Automotive Engineering - December 2024 - 4

TECHNOLOGY
REPORT
ELECTRIFICATION
Battery analysis pioneer: North America has five years to
catch China
SAE INTERNATIONAL
BOARD OF DIRECTORS
Carla Bailo
President
Robert Ireland
2025 President
Todd Zarfos
2023 President
Christopher Payne
Vice President - Aerospace
Daniel Nicholson
Vice President - Automotive
Audley Brown
Vice President -
Commercial Vehicle
Lithium-ion batteries on the assembly line at Mercedes-Benz's manufacturing facility in Bibb County, Alabama.
Automakers and the world's largest battery makers are scrambling to scale battery production at North American
gigafactories, still a subject of great concern three years after this photo was taken.
North American automakers and EV battery
firms have five years to erase China's dominance
in technology and manufacturing or they may
face the reality of buying batteries from China for
the foreseeable future. That was the message
from battery-analysis company Voltaiq CEO Tal
Sholklapper at a media briefing in Detroit.
" We're in the final innings now, " Sholklapper
said. " If the industry around batteries and electric
vehicles and all the follow-on applications
wants to make it, we're going to have to
change the way we play. "
That means, he said:
* Battery manufacturers need to narrow their
focus on making high-quality cells, bringing
in outside experts on things like analytics.
They must learn and iterate faster and get to
scale as fast as possible. This might seem
intuitive, but many of the expensive recalls
and dangers in the industry have been the
result of not knowing enough about the
quality of a factory's output until the batteries
are already in a vehicle on the road.
* OEMs, Sholklapper said, must admit that
making batteries in-house is problematic,
and that electrical engineers can't just switch
to making batteries. Sholklapper often refers
to batteries as living, breathing beings, since
they expand and contract under charge and
draw conditions.
Voltaiq advocates constantly monitoring data
during the manufacturing process so problems
4 December 2024
can be addressed quickly before they result in
delays or monetary losses. Sholklapper said that
some of today's battery factories even gather
data by plugging thumb drives into machines at
each step in manufacturing before collecting it
in one place for analysis. Part of Voltaiq's work is
helping clients gather that data in real-time.
Eli Leland, Voltaiq's CTO, said part of the
problem OEMs have trying to scale directly to
batteries in huge gigafactories is having the
wrong experts on hand. " Did Tesla hire a bunch
of powertrain engineers from Detroit to come
and design their battery packs? We know the
answer, right? " He underscored that batteries
are electrochemical in nature, and it's the chemistry
part that is most difficult to master.
And unlike the consumer electronics industry,
which was able to perfect batteries in low
volume, high value products before scaling,
those products are rare in the automotive
world, Leland said, pointing to examples like
the Mercedes G-class EV.
Sholklapper also underscored the importance
of OEMs and battery companies taking
a collaborative approach to development.
" You need to focus on your core strength.
And whether it's the vehicle integration,
whether it's making cells... One thing that you
need to do to be successful is focus on that
and then bring in best-in-class providers to
help you with the rest. " He also said that as
long as China's subsidized industry can produce
batteries for around $50 per kilowattDavid
Andrea
Treasurer
Gregory L. Bradley, Esq.
Secretary
Judy Curran
Mary Lee Gambone
Joan Wills
Susan Ying, Ph.D
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Automotive Engineering - December 2024

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