Sponsored by ITECH.

From bidirectional energy flow to MW-scale cycling, here’s how validation requirements are evolving and what engineers must prepare for.

As EV architectures transition from 400 V to 800 V and beyond 1000 V, ultra-fast charging is entering the megawatt era. While this shift enables dramatically reduced charging times, it also introduces a new layer of complexity in validation.

Engineers are now faced with a growing gap between charging system capabilities and battery safety limits—raising critical questions about reliability, lifecycle performance, and grid interaction.

This article examines the emerging concept of “validation anxiety,” outlines key testing challenges, and explores how next-generation test platforms are being applied across battery, charging, and grid validation scenarios.

The Shift to Megawatt Charging

The EV industry is undergoing a fundamental transition in voltage platforms. 800 V systems are rapidly becoming mainstream, and development is already pushing toward 1000 V+ architectures to enable megawatt-level charging. Charging infrastructure is evolving accordingly, with high-power systems targeting hundreds of kilometers of range in minutes.

However, increasing charging speed is not just a power challenge—it is a validation challenge too.

A New Engineering Concern: Validation Anxiety

As charging capability accelerates, engineers must ensure that systems can keep up—not only in performance, but also in safety, durability, and compliance.

Key questions include:

• How do batteries behave after hundreds of aggressive fast-charge cycles?
• Can high-voltage components operate reliably above 1000 V?
• How can real-world grid conditions be accurately reproduced in a lab environment?

This widening gap between capability and validation is increasingly recognized as “validation anxiety.”

Testing Challenges in the Megawatt Era

Charger Validation
Modern fast chargers are evolving into complex energy nodes. With V2G and V2H applications becoming more common, test systems must support bidirectional energy flow and four-quadrant operation.

Engineers often use grid simulator such as the ITECH IT7900EP combined with bidirectional DC power supply like the IT6600C to reproduce real-world grid behavior and emulate vehicle-side conditions.

Battery Validation
Fast charging is defined by repeatability and long-term stability. Engineers use systems like the ITECH IT6600C high-power bidirectional DC power supply together with BSS2000 battery simulation software to enable seamless charge/discharge transitions and early-stage validation.

The IT6600C integrates source and sink functions in a single unit, enabling seamless transitions between charge and discharge for efficient battery cycling. It supports regenerative operation with >94% efficiency, reducing power consumption and thermal load. The modular architecture is scalable up to 10 MW, providing flexibility for future system expansion. With the optional BSS2000 software, users can implement real battery models for charger and motor validation. Built-in redundancy and system-level monitoring ensure stable operation and reduced downtime risk.

Dynamic Load Validation
High-speed DC electronic loads such as the ITECH IT8100A/E series are used to capture transient behavior and simulate rapid load changes at megawatt levels.

The IT8100A/E series high-speed, high-power DC electronic load is designed for dynamic validation of MW-level systems, featuring ultra-high power density of 7.2 kW in a 3U form factor, scalable from 86.4 kW (37U rack) up to 1.8 MW, with a wide voltage range of 60 V to 1200 V and up to 500 kHz voltage/current sampling rate. It extends DC load capability beyond 600 kW, enabling accurate capture of transient behavior in high-power systems while minimizing footprint. With a dynamic current slew rate up to 150 A/μs, it effectively simulates fast-changing battery characteristics. The system supports 1.5× continuous short-term overpower and up to 4× instantaneous overpower, allowing engineers to avoid oversizing for peak power in applications such as protection testing and pulse cycling, thereby reducing overall test cost. In addition, its multi-range voltage/current architecture enables precise loading from mA to kA levels, and combined with high-speed sampling and integrated scope functionality, it allows full-range performance validation of chargers and battery systems without the need for complex external test setups.

Integrated System Validation
A complete validation setup may combine IT7900EP (grid), IT6600C (battery), and IT8100A/E (load) to test full system interaction.

The IT7900EP series high-performance grid simulator delivers up to 21 kVA in a compact 3U form factor, scalable to over 1 MVA via master-slave parallel operation, with a wide frequency range of 16–2400 Hz, up to 50th harmonic simulation/analysis, and high-voltage models up to 1050 V N-L. It integrates a programmable AC source, four-quadrant grid simulator, and regenerative AC/DC load in one unit, enabling both grid supply and energy absorption with feedback capability. The system supports grid compliance testing, including LVRT/HVRT, phase shift, frequency variation, and harmonic injection, with built-in anti-islanding test functions for applications such as EV chargers and BOBC systems.

