Data analytics can help unlock battery bottlenecks

SAN DIEGO — To bring new technologies to market faster, electric vehicle battery makers need to manage data in creative ways and consider different business models, industry executives said at the Advanced Automotive Battery Conference on Dec. 6.

"Companies that are able to build data infrastructure to understand what goes into their products and how they're operating are going to be the ones that rapidly innovate and get their products out there faster," said Tal Sholklapper, CEO of Berkeley, Calif., battery intelligence company Voltaiq.

Automakers and battery companies are under intense pressure to deliver new products faster than ever before as billions of dollars in investments go into electrification and zero-emission vehicle mandates loom.

But lithium ion batteries are incredibly complex, almost like "living, breathing organisms," sensitive to how they're used, how they're made and the conditions in which they are used, Sholklapper said. That can cause problems during the testing and validation process.

If an issue is identified, it can be a "slow process" to figure out what caused that problem. Once it's identified, a redesign might be in order, and by the time the battery is ready to be tested again, companies might have missed their launch timelines, Sholklapper said.

But by utilizing data analytics, problems can be identified sooner, Sholklapper said.

"You can really hone in on what caused the problems and you can hit those launch timelines," he said.

Automakers and other companies are beginning to "at least pay lip service" to the need for data analytics in the battery design and testing processes, Sholklapper said.

"They're in the early stages of realizing they have a problem," he said.

Executives also need to reconsider how their companies approach partnerships, said Austin Sendek, CEO of Aionics Inc., a startup that aims to speed up the development of EV batteries with artificial intelligence.

Specifically, the auto industry can learn from the successes of the pharmaceutical industry, Sendek said. He pointed to the rapid development of the COVID-19 vaccine by pharmaceutical giant Pfizer and German biotechnology company BioNTech SE as an example.

That partnership was typical of those often seen in the pharmaceutical industry, he said. BioNTech, an innovator, paired with Pfizer, a big manufacturer, to develop and test the vaccine.

Such an innovation model can be replicated for EV batteries, at least to a degree, Sendek said.

"We believe the broad adoption of this co-innovation drug discovery model is inevitable," he said.