Bosch battery target: 50 kWh in a 190 kg pack, 75% charge in 15 minutes
13 October 2015
Bosch is investing €400 million (US$455 million) per year in electromobility; part of that investment is researching batteries with twice the energy density at lower costs than available today by 2020. Driving the investment is Bosch’s expectation that ten years from now, some 15% of all new vehicles worldwide will have an electrical powertrain.
Dr. Thorsten Ochs, head of battery technology R&D at the new Bosch research campus in Renningen, says that to achieve widespread acceptance of electromobility, mid-sized vehicles will need to have 50 kilowatt hours of usable energy. With conventional lead batteries, this would mean increasing the weight of the battery to 1.9 metric tons, even without wiring and the holder, he notes. Today’s lithium-ion batteries are superior in this respect, storing more than three times the amount of energy per kilogram.
At a weight of 230 kilograms, the battery of a modern-day electric car provides approximately 18 to 30 kilowatt hours. But to achieve the desired 50 kilowatt hours, a battery weighing 380 to 600 kilograms would be necessary.
Dr. Ochs’ goal is to pack 50 kilowatt hours into 190 kilograms. In addition, the researchers are looking to significantly shorten the time a car needs to recharge. “Our new batteries should be capable of being loaded to 75 percent in less than 15 minutes,” Ochs says.
Ochs and his colleagues believe that improved lithium technology will make it possible to achieve these goals. To make progress in this area, his team in Renningen is working closely with Bosch experts in Shanghai and Palo Alto. And as a further measure to advance lithium-ion battery research, Bosch has established the Lithium Energy and Power GmbH & Co. KG joint venture with GS Yuasa and the Mitsubishi Corporation.
Using lithium instead of graphite in the anode would make it possible to store up to three times as much energy in the same space. Ochs and his colleagues have already developed approaches for removing the graphite and replacing it with other materials. Bosch CEO Volkmar Denner also recently presented a prototype solution at the IAA. Thanks to its purchase of Seeo Inc., a start-up based in Silicon Valley, Bosch has now acquired crucial practical expertise when it comes to making innovative solid-state batteries. (Earlier post.)
Being able to charge 75% in 15 min would mean that apartment dwellers without access to a fixed parking lot with charging will be able to buy a BEV and charge it like a gasoline car without much extra trouble. That would be huge. I think Bosh should aim for 60kwh and 250kg instead as we need 60kwh to get a 230 miles EPA range rating for a small BEV. 50kwh would get you 190 miles and this is not enough to quell range anxiety. I assume 3.8 miles per kwh.
Posted by: Account Deleted | 13 October 2015 at 04:46 AM
And charging it like a gasoline car would also mean we would require electrical substations in place of every single gas station in the world today. Massive infrastructure challenge, and not happening anytime in the near future. Not to the say EVs have no market. They do. But they will remain a niche ~20,000 vehicle/year market and not a mass market solution. Let me explain.
Today, at~250 miles per charge a Tesla Model S comes closest to the range we would typically get from a gasoline car. That Model S carries a 85kWh battery. At any given point of time, I see about 5 or 6 vehicles refilling gas at a nearby gas station. If 6 Tesla Model S vehicles had to charge up in say 6 minutes - comparable to the time you spend filling gas - the amount of power required would be 850kW to charge one Model S in 6 minutes. So, to charge 6 Model S vehicles at a time and in 6 minutes each = 850 x 6 = 5.1MW of power! Ummm, yeah, not happening anytime before you or I close our eyes for good.
Posted by: D | 13 October 2015 at 05:31 AM
Copper is expensive
Posted by: Dr. Strange Love | 13 October 2015 at 05:59 AM
D
I do not know much about other places but in Norway many of Tesla's supercharger stations can charge up to 12 Tesla's at 120kwatt simultaneously. So the station needs a 1.5Megawatt connection which is not difficult apparently to find in the Norwegian grid. There are numerous of industrial and commercial facilities that are linked with that kind of power. Tesla will eventually switch to 800 volt or 1200 volt drive trains that will enable supercharging up to 360k watt. That is about 15 min for charging the 85kwh battery. This is not a problem if you can draw 1.5Mega watt from the grid. Just limit it to 4 vehicles at a time.
DSL
Cobber is expensive? It costs 2.4 USD per pound at the commodity exchange. A Tesla may use a 100 pound of it so 240 USD per vehicle. Tesla spend more on aluminium. It has at least 2000 pounds of that and it cost about 0.72 USD per pound so 1440 USD per vehicle.
Posted by: Account Deleted | 13 October 2015 at 11:13 AM
I would have said that 50kwh will get you 150 miles at 3 miles / KwH, that is what the Leaf gets.
But 150 miles should be enough for anyone if you can charge to 75% in 15 minutes.
You could hop down the motorway in 2 hour steps with a cup of coffee every stop (assuming the chargers are available).
http://www.mercurynews.com/business/ci_24947237/charge-rage-too-many-electric-cars-not-enough-workplace-chargers
As I have proposed many times, you could also have an EV/ICE swap club where you could swap your EV for a nice Golf diesel if you wanted to go on a long run or a driving holiday.
