At EVS29 here in Montreal Canada the six parallel conferences are world class even though the exhibition is modest. The conferences have no overall identity, there simply being various often inappropriate session titles in the six rooms with attendance at the 100 level in the one Beyond Light Duty we just attended which had a talk "Innovative Practice of Medium Duty EVs for Regional Delivery and Sustainable Urban E-mobility in China".
Across much of the world, the move to shopless internet shopping over the radio waves paradoxically causes a proliferation of delivery vehicles. It is a bit like the true saying, "wireless charging needs a lot of wire!"
Anyway, Professor Wu Xiaoyuan of Tongji University gave fascinating statistics of a boom in pure electric delivery trucks partly fuelled by generous support on a kWh basis by the Chinese Government but recently cut short by a restriction on subsidies while the government allegedly checks out possible fraud.
A man running Autotek Group complained that his 130 people in a $4 million factory he has invested in in china are at a halt because of the sudden refusal of the Chinese Government to approve any more non-LFP lithium-ion batteries so LGChem and his Chinese supplier are banned from delivering the higher energy density alternatives he requires. We have run this story before: China is arguing, tongue in cheek, that the largely imported batteries have "unproven safety" despite LGChem by some criteria being the most respected and largest Li-ion battery supplier in the world including for the best-selling pure electric car the Nissan Leaf. She advised him that you just have to wait: you cannot lobby the government.
Top image: SZ Platec
