Running battery electric vehicles with extended range: Coupling cost and energy analysis

Abstract

The massive battery electric vehicle penetration into transportation sector has stimulated intensive efforts to boost energy density of the battery pack, which essentially dictates driving range and cost of an electric vehicle. Integration of specific battery advances into the entire battery production chains that cover from materials to pack would fully tap the potential of advanced battery technology, while this topic has been rarely touched. Herein, the diverse battery technologies are analyzed in material, electrode, cell, module and pack levels to illustrate their contributions to the entire battery pack, which is essential to design practical batteries in a holistic view. Such bottom-up analysis underlines the importance of the integration concepts that advocate the simultaneous development of maturing (high-nickel ternary cathode coupled with silicon/graphite composite anode) and emerging (high-nickel ternary or sulfur cathode coupled with lithium metal anode) battery chemistries, as well as design of novel module and pack configurations. The linear relationship of pack-level energy density and driving range predicts a possibility of more than 1000 km with a projected energy density of 310 Wh kg−1 in a mid-size sedan. Despite of an inferior volumetric energy density, the lithium–sulfur batteries are still attractive for electric vehicles due to their low cost and material sustainability. The current work quantifies energy density and cost of a battery pack from an automotive perspective, depicts relationships of battery electric vehicle driving range and cost in niche and push scenarios, and hopes to point out the development landscape of future battery electric vehicles.