Researchers explore next-gen twin batteries that could solve concerning problem with EVs: 'A promising approach'
IAV, a firm focused on the future of mobility, has developed a twin-battery design that pairs two different but complementary chemistries to reduce the cost and environmental impact of manufacturing EV batteries, engineering.com reported.
Instead of relying on lithium-ion cells, the design combines sodium-ion (SIB) and lithium iron phosphate solid-state (LFP-SSB) batteries. SIBs are low-cost and easier to recycle, while LFP-SSBs offer long cycle life and strong energy density.
The system reuses waste heat from one battery to optimize the performance of the other.
Combining the two types creates an energy-saving system that could boost range and efficiency without the high costs of cooling, heating, or mining for lithium-ion batteries, according to engineering.com.
IAV also designed and developed the new battery with minimal waste. Using COMSOL Multiphysics, IAV engineers were able to tweak parameters and simulate the batteries' real-world thermal, chemical, and mechanical behavior.
This validated the effectiveness and efficiency of the battery system without the need for multiple prototypes, per engineering.com, which sped up development while slashing costs and resource waste.
Jakob Hilgert, a technical consultant at IAV, considers the use of diverse cell chemistries "a promising approach to respond to market fluctuations and at the same time minimize system costs," per engineering.com.
IAV is also exploring other innovations, like the use of bipolar technology to maximize volume utilization of lithium-ion batteries.
There are also other companies pursuing similar breakthroughs. For instance, Watt Electric Vehicle Company is developing a solar-powered closed-loop production system. Other automakers are also investing in research and development for better EV chargers and infrastructure.
If you were going to purchase an EV, which of these factors would be most important to you?
Cost
Battery range
Power and speed
The way it looks
Click your choice to see results and speak your mind.
Energy solutions like these can make EVs more affordable. They could help drive EV adoption, going far beyond the 17.3 million electric cars produced in 2024 alone.
For drivers looking to save even more, pairing an EV with home solar can drastically reduce charging costs. Platforms like EnergySage make it easy to compare quotes from vetted vendors, and can help you save up to $10,000 while minimizing environmental impact.
While there's no firm rollout date yet, IAV's approach could contribute to a smarter, cleaner, and more accessible EV future.
Join our free newsletter for weekly updates on the latest innovations improving our lives and shaping our future, and don't miss this cool list of easy ways to help yourself while helping the planet.
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Motor Trend
7 minutes ago
- Motor Trend
Future and Past Collide—Confusingly, Excitingly—at the World's Best Car Meet
Uncertainty is everywhere in the automotive industry. On-again off-again tariffs, flat sales, the looming threat of Chinese automakers, and yes, electrification all present hurdles. Uncertainty on the latter—frequently conflated with automotive technological progress by enthusiasts—was top of mind for me at the 2025 Goodwood Festival of Speed. A ride-along over the weekend with Travis Pastrana in a 2025 Subaru WRX ARA24 and with Max McCrae in his uncle Colin's 1990 Subaru Legacy RS at the festival's Forest Rally Stage and watching the Festival's signature timed shootout has me thinking a bit differently about the march of progress. The 2025 Goodwood Festival of Speed showcased automotive progress with Chinese EVs, rallying with Travis Pastrana in a Subaru WRX, and debates on electrification's impact. The event also highlighted new car debuts and significant Chinese automaker presence, reflecting industry shifts. This summary was generated by AI using content from this MotorTrend article Read Next Pastrana, to most Americans, needs little introduction. Some know him for his Hall of Fame motocross career, a fearless freestyle motocross X Games champ, stuntman from Nitro Circus, or as a NASCAR racer. But rallying and rallycross, now that he's retired from competitive motocross due to a frightfully long list of injuries (including, as he was quick to point out, a broken urethra), has long seemed to be his second love. Pastrana recently rejoined Subaru Motorsports USA where he's competing in the American Rally Association. At Goodwood, he took me for a ride in Subaru's Open 4WD WRX ARA24 car. These cars are heavily modified from stock WRXs, featuring restricted 2.0-liter turbocharged flat-4s good for 320 hp and 380 lb-ft of torque, running through a six-speed sequential transmission and mechanical differential to all four wheels. At each corner the stock suspension is swapped for new springs and dampers with a foot of travel and 15-inch wheels on gravel rally tires. Short of the hybridized million-dollar tube frame rally cars now running in the World Rally Championship, the open class WRX ARA car is about as bleeding edge as you can get in the rally world. The WRX ARA's runs—and those of the Toyota and Hyundai WRC teams— wouldn't be officially counted on the Forest Rally Stage, but the fact that the festival was posting times was enough to bring out the full competitor in Pastrana and the rest of the Subaru team as they sought to post the fastest time in one of their laps. Slower and wider than the Rally1 WRC cars (not to mention cheaper, too), the WRX ARA24 would have its work cut out for it. Our run was, in a word, quick. I have no idea of the time of our particular