Volkswagen Transformation Boosts Spending On Electric Vehicles
The title of this post, is the same as that of this article in The Times.
This is the first paragraph.
Volkswagen plans to increase its spending for battery-powered electric vehicles by about 50 per cent to €52 billion by 2026 as part of the carmaker’s far-reaching transformation.
That is a lot of euros.
This is a statement from their Chief Executive; Herbert Diess
We are becoming a battery manufacturer, a charging infrastructure manager, software is playing a more dominant role . . . We are developing new business activities with an unbelievable dimension for us.
Vehicle manufacturers must either change or die.
MAN And Highview Power Sign World-First LAES Project Contract
The title of this post, is the same as that of this article on gasworld.
This first paragraph fills out the title and explains the acronyms.
A contract has been signed between the two companies for MAN Energy Solutions (MAN) to provide Highview Power’s (Highview) CRYOBattery facility with its liquid-air energy-storage (LAES) turbomachinery solution.
This contract may apply to only the 50MW/250MWh system at Carrington, near Manchester, but if this system is successful, as Highview have sold nearly a dozen systems worldwide and MAN most certainly has a worldwide support network, it is probably not a small deal for a company like MAN.
Last night, I had a drink with a friend who is the Operations Director for one of London’s largest bus companies. His company is looking seriously at batteries to ease charging of electric buses.
As MAN Energy Solutions are part of the Volkswagen Group could MAN’s interest in Highview’s technology be partly driven by Volkswagen’s need to provide a charging solution for all of the fleets of battery buses, cars, trucks and vans, that they hope to sell in the next few years.
It must surely help in the selling of thousands of electric vans to a company like Amazon, if you can sell them a charging solution, that includes a large eco-friendly battery, that can be fitted into the average site.
The Anonymous Widower 