Electric Dreams
Following September’s inaugural World EV Day, the future of electric battery use in British motoring is considered as is how the industry might prepare for the end of the ICE age
Published: 18 November, 2020
The inaugural World EV (Electric Vehicle) Day, held in September, was the first of its kind. Designed to take place as an annual event, the day aimed to encourage the acceleration towards pure-electric motoring. World EV Day was a great opportunity to celebrate how EVs are the cornerstone of the world’s transition to a sustainable energy circular economy – and the movement towards battery power in cars is certainly gathering momentum.
At the heart of the EV industry is the battery. Lithium ion batteries have finally given us a power source which can be used thousands of times in their first lives, then thousands more in their second lives, before being recycled to do it over and over again. Although there are still emissions from mineral extraction and manufacturing, there are no operational emissions. This means that EVs are helping us to breathe cleaner air in our cities and are helping us to live longer and healthier lives.
It’s estimated there are around 1.2 billion vehicles on the road in the world, and in the UK alone there are 38.4 million licensed vehicles on the road. The sooner we switch to electric vehicles and take traditional diesel or petrol cars out of use the better for the health of people and the planet.
Environmental implications
While celebrating the merits of the EV we must also continue to think about how we enable the rest of the new circular economy to ensure we get the most out of both the environmental and economic opportunities created by these new technologies.
The key ingredients in an EV battery, including lithium and cobalt, are hard to mine, and come via a challenging supply chain. Happily, they are not consumed when either storing or releasing energy unlike fossil fuels. However, their performance is slowly degraded, so we must seek to understand this process and maximise performance and utility in their first and second lives, before recycling them for a further generation of uses at peak performance. This creates a circular economy which is about to get dramatically larger and more exciting.
Built on data
Data is fundamental to achieving this. Altelium is working with diverse stakeholders to ensure that data flows to where it is needed to unlock the potential of this new economy, while respecting and protecting the commercial interests of each link in the supply chain. While each stage in the lifecycle helps the planet, it also creates value. Data is the glue that holds it together.
Altelium collects this data and uses its expertise to turn it into the useful information. This underpins Altelium’s warranty and insurance products which facilitate the finance, confidence and value of all the products and businesses in each part of this circular economy.
In order to use the batteries from EVs in second life application, it is essential to know its state of health (SOH) and the performance history of the individual battery cell. Armed with accurate data from the cells we are able to identify the healthiest ones and use them in new products such as stationary storage.
Data will also ensure that any cells not fit for second life uses can be processed as part of an efficient recycling system. These systems are being developed by many interested parties worldwide, targeting at least a 95% recovery and reuse of materials. Sharing data will help the motor industry prosper as we develop the energy circular economy.
Service and repair industry
The garage industry is centred around service and repairs, and the main challenge here is based on the availability of technicians who have the necessary skills and qualifications to work on high voltage systems. The systems found in EVs are very high voltage; as such, it’s a very specialised area of work and there is a shortage of engineers and technicians already.
At the moment, most owners of high value EVs – and most of them are high value at the moment – will return to dealerships for servicing and repairs rather than independent garage or repair shops. Generally speaking, these are likely the only locations in which drivers will find the correctly qualified technicians to handle EV work, certainly in the first ownership of the car and battery; around five years.
The downside to running EV cars with limited service and repair options is the time drivers can spend waiting for appointments with their original dealership – currently this can be 3-5 weeks in many cases.
Another crucial point for garages to understand is that the drivetrain in a diesel or petrol vehicle uses thousands of moving parts, whereas the drivetrain in an EV has dramatically fewer, wiping out most of the common reasons drivers visit service and repair centres.
If we look at something that all cars need regardless of power source, such as tyre changes, you might be forgiven for thinking that this is an area in which smaller local garages will keep pace, despite the major EV shifts predicted. But again, even the amount of tyres from EVs will be less. EV drivetrains tend to be so smooth that despite high torque – which usually shreds tyres - EV tyres remain in good condition for longer. EVs are all automatic, but tyre usage is even less than ICE automatic vehicles. It’s not uncommon for an EV with a good set of tyres to last 30% longer than normally expected which will – across all the cars in the UK – further reducing garage bookings. In addition, EVs will also have self-diagnostic systems running which communicate problems as or before they arise. This will further reduce breakdowns and recoveries.
Other developments
Another development currently only running in China is battery exchange systems for EVs, as an alternative to charging. Cars would drive to an automated battery swap centre, knowing from an app that it’s time to change the battery and there’s one available, and a whole new one would be installed in just a few minutes. It will be the ‘EV pit stop’ – but one that requires no human input.
Overall the mechanical systems within EVs are dramatically reduced so what can service and repair centres do now, to survive in five or ten years’ time?
It seems to me that if you’re an owner of a garage and really wanted to see some return on investment for the future, you would start training your staff in high voltage. Already some of the older EV cars are coming to the end of their warranties, with second or third owners buying at lower prices and wanting the extra value of independent garage servicing, and the numbers will only increase. This is especially true of hybrid cars which need both combustion engines and electrical systems servicing.
It might also be worth looking at specialisms, such as battery reconditioning. Another option might be recycling processes for damaged batteries from collisions and crashes that can’t be used but can be recycled – will your garage be a first point for EV battery recycling?
Fundamentally, high voltage training and investment
will almost certainly be needed in garage settings, and a long-term plan put in place – there’s no doubt about it. Now is the time to stop and consider the future of traditional vehicle service centres – and look to future-proof service and repair businesses as we move into the age of the EV.
