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  • G. David Felt
    G. David Felt

    By G. David Felt •

    Did the Germans solve a Major Electric Auto Problem?

      Automakers are planning to bring to market 100's of electric automobiles by 2025 and a german research company may have solved one of the biggest problems surrounding making them profitable.

    BatteryFoil.jpg

    China is the world's largest EV market with sales of electric auto's reaching 2.61 million up 70% in 2018 over 2017. This constitutes 4% of the total Chinese market today. China is requiring 10% of total sales to be EV in 2019 and raised to 12% for 2020. In comparison, the US saw EV sales jump 81% for 2018 to a total of 360,000 EVs sold out of a total of 17.2 million auto's sold.  Yet the US has only 1 million EVs on the road and the auto industry is projected to spend a mind blowing $255 billion in R&D and Capital for electric models by 2023.  Due to high-system cost and low volumes with intense competition EVs in the short run will be unprofitable as OEM's bring the 207 models offered to market. Automakers have hopefully factored these costs into their EV strategies.

    The most expensive part of an EV is the battery pack. Current technology held by Tesla has their packs at 250 watts per kilogram and the holy grail is 400 watts per kilogram which reduces the size of the battery by half. How is one to achieve this?

    To date, EV battery packs such as Tesla, Nissan or Chevrolet have relied on a production system that causes contamination of the battery surface inside due to auxiliary materials or lubricants that is used in manufacturing. Commercial production of high density low cost batteries has been hindered to date by the current wet process of battery production. Franhofer Institute for Material and Beam Technology IWS, have created a process for creation of EV battery packs that uses a dry film coating process rather than liquids. The process does not use toxic solvents and is less energy -intensive ending in a cheaper to produce battery pack as much higher density. Quoting Dr. Benjamin Schumm, project manager for IWS, "Our dry transfer coating process aims to noticeably reduce the process costs in electrode coating." Why would this matter one might ask, currently EV battery production is mostly in the asian rim where cheap labor and cheap electricity allows a corner on the market. Trying to manufacture EV batteries in Germany where labor and electricity is some of the highest prices around make EVs expensive. Having a much cheaper, environmentally safer production allows the battery production to be done closer to the assembly line and reduces component costs in transportation also.

    With so many breakthroughs in battery technology in the last few years, it would make one think that batteries would be cheaper by now and yet it is the most expensive component of all EVs. So how would this tech be any different as the floor is littered with breakthrough after breakthrough that never made it into commercial production. IWS has been teamed up with a Finnish battery company "BroadBit Batteries" where they have a production line setup using this dry electrode material instead of a wet paste to coat electrodes for battery production. Currently IWS with BroadBits has proven they can coat several meters per minute of battery electrode foil at consistent production speed. BroadBit is currently using this technology to create and sell new Sodium Ion batteries.

    fraunhoferiws240lithiumanodebatteriezukunft2.jpg

    Currently an expensive wet complex and toxic paste is applied to the Lithium Ion foil which then requires expensive high energy costs to dry the foil before it can move to the next stage of battery production. IWS dry electrode coating allows foil creation without the ecologically damaging and expensive drying process steps. The result is a much quicker way to create the 100 micrometer thick film onto the aluminum foil creating the battery electrode in a much denser design. Dr. Benjamin Schumm states that this process allows new battery generations where the classic wet process failed and will allow faster and easier development of solid state batteries which uses ion-conducting solids over flammable liquid electrolytes. 

    This breakthrough in battery production is expected to allow European and Americas manufactures to break the asian strangle hold on battery production for not just EVs but all electronic devices.

    fraunhoferiws240lithiumanodebatteriezukunft1.jpg

    Edited by dfelt

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    balthazar
    1 hour ago, dfelt said:

    ...currently EV battery production is mostly in the asian rim where cheap labor and cheap electricity allows a corner on the market. Trying to manufacture EV batteries in Germany where labor and electricity is some of the highest prices around make EVs expensive.

     

    What happens when the Chinese copy the tech and the cost advantage once again is strongly in their favor? Germany is over the barrel again.

