Battery Electric Trucks can be the future backbone of the transport industry - combining maximum energy efficiency with good flexibility. Daimler Truck AG has proven with a number of projects and products on a global scale how capable these electric trucks can be. This presentation will investigate the special needs of batteries and cells for commercial vehicles with a special focus on the safety aspects.

Over the past year and a half, General Motors, OnStar, and the Illinois Fire Service Institute have traveled across North America training thousands of first and second responders on electric vehicles. This program was hands-on training in order to get the key questions answered for our first and second responders to stay safe. In addition, learnings, impact, and next steps for the program will be presented.

A wholistic risk-management approach is needed to ensure the safe proliferation of battery energy storage systems (BESS). Every aspect of the product value chain needs to be considered in terms of how it intersects with over product safety. This talk will provide a high-level overview of the BESS product lifecycle, and it will lay out the total value chain from design and development, site engineering and deployment, digitization, remote monitoring, field service, and asset management. It will illustrate how safety and risk management are woven into each of these value chain components. The containerized BESS is only one element of the broader system. Operating the BESS and maximizing the value that they deliver requires an entire ecosystem.

With huge amount effort on the lithium battery pack study and try to meet the need of the existing applications of lithium batteries, we are still not focused on the root causes of the lithium battery SAFETY, say the Fundamentals of Li-ion battery safety. In this study, we will present our recent investigation in the field incidents and thermal electrochemical mitigation (modeling) to address the intrinsic fundamentals of the Li-ion safety. From the fundamental understandings we developed various methods including Ceramic Coated Separator and tested various Li-ion batteries some of the them are 50Ah NMC Li-ion batteries.

Thermal runaway (TR) in Li-ion batteries refers to uncontrollable exothermic reactions triggered by elevated temperatures. As the temperature of the battery rises, the exothermic reactions further heat up the cell, creating a positive feedback cycle. Despite recent safety monitoring advances in battery management systems (BMS), the prevention of thermal runaway remains a challenge. The talk will provide insights into delaying/mitigating TR in large format Li-ion cells using advanced electrolyte designs.

The safety of next-generation batteries is not yet understood. With the support of the ARPA-E EVs4ALL program, NREL and UT Austin are working to develop a quantitative understanding of the thermal runaway process and associated risks for next-generation cell materials. A principled, open-scientific methodology that leverages the team's leading characterization, diagnostics, and multiphysics modeling capabilities is applied to benchmark reaction pathways and risks associated with thermal runaway against conventional Li-ion cells.

Battery failing behavior is influenced by several factors. One factor is the cell chemistry. In this presentation, results of failing state-of-the-art automotive cells will be presented and discussed. The focus will be on the comparison of NMC and LFP cells. The results will be compared in the categories: thermal behavior, vent gas production, and vent gas composition before, during, and after thermal runaway.

Titan’s technology fundamentally changes how the industry manages batteries. Instead of estimating state-of-battery based on external parameters, ultrasound BMS prognoses thermal runaway events based on morphological changes in battery cells. In addition to safer battery management, more accurate state-of-charge and state-of-health leads to better battery utilization.

Our Pentatonic battery system is our latest innovation for the electric vehicle market. Constructed of thermo-composites or composite-metal hybrid. The system offers numerous benefits over its steel and metal counterparts including reduced weight, a simplified bill of material and thus improved competitiveness. We capitalize on our decades of testing expertise in areas such as fire, leak tests and crash when designing and producing composite battery systems.

In this program, we will present our work in fast charging algorithm design based on monitoring and controlling the internal physical states, using electrochemical models, control algorithms, and machine learning.