+++ BMW is not focussing on solid-state battery technology for the coming years. Instead, it insists there is “a long way to go” with today’s lithium iron (LI) and nickel manganese cobalt (NMC) packs, which it will instead continue to develop. Solid-state batteries are widely said to be crucial to EV longevity because they offer greater capacity and more range than similar-sized LI/NMC packs in use today. That’s because of their simplified make-up that is lighter, less susceptible to temperature variations and can be charged faster. But while firms such as rival Mercedes-Benz claim they are close to putting the technology into production, Martin Schuster, BMW’s vice president of next-generation battery tech Martin Schuster, estimates that the BMW Group is 8 years away from needing a solid state battery option in its line-up. He said: “The most important thing is the lithium iron battery: it’s not finished. You still see improvements. There is no one and only battery. It will not come. But the lithium ion at the moment can improve in a steady way, to reduce the cost, because that will be the main, most important goal”. He told: “We can do solid state now, but the cost in the packaging makes no sense to do. There is still a long way to go with lithium iron”. Purchasing and supply board member Joachim Post added that BMW Group’s new “Gen6” NMC batteries (that can add 300 km in as little as 10 minutes) offer more than enough for what the market currently wants. “Would a customer be willing to pay a much higher price for solid-state for, maybe, a little bit faster charging?”, he asked. “Cost is one of the most important points for EV buyers”. That cost comes from the production of the packs, especially the cells, said Post. “The problem with solid-state is to make millions of battery cells for a low price with a high efficiency, best quality, and easy to integrate in the package”, he said. “But what we so far see there is not a fast breakthrough coming, and that’s why we are quite confident that our Gen6 battery is lasting for a long time”. Asked if this meant BMW would fall behind, given Mercedes-Benz has just announced it has begun testing of its own solid-state battery (which can offer a range of beyond 1.000 km), Schuster said: “They are in a price range which is not competitive. That’s fact today, and when we will see it in a competition against lithium iron, then we will take note”. +++
+++ Oh to be an ELECTRIC CAR MAKER . “If you want to be loved and have rocks thrown at you simultaneously, you’ve got it. There’s virtually nobody without an opinion. We’re not lacking love or hate. Anyone would think what I’m trying to do is genocidal”. In fact, all that Lucid Motors’ Peter Rawlinson has been trying to do is make the most efficient cars in the world, which if executed correctly could make them the best. While Lucid makes electric cars and is therefore called an electric car maker alongside any number of wannabe Tesla rivals, spend any length of time with Rawlinson (formerly of Tesla himself) and you realise that Lucid is very different to any other company out there. I spoke to him when he was in his long-held position as CEO, but this week it was announced he had resigned to take a new strategic advisory technical role on the board. Regardless of how the company might change day to day under a new CEO, though, Lucid isn’t about to change course on its technology or how it makes cars. While Lucid’s peers are using the switch to EVs as a way to lower emissions, it sees EVs as the opportunity for a better car. Period. Rawlinson highlights just how misguided so much EV development has been and reframes just how EVs should be viewed, starting with the most important part of all: efficiency. “You can achieve range effectively in 2 ways”, he said. “One is battery size and the other one is efficiency”. Rawlinson can’t fathom why efficiency is so fundamentally misunderstood and underestimated in the EV lexicon. “Not only by making a car more efficient is it using less of the world’s energy, it’s also using less battery resources and minerals”, he says. As the battery is the biggest cost item of an EV, this will lead to lower EV prices in the future, too. “It’s only really Lucid that’s taking this pioneering approach”, claims Rawlinson. “The Lucid Air Pure is literally the world’s most energy-efficient car. It uses less fuel to go from A to B, whatever your fuel is, than any mass-production car ever in the 130-year history of the car. No one else is even close to this in terms of how advanced their technology is”. The technology that Rawlinson refers to in getting this remarkable efficiency (which has been independently validated by US legislators) is a proprietary design that contains the electric motor and inverter in the same downsized unit. Yet the dominant language concerning EVs is range, and the enabling factor in the market generally to that