Design and Cost Modeling of High Capacity Lithium Ion Batteries for Electric Vehicles through A Techno-economic Analysis Approach

Abstract

This study focuses on adopting Battery Performance and Cost model (BatPaC) to provide a comprehensive design of a high capacity lithium ion battery (LIB) pack with a silicon nanowire (SiNW) anode and a lithium nickel manganese cobalt oxide (LiNi1/3Mn1/3Co1/3O2, NMC) cathode for next-generation (NG) LIB technologies for electric vehicle (EV) applications. The battery pack is denoted as NMC-SiNW and configured to have a power output of 120 kW for powering an EV under the requirement of 320 km driving distance per charge. Three interconnected models--vehicle model, battery kinetic model, and battery configuration model--are adopted for the configuration of the NMC-SiNW battery pack. Then the cost modeling of the battery pack is developed. The configuration and cost results of the NMC-SiNW battery pack is then benchmarked with those of a conventional NMC-Graphite battery pack. It is found that compared with the NMC-Graphite battery pack, the NMC-SiNW battery pack has advantages of lighter weight (335 kg vs. 418 kg), higher energy density (190 Wh kg-1 vs. 152 Wh kg-1), lower total battery cost to the OEM ($10132 vs. $10702), and lower specific energy cost (160 $/kWh vs. 169 $/kWh). This study provides insights into the design of high capacity LIB technologies with nanostructured Si anode materials, demonstrates their advantages in advancing both technical and economic performances of LIB technologies, and thus indicates their promise for future large-scale applications in EVs.