The latest announcements of electric vehicles give some idea of how technology will evolve ahead of the decade’s end and what we can expect to see in cars to come. In particular, with the Mégane E-Tech Electric recently unveiled at the Munich Motor Show, Renault has firmly planted its flag in the sand and potentially made the best possible choices to take advantage of every milliampere of lithium battery power. -ion.
First, this battery. No surprising announcement here of a solid-state battery earlier than expected, but of a finer tuning of the best lithium-ion has to offer.
To be clear, lithium is only part of the mix in an EV battery, which gets its name from the fact that lithium ions migrate between electrodes during charging and discharging. Lithium-ion batteries contain lithium, of course, but also graphite and variously silicone, iron, phosphate, manganese, aluminum, cobalt or nickel. Tinkering with the list of ingredients and how they interact is a way for battery cell makers like LG Chem (which has partnered with Renault in the development of EV batteries for nearly a decade) to achieve more. performance and range from the batteries.
The Electric Mégane uses a new formulation of nickel manganese cobalt oxide (NMC) in its battery cells developed by LG. NMC is not a new technology and many manufacturers use it in addition to Renault, but changing the proportions of the ingredients in an NMC battery allows it to favor power or energy density (which is equivalent to power and energy respectively). the autonomy of an EV). The same cell optimized for power can have up to a third less energy capacity, so the two can be balanced to provide the best of both worlds.
Nickel is an attractive ingredient because it is so much cheaper than cobalt, which ultimately impacts the price of the ticket for the car. The Mégane battery has an energy capacity per liter 20% higher than that of the Renault Zoe. It is also 40% smaller and the thinnest on the market, at 110mm.
On the other side of the equation for all electric vehicles is the weight and efficiency of anything that consumes power outside of the transmission – primarily the heating, ventilation, and air conditioning (HVAC) system. ). Manufacturers of electric vehicles use heat pumps, the same sort of thing that has become an efficient and economical way to heat a home. A heat pump uses the refrigeration cycle to move heat from one place to another. It works like a home refrigerator, which takes heat from inside the refrigerator and diffuses it around the room. In the Mégane, a new patented heat pump and HVAC system manage the battery, transmission heat and ambient temperature to heat or cool the passenger compartment, reducing the amount of energy it draws from by 30%. battery.
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Source: www.autocar.co.uk
This notice was published: 2021-10-03 23:01:24