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    oldshurst442
    2 minutes ago, balthazar said:

    What happens when the Chinese copy the tech and the cost advantage once again is strongly in their favor? Germany is over the barrel again.

    Then everybody wins as this tech will be universal and will be even cheaper to produce? 

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    oldshurst442

    @balthazar

    I just got it and NOW I understand...

    THIS is about Germany being screwed...

    Honestly, I dont care about Germany.  Beautiful country. Beautiful people. Smart people. Great history. But since the turn of the 20th Century, I dont respect their politics too much.  I understand their politics and the why it lead to what it lead to, but I dont care about Germany all that much.

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    G. David Felt
    1 hour ago, balthazar said:

    What happens when the Chinese copy the tech and the cost advantage once again is strongly in their favor? Germany is over the barrel again.

    I am thinking that with lower cost to manufacture, the added cost of shipping from the Asian rim heavy batteries to Germany will still make it more worthwhile to produce them locally.

    I also think this could be why LG is looking at Battery production sites in the US. Eventually tech economy of scale wins out and price goes down and a heavy item like a battery even with cheap labor will still cost more to ship than build locally I think.

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    G. David Felt
    13 minutes ago, surreal1272 said:

    Fake post. 

    Remember what the Bene Gesserit's of the sisterhood say.

    "I must not fear.
    Fear is the mind-killer.
    Fear is the little-death that brings total obliteration.
    I will face my fear.
    I will permit it to pass over me and through me.
    And when it has gone past I will turn the inner eye to see its path.
    Where the fear has gone there will be nothing. Only I will remain."

    Sadly some get caught up in their fear. 

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    ocnblu
    2 hours ago, surreal1272 said:

    Yeah, you certainly proved everyone wrong there. ?

    SKEETER, why I gotta do this in every EV thread?  That was a direct reply to dfelt's "inspirational quote", in which he pulls out that old chestnut of EV opposers being scared of EV's.  It is not fear, it is contempt.  It is utter amusement that anyone would think EV is "progress", when the downsides have not changed.  In a century of trying.

    NOTHING to do with the original post in the thread.

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    A Horse With No Name
    On 6/13/2019 at 4:55 PM, balthazar said:

    What happens when the Chinese copy the tech and the cost advantage once again is strongly in their favor? Germany is over the barrel again.

    Quoted for truth. As much as I complain about several other countries...i trust China even less. 

     

    On 6/13/2019 at 5:45 PM, oldshurst442 said:

    @balthazar

    I just got it and NOW I understand...

    THIS is about Germany being screwed...

    Honestly, I dont care about Germany.  Beautiful country. Beautiful people. Smart people. Great history. But since the turn of the 20th Century, I dont respect their politics too much.  I understand their politics and the why it lead to what it lead to, but I dont care about Germany all that much.

    Given the way they treated the Greeks, i can see why. I still respect their politics more than ours or Japans though. If they could build cars that were not horribly expensive to fix....they might be on to something. 

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    G. David Felt
    1 hour ago, A Horse With No Name said:

    Quoted for truth. As much as I complain about several other countries...i trust China even less. 

     

    Given the way they treated the Greeks, i can see why. I still respect their politics more than ours or Japans though. If they could build cars that were not horribly expensive to fix....they might be on to something. 

    One has to wonder what Germans pay for parts compared to here in the US. Do they pay the same $1,500 for a light housing replacement that we do in America or is it only $500 as the $1,000 covers shipping, export / import, handling? ?

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    A Horse With No Name
    2 hours ago, dfelt said:

    One has to wonder what Germans pay for parts compared to here in the US. Do they pay the same $1,500 for a light housing replacement that we do in America or is it only $500 as the $1,000 covers shipping, export / import, handling? ?

    As i have said before, I think it is a racket to retire cars early so normal folk don't drive them. Got to keep up that BMW exclusivity. 

    Your kids high school janitor can drive a Cadillac or Lexus he buys used without it bankrupting himself. 

