The Volkswagen Group has made a great effort to reduce the cost of producing batteries for its electric vehicles in the hope of accelerating the transition of gas-powered cars.
The automaker, which is the second largest in the world based on sales, said it would cut production costs for its batteries by up to 50 percent, build several battery factories worldwide, expand its network of charging stations and, eventually, it would transition to solid-state technology that would cut costs and increase efficiency. The ultimate goal is to make electric cars with greater range and faster charging times – two of the biggest barriers to mass EV adoption.
The race for major improvements in battery technology is one of the most expensive and most disputed on the planet today. Virtually every automaker is betting that electric vehicles will be the future, with some of the largest countries (and largest automotive markets) in the world changing directions for gas-powered cars and trucks. To ensure this change, batteries need to be more powerful, last longer and be cheaper to manufacture in order to attract enough customers to switch from gas to electric.
“Our transformation will be rapid and unprecedented,” said VW Group CEO Herbert Diess. “The transformation will be greater than anything the industry has seen in the past century.”
The automaker’s nearly two-hour “Power Day” was widely seen as an echo of Tesla’s recent “Battery Day” event. Both automakers addressed issues related to battery chemistry, supply chain, production and charging as a way to make electric vehicles more accessible and attractive to a wider range of customers. Here are the biggest announcements for the VW Power Day event:
Unified battery cells
Starting in 2023, VW plans to launch a new unified prismatic cell design for its batteries that will be installed on all of the automaker’s brands. The goal is to have this unified cell project, powering up to 80% of VW’s electric vehicles by 2030.
Thomas Schmall, a member of the Volkswagen Group’s Technology Council, said the goal was to reduce the battery’s production cost to less than $ 100 per kWh, which most experts believe will make EVs roughly the same. gas-powered vehicles.
The price per kilowatt-hour (kWh) is the unit of energy most commonly used to measure the capacity of batteries in modern electric vehicles. These prices have fallen dramatically in the past decade, from $ 1,100 / kWh in 2010 to $ 156 / kWh in 2019, a drop of 87%.
“Our goal is to reduce the cost and complexity of the battery and, at the same time, increase its range and performance,” said Schmall. “This will finally make e-mobility accessible and the driving technology dominant.”
VW hopes to further reduce costs with more efficient production and a robust recycling process. The automaker intends to “gradually” reduce battery costs in the entry segment by up to 50 percent and in the volume segment by up to 30 percent.
Volkswagen “gigafactories”
One of the ways in which Volkswagen plans to increase the production of battery-powered vehicles is through a massive expansion of its manufacturing footprint. The automaker plans to have six battery cell production plants operating in Europe by 2030, which it will build alone or with partners.
The first two factories will be in Salzgitter, Germany, and Skelleftea, Sweden; a third factory will be established in Spain, Portugal or France; and the fourth plant will be based in Eastern Europe. The plants will have a production capacity of 240 gigawatt-hours per year, Schmall said.
On the same day as the VW event, Swedish battery maker Northvolt said it had received a $ 14 billion order from the automaker. Northvolt will also sell its stake in the Northvolt Zwei joint venture to Volkswagen. The Swedish company said it plans to increase its market share in Europe to 25 percent by 2030.
Load expansion
Volkswagen said it plans to have 18,000 public fast charging points in operation in Europe by 2025, an increase of five times over the current state of charging electric vehicles on the continent.
This will be done through a series of strategic partnerships that were announced today. VW said it will join oil giant BP and major European utility companies Enel and Iberdrola to expand recharging electric vehicles.
With BP, Volkswagen said it wants to establish about 8,000 fast charging points across Europe, with most stations concentrated in Germany and the United Kingdom. The fast loaders with a load capacity of 150 kW will be installed in a total of 4,000 BP and ARAL fuel stations.
In partnership with the Spanish company Iberdrola, Volkswagen will cover the main traffic routes in that country. In Italy, Volkswagen will work with Enel to establish fast charging stations along major highways and in urban areas. The automaker plans to spend around € 400 million to expand its European electric vehicle charging network by 2025.
The company also said it would have 17,000 public fast-charging stations in China and was on track to reach 800 stations in the United States through its subsidiary Electrify America by the end of 2021.
Bidirectional loading
Starting in 2022, vehicles built on VW’s modular MEB platform for electric vehicles will support bidirectional or bidirectional charging. “This will allow green electricity from the solar energy system to be stored in the vehicle and returned to the home grid, if necessary,” said the company. “Customers will not only be more independent from the public grid, but will also save money and reduce CO2 emissions.”
VW plans to offer a range of products to enable this, including a home energy storage system and a mobile EV charger that is not connected to the network. This will allow car owners to “become their own SUVs,” says the company.
The company also unveiled a lovely EV charging robot for fleet owners.
Because now?
Volkswagen will need to increase its battery experience and secure its supply chain if it is to fulfill its bold promise to manufacture electric vehicles 50 percent of its sales in the United States by 2030. The company recently launched a concept sedan called Trinity, which it promised it would do. feature “high reach” and “short charging time” until 2026. The automaker’s mass-produced modular electric vehicle platform, or “MEB”, will serve as the basis for this massive change.
Volkswagen announced the MEB platform in 2018 as part of its multibillion-dollar onslaught on electric vehicles. It consists of a modular battery that can be sized to suit vehicles of different sizes, an engine and other electronic components – basically all the technical fundamentals needed to make an electric vehicle move. All of the next Volkswagen ID brand electric vehicles are being built on the MEB platform and will also supply power to certain vehicles of the Volkswagen Group brands, such as Audi, Seat and Skoda.
Volkswagen announced that it intends to sell access to the MEB, an idea that has already attracted Ford, which will build a commercial vehicle powered by the platform of the German automaker. But it is also open to partnerships with startups. The first attempt, with Germany’s e.Go Mobile, failed after the small startup became insolvent.
VW, which is the second largest automaker in the world by volume, has just launched its first pair of long-range EVs, the exclusive ID 3 hatchback in Europe and the compact ID 4 SUV, which began making deliveries in the United States.
Initially, the ID 4 battery, made up of 288 cells in bags in 12 modules, will be produced by the South Korean LG Chem. But as soon as production of the ID 4 is moved to Chattanooga, Tennessee, in 2022, the batteries will be supplied by SK Innovation, another South Korean company that recently opened a $ 2 billion plant near the VW plant there.
Before the event, reports emerged that VW was moving away from its main battery supplier, Korea’s LG Chem, and turning to China’s CATL, according to Automotive News, quoting from South Korea Money today online news site.
VW also has contracts with two other major battery producers, Samsung and CATL. And the company is supporting a San Jose, Calif.-Based startup QuantumScape, which is working on more energy-efficient solid-state batteries.
QuantumScape says its solid-state batteries will represent a significant improvement over conventional lithium-ion batteries, allowing electric vehicles to travel 80 percent further than an EV with a traditional battery. They retain more than 80 percent of their capacity after 800 charge cycles, are non-combustible and have a volumetric energy density of more than 1,000 watt-hours per liter at the cell level, which is almost twice the density of the top rate. commercial lithium-ion packages.
VW called solid-state batteries “the final game.”