MUNICH — BMW is growing a battery cell that guarantees to go farther, price much less and be gentler on the planet.
The brand new lithium ion cell will energy BMW’s next-gen Neue Klasse electrical automobiles.
The so-called Gen 6 battery, below growth on the BMW Group Battery Cell Centre of Excellence right here, delivers as much as 30 % higher driving vary than the present technology, in accordance with the corporate.
A key to the efficiency is the battery cell’s cylindrical form, mentioned Simon Erhard, who helps lead Gen 6 growth at BMW.
Whereas present BMW batteries characteristic prismatic cells configured in modules bolted collectively to kind a pack, the next-gen design ditches the modules. Its new cell-to-pack design permits extra power-packing cells to be squeezed into the identical battery footprint. The Gen 6 battery has a diameter of 46 millimeters.
“Power density is far greater than earlier than,” Erhard advised a gaggle of journalists at a media briefing this week. “You’ll be able to put extra cells into the battery pack.”
Maximizing power density additionally reduces battery weight and price.
BMW mentioned the brand new battery pack is 50 % cheaper. That will likely be important to reaching worth parity with combustion engine automobiles, because the battery pack accounts for about 40 % of an electrical automobile’s price.
Erhard mentioned the “cell-to-chassis” design permits the battery pack to be mounted immediately into the automobile body, enhancing chassis stiffness and experience high quality.
“With Gen 6, we’re integrating cylindrical battery cells straight into the automobile,” he mentioned. “It is now a part of the physique.”
BMW is additional refining the design.
“The principle problem is to attain the appropriate compromise between stiffness and suppleness,” Erhard mentioned. “Essentially the most built-in [design] can be the place the automobile flooring is the higher a part of the battery pack.”
BMW is just not the one automaker experimenting with structural batteries.
Within the latest model of its Mannequin Y, Tesla has the same cell-to-pack idea during which cylindrical battery cells are bonded with structural adhesive, sandwiched between two metallic plates and related to the entrance and rear cast-metal constructions of the crossover.
The Gen 6 battery guarantees to go farther on a single cost and recharge sooner. Recharging from 10 to 80 % is 30 % faster.
The cell itself is extra sustainable, because it makes use of extra nickel and silicon and fewer cobalt. BMW mentioned the cathode in its battery cell boasts 50 % much less cobalt, whereas the anode has 20 % much less graphite.
The cells will likely be produced with renewable power and partly use recycled cobalt, nickel and lithium to chop production-related carbon emissions by 60 %.
Erhard mentioned the know-how maximizes power effectivity with “sensible integration whereas conserving security excessive and a low carbon footprint.”
BMW will construct a number of Neue Klasse electrical crossover fashions at its U.S. manufacturing facility in Greer, South Carolina, beginning mid-decade. BMW has mentioned it intends to supply not less than six electrical fashions there by 2030.
To provide these automobiles, BMW has tapped Envision AESC to construct Gen 6 battery cells at a brand new manufacturing facility in South Carolina. The manufacturing facility may have an annual capability of as much as 30-gigawatt hours — in a position to provide sufficient batteries for 300,000 EVs yearly, in accordance with AutoForecast Options.
However at the same time as BMW readies its subsequent EV batteries for market, it’s exploring new applied sciences reminiscent of solid-state batteries.
Erhard mentioned innovation in lithium ion battery know-how is peaking.
“From an power density viewpoint,” he mentioned, “we face the [limits] of lithium ion cell chemistry in industrialized functions.”
Reuters contributed to this report.