Battery pack modular concept equally applicable to Battery Electric Vehicles (BEVs) and Plug-in Hybrid Electric Vehicles (PHEVs) to overcome range anxiety

The ALBATROSS project addresses the needs of European Electric and Hybrid-Electric passenger vehicle market by overcoming driver concerns relating to battery range and anxiety, cost, long-term reliability and excessive charging times.

Electrification of vehicles is seen as key to achieving global legislative requirements for CO2 emissions reductions. Zero emissions within cities and higher quality and higher performance electrified vehicles (EVs) is also making them more attractive. More than 2 million EVs were sold globally in 2018, 68,7% were battery electric vehicles (BEV) and 31,3% were plugin hybrid electric vehicles (PHEV), with an annual growth rate of 57,3%. However, several issues currently limit further exploitation. Specifically, concerns of drivers regarding battery range (and anxiety), cost, the long-term reliability of batteries and excessive charging times. European manufacturers need to develop key technologies which address buyers’ main hesitation points. ALBATROSS was born to contribute to solve these challenges and CIDETEC Energy Storage is part of this team

European OEMs and policy makers want to see an increased uptake in EVs in order to stay competitive, meet climate targets and improve standards of living (improved air quality in cities, reduced noise). To realize an increased uptake, the general hesitations of buyers need to be addressed, primarily range and cost. Many of the current limitations relate to the battery packs. As vehicle manufacturers look to extract the maximum possible energy and durability from battery packs and recharge them as quickly and safely as possible, these issues become more critical. Thermal “smart” management of individual battery cells is a crucial enabler for performance improvements regardless of (even extreme cold or hot) external temperatures.

The outputs of ALBATROSS will enable our automotive OEM partners to improve their competitiveness through reducing battery pack cost and increasing value for second-life applications, making them more attractive as well as reducing emissions over the full lifetime, thus meeting global legislative requirements. Technologies are based on globally available battery cells, enabling rapid exploitation, giving our EU supply chains competitive advantage.

CIDETEC Energy Storage will play the role of validator of the achieved new battery pack concept through long-term tests at laboratory at the end of the project. These tests will include standard driving cycles and fast charging rates according to the maximum available safe operation scenario of the battery pack. On the other hand, CIDETEC is already contributing to the battery pack modelling thanks to our expertise in electrical and thermal modelling.

This project has received funding from the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme under grant agreement No 963580

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