China’s 13th Five-year Plan (2016 to 2020) sets the goals for EV battery cells of reaching an energy density higher than 300 Wh/kg and cost lower than 100 €/kWh. Currently battery cell makers are working to reach or even surpass these objectives. While Chinese battery cell makers are free to decide how they are going to achieve the goals set by the Chinese Government, NCM 811 battery cells are clearly the way to go. This cathode chemistry allows to reach high energy densities with the use of larger quantities of nickel, while keeping costs low by reducing the amount of cobalt present.

The 2018 Nissan Leaf battery - like all previous versions - uses a 96s2p cell configuration, this means that in total there are 192 cells in the battery pack. However, the battery cells now have a much higher energy density. In the Nissan Leaf, each battery pack has 24 modules and each module has 8 cells. Originally, the Nissan Leaf was launched with double the modules. The 24 kWh battery in the 2011 Nissan Leaf had 48 modules, each module with 4 cells. However, when Nissan released the 30 kWh battery, the number of modules was reduced to half - to further increase the energy density of the battery pack. If you look at the new battery module below you’ll see that it seems 2 old modules stuck together…

Online range calculators are very useful tools, especially to understand the impact of speed, temperature and heat pumps on electric cars range. The online range calculator for the Volkswagen e-Golf isn’t the first. We already have available identical calculators for other electric cars, such as the Renault Zoe and the Opel Ampera-e. Anyway, while it isn’t a surprise that temperature and speed influence the range of electric cars, the importance of heat pumps isn’t something that everybody knows.

What I like the most about prismatic battery cells is that they are like LEGO bricks and make easier the task of building battery packs. For this reason they are perfect for DIY (Do it yourself) EV projects and for automakers that plan to effortlessly upgrade the battery packs of their electric cars. However, the improvement of EV prismatic battery cells has been painfully slow when compared to cylindrical or pouch types.

We all remember the Volkswagen e-Golf improved by Kreisel Electric with a 55,7 kWh battery and able to charge from 0 to 80 % in 20 minutes (via 150 kW CCS). Now Scuderia-E gives a similar treatment to the Fiat 500e. Carlos Noya from the Spanish website FCE wrote an interesting article about the Fiat 500e improved by Scuderia-E and it’s worth reading. Scuderia-E is a company dedicated to electric car conversions created by Gianfranco Pizzuto (co-founder of Fisker Automotive).

I’ve always seen the mandatory battery rental as something close to a scam, making electric cars more expensive to run than diesel alternatives. Furthermore the existence of a battery lease indicates that the automaker isn’t confident in the quality of its batteries and scares away potential customers - by stating that batteries are more prone to failure than other components. This is why we’ll never see battery rentals in automakers that are proud to build good quality electric cars, such as Tesla or even BMW - that don’t see batteries as problems.

Few days ago SK Innovation announced that the start of production of improved NCM 811 battery cells is near, now it’s time for its main competitor - LG Chem - to do the same. President of LG Chem’s battery business, Lee Ung Beom, just announced that: “We will first produce the (NCM 811 battery), and you can see it next year”. We might see those 60 kWh batteries next year, in the 2019 Nissan Leaf. According to Nissan’s global sales and marketing division, Daniele Schillaci, the 2019 Nissan Leaf will get more than 225 miles (362 km) EPA range from those…

Until now, Tesla wasn’t known for making high efficient electric cars, but this will change with the Model 3. From the start Tesla’s goal was to compete with top performance gas cars and efficiency wasn’t that important. However, if we can have top performance and efficiency with the same car, why not? Thanks to Akilae from the Model 3 Owners Club, we can now compare the efficiency between the three Tesla models currently on sale and I’ve to say that I’m pretty impressed.

Now that almost every other electric car got a battery upgrade, it’s time for the Fiat 500e to get its own. Let’s see the possibilities for upgrades. Currently the Fiat 500e has a Bosch battery pack made with 97 Samsung SDI cells, each with 63 Ah capacity. While Fiat says that the battery capacity is 24 kWh, if we do the math the figure we get is 22,9 kWh (97 x 63 Ah x 3,75 V). Nevertheless, the Fiat 500e gets a 87 miles (140 km) EPA range, which is pretty good - for an electric car that has been available since 2013.

It’s not the first time that we found Samsung SDI 94 Ah battery cells on sale at online stores, but it’s the first time it happens at a reputable and well known source. The price at ev-power.eu isn’t very friendly (162,69 € without VAT), but it’s always nice to at least have the opportunity to buy the battery cell from third-party suppliers if we really need to. Below is the information we can find at the online store.

Starting this month - with the new 35,8 kWh battery for the 2017 Volkswagen e-Golf - Volkswagen will begin to use Samsung SDI as its supplier for battery cells. This means that Panasonic/Sanyo loses a big customer for their battery cells, but it doesn’t seem that important since Tesla and now Toyota - with the Prius Prime - will keep the demand high. As a side note, I’ve to say that in my previous articles I wrongly assumed that Volkswagen would keep Panasonic/Sanyo as its battery cell supplier and I’ve to thank Grendizer for the heads up.

It’s not a secret that the Q90 powertrain built by Continental for the Renault Zoe has low charge and discharge efficiency. While the low discharge efficiency results in lower range than we have with the R90 powertrain - designed and developed in-house by Renault -, the low charge efficiency results in wasted time and electricity/money. Let’s compare the charging efficiency of the two Renault Zoe’s powertrains. To build the table below, I used the information available in Renault France website. The charge was set to 80 % for the ZE 40 (41 kWh) battery.