Stellantis to halve battery weight in bid to match ICE and EV heft

Stellantis is targeting a 50% value simplification successful batteries by 2030 successful a bid to lighten electrical cars nearer to their combustion-engined equivalents.

“The artillery contiguous is conscionable excessively heavy; the conveyance is excessively heavy. We shouldn’t beryllium going backwards,” said Ned Curic, caput of engineering and technology, astatine the opening of the company’s caller Mirafiori artillery exertion centre successful Turin, Italy.

Curic said the company’s extremity was to halve the value of the artillery battalion done the instauration of caller lightweight artillery technologies and more businesslike compartment packaging.

Stellantis earlier this twelvemonth invested successful Silicon Valley institution Lytten, which is processing lighter lithium-sulphur batteries. As good arsenic reducing weight, these chopped costs and c emissions by utilizing little exotic materials than lithium ion batteries.

Curic besides cited sodium ion batteries arsenic different imaginable alternative. Sodium ion is touted arsenic a overmuch cheaper enactment and is being developed by Chinese artillery makers specified arsenic CATL.

Just however dense EV batteries are contiguous was revealed successful a caller teardown of the BYD Seal saloon by Swiss slope UBS arsenic portion of a study successful artillery costs. The lithium-iron-phosphate (LFP) battery battalion successful the modular 62kWh Seal accounted for 470kg of the car’s wide 1941kg weight.

More costly nickel manganese cobalt (NMC) batteries are lighter and much energy-dense, but the 60kWh pack successful the Renault Mégane E-Tech Electric still weighs 394kg of the full 1783kg, UBS reported.

The caller Mirafiori facility volition alteration Stellantis to design, make and trial artillery packs, modules, high-voltage cells and bundle for upcoming models from Alfa Romeo, Citroën, Fiat, Peugeot, Vauxhall and more.

Stellantis has spent €40 cardinal (£34.3m) developing the facility, which repurposes a conception of a erstwhile Fiat factory. It has 32 climatic trial chambers, enabling it to trial up to 47 artillery packs successful parallel.