HANOVER, Germany — Daimler Vehicles is migrating its battery chemistry to a components that eliminates nickel and cobalt to enhance sturdiness and cut back competitors with the passenger automobile enterprise for scarce supplies.
Daimler will regularly transfer its autos to lithium iron phosphate batteries it has developed in partnership with China’s CATL. Iron and phosphate price far much less and are simpler to mine than different battery supplies.
“They’re each low cost and plentiful nearly in all places and will certainly assist to scale back the strain on the battery provide chain as adoption grows,” stated Sam Abuelsamid, an analyst with Guidehouse Insights.
Daimler, the German mum or dad of Freightliner and Western Star truck manufacturers, introduced the technique because it debuted a longer-haul electrical truck for the European market at IAA Transportation 2022 on Monday.
“My concern is that if your entire passenger automobile market, not simply Tesla or the high-end automobiles, strikes to batteries, there will likely be a battle,” Martin Daum, Daimler Truck’s CEO, advised Automotive Information. “And a battle all the time means greater pricing.”
Eliminating nickel and cobalt, the rarest components going into automobile batteries, reduces the fee, he stated. Lithium iron phosphate (LFP) battery cells price about 30 % lower than nickel manganese cobalt (NMC) cells, based on BloombergNEF.
“The a lot decrease price, superior sturdiness and security make LFP a really interesting prospect for a lot of use circumstances, particularly industrial autos,” Abuelsamid stated.
Freightliner and different Daimler manufacturers now use NMC chemistry that depends on lithium and manganese along with nickel and cobalt.
A lot of the passenger automobile business will keep on with NMC chemistry that makes use of nickel and cobalt as a result of these batteries have better power density. That enables for better vary in a small automobile, Daum stated.
Nonetheless, there’s some motion even amongst passenger automobile makers to LFP batteries, Abuelsamid stated, particularly entry-level fashions. Tesla, for instance, is beginning to use LFP expertise for some autos it manufactures in China.
“We count on that LFP will most likely account for not less than one-third of the EV battery market within the second half of the last decade as most producers undertake for not less than some functions,” Abuelsamid stated.
Moreover Tesla, Volvo and Ford plan to include LFP batteries into a few of their autos.
Daum stated the expertise makes good sense for big industrial autos like electrical Freightliners. The vans have sufficient area for bigger batteries that compensate for the decrease power density of LFP chemistry.
Know-how advances might additional slim the hole. An anticipated shift in cell-to-pack architectures will eradicate the modular construction in batteries and assist overcome the lowered power density of LFP chemistry, Abuelsamid stated.
That is as a result of the brand new design doubles the quantity of lively energy-storing materials in a battery pack to 70 % to 80 %, he defined. In line with Daum, LFP additionally presents higher longevity as a result of it does not undergo the identical degree of degradation after 1000’s of cycles. Many within the business contemplate LFP batteries safer as a result of they function at a decrease temperature and are much less prone to catch hearth.
Batteries are beginning to divide alongside a number of expertise pathways by automobile phase, stated Nathan Niese, an electrification professional and companion with Boston Consulting Group.
Premium autos will supply the latest-generation high-nickel batteries that push boundaries on battery innovation, he stated. Mid-level autos will use high-nickel or LFP chemistries that target quick recharging, whereas entry-level autos will come geared up with LFP or sodium-ion chemistries that worth price competitiveness over automobile vary.
The large scale of the passenger automobile market and its benefit as the primary mover create sourcing challenges for later entrants equivalent to industrial automobile producers, Niese stated.
Daimler’s change in battery technique comes because it unveils the Mercedes-Benz Vehicles eActros Lengthy Haul Class 8 truck.
The truck can have the brand new LFP batteries when it goes into manufacturing in 2024. Daimler, which owns Mercedes-Benz Vehicles, stated it could have a spread of about 300 miles.
Though Daimler plans to promote the eActros in Europe, its batteries and different expertise will seem in a future eCascadia mannequin, Daum stated.
“We’re on the lookout for most commonality on all platforms,” he stated.