The battery of the future

Nobody escapes the fact that the future of the automotive industry goes through electrification. Currently there are many brands that are committed to the micro hybridization of their engines, but this is only an intermediate step between the car powered by fossil fuel and the electric car.

The great bet of the electric car requires an optimization in the size and operation of the battery . On the one hand, it is almost mandatory to offer similar levels of autonomy and charging times that can compete with vehicles equipped with internal combustion engines. On the other hand, it also becomes imperative to reduce the weight of a battery. For example, a Renault Zoe weighs 1,545 kilos and a Renault Clio TCe 66 weighs 1,082 kilos.

Short term

In a period of four or five years we will be able to see electric vehicles with a real autonomy of about 600 kilometers thanks to the technical improvements applied to the battery.

Cars like the Opel Ampera-e equip one of the most modern batteries currently manufactured. Manufactured by LG Chem, the battery in this Opel is made from a combination of cobalt, lithium, manganese and nickel capable of generating enough electricity to move the car for about 350 kilometers in real conditions of use.

This type of compound battery has a useful life that doubles that of current lithium ion batteries, although it is also true that it weighs approximately ten percent more than current batteries and that the cost of producing them increases by more or less the same percentage.

Solid electrolyte battery

Expected for the year 2020,  a solid electrolyte has more density than a liquid one and allows this type of battery to store more energy than, for example, a lithium salt battery. It also minimizes the appearance of dendrites , repetitive structures characteristic of the first phases of crystal growth and that can produce short circuits within the battery.

These dendrites, due to their chemical composition, are bodies that may or may not be conductors of electrical energy. For example, ionic and covalent crystals offer a lot of resistance to the conduction of heat and/or electricity, and molecular crystals are totally insulating in this regard. These three types of crystals limit the charging capacity of the battery, since in its formation the electrolyte is destroyed and, therefore, the electrolysis process is limited.

There is a fourth type of crystals, the metallic ones, which are characterized by having few electrons in the outermost layers and being positively charged. This means that in its formation it destroys the electrolyte and also, once the molecule is formed, it absorbs the negatively charged electrons that are stored. This is called chemical stability in the valence shell, which translated means that all molecules tend to have eight electrons (stability) in their last shell (valence shell).

The advantages of the solid electrolyte battery is that it heats up much less and is less prone to degradation , which means that it is able to maintain its storage capacity for many more charging processes.

Graphene in the battery of the future

For years, scientific research programs have been thinking a thousand and one times about graphene, that material composed of pure carbon arranged in a regular hexagonal pattern that seems to be present in all aspects of our daily lives as long as it is possible to lower the current price of US$300 per gram, of course. Of course, once the price drops, it is expected that graphene will also reach the battery of the electric car.

According to what was experienced in the first prototypes, a graphene battery has an energy density that is five times that of current lithium batteries , due to its chemical composition the risk of explosion is almost zero and in the event of a short circuit only the part would be inoperative. damaged.

Among the advantages of the graphene battery in relation to the current ones is its greater capacity, its lower weight for equal volume and its unbeatable charging capacity, ( a 100 kWh battery could be charged in less than ten minutes ).

Among its disadvantages we can highlight that they would not reach the market before ten or fifteen years and that the only Spanish company dedicated to the investigation of graphene batteries, and which was a world reference, has recently been accused of fraud and is being investigated by the National Securities Market Commission.

When I was little they said that in the year 2000 cars would fly and would not have a driver. I would like to return to this article in the year 2030 and be able to analyze what the current forecasts are . Of course, something tells me that the evolution of batteries will surprise us year after year.

Second-life batteries

HPC Park with second-life batteries

Volkswagen has launched a fast-charging park at its Zwickau electric car plant, which gets much of its energy from a so-called Power Storage Container (PSC). In the future, the solution will also be used in residential areas, for example, since it is not necessary to install a medium voltage transformer for the PSC.

The energy storage container consists of 96 cell modules with a total net capacity of 570 kWh , which were fitted to pre-production ID.3 and ID.4 vehicles and are given a" stationary draw- in operation", according to the statement. The PSC is a" cost-effective volition to the motor station". Before the end of the year, three fast-charging parks will be put into operation at the factory facilities.

