

Interior Sec. Burgum on Alaska LNG pipeline: Permits virtually all in line, issued and ready to go

Alaska LNG, if completed, would deliver U.S. natural gas to Japan in about eight days, compared to about 24 days for U.S. Gulf Coast exports that pass through the congested Panama Canal, Burgum said. It would also avoid contested waters in the South China Sea that LNG exports from the Middle East pass through, the interior secretary said.

Wright said potential Asian investors have questions about the timeline and logistics of Alaska LNG. The pipeline could start delivering LNG to southern Alaska in 2028 or 2029, with exports to Asia beginning sometime in the early 2030s, Wright said.

Glenfarne Group, the project’s lead developer, told CNBC in April that a final investment decision is expected in the next six to 12 months on the leg of a proposed pipeline that runs from the North Slope to Anchorage. Glenfarne is a privately-held developer, owner and operator of energy infrastructure based in New York City and Houston.

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