Volvo turns body panels into batteries
Carbon-fibre body panels embedded with supercapacitors may become the batteries of the future, says VolvoVolvo and a consortium of researchers have claimed success in early experiments to embed energy storage in moulded carbon-fibre body panels.
The panels are moulded from carbon-fibre reinforced polymer resin with embedded supercapacitors. They’re shaped to fit like conventional panelwork around elements of the car’s frame – Volvo cites door panels, bootlid and the spare wheel bowl below the boot as examples – eliminating the incursion conventional batteries make on space.
The material is able to recharge from onboard sources like brake energy regeneration systems, or from the grid. It betters conventional battery technologies in a multitude of ways. It’s lighter, it charges faster and it’s part of the car’s structure, rather than a mass the structure has to be designed to accommodate.
Volvo’s early experiments using an S80 fitted with a bootlid and plenum cover made from the material suggest that making full use of it could pare more than 15 per cent off the weight of the car.
The bootlid alone is lighter than its standard steel counterpart and has the potential on its own to replace the normal lead-acid batteries used in current conventionally powered cars.
The plenum cover – that’s the plastic cover found over most of today’s car engines – has the potential to replace both the front stabiliser bar and the normal battery, offering enough power to replace the 12-volt unit while paring away more than 50 per cent of the weight of those parts.
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