Composite EV Battery Enclosure is 25% Lighter – Detroit Auto Show 2022

This is what a battery pack enclosure this. This is a battery cover for an ev vehicle enclosure and, obviously, over the last few years, these have really taken off all around the world. We did our first battery cover and enclosure in 2012 for general motors, that was the chevy spark and since then the technology has just grown so much in the last 10 years and its changed so much – and this is what the latest evolution is so obviously tajin. This is composite, its not steel are automakers going to go with composites, so composites are very popular for this. Probably you know the biggest reason is the light weighting when you save weight on an ev light weighting means extra range, and this is a very fluid thing. Thats happening to the automotive industry, the the engines and the power trains are being eliminated. The drive lines are being eliminated, theyre being replaced by battery modules, theyre being replaced by electric motors. So you have to get the weight out because weight means range. Okay. So this compared to steel, what kind of weight savings? Are you guys talking about? Oh you know so it it certainly depends on a lot of factors, but typically youre talking about a 25 savings. Thats huge yeah, oh yeah, thats big when, when youre, when youre talking about trying to save weight on an eb, because weight means extra range, its everything, you must have a tooling cost advantage too theres, no uh theres, absolutely a tooling cost advantage.

Just just like anything. With composites, you can, you can get more parts uh component integration is, is um a lot easier to achieve and you lower the tooling cost. Also by doing that, so i i see it looks like you – do have some things that are sort of integrated into it. Yeah, when you look at an entire battery enclosure, theres a lot thats going on and and again this has evolved over the last 10 years, especially but these battery modules they do more than just house the batteries. There are numerous safety requirements that have to happen. There are other things that happen ceiling that have to be designed into the module and, depending on what oem youre talking about you know, go back like i talked about a moment ago, 10 years ago, the battery modules – it was almost an afterthought to the body and White lets just bolt it in and get it in there today theres a theres, a huge shift, and these vehicles are being designed around the battery module and its really becoming integral into the vehicle and its changing the construction of the vehicle, its changing, how the oems Actually build it in the assembly plants um, some other automakers have argued they like steel. It gives them more modular approach versus. You know a set tool to do this. Whats your counter argument to that. So so a lot of it has to do with how the vehicle is being built.

It depends on the architecture of the vehicle. If you look at some of the newest designs that are out there, like, i said before, the vehicle is being built and constructed around the battery module. So, in that type of scenario, composites gives you so much more flexibility to design and manufacture. The way you want to, and certainly as evs continue to grow, all automakers will be forced down that path. Fire fire protection, fire suppression thats a big issue too, with this isnt it it is its huge and its one of the safety requirements that i talked about at asia and automotive technologies. We have in house r d and our chemists spend a lot of time developing our formulations to meet all those thermal runaway and fire requirements, because thats certainly the safety aspect that we have to keep in mind and when we work with our oem partners. Thats. One of thats, one of the biggest challenges that we all have is composites is great. We save weight. How do we do all of the safety things that we need to do at the same time? Well, ive got you here, frank. You guys are also demonstrating this sort of honeycomb structure for panels. Whats that about so honeycomb is an interesting technology, because, usually when you talk about light weighting most of the time it comes with a cost so theres. You know. Carbon fiber is a great example over the last few years, very light, but very lovely to talk about carbon fiber, exactly carbons very expensive.

So how often does a material come around? That saves you weight and, at the same time, is cheaper to manufacture and and thats? What were on the verge of with our hexacore material? We have something that actually gives you both and im, not sure ive ever seen that in my 30 years in the automotive industry. So yes, hexacore is a very exciting material because of that its useful in roof. Applications for rooftops rooftop moved for automotive, heavy truck uh very popular for that also, and we have numerous development projects going on with oems, to figure out how to take this material and turn it into applications for production. Okay, why not go beyond roof panels that get removed? Could you do bodies with this uh this technology? It is its its open to to many different applications. It certainly depends on on the vehicle and what the vehicle in particular needs uh, but the design versatility that we have with it will take it across a wide range of applications. So is this available now i mean: should car companies be calling up, taijin and saying we want this, it is, it is available now were showing products were doing. Demonstrations were working with multiple oems already on very specific design application projects. So the oems are well aware of this and were on our way. So what what about battery enclosures? Could you use your uh whatd? You call it again: hexacore hexagonal brand name for honeycomb um.

It may have an application. It certainly depends on on the construction of of what the battery module needs to do, what all of the safety requirements, especially the flammability that we talked about a minute ago, but theres absolutely an application for it. Oh very interesting, i cant wait to see the the applications that might come from this frank thanks for your time very interesting all right. Thank you! Music, Music, Music.