Posted by: mahonj | 13 October 2015 at 02:19 PM
The premise that EVs need to charge in 6 minutes has been conclusively refuted by Tesla. The solution for apartment dwellers is not to replicate the gas station model. The solution is to turn parking spaces into charging stalls.
If a city can provide street lights and parking meters, they can provide public charging infrastructure. Wireless charging makes it easier.
Posted by: electric-car-insider.com | 13 October 2015 at 02:24 PM
Slow (relative) EV charging is still a major challenge, with extended range (500+ Km) units, unless you recharge home or when 800 to 1200 volts public charging facilities become available.
Typical extended range FCEVs will not have that problem because refill time will be in order of 3 minutes in most cases. Access to H2 stations is a matter of time and a few $$ per FCEVs. Price for clean H2 will fall quickly while price for dirty liquid fuels may go up soon.
Posted by: HarveyD | 13 October 2015 at 07:40 PM
And while we wait for parking spots to be wired an EV owner who drives 13,000 miles a year could visit a Supercharger six times a month for a half hour and get all their electricity, 170 miles at a time.
A half hour while they do their grocery shopping, eat their lunch, do a few minutes of work they didn't get finished at the office, ....
Posted by: Bob Wallace | 13 October 2015 at 07:43 PM
1.5 MW is 13.2 kV at less than 120 amps. You can get 300 amp service to your house, buried. This is not difficult wiring-wise.
If you can get 240 VAC @ 20 amps at home, you can do overnight charging fairly easily. If I was wiring e.g. a condominium parking structure for this, I'd pull some high-voltage (2400 V) wire to local transformers serving a handful of spots apiece and step down to 240 volts. The conduit and transformers could probably be put on outside walls. I'd install empty conduit and junction boxes up front and pull wire for new transformers and chargers only as demand appeared. The costly parts of this don't need to be done all at once, they can mostly be done as they are needed.
Posted by: Engineer-Poet | 13 October 2015 at 08:04 PM
Around here, busy stations might have 20+ cars pumping at the same time during peak times... and that's not at really big stations
That be more around 3Mw or 3.6Mw after losses... not to say it can't be done, just that its crazy power...
Also you have large stations where you have trucks and cars, might have 15 semi's and 20 cars at the same time. We could be talking 10s of Mw's (at peak) for big stations especially if trucks having to charge quickly too... Imagine the size of the charger/battery for a long range truck(I suspect 1.2Mwh in some cases)....
Basically, I'd recommend high tension DC lines into the station if there was going to be fast charging like we are suggesting... less losses I'd suppose... even better if large trucks could basically take in that voltage...
Posted by: CheeseEater88 | 13 October 2015 at 08:43 PM
What's crazy to think about is that you could have a draw at a EV station greater than some power plants... The bad thing, is places without a lot of population would suffer from infrastructure troubles. 15min charging would be a game changer, especially if it got into the range needed for semi's. But I'm still concerned about battery weight... This will do a lot to relieve some of the weight, but you could have 10,000lbs in a semi(though you could have automated trailers by that point and get rid of the tractor.
608kgs for a truck battery would be a good step. I would imagine 3500 trucks needing more like 200kwh+ so a bit more than 608kgs. It'll get weird before it gets better.
Posted by: CheeseEater88 | 14 October 2015 at 04:46 AM
Sooner or later it makes sense to just electrify the roads.
Posted by: Engineer-Poet | 14 October 2015 at 08:04 AM
The idea that EV charging needs to fit into the limited paradigm of liquid refueling is misguided. It makes as much sense as treating your computer communications like a fax machine.
Posted by: electric-car-insider.com | 16 October 2015 at 08:38 AM
Yes we should all settle for city cars that cant compete on cost of ownership, have horrible range and long recharge times, because we shouldn't be held to the idea that technology should be as good as or better before ?
EVs can get there, just not yet, dont push things before they are ready.
The fast charging side of it may make it more accessible for more people... Especially if charging was at shopping centers or places people frequent for long periods of time but again this just adds an argument for moderate range phevs. If a volt owner only uses 20% of the liquid fuel they would have and have no impedance with anything such as function, why not?
Posted by: CheeseEater88 | 16 October 2015 at 11:49 AM
CE, I agree that PHEVs offer a great solution to the 10-20% edge cases not met by overnight charging (distance travel, quick turn travel).
But the suggestion that we have to have powerstation-level capacity at centralized fueling stations is misguided. Old model thinking.
It's very inconvenient to refuel at a gas station daily. It's very convenient to refuel an EV while you're sleeping. The idea that multi-tenant dwelling parking can not be wired for charging is an arbitrary limit (of thinking). Per unit, MTDs will be cheapest to wire. MTD owners generally have better access to capital.
eVgo provides financed installations for MTDs, and has the expertise to manage the project end-to-end. It is paid for through monthly service fees. So even in cases where the owner is unable or unwilling to capitalize a tenant improvement that can provide competitive ROI, eVgo will take care of it.
Posted by: electric-car-insider.com | 17 October 2015 at 10:01 AM