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    dwightlooi

    The PROBLEM with battery packs today is that they are made up of individually wrapped cylindrical cells wired together in a series of 100 or more cells. These are then (in automotive applications) given a water jacket for cooling and put in a pack of 1 to 4 chains so they don't blow up under high current draw. A typical EV batteries has dozen or so of these packs.

    Irrespective of materials, this is not going to be cheap. What you need is a single pack with as few large cells as possible to get to the desired voltage. Ideally, you won't cool it externally with a water jacket; you'll cool the electrolyte itself. None of these ideas are "new", but nobody has figured out how to do it right (yet).

    Without a fundamental change in the concept of batteries and cooling, all the engineering solutions tried are one can of worms or another. Boeing went with a small number of very big cells in a single pack in the 787... that didn't turn out well. The Volt went with large packs of small cells, but their power density is total rubbish with the 16~18.4 kWh packs taking up about 80% the volume and 60% the weight of Tesla's 160 kWh pack. Tesla's approach of a unitary pack of very small cells with serpentine coolant jacket is very high density (relatively speaking) but they can't get their costs down and can't get profitable.

     

     

    Edited by dwightlooi
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    G. David Felt

    Cool Developments in Bio-Batteries: https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2019/06/190604094251.htm

    Organic, fast charging and no toxic rare earth metals.

    Then we have this:https://www.pocket-lint.com/gadgets/news/130380-future-batteries-coming-soon-charge-in-seconds-last-months-and-power-over-the-air

    The list of Battery tech that is in testing is amazing:

    • Sand Batteries that give 3 times more battery life
    • WiFi energy charging
    • Energy Harvesting of wearable devices
    • Gold Nanowire Batteries
    • Solid State Lithium-ion
    • Grabat Graphene Batteries
    • Lazer-made Micro Supercapacitors
    • Foam Batteries
    • Foldable Battery
    • U-Beam over air charging
    • StoreDot 30 second Charges
    • Transparent Solar Chargers
    • Aluminium Air Battery
    • Urine Battery
    • Sound Charging
    • Ryden Dual Carbon Battery
    • Sodium-ion battery
    • Hydrogen fuel cell charger
    • Batteries with built in fire extinguishers
    • Liquid Flow batteries
    • Carbon-ion batteries
    • Zinc-air batteries
    • Smart Clothing
    • Stretchable Batteries
    • Samsung Graphene battery
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    surreal1272
    8 hours ago, ocnblu said:

    SKEETER, why I gotta do this in every EV thread?  That was a direct reply to dfelt's "inspirational quote", in which he pulls out that old chestnut of EV opposers being scared of EV's.  It is not fear, it is contempt.  It is utter amusement that anyone would think EV is "progress", when the downsides have not changed.  In a century of trying.

    NOTHING to do with the original post in the thread.

    Listen here blu. Why do YOU have to interject your BS troll posts into EVERY EV thread? Your posts are pure fear mongering in nature whether you want to admit it or not. When compared to gas powered engines, EVs are most certainly progress. The progress is a reduction in our dependence in Middle East oil and an investment in better EV tech is a step in that direction. How you don’t see that is beyond any sense of logic. And of course there are some down sides but at least they are being addressed and sure as $h! at a faster rate than gasoline powered engines ever were. We’ve relied on the same old tech, while being beholden to the same dirty rules and dirty players (see the Middle East again) for more than a century now. Where is the progress in that?No one has denied the challenges that lay ahead for EVs. The difference is though is that negative has been acknowledged whereas you fail to acknowledge any positives from EVs, and they are there whether you want to admit it or now. Again, if you hate the facts, then maybe you should just stop commenting on the subject altogether and quit with the condescending remarks and insults while you’re at it. All that does is prove this fear.

     

    And BS to your “century of trying” remark as well. The tech simply was not ready or viable 100 years ago and it was hamstrung by incompetent companies (see the GM 1990s EV debacle as a prime example) and competing industries that sought to prevent its implementation (see the oil industry). Now though, every manufacturer is finally on board and real progress IS being made. Your attempt to paint this such a broad brush is laughably pathetic and ignorant to the facts, facts you continually refuse to acknowledge. Next time you want to call someone “skeeter”, you need to look in the damn mirror junior.