end has been battery size. This irks Rawlinson, as he believes that ignoring efficiency is “missing the point” and “insane”. “Because we’re so efficient, we’ve got a much bigger range”, he says. “We can do 800 km of range without having a crazy-large battery pack. And because that battery pack isn’t crazy-large, the car is agile and handles well and rides well and is comfortable and roomy for your feet. What efficiency fundamentally gives you is a massively better car. The problem we’ve got is that if you look at the petrol equivalent, the only thing that efficiency gives you is less cost of buying petrol. It doesn’t really make a better car, it just means you pay less for petrol. “That’s the difference between an electric car and a petrol car: you get a car that does 20mpg versus 40mpg, but the 40mpg car is worse, because it’s not got the performance. Most car enthusiasts with petrol cars will want an inefficient car because it’s higher performance. The reason the [range-topping Air] Sapphire can blow everyone out the water is because of its efficiency. It doesn’t lose power and it turns all those electrons to burn rubber. Efficiency gives it performance. And that’s the difference with a petrol car, where efficiency means low performance. With electric cars, because it’s the other way around, the more efficient they are, you can have higher performance, because you’re not losing power to heat in turning the power into burning rubber. So everything everyone has learned about cars is wrong”. To put it another way, Rawlinson says that if he told you “I’ve just got a car to do 100mpg, you’d say it was a Bluemotion Volkswagen Golf. But no, I’ve done it in a Mercedes-Benz S-Class. You’d say that was bullshit, but that’s literally what we have here with the Air. We have an S-Class long-wheelbase in terms of interior room which is doing 146mpg” (that figure is actually MPGe, an official US figure that enables consumers to directly compare EV efficiency with ICE car efficiency). “Nobody is writing about it, because it’s so far out and feels unbelievable. People said I was lying 3 years ago when I said we would have 800 km of range. When it became true, they said I’d stuffed the car full of batteries. “The problem is, it’s so much better than the competition that people don’t grasp it. These aren’t numbers I’m claiming, these are government numbers, independently validated and underwritten”. On an environmental level, Rawlinson says, “if you’ve got twice the efficiency, you’re going to have half the battery. That means less mines for lithium, less cobalt mining, less nickel”. While Lucid produces its own motors, it sources batteries from partner firms including LG Chem, Panasonic and Samsung. It chooses to invest and develop in motor technology because it believes this is where true gains can be made in efficiency, and it has ongoing research projects to boost that efficiency even further. Rawlinson explains: “Everyone talks about battery efficiency, but battery efficiency almost doesn’t exist. It’s a misnomer. It’s crazy. It’s a bit like saying ‘petrol efficiency’. ‘Is it Shell’s petrol that’s more efficient or Aramco’s?’ That would be ridiculous, but that’s what we’re talking about. With batteries, it would be good for everyone to stop using the wrong words to describe things” .Solid-state technology has long been widely viewed as the future of EVs for allowing smaller, more power-dense, faster-charging batteries, but Rawlinson is “bearish” on his view that this won’t be the case, as “nobody can solve the productionisation” of solid-state batteries yet; they haven’t made in anything more than laboratory quantities. He has an open offer to supply any solid-state battery supplier with a Lucid battery pack that they can use to demonstrate their technology. The results would be shared but Lucid wouldn’t look inside the pack, to protect the supplier’s intellectual property. “But in 8 years, nobody has taken me up on that offer”, says Rawlinson. “You can’t build them at scale. It would take 3 years to fill that pack. “I’m not saying it won’t happen. It might happen. If it does happen, great. Combine that with our efficiency and you’re then suddenly able to halve the battery weight. But our efficiency still counts. Solid-state technology promises to deliver but never ever does, because no one can put it into mass production”. He’s more optimistic about the lithium-ion-phosphate (LFP) battery chemistry that’s emerging in lower-cost EVs as an alternative to nickel-manganese-cobalt (NMC). “They were heavy and didn’t store much energy, so they were low-cost but low-range”, says Rawlinson, but improvements to energy density and their ability to withstand fast-charging have made him “much more bullish” about their adoption. More generally, Rawlinson isn’t surprised that EV sales are stalling “because so many of them suck. I’m sorry, this is the truth”, he