Slow progress on battery-electric vehicles

A UK report into the short- and mid-term future of battery technologies has concluded that any quantum-leap improvement in the performance of EV batteries is ‘highly unlikely’ for the rest of this decade.

A research team convened by the UK Committee on Climate Change – an independent body established to advise the UK government on setting and meeting carbon budgets and preparing for the impacts of climate change – pointed to the dearth of breakthrough technologies in the consumer electronics market as the primary evidence behind its conclusions. History has shown that’s where great leaps forward in battery technology make their debut before strengthening and solidifying to meet the more stringent demands for automotive use.

Working under the stewardship of Professor Peter Bruce of EaStChem, the chemistry school of Edinburgh and St Andrews, the team included researchers from consultancy Element Energy and lithium-ion battery manufacturer Axeon. It concluded that while the industry had seen all the step-change it’s likely to see with the shift from lead-acid through NiMH to Li-ion chemistries, it will continue to see smaller advances, mainly in energy density improvements through technologies like nickel cobalt manganese (NCM), composite cathodes and high-capacity anodes (eg silicon), most of which it suggests will make their way into production vehicles by 2020.

The report goes on to map the future cost-performance trajectory of Li-ion batteries out to 2030, covering individual cell and pack development, taking in cell design, material consumption, manufacturing cost, factory throughput and overheads. From 2020, it predicts, the industry will set to work on higher voltage cathode chemistries boosting Li-ion energy density. It suggests, too, that growth in the automotive battery market will help speed up the development of new cell technologies, bringing it abreast of the consumer cell sector.

In outlining the current condition of the industry, the team identified steady improvements in energy density and the ramping up in production volume as the two main influencers pushing the technology towards mass affordability. The report predicted baseline BEV costs would drop from about $21K for a 2012 medium-sized BEV pack with a range of 150km to about $6400 for a pack with a range closer to 250km.

If this all sounds rather optimistic, the report tempers it with a reminder that you can lead a horse to an EV showroom but you can’t make him buy. Which is to say, any cost benefits brought about by increases in production volume are ‘highly dependent’ on consumer uptake. If buyers continue to balk en masse, “…there is a significant risk of over-capacity in the next five years [which] could stall further investment.”

Beyond lithium-ion, it suggests, the most promising technology now known lies in lithium-air technology – a battery chemistry that keeps weight and size down by drawing its oxygen direct from the air rather than through internal synthesis.

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