Truck & Off-Highway Engineering - August 2023 - 13

TECHNICAL INNOVATIONS
The SI Series swappable battery can be fully charged in just over an hour.
run 30, 40 or 50 kWh. We also have people testing with some
large autonomous agricultural equipment, so larger tractors and
equipment of that nature. If you want to power something like a
larger zero-turn [mower], you're going to need north of 20 kWh
onboard, so the nice thing with our battery packs is that they're
all able to be paralleled. OEMs also have the option of scalability
in terms of price point and available capacity. For example, they
can offer a piece of equipment that has 7 kWh onboard, with the
option to add additional energy capacity if customers need it. So
that gives them the flexibility to sell to the right users who actually
need that much capacity.
What would be the equivalent single-cylinder engine to
your swappable battery in terms of output?
Our 160-cc engine is typically the right product for customers
who would be considering this tech. The weights between
these power solutions are actually very similar. The batteries
weigh about 26 pounds (11.7 kg). The engine is around 40
pounds (18.1 kg). When you add up the weight of the fuel
tank for the engine versus the electric motor for the battery
solution, the weights are about the same.
What are the selling points for potential customers who may
not be convinced that they want to electrify their machines?
The batteries really are meant for commercial runtime. They're
rated for 2,000 cycles. Even after that service life, the battery is
still going to have 80% of its original capacity. The range anxiety
is absolutely real for a lot of customers. So we've been able
to help them understand how fast they can charge or that they
can swap a battery, which eliminates that entirely. We're actually
using a different cell in our swappable battery than we are
in our fixed ones. The swappable battery has a very high energy
capability because of the wide range of equipment that it
may be used in. For example, certain engines may only run for
15 seconds or so with an immense load, but then are sitting idle
for the rest of the day. So we needed to make sure that the
batteries were capable of meeting that need.
Matt Wolfe
TRUCK & OFF-HIGHWAY ENGINEERING
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August 2023 13
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Truck & Off-Highway Engineering - August 2023

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