says, elaborating that many have “very poor range” and are made from “low technology, off-the-shelf commodity parts”. Then there’s the problem of “the accessibility, the usability and the reliability of the public charging infrastructure” if you don’t have access to the Air’s whopping range; something still denied to Rawlinson’s fellow Brits. “If you’ve got an incredible charging infrastructure, you don’t need so much range; if you haven’t, you need range”, he says. “Right now, we haven’t got reliable infrastructure and we haven’t got sufficient cars with much range. And so it’s a horrible experience”. This links into what Rawlinson believes is “a myopia about fast charging”. He is an advocate for confronting what he sees as the bigger issue of on-street charging, which allows EVs to be charged overnight by people who don’t have a driveway or garage at home. “I think this is very important”, Rawlinson says, “because if you look at the amount of electricity it takes to mobilise cars, I don’t think that’s an issue. The average person may travel about 30-50 km a day, because not everybody is doing long commutes. “Lucid can do 8 km per kilowatt hour now on the US test, which is more stringent than the WLTP test used in Europe. To get that 30 km range, it requires only 4kWh in a 24-hour cycle. “Don’t tell me there isn’t enough electricity on the grid. That isn’t the issue. I think people shouldn’t have to be thinking in terms of going to fast charge. “They should be charging overnight when the electricity is cheaper, when the grid is down, when the electricity is available. It’s better for the power stations, because they’re not coking up and coking down in a 24-hour cycle. I’m a big advocate of working on the infrastructure of overnight, slower, AC charging at home or on the street”. This brings us to the issue of EVs’ affordability. “I’m not surprised that they’re expensive”, says Rawlinson. “It’s because car makers are going down the range route as a function of battery size. Lucid never did this. Range is a function of our efficiency, through technology. “If you go down the route of range as a function of battery size, the only way you will achieve range is putting more batteries in, and that will cost so much more. “How can you make that vehicle affordably? You can’t, because you’ve got to stuff all those expensive batteries in. And this is the problem. This is the whole wrong mindset. Our technology enables cars to have the range without the cost of those batteries. “And this is going to play out over the next few years. People aren’t seeing it today, because we’ve got high-end cars which compete with Mercedes and Porsche. It will play out when we have more affordable cars”. +++
+++ KIA “definitely needs” an entry-level model to broaden the appeal of electric cars, according to company president Ho Sung Song. Speaking at the brand’s second EV Day event, Song confirmed that the company is “internally studying” what an entry-level model would look like: be it a city car to sit below the upcoming EV2 and fight the future Renault Twingo and Volkswagen ID.Every1, or a more affordable version of an existing model. He also hinted that the prospective EV1 could cost around €26.000 in the Netherlands, referring to the fact that there will be a difference of around €5.000 between the incoming EV2 (€31.495) and the existing EV3 (€36.995). Song said: “If we want to move to the late majority customer target group, definitely we need a lower size of model, or a lower-price model, and we are internally studying what will be our entry EV models, apart from our EV2. “Maybe next EV Day, we’ll show you what we are planning”. The reveal of an EV1 concept next year would put a production car on track to arrive in 2027, the same year as the Volkswagen ID.Every1 is due to be launched and a year after the Twingo. Song’s new comments tally with what he told last September: that an electric city car to replace the Picanto in the long term was its “next, next target” and that the brand will “need sub-€26.000 in our EV cars”. +++
+++ The new MCLAREN W1 hypercar will not chase “Top Trumps numbers” but instead prioritise driver engagement and tractability in the real world. Although its 4.0-litre turbocharged V8 engine and electric motor combine for a bombastic 1.300 hp, it’s electronically limited to a top speed of 350 kph. This figure matches the W1’s predecessor, the P1. It’s also 30 kph short of the number clocked by the 1992 McLaren F1, which was the world’s fastest road car for more than a decade, with half the W1’s power. Asked why McLaren decided not to chase a new speed record, W1 vehicle line director Alex Gibson explained: “Ultimate top speed (Top Trumps) is not a number that we’re chasing with this product. To go to 400 kph or 450 kph, there are compromises you have to make for real-world accessible driving on the road and track. Those were avenues we didn’t want