All of the exciting green car innovations don’t have to emanate from Japan – South Korea too has got in on the act as SK Energy, Asia’s fourth largest energy provider, has developed six lithium-ion cells.
The company’s cells include two targeted at hybrid electric vehicle applications and four targeted at plug-in hybrid electric vehicles.
The cells use a pouch design and feature stacked plates and wide tabs which increase power capabilities. It has made progress in the following areas:
- - Hybrid electric vehicle cells: Capacity and power fade are less than 10 per cent after more than 500,000km equivalent driving.
- - Plug-in Hybrid Electric Vehicle cells: The P135 PHEV cells have capacity and power retention of more than 70 per cent after 9,000 cycles. At 5,000 cycles power was more than 95 per cent.
- - Battery management systems: SK is in the process of developing an application specific integrated circuit based battery management system that allows a smaller protection circuit module, higher balancing and sensing speed.
- - Modules and packs: The company’s pouch design allows for tab-to-tab connection which reduces connection impedance and results in less heat generation and higher energy efficiency.
So far, SK has assembled three sample PHEV packs and is designing a compact 360V, 7.9 kWh pack, targeted at a 20-mile all-electric range PHEV. SK has also built a dedicated battery plant for automotive applications.