The Zwickauer Tor West charging station consists of 4 charging columns with 2 charging points each. Each column offers up to 150 kW of power or 2 x 75 kW if both charging points are occupied. The electricity for the charging park is generated, among other things, in the photovoltaic system located directly next door and is otherwise drawn from the grid - since Volkswagen Saxony has been buying green electricity since 2017, all vehicles are They thus charge with 100% renewable energy.

With the PSC, Volkswagen Saxony relies on a solution thatAudi is already using it successfully for the first time at the Audi Charging Hub in Nuremberg . The container cubes are made up of used lithium-ion batteries, which (in the Nuremberg case) come from dismantled Audi test vehicles and serve as intermediate storage for direct current.

The statement does not specify which connected load the 570 kWh PSC from Zwickau requires. However, with a storage drive of this size, various fast charging processes are possible; the network, instead, is only loaded with the lowest connected load. VW also mentions another advantage in the press release: intermediate energy storage should avoid the high base costs that would otherwise occur in standby mode, even if no vehicle is being charged . The transformation centers of the rapid recharging parks, which are connected to the medium voltage network, work 24 hours a day; furthermore, the initial investments for these devices may be high.

Like Audi, VW Saxony sees the first charging park with second-life storage as a pilot project to gain experience with the technology. The advantage is that fast charging infrastructure can be built almost anywhere, even in places with a low-capacity network connection. Residential areas are one example of where it could be used the statement says. However, the scalability of these second-life storage charging solutions naturally depends on the availability of retired battery cells. If new cells were installed in intermediate storage units, the initial investment would also be significantly higher in this case.

"The reuse of batteries is important for the future and is closely linked to the acceleration of the trend towards electric mobility" , says Karen Kutzner,  General Manager of Finance and Control of Volkswagen Saxony. "With the energy storage container, Volkswagen Saxony is demonstrating a practical, cost-effective and useful case for enabling end-of-life cell modules to have a second life. This automotive power bank could be used wherever the capacity connection to the grid is too low but there is demand for a powerful charging infrastructure. Innovative ideas like this could give new impetus to the creation of a fast charging infrastructure."

 

Tesla planning to start production o4680 cells at Texas Giga

Tesla plans to start production of 4680-format battery cells at the Texas Gigafactory this quarter and outperform the Kato pilot line there, near the Fremont, California, car plant, by the end of the quarter. of year.

This was explained by the head of Tesla, Drew Baglino, during the analyst conference on the latest quarterly figures. Currently, the production of 4,680 cells on the pilot line is still not enough for 1,000 vehicles per week. The challenge remains to control the production processes of new technologies, including dry electrodes. As the "Electric" portal extrapolates , this can be cross to an annual production storage of the less than  Four GWh.

But: Being a pilot line, the four GWh or 1,000 vehicles per week limit is not surprising. Large-scale production is expected to change this soon. Specially for Texas, the installation of cell equipment and commissioned last quater, and our first produced test vehicles with Texas cells " said Baglino. "Our goal for Texas is to start production this quarter and Texas should be able to surpass Kato's weekly production before the end of this year .Kato" is Tesla's current pilot line in Fremont, located on Kato Road. This facility is often referred to as Tera.

But Tesla has also made progress at Kato recently: Since March, production has risen 35% each month, Electrek writes, citing the analysts' call.

At Giga Texas in Austin, which opened in April, Tesla is building the standard-range version of the Model Y, which is only available in North America, with all 4,680 cells and structural battery packs . However, the Model Y Long Range, now being built there as well, will probably still use conventional battery packs with the smaller 2170 cells.

According to Tesla, it does not depend on the progress of 4680 production in California and Texas: Elon Musk explained that Tesla has enough cells of the 2170 format to cover all vehicle production for the rest of the year. He stressed that the 4680 cells will become important in 2023, not this year.

Furthermore, Tesla's perspective is not to rely solely on its own 4680 production: Tesla's partner Panasonic shipped the first 4680 sample cells to Tesla and began its own pilot production in Japan in May. The battery factory for series production is probably be built in Kansas in last week. Samsung SDI is building its pilot line of the 4680 in Cheonan, with serial production said to take place later in Malaysia.