to pursue with this product. We didn’t want to get into really stiff sidewalls on the tyres, because then you compromise ride comfort on your day-to-day drives, which is the most accessible time. Most of the time this car will be used will be your point-to-point driving experience”. McLaren’s head of performance, Marcus Waite, suggested the top speed was limited because the W1 “needs to retain a certain harmony”. “It’s got so many roles to play: to be a car that can accelerate faster than a Speedtail, that can be faster around a track than a Senna”, he said. “We had to find a place that the car settled well. When we reflect on the choices that we can make, one of them is about how much cornering potential we keep in the car, and we’re clearly trading that. Even with our super-low-drag underfloor-generated ground-effect downforce, there’s still some drag under the car. It could push on a bit past 350 kph but actually, for the way we’ve designed the car to be used, that’s the right place for us now”. To that end, McLaren made several key decisions to improve the W1’s tractability and overall driver engagement on the open road. Key to this is the decision to send the car’s huge power reserves through the rear wheels alone, rather than employing a four-wheel drive system for greater traction. This decision was made to preserve the steering feel for which McLaren’s previous models have received much praise, said Waite; its hydraulic power assistance would not have fit in the car had a driveline to the front wheels or an extra electric motor been added. Waite explained: “With all-wheel drive, particularly by the time you’re accelerating all the time, you’re traction-limited. Up to around 130 kph using the front tyres is really helpful; there’s many parts of a circuit where that’s a benefit. However, you’re carrying around, depending on which system you use, 60, 70 or 80 kg. And that’s weight that’s in the car all the time. So it’s fairly close to even in terms of outright pace, but with rear-wheel drive it’s an overall more complete car that’s much more engaging for the driver, and it’s true to who we are to do it this way”. Torque is limited in first and second gear to reduce wheelspin and boost traction. Chief powertrain engineer Richard Jackson said: “From a hardware point of view, we try to put that limit just above where the tyre traction limit will be. In reality, it’s going to be right on the limit of traction through first and second gear”. The W1 also offers a range of driving modes to suit a range of environments, including a road-focused Comfort setting. This limits the car to the 925 hp yielded by its V8 alone, although the motor is still engaged to provide instant throttle response. +++
+++ MERCEDES-BENZ is testing a solid-state battery that could unlock a range of more than 1.000 km on a single charge, with the first production car to use it scheduled to hit roads before the end of the decade. Preliminary trials are being carried out to evaluate the efficiency, durability and performance of the pack that has been jointly created by the German car maker and the US-based Factorial Energy. Mercedes is using an EQS saloon to test the battery, which first took to the road earlier this month. It has been lightly modified to accommodate the new pack, with work mainly focused on reworking the battery housing. Within the housing, the prototype uses a floating cell carrier, featuring pneumatic actuators developed by Mercedes-Benz’s Formula 1 engineers in Brixworth. This system manages the expansion and contraction of materials inside the battery cells during charging and discharging for improved stability and longevity. While Mercedes-Benz has yet to disclose the full technical specifications of its prototype solid-state battery, it confirms that the EQS’s existing 12-module battery compartment allows for flexible configurations and capacities. The company claims the new energy storage technology offers around a 25% increase in range compared with a lithium ion battery of equivalent size and weight. The current EQS 450+ saloon, equipped with a 118kWh lithium ion battery, has a WLTP-certified range of 511 miles. By contrast, Mercedes-Benz expects its new solid-state unit to push the EQS prototype’s range beyond 1.000 km under real-world driving conditions. In an announcement made in June last year, Factorial Energy (which has also partnered Hyundai and Stellantis) confirmed it had supplied Mercedes-Benz with battery cells featuring an energy density of up to 391 Wh/kg and a charging capacity exceeding 106 Ah. The pack also holds a patented lithium-metal anode and polymer separator. The technology being trialled in the EQS prototype marks an initial step towards a more advanced solid-state battery, internally codenamed Solstice, which Mercedes-Benz and Factorial Energy are jointly developing. The next-generation unit replaces the polymer