MUNICH — BMW Group is creating 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 (New Class) electrical automobiles.
The so-called Gen 6 battery, below improvement on the BMW Group Battery Cell Centre of Excellence right here, delivers as much as 30 per cent higher driving vary than the present era, in line with the corporate.
A key to the efficiency is the battery cell’s cylindrical form, mentioned Simon Erhard, who helps lead Gen 6 improvement at BMW Group.
Whereas present BMW batteries function prismatic cells configured in modules bolted collectively to type 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.
“Vitality density is way larger than earlier than,” Erhard informed a bunch of journalists at a media briefing this week. “You possibly can 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 per cent cheaper. That shall be important to attaining value parity with combustion engine automobiles, because the battery pack accounts for about 40 per cent of an electrical car’s price.
Erhard mentioned the “cell-to-chassis” design permits the battery pack to be mounted instantly into the car body, bettering chassis stiffness and experience high quality.
“With Gen 6, we’re integrating cylindrical battery cells straight into the car,” he mentioned. “It is now a part of the physique.”
BMW is additional refining the design.
“The principle problem is to realize the appropriate compromise between stiffness and adaptability,” Erhard mentioned. “Probably the most built-in [design] could be the place the car flooring is the higher a part of the battery pack.”
BMW is not the one automaker experimenting with structural batteries.
Within the latest model of its Mannequin Y, Tesla has an identical cell-to-pack idea through 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 per cent is 30 per cent 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 per cent much less cobalt, whereas the anode has 20 per cent much less graphite.
The cells shall be produced with renewable power and partly use recycled cobalt, nickel and lithium to chop production-related carbon emissions by 60 per cent.
Erhard mentioned the expertise maximizes power effectivity with “sensible integration whereas holding 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, S.C., beginning mid-decade. BMW has mentioned it intends to provide at the least 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 can have an annual capability of as much as 30-gigawatt hours — capable of provide sufficient batteries for 300,000 EVs yearly, in line with AutoForecast Options.
However at the same time as BMW readies its subsequent EV batteries for market, it’s exploring new applied sciences comparable to solid-state batteries.
Erhard mentioned innovation in lithium ion battery expertise is peaking.
“From an power density viewpoint,” he mentioned, “we’re going through the [limits] of lithium ion cell chemistry in industrialized purposes.”
Reuters contributed to this report.