     

     

    13 minutes ago, dfelt said:

    Cool Developments in Bio-Batteries: https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2019/06/190604094251.htm

    Organic, fast charging and no toxic rare earth metals.

    Then we have this:https://www.pocket-lint.com/gadgets/news/130380-future-batteries-coming-soon-charge-in-seconds-last-months-and-power-over-the-air

    The list of Battery tech that is in testing is amazing:

    • Sand Batteries that give 3 times more battery life
    • WiFi energy charging
    • Energy Harvesting of wearable devices
    • Gold Nanowire Batteries
    • Solid State Lithium-ion
    • Grabat Graphene Batteries
    • Lazer-made Micro Supercapacitors
    • Foam Batteries
    • Foldable Battery
    • U-Beam over air charging
    • StoreDot 30 second Charges
    • Transparent Solar Chargers
    • Aluminium Air Battery
    • Urine Battery
    • Sound Charging
    • Ryden Dual Carbon Battery
    • Sodium-ion battery
    • Hydrogen fuel cell charger
    • Batteries with built in fire extinguishers
    • Liquid Flow batteries
    • Carbon-ion batteries
    • Zinc-air batteries
    • Smart Clothing
    • Stretchable Batteries
    • Samsung Graphene battery

    Shhhhh @dfelt. Facts are hard for some folks. They might lash out at you for committing such heresy. 

    Edited by surreal1272
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    surreal1272
    34 minutes ago, ocnblu said:

    Ohhhh... a urine battery!  I am soooo sold! *smirk*

    Ooh, a highly combustable liquid that sits behind your ass everytime I get in the car. 

     

    Urine or gasoline, both are pretty damn dirty but only one can cause an explosion if hit the wrong way.

     

    See how your snide remarks can used against you?

    21 minutes ago, dfelt said:

    Golden showers seem to be popular for some! :P 

    I must have missed something. What does urine have to do with this article?

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    G. David Felt
    1 hour ago, surreal1272 said:

    I must have missed something. What does urine have to do with this article?

    I will quote the link I posted above as this is out of Seattle Gates Foundation.

    Urine powered batteries

    The Bill Gates Foundation is funding further research by Bristol Robotic Laboratory who discovered batteries that can be powered by urine. It’s efficient enough to charge a smartphone which the scientists have already shown off. But how does it work?

    Using a Microbial Fuel Cell, micro-organisms take the urine, break it down and output electricity. 

    Guess if it can clean up DIRTY DIESEL, Urine can also help power the Future!

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    surreal1272
    2 hours ago, dfelt said:

    I will quote the link I posted above as this is out of Seattle Gates Foundation.

    Urine powered batteries

    The Bill Gates Foundation is funding further research by Bristol Robotic Laboratory who discovered batteries that can be powered by urine. It’s efficient enough to charge a smartphone which the scientists have already shown off. But how does it work?

    Using a Microbial Fuel Cell, micro-organisms take the urine, break it down and output electricity. 

    Guess if it can clean up DIRTY DIESEL, Urine can also help power the Future!

    While very unconventional, I say why the hell not? Even in “raw” form, it’s far less foul smelling and it’s vapors won’t cause $h! to burst into flames. I’m sure the thought of fossil fuels was a little unconventional back in the day as well. Of course some only like to focus on the negative and when that happens, negative is all they will ever see. 

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    surreal1272
    35 minutes ago, ocnblu said:

    NEGATORY, good buddy!

    You can't piss me off, even in a thread that features piss powered batteries.  ?

    Contrary to whatever you may think, no one is trying to piss you off. You do a fine enough of pissing yourself off. Example: you focus on the piss itself as opposed the manner by which it is actually useful.

     

    It just proves my statement about those who only want to find the negative in things they fear. Yes, I said it. Fear. 

    Edited by surreal1272
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