separator with a sulphide-based solid electrolyte, targeting an energy density of 450 Wh/kg and an estimated 80% range increase over today’s lithium ion batteries. Together with the new battery technology, Mercedes-Benz is also pushing ahead with the development of new-generation silicon carbide inverters and power electronics. Currently under development at AMG High Performance Powertrain in Brixworth, they aim to bring higher power efficiency and improved performance to the car maker’s future models. Mercedes-Benz’s confirmation that it is testing solid-state battery technology in a modified EQS is expected to precede the launch of a new development concept, following the approach taken with the EQXX, which was unveiled in 2022. This future concept will showcase technology expected to be used on its upcoming new compact car line-up, including successors to the CLA saloon, CLA Shooting Brake, GLA/EQA and GLB/EQB. +++
+++ VOLKSWAGEN won’t launch any niche or low-volume models until it has built the “perfect fleet of vehicles”, CEO Thomas Schäfer has said. The German brand doesn’t currently “have the money to gamble” on cars that won’t be part of its core line-up, he said, suggesting the Arteon and T-Roc Cabriolet won’t be renewed for new generations. Schäfer indicated that significant challenges in introducing such vehicles, including concerns about sales and investment sacrifices, are reasons for “continuous debate every year” at Volkswagen. What’s more, significant and costly challenges mean keeping the line-up “truly core” (the Touareg, the Golf and the ID range of electric cars, for instance) is itself a difficult task, requiring sacrifices to be made elsewhere. “We have to invest in hybridisation, Euro 7 and beyond”, said Schäfer. “It’s quite a stretch to afford it all, and you need to keep your portfolio, the core, together, and then you work on niche products. In the past, we had quite a bit of niche products, and I’m not saying that we don’t bring them back, but not at the moment. We have to keep the main business healthy. That’s the main focus”. However, the former Skoda boss implied it isn’t a cut-and-dry approach, with thought being made about what niche models could be added in the future, once financial hurdles are overcome. He said: “What else can we add? The core is clear. What we have in our portfolio now, I think, is truly core, from the small hatches to the SUVs, all the way up to big SUVs and station wagons. “But you know, more niche things like the Scirocco used to be, like the Touran used to be: those kind of vehicles… they have a place in our overall view”. +++
+++ Customers of early versions of the new VOLVO EX90 will be offered a complimentary hardware upgrade to give it the more powerful computing system from the new ES90. The new ES90 gets two Nvidia Drive AGX Orin processors to run the car’s hardware and software, whereas the EX90 has one Orin processor alongside an older Nvidia Xavier chip. Volvo will be addressing this on EX90s that have already been delivered by retrofitting the dual Orin system, which will boost the car’s computing power eightfold. The first EX90s were delivered to European customers last month, but plans for how and when the upgrade rollout will take place have still to be finalised. The Polestar 3, which shares its SPA2 underpinnings with the EX90, will also be subject to similar upgrades. Engineering boss Anders Bell called it a “unique” situation where Volvo is able do the retrofit hardware update because relatively few models have made it to market with that system. He said that rather than have to develop parallel software systems that would have to be rolled out across different hardware platforms, it is easier to replace the hardware of the cars already out there. Volvo software boss Alwin Bakkenes said this will unlock more features in the future for early EX90 owners and has the dual benefit of Volvo being able to manage software updates across more models more easily. The goal is to launch four consumer-facing software updates each year that add more functionality or make improvements, but updates are being fed to the factory and development cars all the time. A key function to be added off the back of early EX90s’ hardware shift will be more capability for the lidar sensor, which will gain the ability to steer away from pedestrians and cyclists on the side of the road in the dark. Bakkenes said this is a “remarkably frequent use case” and will help “save a lot of lives”. While the computing system of early EX90s will be upgraded, the electronic architecture of these early models will remain at 400 Volt. The ES90 gets a more powerful 800 Volt system. New-build EX90s will switch over to an 800 Volt architecture, too, but the precise date for this to happen to coincide with customer deliveries has yet to be determined. CEO Jim Rowan said this is likely coincide with a model-year change. +++