Electric Vehicles Batteries
Batteries in Electric vehicles The battery and battery management systems are the most critical components of an electric vehicle. There are mainly four types of electric vehicles; Battery electric vehicles (BEV’s), Hybrid electric vehicles (HEV’s), Plug-in hybrid electric vehicles (PHEV’s) and Fuel Cell Electric Vehicles (FCEV’s). All these electric vehicles run on different battery compositions such as Lithium-ion batteries, Nickel-metal hydride batteries, Lead-acid batteries and Ultracapacitors. The Li-ion battery is the most used battery for electric vehicles and even consumer electronics due to its high energy density, reliability, and safety.
An EV battery consists of cells, modules, and a pack; its capacity is measured in kWh (kilowatt-hours). The higher the battery capacity, the higher the range.
According to various studies, the average life span of an electric vehicle is 8years or 100,000 miles depending on the battery material composition and the capacity of a passenger car. A few batteries can even sustain for 12 years in moderate climatic conditions. Battery electric vehicles have an electric traction motor in place of the internal combustion engine used in gasoline-powered cars. BEVs use a traction battery pack to store energy, i.e. electricity used by the motor to drive the vehicle’s wheel. Charging a vehicle with electricity produced out of renewable energy helps cut carbon emissions and accelerates sustainable development.
Batteries go through cycles of ‘discharge’ that occur when driving and ‘charge’ when the car’s plugged in. This process repeats over time & affects the amount of charge the battery can hold. This decreases the range and time needed between each journey to charge. The battery(s) connect to one or more electric motors. The car instantly feeds power to the motor during acceleration, which gradually consumes the energy stored in the batteries. Electric motors also work as generators when not accelerating and is strong when you hit the brakes.
A Lithium-ion (Li-ion) battery is one of the rechargeable batteries used in electric vehicles. They have a higher energy density than typical lead-acid or nickel-cadmium rechargeable batteries. This means that battery manufacturers can save space, reducing the overall size of the battery pack. Lithium is also the lightest of all metals. However, lithium-ion (Li-ion) batteries contain no lithium metal; they contain ions.
Lithium-ion batteries are safer than many alternatives, and battery manufacturers must ensure that safety measures are in place to protect consumers in the unlikely event of a battery failure. For instance, manufacturers equip electric vehicles with charging safeguards to protect the batteries during repeated rapid charging sessions in a short period using a battery management system. A lithium-ion Ferrous Phosphate (LFP) has a higher lifecycle (>2000 cycles), better safety, higher thermal runaway, is efficient for fast charging and cheaper than NMC, thereby making it the best choice at the time of writing this article.
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