Chapter 1

Introduction

Abstract

Lithium-ion (Li-ion) batteries are everywhere today. Chapter 1 introduces the topic of Li-ion batteries and Li-ion battery design to the reader and outlines the flow of the book with the intention of offering insights into the technology, the processes, and the applications for advanced batteries.

Keywords

Battery; Design; Electric vehicles; Li-ion; Lithium-ion

 

Today lithium-ion (Li-ion) batteries are everywhere.they power our watches, smart phones, tablets, laptops, portable appliances, GPS devices, handheld games, and just about everything else we carry with us today. But they are also beginning to power our neighborhoods, our homes, and our vehicles, or perhaps when talking about transportation applications, it is more accurate to say that batteries power our transportation again. And today as these industries continue to experience rapid growth, many people who have not previously worked with Li-ion batteries now find themselves in the role of a business professional, technician, or engineer who is moving into the field of Li-ion batteries and are in need of an introduction to Li-ion battery technology. In that case, this book is designed specifically for you! This book is intended to introduce a variety of topics that surround Li-ion batteries and battery design at a detailed enough level to make batteries understandable for the "layman." If you are an engineer, you will swiftly understand these concepts. However, if you are like many of us and are not an engineer, then this book will help you make sense of the world of Li-ion batteries and be able to speak intelligently about them. The concepts in this book are focused on vehicle electrification, but are also relevant to many other applications including stationary energy storage, marine and offshore vessels, industrial motive, robotics, and other types of electric applications. In essence, this book is intended to take the mystery out of modern battery applications. But let me make a disclaimer as we get started, this book is not intended to make you a battery engineer nor is it intended to replace your battery engineering team. It is instead a tool to add to your tool kit. Batteries are unique in the field of energy storage products as they both create the energy through chemical processes and then store the energy within the same device. Other energy storage devices require the energy to be generated in one place and stored in another. For example, in an automobile, the energy is created through a refining of liquid crude oil, it is then transferred to the service stations, where it is again stored until you purchase it and store it again as a liquid fuel in the tank, it is finally converted into energy (and work) in the combustion process of the internal combustion engine. In a Chapter I wrote for the Handbook of Lithium-ion Battery Applications (Warner, 2014), I offered a brief look at Li-ion battery design considerations and discussed cells, mechanical, thermal, and electronic components of Li-ion battery packs. This book will build on that initial discussion and dig deeper into each of those systems and delve into some of the formulas and calculations that are used when making battery pack decisions. Additionally, we will take a look at some of the testing and certification requirements, the growing group of industry organizations and discuss some of the various applications that are benefitting from the addition of electrical energy storage technology. With the recent exposure that has occurred in the media surrounding Li-ion batteries, such as the Boeing 787 Dreamliner battery failures that caused the delay in launching the new plane and an intensive investigation and several battery failures in both Tesla and Chevrolet's electric vehicles (Klayman, 2013; Lowy, 2011; Santos, 2013), the focus on Li-ion battery design as a system has become much more important. The perspective that I have taken for some time now is that it is not the cell that makes the system safe, in fact it is exactly the opposite it is the system that makes the battery cells safe. What I mean by this is that you can take the highest quality and best performing Li-ion battery in the world and put it into a poorly designed pack and it will fail, it could suffer from reduced life, low power, and ultimately safety issues. Conversely, you can take a relatively poorly designed or manufactured cell and make it operate relatively safely with a good energy storage System design. Li-ion energy storage system design requires taking a systems level approach-there is no magic chemistry available that will make a pack safe.

Factors Influencing Consumer Adoption of Electric Vehicles

Another question that we should ask as we begin our discussion on Li-ion batteries is, what are the factors that will drive consumer adoption of Li-ion battery powered vehicles? There are effectively five factors that need continuous attention by all of the major stakeholders in order to ensure the successful growth of battery powered vehicles and energy storage systems. These factors include: 1. Cost-great progress has already been made in reducing battery costs, but there is still much work to be done to make Li-ion-based battery solutions affordable enough to enable high-volume applications. And when it comes to stationary energy storage systems, there are many competing technologies, making it even more important for the costs of Li-ion to continue to drop. 2. Availability-there are more new electrified vehicle applications available to the consumer every year, but when we look at the more highly electrified plug-in hybrid electric vehicle and electric vehicles, there are still a relatively limited amount of products available to the consumer. 3. Range anxiety-even with more electrified versions of current vehicles available, there is still an area of customer concern around the electric range that the vehicles can achieve. 4. Education-perhaps one of the areas that neither the industry nor the governments have done a very good job around is in educating the consumer on the differences, similarities, benefits, and challenges of electrified vehicles. Consumers still consider any level of electrification to be "high technology" rather than mass market ready. But in all reality, the "conventional" vehicle is already almost entirely electrified outside of the powertrain. 5. Charging Infrastructure-this factor is somewhat of a chicken and the egg scenario, no one wants to invest in a charging network that does not get used, but without a charging network consumers are not likely to purchase vehicles that need to use them. These are, in my opinion, the five keys issues that need to be resolved in order to ensure that electrification technology will get more deeply integrated into the transportation and stationary base architectures. Some of these, such as cost, are hurdles that will be achieved through increased volumes in the applications as well as in advancements in technology. But cost and volume are directly correlated to consumer awareness and having a charging infrastructure that matches consumer demand, along with having a higher number of available electrified applications. If we think of the typical automotive consumer, we find that we have become much more dependent on the technology of our vehicles but at the same time our understanding of how that technology works has declined. In other words, most consumers do not care or even understand what is under the hood, only that it will get them everywhere they need to go. For the early adopter consumer, factors such as the "green" factor and the environmental factor tend to be important purchase factors. But for the mass market consumer, these become what I refer to as hygiene factors. The term is taken from the field of organizational psychology and motivation, where it was first used by Frederick Herzberg. Herzberg described the phrase hygiene factor in terms of motivation as a factor that if absent will cause dissatisfaction, but if present by themselves will not cause satisfaction (Herzberg, Mausner, & Snyderman, 1959). Batteries and battery-powered vehicles fall into this category for the mainstream consumer. Having an advanced battery will not be a reason for a mass market consumer to purchase, but the performance improvement as seen in fuel economy will make it more competitive with other options. In order to make the shift from the early adopter to the mass market user, the technology needs to be able to offer a financial payback, internal rate of return, or significant improvements in fuel economy. In other words, the consumer needs to know that the investment will offer them a financial benefit in reduced fuel costs. In addition to this, the mass market consumer needs to know that the technology is "bullet proof," they do not want to invest in early stage technologies since there is not a lot of proof that it works. The mass market consumer is also not willing to give up any performance or range of the vehicle. This one is of extreme importance in the growth of electric vehicles, as mass market consumers will require a vehicle that can offer them the same range as the traditional vehicle.

Evolving Vehicle Technology Needs

Increasing levels of vehicle electrification such as electric heating, ventilation, air conditioning; electric power steering; electric oil pumps; electric fuel pumps; and more in-vehicle...