Integrated standards (IEC 61000-3-2/3-12, IEC 61000-4-11/4-13/4-14/4-28) simplify EMC testing. In CE mode, it can emulate 14 circuit topologies (e.g., single-phase rectifier RLC, parallel RLC) for complex load simulation, and in power amplifier mode, it supports PHiL (Power Hardware-in-the-Loop) testing.

Conclusion
By 2026, ultra-fast charging has moved beyond simple power scaling to system-level coordination between the vehicle, charger, and grid. This shift requires validation capabilities that conventional test equipment cannot provide. ITECH’s EV test platform—built around the IT6600C, IT7900EP, and IT8100A/E series—combines high power density, bidirectional regeneration, and advanced simulation to address these challenges. It enables accurate validation of real-world operating conditions while providing a scalable path toward MW-level charging and V2G deployment.

For engineers working on next-generation charging systems, the key question is no longer if MW charging will happen, but whether your test infrastructure can support it. ITECH’s solution is designed to be ready when you are.

Are you ready to share the highways with 80,000-pound trucks that drive themselves? Well, it may take a while, but they’re coming. And all agree that like all autonomous vehicles, they will be electric vehicles.

Autonomous truck startup Humble has emerged from stealth, and announced a prototype of a fully autonomous, cabless electric hauler designed for freight transportation. The company has raised $24 million in seed funding, led by investment firm Eclipse.

The Humble Hauler was designed from the ground up, taking advantage of the latest AV/EV technology. The company has developed a universal platform that supports multiple vehicle configurations. The first vehicle will be built to move shipping containers.

Removing the cab makes the hauler “significantly lighter” than a traditional Class 8 tractor/trailer, and the vehicle’s design enables 360° coverage of its surroundings with camera, LiDAR, and radar, which “allows for true dock-to-dock operation.” The hauler uses vision-language-action (VLA) models that “allow it to reason about the world and take the right action even in scenarios it’s never experienced.”

“For the first time, freight can be fully automated all the way to the loading dock,” said Eyal Cohen, Humble’s founder and CEO. “We are making freight sustainable, safe and efficient, and we’re doing it with an exceptional team of industry veterans and AV experts. Our first vehicle was completed in just six months.”

Humble has completed its first prototype, and is now partnering with logistics and supply chain firms to begin autonomous testing and commercialization pilots. The new funding will support continued development of next-generation vehicles, initial pilot deployments, and early manufacturing.

“Humble is operating at an unprecedented pace,” said Jiten Behl, Partner at Eclipse and Humble board member. “They understand that autonomous trucking isn’t just a software problem—it requires a full-stack rethink across hardware, AI and electrification.”

Source: Humble

Chinese battery giant CATL has agreed to supply steel producer Jianlong with batteries and integrated charging and swapping solutions for its industrial parks, steel plants, mines and other facilities.

The agreement covers Jianlong’s full range of equipment, including electric mining trucks, heavy trucks, ships and construction machinery. The companies aim to deploy more than 3,000 electric heavy trucks over the next five years, complete battery swapping infrastructure along at least 16 logistics hub routes, and build and operate 100 battery swapping stations.

The companies will also deploy centralized and distributed wind and solar power projects and use Jianlong’s industrial parks as pilot projects for the electrification of energy-intensive industries, from mining to transportation and from energy to materials, CATL said.

Source: CATL

AMPECO provides a crucial layer of the EV charging stack: software. The company often finds that a new customer needs to migrate their charging network to a new software platform. This is a complex process that affects every aspect of a CPO’s business, from driver-facing services and payment flows to hardware integrations and partner relationships.

In a recent blog post, AMPECO shared migration stories from four AMPECO customers: E.ON Drive Infrastructure, Swisscharge, Wattif and Eldrive, who—for one reason or another—switched from legacy platforms to AMPECO’s platform. Charging providers who are straining at the limits of their current software platforms may want to read these case studies in their entirety.

AMPECO has built migration into a core competency, and says it has successfully migrated over 120,000 charge points from legacy charge point management systems (CPMSs) and in-house solutions. Each project involved dedicated engineering teams, custom data mapping, and hands-on partnership between AMPECO and CPO transition teams.

