Addressing Battery Weight Challenges in Electric Vehicles

The news that motorists in Paris will soon be expected to pay a higher fee to park a heavy electric vehicle has brought the issue of weight (of the battery) into sharper focus for many. Battery weight has been a challenge for EVs almost since their inception, and while consumers continue to demand greater range, this only exacerbates the trade-off that all manufacturers find themselves juggling with. This is why effective battery management has become so critical; with better management, more usable energy and hence range can be extracted from a given battery size.

Advancements in Battery Management Systems

“Since the pandemic, work on developing and optimising battery management systems (BMS) has accelerated, and over the last 2-3 years the state-of-the-art has moved on rapidly,” says Dr Umut Genc, co-founder and CEO of Eatron. “As we look to the future and the next phase of development, we can see a number of important trends that are coming over the horizon, with AI and cloud technologies very much at their centre.”

Leveraging Cloud-Based Solutions

Cloud-based state-of-health (SoH) and remaining useful life (RUL) algorithms are now considered far more important, as vehicle manufacturers realise the benefits of shifting much of the computational effort into the cloud, where it can be expanded and upgraded long after the vehicle has left the factory. This, in turn, has also allowed improvements to anomaly detection and predictive maintenance algorithms that significantly enhance safety.

Harnessing Artificial Intelligence for Enhanced Performance

“Artificial Intelligence (AI) and machine learning have really allowed us to gain a better understanding of the user profile – the types of journey each person uses their vehicle for, when and how they recharge, and so on – and that helps us to generate a far more accurate picture of the state of the battery. Armed with this information, we can better understand where the limits lie, and that enables us to extract a greater level of performance without compromising safety.”

Advancements in Battery Modeling

Complex physics-based models that more accurately replicate the behaviour of individual cells within a battery are now becoming available, and this further enhances accuracy and robustness. As ever, though, there is a balance to be struck, and the more complex the model, the more computational power and bandwidth is required.

Meeting Regulatory Standards and Consumer Expectations

But with governments and legislators increasingly turning their attention to the life of an EV beyond its first owner, manufacturers are looking to these new developments as a way to achieve compliance. Bodies such as the EPA and the EU are mandating battery passports as a way of ensuring information about the health of a battery is made available to consumers. This, it is hoped, will help instil confidence in buyers of second-hand EVs, and that will prove crucial to the industry as it looks to expand the market beyond the early adopters.

“OEMs typically offer an 8-year battery warranty, and as the single most expensive component in the vehicle, having access to accurate information is critical to protecting their warranty costs.”

Future Outlook: Connectivity and Data Mining

As adoption of cloud technologies increases, connectivity will become ever more important, with the need to transmit data – and perhaps more of it – central to the advanced features that are being demanded. Once the data is there, however, it becomes a considerable resource that can be mined for further insights, and this field is one that is likely to expand significantly over the coming years.

“By building and expanding our AI and cloud-based platforms, we can continue to deliver on our goals of cleaner, greener, and safer batteries while minimising the impact of the range vs. weight trade-off,” Dr Genc concludes.

Contact Us

For inquiries, please contact us via email at info@eatron.com. Join us as we continue to pioneer advancements in battery management and contribute to a sustainable automotive future.