• • • ELECTRIC VEHICLES • • •
For OEMs interested in maximising the usable life - and revenue potential - of their battery packs, wBMS makes second life battery repurposing much more efficient. Minus the harness, battery packs are much easier to repair and reuse to ensure the longest possible lifetime and a more environmentally friendly carbon footprint overall. OEMs can readily resell their used batteries for applications like solar or wind energy storage once they reach a determined state of health. Analog Devices estimates that OEMs pursuing this reduce, repair, and reuse strategy can eliminate 7 tons of carbon emissions per battery pack if it’s repaired and not recycled. In terms of cost savings, OEMs typically earmark approximately $1,000 to recycle each individual EV’s battery pack – this can exceed the profit the OEM made on the original vehicle sale, so it makes good business sense for OEMs to explore ways to resell their used EV batteries as quickly as possible so as to get the most value out of them.
Device security
and design success As the life cycle of the EV battery pack is further extended, it becomes increasingly necessary to maintain tight security protocols accompanying each and every wBMS module on its journey from manufacturing to servicing to decommissioning. OEMs must maintain the integrity of the battery modules at all times, or risk negating the value of the module for reuse in second life applications if its secure status can’t be independently verified.
This holds important implications for vehicle
serviceability as well. wBMS modules can be designed to essentially authenticate themselves, and battery packs can be designed to automatically reject “bad” modules. This also makes it easier to ensure that only genuine spare parts are going into the battery pack, installed by approved service agents where warranted. Here again, implementing these measures can be cost prohibitive and/or perceived as a major barrier for OEMs attempting to exploit the full
Figure 3: Packs are easier to repair, reuse, and recycle
benefits of wBMS. The prospect of designing a brand-new security architecture for a new communications platform extending across the full life cycle of the battery or module is hardly palatable to the OEM. ADI’s major, sustained investment in wBMS and secure module tracing capabilities unburden OEMs of the significant time and expense of implementing secure locations across their supply chains and/or babysitting systems that do not benefit from the convenience of public key-based certificate schemes. OEMs won’t need to hire a devoted (and expensive!) team of top-flight cyber security specialists if this hard work is already done for them upfront, and ADI can help OEMs meet these stringent security requirements right out of the gate with minimal CAPEX outlay.
This underscores the need for a comprehensive design strategy that helps OEMs maximise the full value of their investments in wBMS technology without worrying that any one misstep can upend the projected overall cost savings. ADI’s advanced battery pack simulation technology can go a long way toward helping OEMs achieve first pass design success by predicting their wBMS system performance via a
thorough assessment of the pack’s simulated “digital twin” - long before the CAD drawing stage even begins.
This will help to establish a comfortable design margin for OEM battery packs developed for wBMS, while helping to confirm wBMS interoperability with the surrounding ecosystem of components. This is a critical point that can’t be overlooked: a wBMS must be designed to be really robust in order to be truly low cost from a development point of view.
Marginally “good enough” wBMS designs may save some system cost here and there, but these upfront savings can be utterly wiped out by the associated development costs that can arise as system deficiencies begin to surface in later design stages.
A well architected, flexible wBMS design can preclude the cost overruns and frustrations associated with tweaking individual battery packs for individual vehicle models, enabling greater overall scalability for OEMs’ battery pack platforms.
Figure 4: The architecture of the world’s first wBMS production system. Cell pack monitoring hardware and production network, safety, and security software provided by Analog Devices]
A bright future for wBMS When accounting for the simplified manufacturing processes and lowered CAPEX/OPEX outlay relative to legacy wired BMS, OEM feedback on maturing wBMS technology suggests a possible achievable cost savings as high as $250 per passenger EV. Factoring in the attendant vehicle/battery service and inventory monitoring efficiencies - and the added opportunity to increase overall profit via second life battery pack reclamation and repurposing – it’s easy to envision a profitable and sustainable future for wBMS technology in next-generation EV designs. GM is the first of many OEMs to embrace wBMS, and it’s striking that it elected to debut the benefits of wBMS in – of all vehicles – a very large SUV, a vehicle class perhaps best remembered for its outsized environmental footprint. If the GMC Hummer can be transformed into an all-electric poster child for green transportation, the last remaining barriers to mainstream EV adoption are surely crumbling before our eyes – and wBMS technology will play a pivotal role in this transformation.
22 ELECTRICAL ENGINEERING • JUNE 2024
electricalengineeringmagazine.co.uk
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