NXP is working on a project to upgrade electric-vehicle battery performance,
safety and lifecycle sustainability to help address the projected fast-growing
demands of the EV marketplace.
Ambitious Goals for EV Adoption
The world has ambitious expectations for
EV
adoption over the next decade. In the EU, sales are
expected
to approach 50% of total vehicles sold. According to
this study, auto executives in the US say that similar targets are within reach,
and manufacturers in China
see
a market penetration rate approaching 70%.
All of the major challenges to these ambitious goals involve batteries, whether due to charging
(infrastructure, rate of charge), range, or, in
this analysis, concerns about safety (both use and reuse/disposal).
Better batteries that address these challenges through advanced diagnostic and
control features, as well as functionalities that extend range, shorten
charging times and enhance safety could encourage greater user confidence and
help speed up adoption.
A Better Battery
What would the performance characteristics of a better battery include? Such
attributes as:
-
A range of at least 500 km (~310 miles) on a fully charged battery pack
- Halved charging times
-
A performance lifetime of over 300,000 km (~186,000 miles) for original use
(also called “first life”)
- An active-safe battery management system
-
Usability of the battery pack for second-life applications and
sustainability over the battery pack’s entire life cycle
NXP Collaborates on EV Battery Solutions with LIBERTY
NXP is partnering in a project called
LIBERTY (lightweight battery system for extended range at improved
safety)
to upgrade EV battery performance, safety and lifetime, along with other
European technology partners. The collaboration focuses on a novel long-range
(500km) and fast-charging (< 20min, hence 800V system) battery-pack design,
increased battery safety and long battery lifetime while increasing
sustainability over its entire lifecycle. This is achieved using
high-energy-density cells, lightweight housing materials and improved thermal
system design, a versatile battery management system (BMS), designed for
highly synchronized and accurate measurements of cell voltages and battery
current, which enables improved (AI-based) state and predictive estimators,
while fulfilling the highest functional safety standards.
Additionally, to ensure end-of-life battery packs can be dismantled
efficiently and safely, LIBERTY will design a semi-automated battery
dismantling procedure thereby reducing costs for recycling and reuse. Since
current standards for performance and safety testing have limitations for
testing of developments like the ones targeted in LIBERTY, future-proof
testing protocols will be developed for standardized EV safety as well as
performance testing.
The LIBERTY collaboration is innovating EV battery performance, safety and lifetime updates
Our involvement is focused on smart solutions and tools for battery sensing,
diagnostics and controls. It’s being delivered by teams in NXP-Netherlands and
NXP-France who are enabling accurate and cost-effective measurements capable
of recognizing hidden performance issues that evolve slowly over the battery’s
lifetime. Differences between cells of voltages and currents are especially
important to allow better diagnostics and enriched monitoring functions, such
as early detection of the appearance of small changes in self-discharge rate
between cells.
“I like to call it spotting the ‘odd cell out,’ says Henk Jan Bergveld,
technical director and one of NXP’s experts on the project. “The LIBERTY
project is a great opportunity to work on the next generation of battery
packs, especially the demands placed on the BMS electronics for this next
generation. Since the project involves partners at various positions in the
value chain, this enables optimizations of the system across the board,
including hardware issues -- electronic, but also mechanical and thermal --
and software issues including improved diagnostics and associated state
estimation functions.”
The project partners are based in Austria, Germany, Netherlands, Belgium,
Spain, France and Romania. It also includes Mercedes as the main OEM, as well
as NXP, Infineon, Diehl, Valeo, Hutchinson, Accurec, Clepa, and knowledge
institutes Fraunhofer, Ikerlan, Mondragon, Flanders Make, Bring and Virtual
Vehicle.
NXP’s Public Cooperation Programs (PCP) team coordinates publicly funded
innovation and R&D collaborations with academic, government, nonprofit and
corporate partners. NXP’s PCP team handles all operational, financial and
legal matters, allowing technical engineers to focus on the research and
development. LIBERTY has received funding from the European Union’s Horizon
2020 research and innovation program under grant agreement No 963522.
This article reflects only the author’s view, and the Commission is not
responsible for any use that may be made of the information it contains.
For more information about the LIBERTY project you can read the project kickoff press release.