To shorten the charging time of e-bikes—in particular during daily use in the city—Karlsruhe Institute of Technology (KIT) and Coboc GmbH & Co. KG, a company specialized in electric mobility, plan to make the batteries of pedelecs capable of rapid charging. Presently, charging of an e-bike battery takes about two to four hours.

The new quick charging process is to be based on lithium-ion cells of long service life, to reach a comparably high charging current of up to ten amperes, and to be suited for recharge at normal 230 V plugs within less than one hour.

In addition, the battery management system is to offer a diagnosis function: the data measured while the e-bike is used are acquired via an internet-of-things solution (IoT), analyzed, and streamed in the internal Coboc cloud. These data reveal the state of charge (SOC) and the state of health (SOH) of the battery, which influence each other.

The data evaluation results will then be made available to manufacturers and users in the form of graphics. On this basis, the e-bike can be optimized and adapted. For preventive maintenance, information on the battery state is updated constantly.

Within the project, KIT is responsible for the selection and assessment of suitable lithium-ion cells, for investigating the service life of selected cells, and for developing the quick charging process and the SOC and SOH diagnosis system. Coboc focuses on the analysis of requirements, the development of the operation management system, implementation of the IoT system with the respective server back end as well as on the hardware and its integration into the electric bike.

The project is funded by the Federal Ministry for Economic Affairs and Energy (BMWi) under its Central Program to Support Innovations of Medium-sized Enterprises in Germany and will be terminated in late September 2021.