Almost a year ago, Kreisel Electric announced that it would build a battery plant in Austria. Now the plant is almost finished and battery production won’t take much longer.
Until now Kreisel has been building their battery packs with tiny 18650 cells, but maybe it’s time to change to a bigger size.
Not only Tesla/Panasonic and Samsung SDI are betting on the 21700 form, LG Chem (20650) and Sanyo (20700) already have cylindrical battery cells bigger than the popular 18650 format.
Using bigger cells will make the task of assembling the battery pack much simpler and cheaper.
The bad news is that while previously Kreisel Electric had plans to offer battery upgrades for various electric cars, the company is now focused in producing battery packs only for new electric cars under big orders/contracts.
So, what’s up with this? Time for an update article on Kreisel’s factory and what it’s making. I’ve sort of given up on my dream that they would become a third party source of battery back upgrades for older EVs, or at least the most common one that’s in need of one, the LEAF (all models up to 2018). It probably won’t happen, but certainly it would be worth paying a decent price to transform a 24 kWh (gross) LEAF into a ~60 kWh (net!) one, and that should be well within their ability…
Last time I talked with Kreisel Electric they said that they no longer have plans to offer battery upgrades to individual customers. They are focusing on larger contracts with corporate customers.