E-Mobility Engineering 014 l InoBat Auto dossier l In Conversation: Brandon Fisher l Battery monitoring focus l Supercapacitor applications insight l Green-G ecarry digest l Lithium-sulphur batteries insight l Cell-to-pack batteries focus

at the mercy of what is on the market,” adds the company’s COO Iain Wight. He emphasises that there are many developers of high-performance vehicles, buses, trucks, aircraft other types of vehicle that are heavily underserved in this respect. “From my own experience, you can select a cell and design a battery to go into a vehicle, but you have no real control over that core component. So, once you have designed, validated and tested the battery you are probably 18 months or 2 years into the process, and you can suddenly find that your chosen cell is no longer in production, sending you back to the beginning,” he says. “Using the tools Doug mentioned, we aim to provide a long-term solution to some of those underserved markets and companies who want a level of continuity. “As methodology and batteries improve over time, we can maintain the same form factor while bringing in chemical improvements, increasing power, energy capacity and longevity throughout the vehicle’s production and service life,” he says. “From day one the take-it-or-leave- it approach has compromised many vehicle designs, to the point where they become uncompetitive and are not taken up,” MacAndrew adds. “We want to provide the opportunity for our customers to define and manage their brands at an electrochemical level. “We see that the battery will be the differentiator of the future. Clearly, electrical machines will be scaled appropriately, but the battery and the way it operates could, for example, be the enabler for performance versions in vehicle ranges. The battery is going to be that differentiator.” “One cycle of assessment produces many results – not just one – so we get design-for-power, design-for- energy and design-for-life outputs from a single cycle. We have carried out almost three cycles already and built up a knowledge database associated with the results. That gives us a great insight into what is possible across many different materials providers, for example in characterising loading factors and design conditions within the cell. “We have an in-house team of scientists who drive evaluation and experimentation, and also provide guidance to the automated processes. “Looking back at why InoBat Auto was started, one of the frustrations I’ve seen over the past 5 years is that battery pack designers and vehicle designers who are not aligned to one of the big cell suppliers are very much (rtist»s impression of Volta , the building housing the r d centre and semi-automated small-scale production line now fitting out near )ratisla]a, :lo]akia Summer 2022 | E-Mobility Engineering 21 Dossier | InoBat Auto