eTech Learning: EV & AV Technology

For this episode of the eTech podcast Ryan Maughan talks to renowned battery expert Dr Jerry Barker Founder and CTO of Faradion, leaders in Sodium Ion battery technology. Jerry tells us about his background in lithium battery development stretching back to lithium metal technology and through the emergence of Lithium Ion up to the present day where Jerry is working on exciting new developments in...

For this episode of the eTech podcast, Ryan Maughan talks to Luke Dowell Head of Research and Development at BP Chargemaster. Luke tells us about his background in electronics and electric vehicle development including AVID, Jaguar Land Rover and then Dyson. Following the closure of the Dyson EV project Luke moved to head up Research and Development at BP Chargemaster. Luke has had a lifelong pass...

For this episode of the eTech podcast Ryan Maughan talks to Dr Russell Fowler a Senior Project Manager from the UK National Grid company focused on transport decarbonisation. Russell is a mathematician by background having gained a PhD in Maths from the University of Birmingham in 2006. He has worked in the energy sector since then joining the National Grid company in 2012. He is now responsible f...

For this episode of the eTech podcast Ryan Maughan talks to Dr Stefan Permien CEO of a new German energy storage manufacturing company focused on the battery cell electrode - UniverCell. A chemist and professional kite surfer by background after 3 years working as CTO in a battery development company Stefan made the bold decision to set up a specialist battery manufacturing company, UniverCell. St...

For this episode of the eTech podcast Ryan Maughan talks to Kimmo Rauma who was the founder and CEO of Visedo Oy now part of the Danfoss Editron group. Kimmo tells us about his personal journey, his early experience in business and how he came to set up Visedo and the early years and then the transition when Visedo was acquired by Danfoss in 2017. Ryan and Kimmo discuss some of the key electrifica...

For this episode of the eTech podcast Ryan Maughan talks to Dane Davis the CTO of Nikola Motor Company. Ryan and Dane discuss the meteoric rise of Nikola. Having been founded by Trevor Milton in 2008 in Salt Lake City, Utah, they recently burst into the public eye following a reverse takeover listing on the Nasdaq and high profile investments from Bosch and CNH Industrial to name but two. Dane joi...

For this episode of the eTech podcast Ryan Maughan talks to Nick Kitchin the CEO and co-founder of Cumulus Energy Storage who are developing novel rechargeable copper zinc battery technology for grid storage applications. Ryan finds out more about Cumulus Energy Storage and their technology and discusses the grid energy storage market in detail with Nick. Grid energy storage is a vast and growing...

For this episode of the eTech podcast Ryan Maughan speaks to Dan Murphy who is a Principal Engineer at semiconductor powerhouse, ST Microelectronics. Dan agreed to come on the podcast to talk about ST’s Silicon Carbide switching devices. Dan and Ryan look at the semiconductor industry and talk about subjects ranging from MEMS accelerometers for gaming devices to the design principles of high power...

For this episode of the eTech podcast Ryan Maughan talks to Matt Windle the Executive Director of Engineering at the famous sports car maker, Lotus. Matt talks about his background and how he got into engineering and progressed to his current role at Lotus. Matt and Ryan discuss the Lotus Evija hyper car, the inspiration behind this amazing project and the engineering challenges and solutions that...

For this episode of the eTech podcast Ryan Maughan talks to Kevin Brundish the CEO and co-founder of AMTE Power the UK’s leading battery cell development and manufacturing company. Ryan finds out more about AMTE Power, their history which stretches back over 20 years to the start of the Lithium battery industry and their exciting plans for the future. AMTE has a flexible battery cell production fa...

In this episode of the eTech podcast, Ryan Maughan speak to Dr Mark Selby the CTO of Ceres Power PLC. Ceres Power develop and licence Solid Oxide Fuel Cell technology from their base in the UK. This episode follows on from an earlier episode with Proton Motor Power Systems who are leaders in low temperature PEM fuel cell technology, we had a lot of listener questions about alternative fuel cell te...

For this episode of the eTech podcast, Ryan Maughan speaks to Dr Greg Offer from Imperial College London about battery cell technology. Greg is a world-renowned expert in battery cell electrochemistry and technology, in particular thermal characterisation and degradation characteristics. They discuss a huge range of battery cell technology including; the importance of cell thermal management and t...

