Research on how to give used electric vehicle batteries a second life, significantly reducing charging time until full charge in 20 minutes, and developing algorithms to maximize battery life They signal the future of a market selling 6 million cars worldwide by 2021.
This is stated by the Technological Energy Institute (ITE), a center affiliated with the Valencia Community Network of Technological Institutes (Redit), which developed the Promet project to investigate the causes of the degradation of lithium batteries in electric vehicles. Suggesting options that extend their lifetime by reducing the risk of failure.
“Aging, external temperature, different loading and unloading speeds, rest periods or so-called ‘calendar aging’, which simply refers to the passage of time, deterioration factors affecting electric car batteries,” explains Juan Gilabert, coordinator of the Promet project and member of the ITE Battery unit.
Gilabert explained that the study of these factors leads to mathematical models that explain how these factors happen. battery deteriorationThe next step in the project may be to “get a charging profile, that is, a time and characteristics that are optimal for the health of the batteries to be followed when charging one of these cars”.
The coordinator of Promet, a project funded by the Valencia Institute for Business Competitiveness (Ivace) through Feder funds, says that innovation in the field of batteries for electric cars has increased in recent years. in the search for new materials and the development of algorithms for battery management.
Gilabert thought this was an important and urgent issue, because even the European Union has goals in this regard, “to reach a full charge in an electric car in 20 minutes without damaging the health of the battery”. In reality, with current developments, it’s “about an hour or so”.
In this sense, ITE has also developed projects to search for the latest generation materials to improve the different elements of batteries, especially the cathodes and reduce the amount of cobaltmaterial that is only available to a very limited extent.
In addition, Gilabert explained that the tech institute’s Battery unit is also focusing on BMS algorithms that can use Promet’s mathematical models, called “battery management, which lets the vehicle know when and when, for example, is the best time to fast charge.” when not”.
battery life
“There’s also been a lot of talk about second lives, researching what other uses the car battery can be put to when it’s no longer used for the car,” added the ITE Battery unit member. “Batteries are only useful and safe for a car up to an energy density level of 70% or 80%”.
“We’re seeing a lot of innovation in the area of maximizing the usefulness of batteries,” said Gilabert. In this sense, he detailed that more than 6 million electric cars were sold in the world in 2021, 2.3 million of which were in Europe.