Tag Archives: Lithium-ion batteries

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BMW canceled the contract with Northvolt worth 2 billion euros

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Four years ago, BMW signed a contract with Northvolt, but the contract was recently cancelled. Northvolt is a Swedish company that produces lithium-ion batteries, and the contract was worth 2 billion euros.

In 2016, two former Tesla executives founded Northwolt, and in January they raised $5 million to expand a battery recycling facility in Sweden. In March, the company began building a new gigafactory for battery production in Heide, Germany, and is considering a new facility in Borlange, Sweden.

The reason for the termination of the contract between BMW and Northvolt is that the Swedish manufacturer did not fulfill its obligations due to problems with serial production, a delay of two years behind the original plan, but also that it produces too much waste. Battery cells would be produced from wind and hydropower.

BMW still has a contract with Northvolt to supply next-generation battery cells for Neue Klasse electric vehicles. The first next-generation car to hit the market is the iX3, which has been announced for the end of next year. After this model, an electric sedan the size of the current Series 3 will arrive, and then the iX4 sedan and station wagon are expected in 2027. The successor to the current iX2 model will also be part of the Neue Klasse family.

BMW has already started talks with Samsung SDI about the supply of batteries needed for their current electric cars.

Source: BMW

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KAIST has developed a battery that can be charged in seconds

At a time when car manufacturers are struggling with production costs as well as battery quality, many of them are trying to find the best solution. Lithium-ion batteries are currently the most used on the market, but a new type of battery that is much more efficient has been talked about for a long time. These are sodium batteries that are more cost-effective and more sustainable because they can be produced almost entirely without rare metals. However, scientists from the Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology (KAIST) have developed a hybrid battery that can be charged in a few seconds.

The journal Energy Storage Materials published an article about a new type of battery that can be fully charged and discharged in just a few seconds. This was achieved thanks to the use of materials used for supercapacitors (a type of an electrochemical energy storage systems which have great power density and specific capacitance), known for high charging speeds, but they can only store a very small amount of energy.

It is believed that the combination of the best properties of the sodium battery and the supercapacitor could be an advantage in the production of batteries that, in addition to the enormous charging speed, would have a longer range than the current ones. Thanks to the high power density, the vehicles could also use significantly more powerful electric motors.

Sodium batteries are already in use, but they do not provide a short range (250 km). JAC Yiwei EV is the first car equipped with sodium-ion batteries.

Source: Energy Storage Materials