- Hillcrest Energy recently debuted the commercial prototype of its ZVS inverter technology
- The company revealed that its traction inverter can lead to powertrain efficiency gains of up to 13%; in practice, a gain of 1% could help drive a reduction in battery size by 2%
- In a recent investor briefing, Hillcrest forecasted that its inverter could help automotive OEM’s reduce material costs by close to $700 per electric vehicle
- Cost savings have increasingly become a focus of EV OEM’s, with vehicles selling for less than $55,000 eligible for a series of Government grants and rebates under the recently passed Inflation Reduction Act
In 2009, sales of electric vehicles in the United Kingdom touched a grand total of 55 cars (https://nnw.fm/DIUXI). Today, over 20 million EVs may be found on the road in distant corners of the globe, with the count expected to nearly quadruple to 77 million by 2025. The common denominator for these vehicles lays deep within their chassis. At their heart, each of those 77 million electric vehicles will contain a high-voltage battery, by far the vehicle’s most expensive component, and the fundamental driver of a veritable global race by battery manufacturers and automakers alike, to ethically source their materials and crank up production to meet exploding demand.
A recent study carried out by Reuters forecasts automakers will spend upwards of $1.2 trillion in developing and producing EVs through 2030 (https://nnw.fm/v1zk7). A significant proportion of that investment will be devoted to the production of better, more efficient batteries.
Electric luxury vehicle maker, Lucid Motors for instance produced just under 7,200 vehicles in 2022 – a figure commensurate to a mere two day of Tesla’s 2022 production. Nevertheless, the automaker has gained several plaudits for the record-setting, 830-kilometre driving range of its flagship Air Grand Touring Performance sedan. What makes that figure even more remarkable is that automakers using the same 2170 format battery cells commonly eke out a mere 267 mile of range on average – less than half of Lucid’s Air Grand sedan. A significant proportion of that outperformance may be directly attributed to Lucid’s highly efficient powertrain and inverter systems (https://nnw.fm/JchFp).
Hillcrest Energy Technologies (CSE: HEAT) (OTCQB: HLRTF), a clean technology company focused around developing transformative power conversion technologies, has recently announced the completion of its 800-volt, 250-kilowatt Zero Voltage Switching (“ZVS”) traction inverter commercial prototype (https://nnw.fm/wy8Da). In a series of tests, Hillcrest’s ZVS inverter was shown to generate powertrain efficiency improvements of up to 13%. To put that into perspective, current research suggests that every 1% improvement in efficiency can reduce battery size by 2%. If that were to hold true, then Hillcrest’s technological breakthrough effectively holds the potential to make EVs cheaper, lighter, and better performing (https://nnw.fm/zzspW).
Hillcrest Energy have delved deeper into the potential efficiency gains which may be attained by their ground-breaking product; in a recent investor briefing, the company revealed that the ZVS traction inverter could generate up to $700 in material cost savings per electric vehicle for automotive OEM’s (https://nnw.fm/aKfoD). In effect and assuming a manufacturing run of 100,000 vehicles, an automaker could generate up to $70 million in cost savings – a figure which would further increase for vehicles using multiple motors and traction inverters (i.e., the Kia EV6 GT, Tesla Model S and BMW i4 M50 all operate using two or more electric motors).
Although increasing electric vehicles’ potential driving range whilst maintaining their battery size constant (or potentially, even downsizing them) has been the primary driver underpinning Hillcrest Energy’s developmental efforts thus far, driving down costs has not been far behind. Cost savings have increasingly become a priority within the electric vehicle manufacturing sector. Under the recently passed Inflation Reduction Act (“IRA”), potential EV buyers may be eligible for a series of tax credits when acquiring electric vehicles costing less than $55,000. Similarly, the IRA has introduced a new $4,000 EV tax credit for used electric vehicles which sell for under $25,000. As such, any automotive part which can assist an auto manufacturer in lowering its cost structure – and by extension, its average selling price, may ultimately be conducive to higher sales going forward.
For more information, visit the company’s website at www.HillcrestEnergy.tech.
NOTE TO INVESTORS: The latest news and updates relating to HLRTF are available in the company’s newsroom at https://nnw.fm/HLRTF
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