EV Battery

Where internal combustion engined cars get energy from burning petrol or diesel, an electric vehicle gets its power directly from a big pack of batteries.

EV-Battery

EV-Battery

These are much like a scaled up version of the lithium-ion (Li-ion) battery in your mobile phone - EVs don't use a single battery like a phone, they use instead a pack which is comprised of thousands of individual Li-ion cells working together. When the car's charging up, electricity is used to make chemical changes inside its batteries. When it's on the road, these changes are reversed to produce electricity.
A Lithium-ion (Li-ion) battery is a type of rechargeable battery used in electric vehicles and a number of portable electronics. They have a higher energy density than typical lead-acid or nickel-cadmium rechargeable batteries. This means that battery manufacturers can save space, reducing the overall size of the battery pack.




Lithium is also the lightest of all metals. However, lithium-ion (Li-ion) batteries contain no lithium metal, they contain ions. For those wondering what an ion is, an ion is a an atom or molecule with an electric charge caused by the loss or gain of one or more electrons.


Lithium-ion batteries are also safer than many alternatives and battery manufacturers have to ensure that safety measures are in place to protect consumers in the unlikely event of a battery failure. For instance, manufacturers equip electric vehicles with charging safeguards to protect the batteries during repeated rapid charging sessions in a short period of time.
Electric car battery life

Electric car battery life

Once an EV battery loses its capacity to power a vehicle, it can be used to power a home or building by contributing to a battery storage system. A battery energy storage system stores energy from batteries that can be used at a later time. If you power your home with renewable energy such as wind or solar, you can also pair it with an EV battery. You can store it up to use throughout the night when wind and sunlight is reduced. Or even during the day alongside the solar or wind energy. This method of generating energy can help you save on bills and reduce the amount of energy you use from the grid.




Electric car battery recycling


Many manufacturers are researching how EV batteries can be repurposed once they've hit retirement age. One idea that's proving to work well is repurposing EV batteries to power homes and buildings. However, there are no definitive answers as to what will happen to EV batteries once they’re no longer recyclable.

The time that batteries spend in an EV is often just the beginning of their useful life. Once removed from a car, most batteries will still be fit for other demanding jobs like energy storage in the electricity network, or in the home – a growing area of demand.

When batteries do reach the end of their working life, they'll be recycled, which typically involves separating out valuable materials such as cobalt and lithium salts, stainless steel, copper, aluminium and plastic. At the moment, only about half of the materials in an EV battery pack are recycled, but with EVs expected to undergo an explosion in popularity over the next decade or so, car manufacturers are looking to improve this.

VW recently announced a pilot plant for battery recycling which will work towards a target of recycling 97% of battery components. In this process, batteries will be shredded, dried, then sieved to recover valuable materials that can be used to make new batteries.

Electric car battery charging

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Just as conventional cars have big or small fuel tanks, lithium-ion batteries for electric cars come in different sizes. Rather than litres of fuel, their capacity is measured in kilowatt hours (kWh). A typical 40kWh battery pack from a mainstream electric car might be enough to power it for 150 miles or more, while Tesla's biggest 100kWh battery is good for 375 miles according to the WLTP standard - which aims to give a realistic estimation of cars' real-world range or fuel economy. WLTP is an abreviation of the Worldwide Harmonised Light Vehicle Test Procedure, which came in to effect in 2017 and was set up to measure fuel consumption,CO2 levels and other pollutant emissions from passenger cars. It replaced the New European Driving Cycle (NEDC) You might recognise the kilowatt hour from your electricity bill – it's the industry standard charging unit. A 40kWh battery holds enough energy to power a typical home for four days!