For this episode of the eTech podcast, Ryan Maughan responds to several questions we have had from listeners on the topic of 800V powertrains for electric vehicles. As more and more manufacturers are announcing vehicles with 800V systems, Ryan looks at why OEM's are looking to 800V and what are the key drivers Ryan discusses charge speeds, efficiency and performance and the kind of applications wh...

Functional safety is a hugely important topic that touches on almost every aspect of the vehicle development, manufacture and maintenance cycle especially with more and more electronics systems onboard. The principle standard for automotive control systems is ISO26262 and it is a topic of much debate. For this episode of the eTech podcast Ryan Maughan takes a look at functional safety and ISO26262...

For this episode of the eTech podcast Ryan Maughan takes a deep look at Fuel Cell technology with Manfred Limbrunner from Proton Motor Power Systems PLC. Ryan and Manfred discuss Proton Motor’s business and its history including their little known link to AVID’s home of Newcastle in the North East of England. Manfred and Ryan talk about the technology used in Proton’s fuel cell systems and how hyd...

We are regularly asked about ultracapacitors and how they fit in to the energy storage mix, do they compete with or complement battery technology? What makes a capacitor ultra? For this episode of the eTech podcast Ryan Maughan takes a deep look at ultracapacitor technology with Dr Sebastian Pohlmann, VP of Innovation at Skeleton Technologies. Ryan and Sebastian discuss ultracapacitors, what they...

For this episode of the eTech podcast, Ryan Maughan speaks to Eva Hakansson and Bill Dubé from the GreenEnvy Racing team. Eva and Bill tell us about the GreenEnvy project to build a fully electric land speed record breaking streamliner motorcycle. GreenEnvy is their second fully electric land speed record motorbike following on from the highly successful Killajoule. We learn about the design of th...

For this episode of the eTech podcast Ryan Maughan speaks to Robbert Lohman from Autonomous Transport Systems provider 2getthere. Robbert has been involved in the development and deployment of autonomous transport and logistics systems for around 20 years, a long time before the current tech hype cycle started! His company 2getthere is now a subsidiary of the ZF group who are a major tier 1 automo...

For this episode of the eTech podcast Ryan Maughan speaks to Deres Eshete, who is Global Head of Automotive Business Development at ON Semiconductor. We discuss power switching device technology and ON’s growing business and focus on the rapidly expanding electrified powertrain market. On Semiconductor is a Fortune 500 Semiconductor design and manufacturing business, headquartered in Phoenix, Ariz...

For this episode of the eTech podcast Ryan Maughan speaks to Isobel Sheldon who is the Director of Business Development at the new UK Battery Industrialisation Centre (UKBIC). Isobel has been involved in Lithium battery development for almost 20 years and has really in depth knowledge in the subject. We discuss all aspects of battery technology from the current state of the art in cell technology...

For this episode of the eTech podcast Ryan Maughan speaks to Gerard Barron, who is the Chairman and CEO of DeepGreen Metals. We discuss the potential for the sustainable recovery of metals, including the Nickel, Copper and Cobalt required for electric vehicle and battery production, from deep-ocean nodules found in the Pacific Ocean’s Clarion-Clipperton Zone. The supply of the metals needed for EV...

Apologies for the delay in releasing this our latest episode. We hope you all had a great Christmas and start to the new year! In our first episode of 2020, we bring you an interview with Steve Dodds, head of Friction & Forge Processes at TWI based in Cambridge, U.K. Steve educated us on 'friction stir welding' which is a solid-state joining process that uses frictional heat generated by a rotatin...

For this episode of the eTech podcast, Ryan Maughan sat down with the Lead Engineer of AVID Technology's Thermofluids and eMachines Engineering Team Dr Thanos Alexakis to discuss electric fan design for automotive applications. Thanos tells us about the process of designing a new fan product. He also tells us about what issues are normally faced during the design process, and very importantly what...

In today's episode, we bring you our recent interview with Steve Dodds, head of Friction & Forge Processes at TWI, a world leading material joining and engineering processes organisation based in Cambridge, UK. Listen as Steve explains the process of Friction Stir Welding, and what he calls “The science of rubbing things together”. Learn how Friction Stir and Spot Welding are helping manufacturers...

Today's episode is a keynote speech recording from a conference at the EV Battery show conference in Stuttgart from earlier in the year in front of representatives from major vehicle OEMs and suppliers. Ryan talks about key trends that we see in the market that drive different kinds of electrification. We are always keen to point out that it is not just about battery-electric which is great, but t...