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- technologies of electric and hybrid vehicles
In the previous two issues, we looked at the way batteries store energy. We could in fact compare a battery to a conventional fuel tank because the battery and the tank both store energy; but one big difference between a fuel tank and a battery is the process of storing the energy. Petrol and diesel fuel are pumped into the tank in liquid/chemical form and then stored in the same form. Meanwhile, a battery is charged using electrical energy that then has to be converted (within the battery) into a chemical form so that the energy can be stored.
One of the big problems for many potential owners of pure electric vehicles is the relatively slow process of
re-charging the batteries compared to the short time that it takes to re-fill a petrol or diesel fuel tank. If the battery is getting low on energy, the driver then has to find somewhere to re-charge the batteries, and this leads to what is now being termed ‘range anxiety’ for drivers.
Whilst some vehicle owners might only travel short distances and then have the facility to re-charge batteries at home, not all drivers have convenient driveways and charging facilities. Therefore, batteries will have to be re-charged at remote charging points such as at fuel stations or motorway services; and this is especially true on longer journeys. The obvious solution is a hybrid vehicle where a petrol or diesel engine drives a generator to charge the batteries and power the electric motor, and for most hybrids the engine can also directly propel the vehicle. However, much of the driving will then still rely on using the internal combustion engine that uses fossil fuels and produces unwanted emissions. The pure electric vehicle therefore remains one long term solution for significantly reducing the use of fossil fuels and unwanted emission, but this then requires achieving more acceptable battery re-charging times.
Charging process and fast charging
Compared with just a few years ago, charging times have reduced considerably, but there are still some situations where fully re-charging a completely discharged electric vehicle battery pack can in take as long as 20 hours. It is still not uncommon for re-charging using home based chargers or some remote chargers to take up to 10 hours or more.
Although there are a few problems that slow down charging times, one critical problem is the heat that is created during charging, which is a problem more associated with the lithium type batteries used in nearly all modern pure electric vehicles (as well as in laptops, mobile phones and some modern aircraft). If too much electricity (too much current) is fed into the batteries too quickly during charging, it can cause the battery cells to overheat and even start fires. Although cooling systems (often liquid cooling systems) are used to help prevent overheating, it is essential to carefully control the charging current (or charging rate) using sophisticated charging control systems that form part of the vehicle’s ‘power electronics systems.’
Importantly, the overheating problem does in fact become more critical as battery gets closer to being fully charged, so it is in fact possible to provide a relatively high current-fast charge in the earlier stages of charging; but this fast charging must then be slowed down quite considerably when the battery charge reaches around 70% or 80% of full charge. You will therefore see charging times quoted by vehicle manufacturers that typically indicate the time to charge to 80% rather than the time to fully charge. In fact, with careful charging control, many modern battery packs can achieve an 80% charge within 30 minutes or less; but to charge the remaining 20% can then take another 30 minutes or even longer.
Battery modules
Many EV battery packs are constructed using a number of individual batteries that are referred to as battery modules because they actually contain their own individual electronic control systems. Each battery module can then typically contain in the region of four to 12 individual cells. One example is the first generation Nissan Leaf battery pack that contained 48 battery modules that each contained four cells, thus totalling 192 cells; although at the other extreme, the Tesla Model S used a different arrangement where more the 7,000 individual small cells (roughly the size of AA batteries) where used to form a complete battery pack.
The charging control systems can use what is effectively a master controller to provide overall charging control. In many cases the electronics contained in each battery module then provides additional localised control. The localised control systems can make use of temperature sensors that monitor the temperature of the cells contained in each battery module. This then allows the localised controller to restrict the charging rate to the individual cells to prevent overheating. Additionally, the localised controller can also regulate the charging so that the voltages of all the cells in a battery module are the same or balanced.
One other problem that affect battery charging times is the fact that a battery supplies and has to be charged with direct current (DC) whereas most charging stations (such as home based chargers and many of the remote charging stations) provide an alternating current (AC). Therefore the vehicle’s power electronics system contains a AC to DC converter that handles all of the charging current. However, passing high currents through the AC to DC converter also creates a lot of heat, and therefore liquid cooling systems are again used to reduce temperatures of the power electronics. Even with efficient cooling systems, rapid charging using very high charging currents would require more costly AC to DC converters; therefore, the on-board AC to DC converter can in fact be the limiting factor in how quickly a battery pack can be re-charged. Some models of electric vehicle are actually offered with options of charging control systems: a standard charging control system which provides relatively slow charging or an alternative higher cost system that can handle higher currents and provide more rapid charging.
Home & Away
One factor to consider with home based chargers is that a low cost charger could connect directly to the household 13-amp circuit, which would provide relatively slow charging of maybe 10 hours for a battery pack. However, higher power chargers are also available that connect to the 30-amp household circuits (in the same way as some cookers and some other appliances); and assuming that the vehicle’s AC to DC converter will allow higher currents, then the charging time could be reduced to maybe 4 hours operate (but note that all the quoted times will vary with different chargers and different vehicles).
Finally, there are high powered chargers (often referred to as super-chargers) that are usually located at motorway services or other locations. These super-chargers all provide much higher charging currents to provide fast-charging (as long as the vehicle electronics and battery pack accept the high currents); but in a lot of cases, these super-chargers contain their own AC to DC converter, which allows direct current to be supplied to the vehicle charging port. In effect, the vehicle’s on-board AC to DC charger is by-passed during charging thus eliminating the overheating problem and the high current DC is then fed directly to the battery via the charging control system.
In reality, the potential for re-charging a battery pack to 80% of its full charge in 30 minutes or less usually relies on using one of the super-chargers, but battery technology and charging systems are improving constantly, so we
will without doubt see improving charges times for
newer vehicles.
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