ExpectedOutcome:
Project results are expected to address all the following outcomes:
- Novel and innovative approaches to battery integration into vehicle structure focusing on solid state generation-4 cells, including modular systems capable of temporary expansion for long trips in small and medium sized cars without a permanently installed large battery.
- Improvement of the fast-charging capabilities up to at least 3C, and aiming for higher capabilities for high energy cells, independent of battery topology in the vehicle.
- Increase gravimetric energy density of the integrated pack (excluding contributions by cell chemistry) by at least 25%, and volumetric energy density by 70% from 2023 State of the Art).
- Reduced battery system cost considering the functionalities of the vehicle structure (excluding contributions by cell chemistry, below EUR 100/kWh for systems used in light duty Electric Vehicles (EVs) by 2030). Safety aspects of the prototype cells need to be considered.
Scope:
In order to reduce the overall cost of electric vehicles modularity, scalability and the development of strategies for their implementation will become increasingly important in the future. With the expected introduction of new cell technologies, specific choices for connections, cooling system concepts and materials for housing will play a crucial role in the battery performance improvements and the battery integration in the vehicle structure. The development and integration of structural, thermal and mechanical aspects (at different levels of modularity or integration) will need to be improved, while exploiting the intrinsic advantages of innovative type of cells.
Proposals are expected to address all the following aspects:
- Structural battery pack design and integration in the vehicle considering trade-offs in all important areas such as energy density, thermal management, maintainability and repairability, crash safety, energy density, production cost, second life, dismantling and recycling processes.
- Smart thermal management systems for both heating and cooling, with smart interfaces to the vehicle systems (including energy-efficient preconditioning, using internal or external energy sources whilst charging), contributing to further improvements in the overall battery system efficiency and optimizing the overall battery system, also in consideration of passenger comfort.
- Novel cooling system concepts exploiting the reduced thermal constraints of generation-4 cells ensuring minimal impact on system mass and costs, especially taking into account the thermal and electrical interfaces of different possible cell geometries (e.g. pouch, prismatic or cylindrical).
- Take into account the development of the technical communication channel for the access and exchange of relevant data types from the battery management system (BMS), such as state of charge (SoC), state of health (SoH), temperature (T) or voltage (V) that are essential to ensure efficient and secure recharging processes.
- Digital twin of thermal behaviour of EV and battery for optimal chemistry / energy management and safety assessment of batteries.
- Enhanced communication between battery and vehicle control units for a more efficient battery operation by synchronizing ECUs of the BMS and the EV (links are expected to be established with projects funded under topic HORIZON-CL5-2023-D5-01-02: Innovative battery management systems for next generation vehicles).
Projects should take into account the access to battery information as defined in the proposal for the Renewable Energy Directive COM(2021)557 of 14 July 2021.
This topic implements the co-programmed European Partnership on ‘Towards zero emission road transport’ (2ZERO). As such, projects resulting from this topic will be expected to report on the results to the European Partnership ‘Towards zero emission road transport’ (2ZERO) in support of the monitoring of its KPIs.
Specific Topic Conditions:
Activities are expected to achieve at least TRL 5 by the end of the project – see General Annex B.
