Kickstart: Seeing the EV revolution reflected in supplier rankings

Industry watchers have said the global auto industry supply chain would see some major changes as electric vehicles gain a bigger foothold. And in its annual ranking of auto suppliers, our sister paper Automotive News says that is holding true as battery suppliers now are among the 10 largest suppliers in the world.

China-based battery maker CATL is No. 5 on its global list, with $33.5 billion in sales to automakers. And South Korean battery maker SK On has seen its sales increase by 125 percent.

That doesn't mean that traditional suppliers have disappeared, of course.

The 10 largest global supplier list includes companies with plastics operations such as Forvia (formerly Faurecia), Denso and ZF.

Magna International Inc. is No. 4 on the global list and No. 1 among North American suppliers. That North American list also includes Lear, Adient and Flex-N-Gate.

But each one of those traditional suppliers is investing in new technology to ensure they remain competitive in a future auto industry. If they haven't, then they've "already missed the boat," Michael Robinet, executive director of automotive advisory services at S&P Global Mobility, told AN.

One of the three men honored with a Nobel Prize in chemistry for creating the lithium-ion battery — a key part in the EV future — has died.

John Goodenough, a University of Texas at Austin professor, was 100.

In 2019, Goodenough, Asahi Kasei Corp.'s Akira Yoshino and M. Stanley Whittingham of Binghamton University shared the Nobel for their work with lithium-ion batteries.

The batteries — with a polyolefin membrane — are now a key part of an auto industry quickly ramping up to make more electric vehicles.

"He never ceased searching for innovative energy-storage solutions," UT Austin President Jay Hartzell said in a news release.

NASA and its partners have spent a lot of time developing 3D printing for use in space, including making small tools and parts.

Now four volunteers are spending a year proving out, in part, the potential of 3D printed housing for space exploration.

On June 25, two women and two men entered the CHAPEA (crew health and performance exploration analog) habitat at the Johnson Space Center in Houston "designed to serve as an analog for one-year missions to the Martian surface," NASA says.

"During the simulation, crew members will carry out different types of mission activities, including simulated spacewalks, robotic operations, habitat maintenance, personal hygiene, exercise and crop growth," the agency added. "To be as Mars-realistic as feasible, the crew also will face environmental stressors such as resource limitations, isolation and equipment failure."

The medical and engineering experts — none are astronauts — are living in a 1,700-square-foot facility created by Icon Technology Inc. of Austin, Texas, using its proprietary large-scale printing equipment and a specialized mixture of concrete and epoxy.

If all goes well, the volunteers will remain in the CHAPEA until June 2024. Two more crewed simulations are planned.

And if you want to check out 3D living but not commit to spending an entire year inside, Icon does have properties being built in Texas.