run, but Pastrana and the team would go on to post the second-quickest time on the course of the weekend at 2.33.2, just a couple seconds behind a Toyota GR Yaris Rally1 (which the Subaru team was quick to point out cut the Gymkhana barrel out of its unofficial run). The car felt phenomenally fun from the passenger seat, seemingly reacting instantaneously to Pastrana's steering, braking, and throttle inputs, while the rally suspension soaked up the ruts, berms, and jumps on the course as softly as a dune runner might. Watching an elite athlete such as Pastrana work up close was equally fascinating, as he wielded the WRX like Shohei Ohtani does a baseball bat, or Connor McDavid does a hockey stick—using their tools' strengths to improve their individual performances and knowing when they might need to make up for any weaknesses in their equipment. While not yet quite as accomplished as his father Alister, grandfather Jimmy, or uncle Colin, Max McCrae has already set out to make a name of his own in the WRC's Group Rally2, where he runs a Citroen C3 Rally2. He was at Goodwood, however, helping honor the legacy of his uncle. That's where the Legacy RS comes in. In many ways both Colin McCrae's and Subaru's rally journeys began with this car, which was piloted to a second place finish in the 1992 Rally Sweden by Colin. Subaru would soon replace the Legacy with the Impreza, marking a direct lineage to Pastrana's WRX. On paper, it should prove a match for the modern ARA car. Simpler, and lighter than its modern descendant, it's powered by a 2.0-liter turbocharged flat-4 with 290 hp and 289 lb-ft of torque. But some of its other mechanicals are simpler, both in terms of how they operate and how they're manufactured. The Legacy lacks a modern anti-lag system and puts its power down through a five-speed dogbox manual transmission. Its all-wheel drive system also features permanently locked differentials that make low speed maneuvering difficult, and a hydraulic handbrake without the responsiveness of a modern unit. Despite the, uh, legacy of this particular Legacy, McCrae didn't take it easy on the car during our ride along with him. To be honest, I didn't get the sense that he could if he wanted to maximize its performance because nothing seemed to happen instantly or easily in the Legacy RS. On straights McCrae needed to manage the body's balance as the car skipped down the stage, gearshifts in a shift pattern the motorsports world has long moved past, and brakes without the feel or stopping power of their modern counterparts. In corners, McCrae had to balance the hydraulic hand brake, diffs, and also keep the engine in the sweet spot of its powerband where he could minimize lag. McCrae had to work twice as hard to get every last bit of performance out of that Legacy, which leaves less room for the driver to actually focus on driving and maximizing their own performance. Progress rears its head again during the Festival of Speed's headlining timed shoot out on Sunday afternoon, where competitors vie to post the quickest time up the 1.16-mile, nine-turn hillclimb. Last year the Subaru Project Midnight WRX, a highly modified WRX ARA rally car, built, like the rally car by Subaru Motorsports USA technical partner Vermont Sports Cars, with 670 hp designed to dominate on this single event and driven by Scott Speed came in second to a quad-motor electric Ford Supervan. This year, the team, facing a 2,000-plus horsepower quad-motor Ford F-150 Lightning Supertruck, expected the same results despite some changes based on Speed's feedback from last year. As Vermont Sports Cars technical director Yannis Loison told us, 'With [an] internal combustion engine only we'll never reach what [Ford has] with the EV. If we really want to compete against them, to try to beat them, we need a combo with [an] internal combustion engine and something electric.' Unfortunately for the Subaru Motorsports USA team, Loison proved prophetic. Despite improving by 1.04 seconds to 45.03 versus last year, the Ford truck still beat the souped-up Subaru, finishing in 43.22 seconds. And that's through no fault of Speed. Like Pastrana earlier in the WRX ARA car, in-car footage of Speed showed him methodically wringing every last ounce of performance out of Project Midnight, shaving grass on corners where he could, and narrowly skirting the unforgiving walls near the top of the climb on the unforgiving course. But the Supertruck, driven by Romain Dumas, made up for any disadvantage it might have in its weight with power, simply eliminating any straight in a blink while still somehow managing to carry high speeds through corners. In a lot of ways what the driving loving public and motorsports is going through in trying to figure out how much—if at all—to embrace electrification mimics what other sports have gone through as technology progressed. Professional baseball, when faced with introducing home run–friendly aluminum or composite bats, opted to preserve the tradition of wood bats instead. That makes it much more difficult for pros to hit home runs, and as an indirect result the league has tweaked the game's rules to improve offense. Professional hockey, meanwhile, allowed the introduction of aluminum and eventually composite sticks in the '90s. 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We asked one driver, an older gentleman driving an Omoda 5 compact PHEV SUV, about his perception of Chinese EVs. He responded, 'That's the question, isn't it? My friends and I have been talking a lot about that, and we've come to the conclusion that they're perfectly alright.' According to the BBC, one in 10 new cars sold in the UK thus far this year are Chinese. MG and Polestar represent the bulk of those sales.
