As InsideEVs Germany learned at the show from presentations and VW engineers, the German company developed a brand-new electric drive unit dubbed the APP290, which will be used in all of the Volkswagen Group's Electric Urban Car Family models from brands like Skoda, Cupra and VW. The new motor, which was developed in-house, is a permanent-magnet drive unit that can output around 214 pound-feet (290 Newton-meters) of torque and up to 214 horsepower (160 kilowatts), the outlet says.
CATL, the world's dominant battery maker, just unveiled a new battery technology for the European market that it's calling Shenxing Pro. We don't know which vehicles it'll end up in yet, but CATL says the tech should allow for super long range and wickedly fast charging, all from a battery that won't degrade much over time. We'll have to see this battery in action before we can say whether these claims are all they're cracked up to be.
It only took three years, but Bluetti is following EcoFlow's lead with a fully integrated power system of its own to make vanlifers, off-grid cabins, and boats energy independent. The RVSolar System's main advantage over bespoke systems is a relatively quick and easy installation, requiring just "30 minutes," according to Bluetti's announcement at IFA 2025. While it's undoubtedly faster than installing a fully bespoke solution from Victron Energy, for example, the last time I installed EcoFlow's comparable system, it took closer to five hours -