Echion Technologies, a leading supplier of niobium-based anode materials, and heavy-duty battery and electric vehicle engineering services provider, Switch Technologies (Switch), have unveiled the world’s first operational vehicle to be powered by Echion’s proprietary ultra-fast charging XNO® active anode material technology.
The vehicle, which is a parallel-hybrid Toyota Land Cruiser 79 Series, participated in a live track demonstration at the Australian Automation and Robotics Precinct (AARP) in Perth, Australia, on December 3.
The Land Cruiser is equipped with cells manufactured by Li-FUN, an XNO cell development partner. XNO enables lithium-ion batteries to safely fast charge in less than 10 minutes, maintain high energy densities even at extreme temperatures and deliver high-power across a cycle life of more than 10,000 cycles, according to the company. The material has been specially engineered to enable electrified heavy-duty vehicles, such as the Land Cruiser, to operate with the highest productivity and lowest total cost of ownership.
Echion and Switch have collaborated across a nine-month period to develop new XNO battery modules and packs to hybridise the Land Cruiser, which is a commonly used workhorse vehicle for Australian mining operations. Echion and Switch are now beginning a comprehensive test and validation program to further highlight the benefits that XNO anode materials bring for batteries used in heavy-duty industries.
Echion’s XNO anode material is available at scale, thanks to Echion’s longstanding partnership with the global leader in the production niobium products, CBMM. Earlier this year, the two companies opened the world’s largest niobium anode manufacturing facility, dedicated to produce up to 2,000 t/y of XNO; the equivalent of 1 GWh of lithium-ion cells.
