Newly Introduced Battery-Electric Vehicles (2018-2019)
Introduction
Energy conservation has played a major role to help the automotive industry grow in the field of battery electric vehicles. All the BEVs works on a simple working principle that the battery pack provides the energy required to help motors to convert that energy and deliver the same as per needs. Since battery management system has to play an important role as a power system, this particular literature focuses on different types of battery and its configurations used in different Battery-electric vehicles. Literature reviews the battery pack configurations (number of cell in series and parallel, number of modules, temperature sensors, and thermal management system) of three different battery electric vehicles:
- Jaguar I-PACE
- Renault ZOE
- Nissan leaf
The battery configuration of all the above mentioned cars are shown accordingly:
Jaguar I-PACE (2019)
I-PACE is the first electric all-wheel drive concept SUV by Jaguar. Its first edition with variants like I-PACE S, I-PACE SE, and I-PACE HSE are more likely to be released in 2019 as per the company. Battery Management System of I-Pace comes with lithium-ion battery and 90kWh of battery capacity. Liquid-cooled packs behaves as the structural component of vehicle uni-body in which the battery cells are placed. When fully charged the battery provides the range up to 240 miles.
The battery is made up of 432 high energy density Li-ion pouch cells that are arranged 36 modules each consisting 12 cells to deliver the maximum power range performance and efficiency. The time taken to charge from 0-80% at 100kW DC is 40 minutes when charged using Combined Charge System. Connection of cells in I-Pace seems to be a bit complicated as it has 108 cell group connected in series in which one cell group has 4 cells connected in parallel.
Thermal Management System is of a liquid based system mounted on an aluminium pack structure frame. This liquid thermal management system keeps temperature of module as well as cell under 2 degrees centigrade. Apart form that, there is also the heat dissipation with the air around that helps in maintaining a cell temperature.
Nissan leaf (2018)
Nissan leaf, a hatchback electric car was the best selling electric car when released in 2011 as there was no strong competitor. For market record the gross sales of Nissan leaf 2018 as of January 2018 is above 300,000 units. Battery Management System of Nissan Leaf 2018 consists of Li-ion cell battery consisting 192 prismatic/laminate cells in total. There are 24 modules of cells where each module consists of 8 cells.
The module is divided into two units where in which 1 unit consist of 2 cells connected in parallel and 2 cells connected in series. The rated capacity of the battery is 56.3 Ah with 3.65 of nominal voltage. This arrangement of 192 cells gives the battery capacity of about 39.46 kWh when effects of temperature or C-Rate is neglected. Also the battery energy density is much higher as compared to Nissan 2011 with 48 modules with 4 cells in each module.
Nissan leaf does not have any active Thermal Management System. When the cell temperature increases there is no system to actively sense the temperature rise and minimise the temperature and bring it under limit. The only thing that acts as a passive Thermal management system is the air flowing between the modules. Also the flow of cold air from the Air-condition system of car helps to maintain required cell temperature.
Renault ZOE (2018)
Production of first Renault ZOE began in 2011 while its designed prototype was presented in 2008. After that there were many advances in the technology. The latest ZOE 2018 model is installed with the more powerful R110 motor that gives range of 186 miles while the ZOE 2015 had R90 motor that gave range of 149 miles. Battery Management System in Renault ZOE is has the battery capacity of 41 kWh.
The battery could be recharged in different modes. 192 Lithium Ion cells are used to make a battery pack where it is divided into 12 modules of each containing 16 cells of which 106 cells are connected in series and 86 cells are connected in parallel. The estimated nominal voltage and nominal cell capacity is 3.75 V and 63 Ah respectively. Renault introduced an extra evaporator from the Air condition system to the battery pack with one inlet and two outlet ports. This helps in keeping the temperature under required conditions in different climate conditions.
Conclusion
As from the review of the three All- electric vehicle above and all other battery electric vehicles, the battery management system and its configuration to get the maximum power and thermal management system to keep the battery pack in under desired temperature both plays a major role in providing an efficient performance and a reliable cars.
References:
- https://electricrevs.com/2018/03/09/jaguar-and-chevy-have-lg-in-common/
- https://insideevs.com/jaguar-i-pace-everything-we-know/
- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nissan_Leaf
- https://www.greencarreports.com/news/1117928_2018-nissan-leaf-battery-technology-a-deep-dive
- https://cleantechnica.com/2018/07/16/2018-leaf-vs-long-journeys-can-it-take-the-heat/
- https://www.cdn.renault.com/content/dam/Renault/UK/brand-and-editorial/Brochures/Vehicles/zoe-brochure-q1.pdf
- https://cleantechnica.com/2016/10/11/details-renault-zoe-ze-40-battery-packs/
- http://www.imprensa.renault.com.br/upload/produto/ficha-tecnica/zoe_2016-02-11_18-23-09.pdf
- https://canze.fisch.lu/cooling-the-zoe-battery/x. https://insideevs.com/renault-zoe-z-e-40-41-kwh-battery-visualized/
