Interchangeable cells make traction batteries cheaper
Today, traction batteries for electrical vehicles (EV) and hybrid electrical vehicles (HEV) are designed, built and sold as a monolithic block that contains hundreds of single battery cells. These cells are connected in series, which leads to a significant problem: The whole battery is only as strong as the weakest cell. If one cell fails, the entire battery renders unusable and needs to be replaced as a whole. The principle provides that all cells are identical and can store the same amount of energy, and battery monitoring system is applied to the battery as a whole. The reality however is somewhat different: Due to manufacturing tolerances the capacities of the individual cells vary. The manufacturers try to prevent this effect by thoroughly selecting and matching the cells. During this process however, several cells are sorted out. The result: The entire battery becomes more expensive. Another problem is that if only one cell breaks down, so does the car. In such cases, the whole battery must be replaced.
Researchers from Fraunhofer Institute for Production Technology and Automation (Fraunhofer IPA) have devised an alternative to this unsatisfactory situation. They developed a modular battery system in which each cell can be replaced individually. Therefore however, each cell needs to be equipped with its own battery monitoring system (BMS) – a microcontroller that measures relevant physical parameters of like temperature and charge level. Thus, every cell is aware of its conditions. Across the existing high-current connection between the batteries the cells can exchange data (powerline communications). These microcontrollers also communicate with external devices such as the battery system controller that computes the remaining energy based on the data from the cells.
While with today’s batteries the car ceases to work if only one cell is empty, the Fraunhofer design enables vehicles to continue their ride. This is possible because a faulty of empty cell is simply deactivated and will be isolated; the energy flow is directed around the deactivated cell. “According to cell quality, we can increase the driving range by at least f percent”, explains Fraunhofer IPA team manager Kai Pfeiffer. “During the lifetime of a battery, this effect becomes even more pronounced. If you deactivate the empty cells in older batteries, it is possible that you can stretch the range by as much as 10 percent”.
Since calls with lower individual capacity has almost no impact on the range of the vehicle, the manufacturers do not need to pre-sort the cells, which leads to significant cost savings. In addition, the capacity of the cells adopt to each other over time. The reason: With this kind of batteries, those individuals that store less energy are deactivated first. The more powerful cells are longer in use and thus are aging faster, their capacity is declining. Plus, in the case of a single cell experiences a breakdown there is no need to visit a garage. Because the battery consists of more than hundred cells, a single cell does not matter anymore. If the owner nevertheless decides to have the battery repaired, it is sufficient to have simply exchanged the individual cell instead the entire battery.
The researchers have successfully built a prototype. The next step will be miniaturising the electronic circuitry associated to the cells. The goal is a monitoring system that cocts less than 1 euro.
Related articles:
Battery monitoring chip gets better, cheaper successor
BMS optimised for high power density, low price
Challenges in Battery Management for Hybrid/Electric Vehicles
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