E.ON Drive Infrastructure

E.ON Drive Infrastructure (EDRI) manages a network of over 6,000 public EV charging points across 11 European countries. The migration to AMPECO’s platform was an ambitious project not just because of the scale, but because of the complexity inherent in multi-country operations: varying regulatory requirements across markets; diverse hardware configurations accumulated through network expansion; and the need for centralized control without sacrificing local flexibility.

“AMPECO’s platform not only meets our current needs for scalability, but also offers the flexibility crucial for our future growth,” said E.ON Drive COO Arjan van der Eijk. “It gives us full control over our charging network and the ability to create tailored solutions that deliver valuable services to our customers.”

Swisscharge

Swisscharge serves 200,000 registered drivers, and provides access to hundreds of thousands of charging points across Europe. The company’s complex, multi-operator business model—it acts as a CPO, a multi-brand eMSP, and a platform reseller to partners—required a platform capable of supporting 12 diverse use cases spanning public charging, fleet management, workplace and residential charging.

“AMPECO’s commitment to stick to timelines was crucial,” said Jeroen Gernay, founder of The Rechargers. “AMPECO’s strong data model covers the full spectrum of EV charging use cases. We could map every scenario Swisscharge needed, and their proxy solution allowed us to execute the cutover seamlessly.”

Wattif

Wattif grew through acquisitions, ending up with multiple legacy systems and diverse hardware portfolios. AMPECO helped the company to migrate portfolios from seven separate acquisitions, bringing its network to over 45,000 charge points across six European markets. AMPECO’s integration teams validated hardware compatibility across over thirty AC and DC charger types.

Eldrive

Eldrive manages a rapidly growing network across Bulgaria, Romania and Lithuania. The company’s previous provider had stopped developing its software platform, and Eldrive was hitting scaling limits they couldn’t work around.

AMPECO migrated over 2,500 charge points across Eldrive’s three markets, deploying a multi-tenant architecture with seamless payment routing, a comprehensive partner portal that eliminated manual administrative work for 500+ B2B partners, and full API access.

“The communication with your competitors was difficult and slow,” said Eldrive CEO Stefan Spassov. “AMPECO had a very well-structured process, conversations were quick and efficient, you were the only one to cover entirely all our requirements in terms of features.”

AMPECO has yet more Customer Stories featuring insights about the EV charging software migration process.

Source: AMPECO

Battery technology developer HPQ Silicon has announced that 21700 cylindrical cells manufactured using Novacium SAS’s GEN4 silicon-based anode material have surpassed 7,000 mAh of discharge capacity.

The cells reached 7,030 mAh, which HPQ said could represent one of the highest capacities reported to date in an industrial 21700 format, based on publicly available data.

Commercially available 21700 graphite cells typically deliver between 4,800-5,000 mAh. The previous Novacium GEN4 record stood at 6,696 mAh under standard conditions of 0.1 C, 4.2-2.5 V and 25° C.

The result was achieved under a modified deep-discharge cycling protocol, at a lower voltage cutoff of 0.55 V, compared to the industry-standard 2.5 V. That indicates the potential to extend the operating voltage range of GEN4 lithium-ion cells beyond conventional limits, the company said.

A discharge to 0.55 V would typically result in irreversible degradation in conventional graphite or silicon-based cells, but the GEN4 material completed 70 full cycles under this protocol and had less than 2% capacity degradation.

Potential applications may include high-energy-density use cases, where capacity per unit volume is a critical constraint, HPQ said.

HPQ holds exclusive North American rights to commercialize Novacium’s GEN3 and GEN4 silicon-based battery materials under the HPQ ENDURA+ brand.

“Breaking the 7,000 mAh barrier in a 21700 cell is a milestone that, to the company’s knowledge, has not been widely reported in publicly available data for an industrial-format cell under comparable conditions,” said Bernard Tourillon, President and CEO of HPQ Silicon.

“What is equally important is that we achieved this while maintaining initial cycle stability over the test period, thereby indicating that our material can operate under extended conditions that, according to published literature, typically result in severe degradation or loss of functionality in conventional graphite-based lithium-ion cells,” Tourillon added.

Source: HPQ Silicon

A split is developing in the EVSE world. Industry experts have been telling us that distributed (or split) systems, in which a single power cabinet serves multiple dispensers, represent the wave of the future.

