The Paris “ratchet mechanism” is designed to steadily increase ambition over time, ensuring that the world reaches net zero emissions in the second half of the century and keeps temperature rise “well below 2 degrees C”. Probably current climate policies will not achieve the aims of the agreement, but that doesn’t render these targets impossible.
Nearly 60% of carbon pollution comes from power and transportation, and power is already decarbonizing fast. The transportation sector thus represents a prime target for cutting carbon pollution, with light-duty (passenger) vehicles accounting for 60% of those emissions and medium-and heavy-duty trucks accounting for a further 23%. These emissions can be significantly reduced by transitioning from the internal combustion engine to electric vehicles (EVs).
The global population of Electric Vehicle have been significantly increased within the latest few years.
All major automakers recognize that the shift from fossil-fueled cars to EV is inevitable, and are investing accordingly.
BATTERY, as one of the most CRITICAL part of electric vehicle is also having significant development period in order to fulfill the requirement from Electric Vehicle manufacturer.
Some have formed strategic partnerships with battery manufacturers and some automotive manufacturers have built separate battery manufacturing facilities to develop batteries for their upcoming EVs.
There are mainly three types of electric vehicle batteries, Lead-Acid, Nickel Metal Hydride and Lithium-ion. In consideration of cost, capacity and safety, the Lithium-ion battery is preferable, and get rapid development.
Electric Vehicle Battery Comparison
With their advantages like high power density, energy density, energy efficiency and low cost, Li-ion batteries have proved to be the best option so far.
But, as we have witness, prolonged use of these batteries may cause the battery performance to degrade and may cause even fatalities due to their properties.
A vital problem in Li-ion batteries that researchers have been trying to solve is the growing of the dendrites. These sharp branched extensions which grow from Lithium anode, towards cathode generate short circuit in batteries causing explosion.
Integrating these batteries in EVs could cause safety issues and in rare cases accidents, as we have seen for example: Tesla's electric car during charging, combustion of Zotye Auto's electric taxi spontaneously, and Rimac Automotive's electric vehicle during vehicle rollover. These accidents were caused due to multiple reasons for e.g. abnormally high discharge rate, shorted cells, excessive heat buildup, overcharging, or constant recharging, which can weaken the battery.
Scientists and researchers around the world have been trying to eliminate or stop the dendrite growth by integrating new polymer materials to increase safety in Li-ion batteries.
John B Goodenough, the inventor of Li-ion battery, has recently developed a glass electrolyte battery which claims to curb the dendrite growth and makes the battery combustion proof.
Beside this, researchers across different industries are keep working and formulating novel approaches such as development of solid state electrolytes, anode coatings and anode confinements to limit the dendrite growth.
Also new softwares have been developed for testing batteries and their performances to estimate battery cycles and life expectancy.
Recently, different EV manufacturers like Samsung, Nissan, Tesla and Mercedes have developed new batteries and have showed roadmap to integrate their newly developed batteries in their new EV modules.
But the hard work doesn’t stop here. Further, Li-ion battery research shall be focused on developing advanced structure with efficient heat removal during charging/discharging by developing thermal exchangers and liquid cooling technologies. Also other material alloys shall be tested to be used for battery cathodes along with Li-ion chemistry to enhance battery capacity and compact cell assembly. Sufficient research needs to be focused on developing efficient, high conductivity electrolytes like aqueous electrolytes, organic electrolytes, thermally stable ionic liquids and solid state electrolytes.
The safety and reliability of electric vehicles applications depends on the quality of its batteries. Testing for battery safety and reliability is also a key concern for the renewable energy industry, which utilizes a wide selection of technologies for solar energy storage and other uses.
One of the major validation and safety challenges to begin with in modern EVs concerns the effective testing of the battery pack itself and the Battery Management Systems (BMS) – the complex electronic system that manages the performance and safety of the battery pack and the high levels of electrical energy stored within.
Developing a test strategy for an assembly as complex, big and powerful as an electric vehicle battery pack can be a daunting task. Breaking the process down into manageable pieces is the key to find a solution, like in most complex problems. During the battery management systems development, engineers need a way to reliably test the system under real-world conditions to complete their verification and validation plans. Testing involves simulating physical inputs and external digital connections to the pack while monitoring its outputs and behavior relative to design requirements. It is not easy to accurately simulate all of the real-world conditions a battery management system will be subjected to. But in the end, simulating nearly every combination of cell voltages, temperatures, and currents you expect your batteries to encounter is really the only way to verify that your system reacts as you intended in order to keep your pack safe and reliable.
At the pack development stage, engineers are mostly concerned about testing the entire assembly through various types of environmental stress testing as part of design validation or product validation plans. Environmental stress could include exposure to temperature extremes, thermal shock cycling, vibration, humidity, on-off cycling, charge discharge cycling, or any combination of these. The testing requirements here typically include performing a full batch of performance tests on a pack both before and after application of the stress. Live monitoring of the pack throughout the environmental stress period may also be required.
The tests required to be performed for an EV are: vibration tests, thermal shock and cycling, mechanical integrity, fire resistance, overcharge/discharge protection test, over temperature protection, vehicle watertightness and external/internal short circuit protection tests. All these testes have independent procedures to check the battery capability.
EV battery development and up-gradation will surely motivate the semiconductor, automotive battery and software analytics companies to scale EV ecosystem investments.
EV ecosystem will continue to see exponential growth with investments and wide-scale deployments of charging infrastructures for ease of acceptance of EVs among customers.
We offer total solution equipment for battery testing:
Vibration Test Systems
High Shock Test Systems
Temperature/Humidity Test Chambers
Data Acquisition Systems
With a different range of equipment available for different variation of environment testing, ETS solutions has all systems that are designed to meet the requirements of endurance testing and offer superior performance as well as reliability.
All our testing equipment complies with the required testing standards.
