i3 - September/October 2020 - 18

GREATER POSSIBILITIES EMERGE

New cloud services
from Bosch recognize
battery stress factors
and optimize the
recharging process.

The baseline connected service for EV owners coordinates the vehicle's
charging either at home or at a public facility operated by an automaker
such as Tesla or a network like Electrify America.
Artur Seidel, vice president, Americas, at Elektrobit in Bothell, WA, says,
"For the initial use case of charging you already have to put in the infrastructure - in the architecture, in the backend, cloud connectivity - to
enable that." So, for automakers, "now you're in a situation where you can
try things, introduce things, modify things and update things." He suggests,
for example, the ability to offer digital coupons for a retailer with a location
near the charging station where an EV is located in the moment. He points
to Tesla enabling Netflix streaming to its vehicles, to keep users entertained
while their cars are recharging. "They keep introducing connected services
but they always feel like part of one solution," he adds.
Elektrobit, headquartered in Erlangen, Germany, supplies embedded
and connected software products and services for the automotive industry.
It is contributing a new software platform for Volkswagen's new ID family
of EVs, designed to have a persistent connection to the internet via an
automotive cloud.
The new platform enables high-performance computing via centralized
HPCs (high-performance controllers) rather than an architecture comprising many individual electronic control units (ECUs), for greater computational efficiency. One of those centralized HPCs is a "gateway module" that
"essentially enables these connected services," Seidel explains. "The point
is [VW] didn't go for an incremental approach. They fully understand that
for an EV to reach its full potential it needs this kind of truly connected,
truly scalable platform," he says.
Connectivity serves to both reduce the total cost of ownership of electric
vehicles and significantly personalize a vehicle, by freeing machine learning
algorithms to harness data, says Carolin Reichert, vice president of connected mobility solutions for EVs at Robert Bosch GmbH in Stuttgart,
Germany. She spotlights, Bosch's "Battery in the Cloud" service first shown
last year and slotted for commercialization this year, along with the company's Convenience Charging service that debuted in 2019.
Because batteries lose capacity as they age, Bosch devised "Battery in the
Cloud" as a way to extend a battery's life by connecting it with a cloud-based
data-analytics system that supplements an EV's own built-in battery
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SEPTEMBER/OCTOBER 2020

i3_0920_16-19_Feature_EVConnectedServices.indd 18

BECAUSE BATTERIES LOSE CAPACITY AS
THEY AGE, BOSCH DEVISED "BATTERY IN
THE CLOUD" AS A WAY TO EXTEND A
BATTERY'S LIFE BY CONNECTING IT WITH A
CLOUD-BASED DATA-ANALYTICS SYSTEM
THAT SUPPLEMENTS AN EV'S OWN BUILT-IN
BATTERY MANAGEMENT SYSTEM.

management system. The connected service acquires data from the EVs battery
remotely, either via an SDK (software
development kit) integrated into the vehicle
or by a "cloud-to-cloud interface to the
[automaker's] cloud," Reichert says. Then,
"in the cloud, we are running our algorithms based on a hybrid model approach,"
she explains. "We are combining electrochemical models from the battery with
physics-based models and AI (artificial
intelligence) based models. With that we
can first do anomaly detection of the battery," detecting problems, and "we can do an
aging prediction," she says. "And third, we
have an algorithm to optimize the lifetime
of the battery by calculating the optimized
charging curve in the cloud."
What's more, "we can use data from the
entire fleet, not only from one vehicle,"
Reichert says. "We adapt the charging
curve depending on the real aging of the
battery." The process is hidden from the
EV owner, but the net result is prolonged
battery life, by as much as 20%.
Battery in the Cloud in turn supports
two subsidiary connected services: battery
lifetime monitoring for fleet owners, which
could include ridesharing or ride-hailing
services stocked with EVs; and a "battery
usage certificate" attached to a vehicle,
helping sellers and buyers to determine
the vehicle's resale or trade-in value.

Courtesy of Bosch (2)

She attributes these to "a lack of communication
between vehicles and charging stations," though she
highlights connected services such as HERE's EV
Charging Stations and TomTom's EV Routing
Services as alleviating concerns by providing charging station location, compatibility and real-time
availability information to drivers. And she underlines "horizon applications" that enable EVs to optimize their own acceleration and braking to save
energy and boost range.
"What I can say for sure is, you won't have a much
higher adoption of electric vehicles if you don't have
connected services inside." It also hinges on automakers developing better user interfaces and user
experiences for them, Bezerra declares. Would-be EV
customers are tech savvy and more demanding of
connected services features, she adds.

I T I S I N N O VAT I O N

9/1/20 10:26 AM

https://www.elektrobit.com/ https://www.bosch.com/

i3 - September/October 2020

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