The latest news from splitsville comes from industry behemoth ABB, which has just introduced a new modular, air-cooled split system that “separates the generation from the dispensing of power.”

ABB’s new OM M-Series “enables charging systems to be configured around distinct mission profiles rather than deployed as generic hardware.”

ABB explains: “The M-Series connects centralized power cabinets to a portfolio of purpose-built dispensers: Solo, Duo, Dock and Ultra, supporting CCS1, CCS2, NACS and MCS. This separation enables charging infrastructure to serve distinct customer segments, each with different utilization patterns, dwell times and economic requirements.”

“The industry spent a decade optimizing for nameplate power. What operators need to optimize for now is the cost of energy delivered over the lifetime of a site,” said Michael Halbherr, CEO of ABB E-mobility. “Power only matters if it can be consistently delivered, across vehicle architectures, across charge points and across utilization levels. The M-Series is built to do that.”

The M-Series scales from 200 kW to 1.2 MW, and supports up to 24 charge points. Power capacity can be expanded in the field in 400 kW increments across up to three interconnected cabinets.

“Delivered power, not rated power, is the relevant metric,” ABB tells us. “Different EVs draw power differently, and conventional systems lose capacity in the handover. The M-Series keeps delivered power close to rated capacity, ensuring installed power is consistently utilized. The power delivery unit dynamically distributes capacity across all charge points and vehicle types in real time, matching output to demand patterns.”

The M-Series is built around three site typologies, each with different power requirements, utilization patterns and economic constraints:

• Public fast charging: Sites scale from a single 400 kW cabinet to 1.2 MW across up to 24 charge points in 400 kW increments.
• Retail and hospitality destinations: At supermarkets, fuel retailers and logistics hubs, the system dynamically balances between high-power charging at low utilization and lower-power parallel charging at higher site utilization, maximizing capacity use as demand fluctuates.
• Commercial fleet depots: Operators electrifying mixed van, truck and bus fleets make capital commitments under high uncertainty. The M-Series enables expansion in 400 kW increments, aligning infrastructure cost with actual fleet growth rather than projections. The system supports both high-power opportunity charging and lower-power overnight charging without requiring dedicated infrastructure for each use case.

The M-Series builds on the foundation of ABB’s all-in-one A-Series chargers. Both series are built on the same air-cooled, in-house-developed silicon carbide IP54 power electronics platform and a common reference architecture, commercially deployed since 2024.

Source: ABB

Sow Good Inc., a Nasdaq-listed freeze-dried candy and snack company, has signed a definitive agreement to acquire the Nachu Graphite Project in Tanzania in an all-stock deal valued at approximately $107 million. If it closes, the transaction would pivot the company into critical minerals and battery anode materials.

The Nachu Project is an advanced-stage open-pit graphite development located in the Ruangwa District of southern Tanzania, about 220 km by road from the deep-water port of Mtwara. According to Ryzon’s JORC Code 2012 studies—which Sow Good has not independently verified—the project hosts a mineral resource of 174 million tonnes at 5.4% total graphitic carbon (TGC) and an ore reserve of 76 million tonnes at 5.2% TGC. Designed processing capacity is 5 million tonnes per year of run-of-mine ore, yielding approximately 236,000 tonnes per year of graphite concentrate at 98.5–99.0% TGC purity via flotation alone, without chemical purification. Reported mine life is 15.5 years.

The project holds full permits and a Special Economic Zone license in Tanzania but has not commenced construction or production. Ryzon has disclosed a binding offtake agreement with an unnamed US Tier-1 EV and ESS manufacturer; Sow Good says it has not independently verified the terms or current status of that agreement and that re-confirming it will be a priority post-close.

The deal is paid entirely in Sow Good shares, based on a 10-day VWAP of US$0.3209. Closing requires Sow Good shareholder approval, Tanzanian regulatory clearances and other conditions. The company says there is no assurance the transaction completes.

The supply chain backdrop is real. China controls approximately 70% of global natural flake graphite production and more than 95% of spherical and coated graphite anode processing—concentration that IRA Foreign Entity of Concern provisions and the EU Critical Raw Materials Act are specifically designed to reduce. Nachu is positioned as a non-Chinese African source of battery-grade graphite at scale, though it remains years from first production.

“The global battery supply chain is at an inflection point: Western governments and automakers are actively seeking non-Chinese sources of battery-grade graphite, and we believe Nachu is uniquely positioned to meet that demand,” said Sam Goldberg, CEO of Sow Good.

