Automotive Engineering - December 2023 - 36

Q&
A
Clarios: low-voltage systems remain vital
in EV, AV future
In an increasingly electrified world, there's still a need for 12volt
batteries and a low-voltage electrical architecture in vehicles.
Clarios, which provides the low-voltage architecture for
around a third of all vehicles in the world, sees room to grow in
the electrified future. Connected vehicles, for example, bring
new expectations for what a low-voltage system has to provide,
including higher electrical loads. This energy is used for
OTA updates when the car is not running, for example, or powering
larger infotainment screens.
SAE Media editor-inchief
Sebastian Blanco
spoke with Clarios president
and CEO Mark
Wallace and Federico
Morales-Zimmermann,
group vice president and
general manager of original
equipment, during a
roundtable discussion with
multiple journalists. The
following Q&A from that
event has been edited.
Why do we need the
12-volt battery in a BEV?
Morales-Zimmermann: It's
less a technical question.
It's more of a safety question. If you have to
shut down the high voltage, you have to be
able to continue critical safety functions, like
being able to call somebody from your car.
Clarios president and CEO
Mark Wallace addressses journalists
during IAA 2023.
provides, from a supply chain perspective, great benefits, because
you're independent of lithium. You also aren't dependent
upon the same Asia supply base, so you can derisk your supply
base. These are important things to do. And it seems to be a
very feasible solution for the low-voltage space. We are working
very closely together with a partner who has been developing
a sodium-ion cell. We have the first samples in place, measurement
looks great, and we're going to be [working] more on
the packaging side and the specifics of the electronics.
Multi-voltage devices
are basically where you
have not only one voltage
solution but you
have multiple voltage
solutions. Within one
battery, you will have
12-volt, 24-volt, and 48volt
[systems].
Clarios group vice president and
general manager of original equipment,
Federico Morales-Zimmermann, speaks
during IAA 2023.
Wallace: If there is a problem with high-voltage
batteries and they get shut down for safety
reasons, the low-voltage network now
needs to provide steering, braking, etc., for the
consumer to get the vehicle safely off the
road. You can imagine what that means in an
autonomous situation. You have to keep computers
up and running. Also, when you go and
plug your car in and charge it, those high-voltage
traction batteries have to get disconnected
for safety reasons. The low-voltage network
does all that.
Clarios is working on multi-output voltage batteries
in addition to new chemistries such as
sodium-ion. Is this trying to cover your bases?
Morales-Zimmermann: This goes beyond covering
our bases to being able to use those
chemistries in a meaningful way. Sodium-ion
36 December 2023
" Sodium-ion
provides, from
a supply chain
perspective,
great benefits,
because you're
independent
of lithium. "
Depending on the needs
of the architecture,
whether they be chassis
solutions or infotainment
or autonomous
driving, you can scale
the the voltage accordingly.
There, also, we are
working with partners in
the space to be able to integrate the solution
into a system solution.
Are you working on solid-state batteries?
Wallace: I think a lot of people are working on it.
The advantages you get are you don't have a
liquid electrolyte, it will tend to be safer and you
can charge it faster. There are definitely some
advantages, but I still think we're five to 10 years
away from actually having an application.
Morales-Zimmermann: We are investing in sodium
ion, and we are investigating solid state
as a high-energy-density cell, which would be
more applicable for high-voltage applications.
I think there's a lot of work to be done to be
able to apply this in the automotive side, because
of all the temperature needs of this
chemistry. Nonetheless, if solid-state would
apply to us, we are chemistry agnostic, so we
could apply any chemistry to this application.
Whether solid-state is the right application for
us, I think, is a second question. I would see it
more on the high-voltage side.
AUTOMOTIVE ENGINEERING
BOTH IMAGES: FOSGARD GROUP
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