// FiveVB: Greater range for batery-electric vehicles (29 Ah cells)

The acceptance of electromobility by the consumer is steadily increasing and so the number of plug-in hybrid and full electric vehicles on the road. However, full market penetration will only be achieved with further breakthrough innovations concerning cell and battery technologies. Key parameters such as energy, costs, durability and safety are all expected to be improved in the coming years. Silicon-based anodes and Ni-rich LiNi_xMn_yCo_zO₂ cathodes show much higher capacities than state-of-the-art ones, thus allowing for batteries with higher energy.

Within the scope of the “FiveVB” project, sponsored by the EU, ZSW has succeeded in developing high performance Si-alloy anodes and LiNi_0.6Mn_0.2Co_0.2O₂ cathodes all the way from lab scale up to an industrial relevant environment. First, the new cell chemistries were validated in multi-layer stacked soft pouch cells of 1.4 Ah. The optimisation of the electrode microstructure, loading and cell balancing allowed manufacturing cells with good cycling stability, excellent power performance and a remarkable +21% specific energy and +15% energy density in comparison to state-of-the-art Graphite/ LiNi_0.5Mn_0.3Co_0.2O₂ cells. Finally, making use of the ZSW production research facilities, we successfully demons-trated a first attempt to integrate the newly developed electrodes in standard automotive cells. Our prismatic hard case PHEV-1 cells deliver 29 Ah and 187 Wh/kg.