Lowering electric vehicle battery production costs through improved manufacturability and simplified processing is key for affordability and accelerated adoption. Recent innovations across cell design formatting, electrode fabrication, recyclable materials, and integration aim to substantially cut costs.
Here, we explore some of the most promising trends in EV battery production technology and how they can make electric vehicles more affordable.
Streamlined battery cell constructions with fewer components simplify manufacturing, reduce steps, improve yield, and lower costs.
3D printing self-supporting porous electrode frameworks eliminates the traditional slurry coating process and associated drying costs. This also allows more flexible electrode geometries.
Solid-state electrolyte films based on high conductivity polymers are directly laminated between electrodes, removing the typical liquid electrolyte injection step. This simplifies sealing and significantly cuts processing costs.
In a bipolar design, adjacent battery cells share common electrodes, reducing part count almost by half. By stacking alternating positive and negative electrodes, fewer high-precision alignments are needed.
Transitioning from batch manufacturing to high-speed roll-to-roll and printing processes increases electrode fabrication throughput and scalability.
Continuous flexible substrate coating via roll-to-roll processing boosts productivity up to 100 times over typical stop-and-go coating equipment. Consistent film quality is also ensured across long electrode lengths.
Inkjet printing using specialized conductive inks offers maskless, precise, and rapid electrode deposition without waste. Print flexibility also enables small batches and custom electrode shapes.
Rather than coating copper foils, economical copper can be directly electroplated onto aluminum current collectors. This method leverages copper's high conductivity at a fraction of the cost.
Replacing expensive materials like cobalt and graphite with earth abundant compounds will assist viability.
With over ten times the specific capacity of graphite, silicon promises much higher energy density. As costs decrease, silicon use will rise given its natural abundance.
At a fraction of cobalt's cost, sulfur provides a low-cost, high-capacity cathode material manufactured from industrial byproducts. Despite challenges, sulfur cathodes can critically lower overall pack prices.
Using simple aqua regia acid digestion allows efficient recovery of expensive lithium salts and cobalt from spent battery electrolyte. This simplifies recycling and improves sustainability.
Merging cell packaging structures with the overall battery module and pack enclosures reduces duplicate mass and cost.
Load-bearing metallic cell enclosures eliminate much separate structural mass like modules and housings. The cells themselves provide integral frames.
Directly laminating pouch battery cells into vehicle body panels saves significant redundant mass from traditional battery pack enclosures and casings. It also reduces steps.
Layered battery packs use integrated loading plates and tension straps to maintain compression across cells and structural adhesives to bond modules. This economizes separate housings.
Ongoing improvements lowering EV battery production cost, from simplified cell preparation to high-speed automated fabrication, recyclable materials and merged packaging, are critical for unlocking mass-market electric vehicle affordability.
As batteries trend toward representing over a third of total vehicle cost, focusing innovation on manufacturability and cost reduction will play a vital role in accelerating the EV revolution.