Source: Sow Good Inc.

magniX has launched the magniAIR, an air-cooled electric engine targeting kit planes, light sport aircraft and electric flight trainers. The engine delivers 175 kW at 55 kg—what magniX claims is class-leading power-to-weight for the segment—and is designed to replace piston engines in the 120–175 kW range.

The magniAIR integrates into a full magniX powertrain that also includes power electronics and the company’s Samson battery. magniX is demonstrating the configuration in a Van’s Aircraft RV-10 kit plane, with first flight scheduled for later in 2026. The engine will be available to purchase in 2027. Initial certification targets are experimental and light sport aircraft categories.

Flight training is the primary market angle. Many training aircraft in active service today were built in the 1970s, and rising fuel and maintenance costs are pushing the price of obtaining a pilot’s license higher at a time the industry faces a pilot shortage. The FAA’s pending MOSAIC rules are also expected to widen the definition of light sport aircraft, opening additional use cases for the magniAIR.

“Many training aircraft in use today were manufactured in the 1970s,” said Ben Loxton, VP of New Product Development at magniX. “Fuel prices and maintenance costs are causing the cost of flight training to rise at the same time as the industry faces an acute shortage of pilots. magniAIR offers to reduce the expense of flight training and other small aircraft applications with a lower cost of operation, reduced maintenance, and zero carbon emissions.”

Source: magniX

Sweden’s Einride to deploy 75 electric trucks for Amazon

Swedish electric truck provider Einride will deploy ​75 electric heavy-duty trucks ‌and supporting charging infrastructure for retail oligopoly Amazon at five US locations.

Reuters reports that Amazon is increasingly relying on truck-as-a-service operators such as Einride, which provide vehicles, charging infrastructure and fleet-management software, allowing the ​company to ​electrify without directly owning the assets.

Range Energy’s eTrailers undergo extreme winter testing

Range Energy adds electric propulsion, regenerative braking and onboard battery power to standard semi-trailers, allowing fleets to save fuel without the expense of buying electric tractors.

The company’s production eTrailer recently completed cold weather testing at Smither’s Winter Proving Ground in Michigan’s Upper Peninsula. As Clean Trucking reports, not only did the trailer perform well in sub-zero temperatures, snow and ice, it also demonstrated better traction, braking and handling than conventional trailers.

Who cares about the Cola war? The electric truck war is heating up.

The Coke vs Pepsi war may rage on forever, but we’re more interested in the battle shaping up among makers of electric Class 8 trucks. PepsiCo has been operating a small fleet of Tesla Semis for several years now. Tesla recently announced the start of mass production. More fleet operators are placing orders, and Tesla has begun rolling out dedicated charging stations for its trucks.

Rival Coke may be opting for Volvo e-trucks. Coke Canada Bottling recently procured seven more Volvo VNR Electric trucks, bringing its total Canadian electric fleet to nearly 40 vehicles.

But do European OEMs really want to sell e-trucks? Even as Volvo announces new electric truck models, the company continues lobbying to weaken emissions standards in the US and Europe, and investing money in hydrogen fuel cells.

Volvo and its colleagues may need to raise their electric games—Tesla is not the only upstart competition they face. Chinese e-truck OEM Windrose recently completed its first US delivery, handing over a long-haul electric semi to a Texas logistics firm.

ChargePoint has introduced a new standalone EV charger that’s capable of delivering power at levels of up to 600 kW.

The new Express Solo incorporates ChargePoint’s next-generation DC fast charging architecture, and was codeveloped by ChargePoint and intelligent power management company Eaton. It will be the company’s first DC charger to be sold in Europe as well as in North America.

Express Solo features a small footprint, making it suitable for deployment at sites with limited space, such as urban gas stations or convenience stores.

Express Solo can simultaneously charge two EVs, and can be paired with an additional dispenser to charge up to four vehicles. When charging multiple vehicles, an Express Solo can deliver any combination of power levels up to 600 kW per port.

“The Express DC fast charging architecture delivers differentiation. Not just by higher output, but by how economically, efficiently, and flexibly that power is delivered,” said Rick Wilmer, CEO at ChargePoint. “Express Solo combines unmatched power density, direct DC input capabilities for solar integration and battery storage, and a modular architecture that scales with minimal cost and complexity.”

Source: ChargePoint