As Volvo goes electric, here's how it's making its batteries top-notch:
Electric cars are becoming much more important to automakers, and that means those companies are having to learn how to get good with batteries. That was baked into Tesla from day one, but for existing automakers, batteries have to become a new core competency. Recently, Volvo opened its doors in Gothenburg, Sweden, to show us how that's happening, ahead of the launch later this year of its new battery EV, the XC40 Recharge.
Volvo was an early advocate for going electric, announcing a plan for its model range shortly after it told us that it was ending development on diesel engines. That plan calls for 50 percent of its sales to be BEVs by 2025, but actually implementing that plan is more involved than just holding a press conference, and it's a transformation that affects the entire company. Engineers are being retrained to work with electric motors instead of internal combustion engines. Supply lines and purchasing have to get to grips with responsibly sourcing a new range of materials. The carmaker even has to think about what its new EVs should sound like.
[...] Volvo has built its reputation on safety, and obviously the move to electric powertrains can't be allowed to compromise that.
"You may think that it's an advantage to have something smaller like an electrical motor compared to a combustion engine in the front [of the vehicle]. But the way that we design for frontal crashes, taking into consideration the real world accidents where you have angles, different speeds, different offsets, the engine itself is actually part of the system to help distribute the loads," explained Thomas Broberg, one of Volvo's senior technical advisers for safety.
Consequently, don't expect a voluminous Tesla-style cargo frunk between the front wheels of an electric XC40. While there is a storage space under the hood, underneath that (and below the inverter and control electronics for the front motor) is a large steel crash structure that distributes frontal impact loads away from the car's occupants in the same way Volvo's internal combustion engines are designed to do.
The battery pack, like just about every EV since General Motors' AUTOnomy concept of 2002, lives between the front and rear axles, and it contributes significantly to the car's structural rigidity and crashworthiness. One doesn't envy the engineers, for the pack has to satisfy two potentially competing demands. Obviously a collision can't compromise the integrity of the pack itself, because lithium-ion cells don't react well to being short-circuited. But equally, you can't design an indestructible pack unless you want the vehicle occupants to absorb all the kinetic energy of a crash instead.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by Fnord666 on Wednesday April 01 2020, @07:23PM (1 child)
Good luck with that. I don't know what the real world lifetime for Lithium ion and Lithium polymer batteries are but unless you are building a car that falls apart before ten years, that's not going to happen. I suppose it also depends on what you consider the "lifetime" to be. Battery retains at least 50% of it's original capacity?
(Score: 2) by maxwell demon on Thursday April 02 2020, @12:00PM
Well, you yourself already found the answer:
The Tao of math: The numbers you can count are not the real numbers.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by bzipitidoo on Wednesday April 01 2020, @07:42PM (2 children)
The biggest shift in moving from internal combustion to electric is changing the focus. In internal combustion, a gas tank is simple and easy, and the complicated part is the engine. In battery electric, it's the other way around. Electric motors are relatively simple and easy. It's those batteries that are so hard to design.
Common to both kinds of cars is a body. And there, the waste has been simply appalling. By today's standards, 19th century steam engine tech is crude, heavy, and bullheaded, to compensate for its gross inefficiencies. Steam engines were terrible at extracting energy, and a great deal was wasted in all that huffing, puffing, and smoke that is so characteristic, and even celebrated. As for pollution, that wasn't even a concern, terribly dirty though steam trains were.
In the future, 20th century automobile body design is going to look flashy, silly, and terribly wasteful. Nothing says we have power to waste and money to burn like the horrible aerodynamics of the average car. Show the world how spoiled and crass great wealth makes a people. One of the biggest problems is the lack of any kind of smooth cover for the underside. People won't accept cars without hoods, but the underside is routinely overlooked.
Drives me crazy that most people are so fixated on appearances, to the detriment of the practicalities. As the saying goes, "it's not the paint that makes the car go." You might think that an early BEV car such as a Nissan Leaf, with only 62 miles of range (depending on many factors-- that's the EPA rating, but Nissan of course claimed much more range), would spur designers and the public to accept some aerodynamic improvements that result in a radically different appearance, in order to boost the range by a whopping 50%, or more. That's how much range could be improved. Cars should look like the X-prize winner, the Edison 2. But no. And so, because the aerodynamics of a Leaf are so crappy, the number one way to extend the range is to reduce the effects of its poor aerodynamics by driving a lot, lot slower. Like, 30 mph. Even with such limited range of just 60 miles, where every additional mile that can be squeezed out of the car really counts, they wouldn't pick that low hanging fruit that could have boosted the range to 90 miles. Frustrating.
(Score: 2, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday April 01 2020, @08:35PM (1 child)
There are compromises made to have such an aero shape.
It's not a pure win. For one, you reduce usable interior space. People must sit very low to the ground, sacrificing visibility and typically comfort with the position of their legs which will not be like sitting in a chair. Glare from a low-angle windshield can be unbearable. Getting in and out of a low car gets to be more of a problem the older you get.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday April 01 2020, @09:19PM
If there are ever self driving cars, maybe the passengers lie down on beds? That would certainly reduce frontal area and air drag!
(Score: 0, Disagree) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday April 01 2020, @09:29PM
Had to look that word up.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday April 02 2020, @07:55AM
I;n so glaf the cpm[any made it top nothc. I love top notch protudct.s Dumpt htat shit it ht eocien for all i care but bamek ot fucking top notch mothierifucing ch.