EV battery challenges and solutions

Issue #132, Feb 23rd, 2022

As the adoption of electric vehicles (EVs) picks up, more of their practical challenges get identified and addressed at the same time. In an earlier article on Forbes India, we had written about OEMs making a trade off between battery range and price, and switching to lower range (explainable Product Design). Tesla seems to be along this path, with its iron-based batteries. Battery swapping could be a solution for the lack of charging stations, atleast for personal mobility and in the premium segment. But interoperability continues to be a challenge. Home charging could be an alternative for the lack of public charging stations. But to reach charging rates between 15 and 40 miles of range per hour or Level 2 charging, consumers will need to upgrade to a more powerful 240-volt outlet. Autonomous driving seems to make driving attractive and therefore lead to more pollution, a counterintuitive outcome for these green initiatives. Sunset of 3G services by telecom players in the U.S. could affect vehicle connectivity. Here are some recent challenges, solutions and developments specifically in the EV sector.

Obsolete battery for better price

Tesla is switching the type of battery cells used for all its standard-range cars globally to one that analysts once forecast would soon become obsolete. The company will use iron-based batteries in those cars, also known as lithium iron phosphate batteries. Their biggest drawback is lower range. The material used in iron-based batteries have a lower energy density, offering less driving distance on a single charge for the same weight compared with widely used nickel-based lithium-ion batteries. But the switch to iron-based batteries would have one critical advantage: price. The older batteries are significantly cheaper — costing about 30 per cent per battery cell less than their nickel-rich counterparts. - Financial Times

Battery swapping and interoperability

It was touted as an answer to India’s range anxiety towards EVs, as finance minister Nirmala Sitharaman in her Budget speech spelt out that the government will put in place a battery-swapping system with interoperability standards. Battery swapping has potential in the fleet segment — two- and three-wheelers, and light trucks. But its scope could be limited in personal mobility, especially in premium segments. Swapping is still not universal. Users can’t swap battery just at any facility as manufacturers use different standards for design and engineering. Also, there’s lack of standardisation among EV batteries. - Economic Times

Charging EVs at home

Electric vehicles are gaining momentum. Sales of pure and hybrid plug-ins doubled in the U.S. last year to 656,866, making up 4.4% of the passenger-vehicle market. With more cars come more questions. Chief among them: how the recharging routine can work at home. EV entrepreneurs are working on the industry’s biggest bottleneck: charging infrastructure. Companies are building more chargers, but they might not be enough to make EVs work for people who can’t plug in at home. Where possible, consumers want to plug in where they live and work. That could mean having to update their home wiring plus bumped-up electric bills when electricity prices are already trending higher. - WSJ

Autonomous driving and the appeal

By analysing drivers’ use of partially automated vehicles and simulating the expected impact of future driverless vehicles, we found that both automated vehicle types will encourage a lot more driving. This will increase transportation-related pollution and traffic congestion, unless regulators take steps to make car travel less appealing. - Channel News Asia

3G sunset and vehicle connectivity

Millions of vehicles in the U.S. will lose some emergency and convenience features this week, as AT&T becomes the first telecommunications company to disable its 3G network. The shutdowns – known as network sunsets – affect older cellphones but also other products such as home security systems and vehicles that use 3G networks for updates and remote communication. The discontinuation of the 3G networks is not expected to make any vehicles obsolete but could cause inconveniences and reduce emergency safety features. - CNBC

EV batteries and national security

Electric cars need batteries the same way combustion cars need fuel -- and the metal in those batteries can be just as precious and hard to get as gas. The United States sources about 90% of the lithium it uses from Argentina and Chile, and contributes less than 1% of global production of nickel and cobalt, according to the Department of Energy. China refines 60% of the world's lithium and 80% of the cobalt. "China could shut down the world's electric vehicle transition for political reasons," Jeffrey Wilson, research director of the Perth USAsia Centre at the University of Western Australia, told CNN Business. - CNN