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The automotive industry is undergoing an economic, technological, and social transformation. It is investing large sums in electromobility. This is chiefly driven by the increased awareness about the lower operational and maintenance costs of EVs (electric vehicles), combined with their capability of reducing harmful emissions that contribute to global warming. The automotive industry is focusing not only on developing battery-powered cars but also on equipping its plants with modern production technology. Laser processes are key technologies for affordable and reliable electromobility.
Lasers play a key role in battery manufacturing
Lasers are already performing all the welding processes in battery factories and a rapidly increasing number of cutting and structuring tasks. The manufacturing input into the high voltage batteries that are used is enormous. One-third of an electric vehicle’s added value is accounted for by this process chain alone is considered to be the very nucleus of electromobility. Lasers are just as indispensable here as seamless in-line process monitoring. The same is true of the mass production of electric motors, power electronics or lightweight designs.
Provider such as Trumpf, opens up a wide range of manufacturing options to the automotive industry in all areas of electromobility, paving the way for a mobile future. The battery system in an electric car has to be compact, reliable, and safely installed. The price increases with the power density, however. Efficient production on laser machines with a high level of productivity and low part costs enables large quantities to be manufactured at low prices. The battery pack brings together all the battery modules and is welded to form a compact block.
Using lasers, customers can weld the components and the housing of the pack in a sealed and highly precise way. For the manufacture and integration of the cooling system, the precision tool provides new solutions, too. The quality of the weld seams is constantly monitored by intelligent sensor systems in the process. High-quality cell connectors are crucial for the power of the entire battery.
Lasers weld cell connectors made from copper and aluminum, as well as charged cells, safely, flexibly, and without contact. In the case of heat-sensitive workpieces, in particular, it is important to create high-tensile weld seams with as little energy input as possible.
Electromobility influencing the production facilities of the future
There are various arguments in favour of considering the electric car as the vehicle of the future, according to Dürr Systems AG in a press release. These include legal requirements and the associated subsidies. But a changing infrastructure also plays a major role. In order to achieve ecological goals – especially in increasingly large conurbations – e-mobility is needed. The example of China shows that start ups make it possible to develop electric vehicles quickly and cheaply and to bring them to market at an affordable price.
The press release also revelead that for the transition to e-mobility to succeed, it is estimated that 80 to 120 new battery factories will be built by 2030. Each of them will need equipment to produce battery cells, battery modules or entire battery packs. Digitization also plays a major role in this. At Dürr there are about 100 software developers working on optimizing so-called overall equipment effectiveness (OEE). Dürr is already using analysis tools from the DXQanalyze product family for customers, which sustainably optimize the reduction of reject rates, the amount of rework required and the simultaneous reduction of downtime.
One example of a sub-process in battery manufacturing that is part of the Dürr portfolio is the coating process. In this process the anodes and cathodes are produced in coating systems. Their quality has an enormous influence on the performance of the battery cells, especially in terms of charging, service life and safety. A mixture of active material and binder is applied to both sides of a thin aluminum and copper foil. The solvent used is recovered and can be reused after distillation to more than 95 percent. The simultaneous coating process saves time and has qualitative advantages over other methods. Deformations that occur during one-sided drying do not occur during simultaneous drying of both sides. With current coating lines from Dürr, a very good throughput rate of 40 meters per minute is achieved. Through continuous further development, the double rate could soon be realized. In order to further improve the sustainability of machines and systems, Dürr is working on new technologies that reduce the energy consumption of the plants.
Electromobility influencing the production facilities of the future
According to Terence Siew, president of Electric Vehicle Association of Singapore in a podcast organized by Deloitte, electrification will be happening at different rates for different countries and the reason for this is because of the different geographies, the different electrical infrastructure and the different availability of EV models. Having said that, when you are operating in a certain country, say, South East Asia, what works for your country might not necessarily be easily scaled to your neighbouring countries.
On this point, based on the readiness for EV charging infrastructure, an important transition technology is in the form of plug-in hybrids which should be dominant in many parts of South East Asia due to the unavailability of a reliable charging network. This means that when ecosystem players are operating in this space (South East Asia), they need to ensure that the charging infrastructure has to be catered to the different kinds of EVs – be it full electric, plug-in hybrids or buses or fleet vehicles. And also to improve the overall public awareness of charging infrastructure that is available.
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