BASF Sees Tenfold Performance Improvement for EV Batteries

February 19, 2015 – The common battery found in electric vehicles (EVs) these days is lithium-ion. BASF, the chemical company, is working on improving an older battery technology that they invented using nickel-metal hydride (NmH) as the energy storage medium.

Recently scientists at BASF doubled the energy yield from NmH through a redesign of the cells to make them lighter and more powerful. The improvement makes NmH comparable to lithium-ion in energy yield per kilogram. But the BASF scientists aren’t stopping there. They believe they can improve upon current lithium-ion technology by a factor of 10. That would make them attractive to EV developers going forward.

The past knock against NmH versus lithium-ion technology was the weight. An NmH battery produced less power per kilogram. But in their favour, NmH batteries don’t catch fire, a problem that has occurred with lithium-ion technology. That tendency to overheat has led to some headline incidents in the past few years. Two fires in Tesla Model S sedans (see image below) led to the company implementing a fleet-wide software upgrade.  Boeing 787 Dreamliners also experienced fires with lithium-ion batteries leading to the grounding of the airfleet and a delay in its commercial launch.

It is not like NmH technology is unfamiliar to the automobile industry. They are the battery of choice for a number of hybrid manufacturers.  One of the reasons – NmH technology is recyclable. The other is durability. Toyota Prius, the most successful hybrid on the market, comes with an 8-year, 160,000 kilometer (100,000 mile) warranty for its NmH battery (see image below). In its tests, Toyota Prius batteries have successfully operated without deterioration for 290,000 kilometers (180,000 miles).

Related articles across the web

• Toyota looks beyond bigger batteries for EV range boost
• BASF Doubles Nickel-Metal Hydride Energy Storage