Invited Presentation: US DOE Battery R&D Progress related to Electric Drive Vehicles

The Department of Energy’s Vehicle Technology Office (DOE VTO) is focused on funding high-reward/high-risk research by national laboratories, universities, and industry – to develop low-cost and high-performance batteries necessary for the broad consumer acceptance of hybrid and plug-in electric vehicles (PEV) in the marketplace. In fiscal year 2013 (FY 2013), the DOE VTO battery R&D funding totaled about $88 million. The status of current battery technologies for transportation applications, especially lithium-ion technologies, will be highlighted in this talk and the associated issues will be discussed. Current battery technology performance lies very far below its theoretically possible limit. In the near-term, even for existing lithium-ion technology, there is an opportunity to more than double the battery pack specific energy (from 100 Wh/kg to 250 Wh/kg) by using new high-capacity cathode materials, higher voltage electrolytes, and by replacing graphite anodes with high capacity silicon or tin-based intermetallic alloys. Despite recent promising advances, much more R&D is needed to achieve performance and lifetime requirements necessary for their successful deployment in PEVs. In the longer term, certain “beyond Li-ion” battery chemistries (e.g., lithium-sulfur, magnesium-ion, zinc-air, lithium-air, and other advanced chemistries) offer the possibility of specific energy values significantly higher than those of current lithium-ion batteries and they also show the potential for significantly reducing the battery cost.  However, certain major shortcomings in the areas of cycle life, power density, energy efficiency, and/or other critical performance parameters; along with cost, currently hinder the commercial introduction of such “beyond Li-ion” battery systems. Therefore, innovative breakthroughs are needed for these new battery technologies to enter the market. This paper summarizes VTO-supported battery R&D projects for FY 2013 and provides a progress update on them. The research directions being pursued by VTO to develop next-generation lithium-ion batteries and beyond are described, along with a discussion of the current focus on materials development.

Figure: Battery manufacturers derived the above cost projections by using the USABC’s battery manufacturing cost model and assuming an annual production volume of 100,000 batteries per year (for validated battery cell and module designs, meeting DOE/USABC requirements for power, energy, and cycle life).