Forbes
8 minutes ago
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Baglietto Unveils New Superyacht Concept
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CNET
9 minutes ago
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Your OnePlus 13 Will Get a Dedicated AI 'Mind Space' in Update Rolling Out Now
It's a non-negotiable right now that every phone-maker out there must have a plan for integrating AI into its devices. OnePlus is a little late to the party, but it's arrived nonetheless. Back in May, the company announced plans for bringing its own vision of personalized AI to OnePlus phones, and from this week, it's rolling out to the OnePlus 13 and 13R. At a launch event in London earlier this year I not only got to see the first AI features to land on OnePlus phones in action, but also learn about what the company's future plans are for bringing more complex and sophisticated AI features to its phones down the road. With all Android phone-makers increasingly making use of best-in-class Qualcomm chips and relying on Google's Gemini AI, having a strong AI strategy is one way they can set themselves apart from rivals. I was impressed with how far OnePlus seems to be thinking ahead and not rushing into going ham on AI. 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Plus Mind will debut with the upcoming launch of the OnePlus 13S, a phone designed specifically for the Asian market, which comes with a dedicated AI button (the "Plus Key," as OnePlus is calling it) on the side of the phone. That means for those of us in the US and Europe, we'll have to wait a little longer to enjoy OnePlus' vision for AI ourselves. It will eventually be rolling out to the OnePlus 13 as an over-the-air update later this year, although the company is yet to confirm exactly when. The Plus Key on the OnePlus 13S. Katie Collins/CNET Plus Mind and Mind Space: My first impressions On the OnePlus 13, which shipped before the addition of the Plus Key, you instead have to use a three-fingered swipe up from the bottom edge of the screen to activate the AI features. When I tested this in person, it was hit or miss as to whether I could get it to work. There's definitely a knack to it -- you need to start from a couple of centimeters above the lower rim -- and there's a high chance of accidentally displacing what's on the screen. It's clear that OnePlus designed Plus Mind to be used with a dedicated button, and no doubt all future OnePlus phones will feature a Plus Key of their own. It is a shame in retrospect, though, that the key is missing from its most widely available 2025 flagship phone. After using Plus Mind to save a variety of content, I had mixed opinions on how useful it was. The process of capturing and creating events out of details displayed on screen was seamless, and I found that I was able to use natural language within Mind Space to pull up the details of these events after the fact. But when saving articles I thought were interesting, Mind Space wasn't able to provide a summary of the entirety of what I'd been reading -- only of the specific text that was on screen at the time I activated Plus Mind. OnePlus' natural language search within Mind Space worked well for me. Katie Collins/CNET I also struggled to organise the content into collections within Mind Space. This is a manual process, rather than a situation in which the AI takes over to categorize everything you've saved. This feels a little like a missed opportunity. Like other Android phone makers, OnePlus has the benefit of tapping into the best of Google's Gemini phone tools, while also choosing what additional features it wants to bring to its phones to make them stand apart from its competitors. That said, its initial foray into AI with Mind Space is bound to draw comparisons to what Nothing is doing with Essential Space -- its own dedicated hub for saving content, snippets, links and reminders. What's next for OnePlus AI? Plus Mind and Mind Space are just the first part of OnePlus' three-stage AI strategy. Next up is integrating a large language model into Plus Mind, allowing your phone to understand your habits to create a "persona" it uses to understand you. "It will help you understand yourself," said Lam, and could even help you discover something "surprising" or "enlightening" about yourself. Stage 3 is when OnePlus plans to go full AI agent, turning into a personal assistant that can know everything about you. But the company's not quite there just yet. In the meantime it has a few other ideas in the pipeline. Coming first to India (again, not the EU or the US), are AI VoiceScribe, which will provide you with a quick summary after your call on WhatsApp, Snapchat or Telegram, and AI Call Assistant, which provides you with in-call translation in both text and voice. On the more playful side, OnePlus is introducing two AI photo tools. The first, AI Best Face 2.0, will allow you to correct the faces of up 20 people in a group photo so that everyone is looking their best (if they have their eyes closed, for example, or what OnePlus describes as a "suboptimal expression"). AI Reframe, meanwhile, will analyze your carelessly shot holiday snaps and suggest creative cropping and framing to make it look like you weren't three cocktails deep when you shot them. These photo features will be come to OnePlus phones this summer, but for the major OnePlus AI tool rollout, you might have to wait a little longer.
