Smart battery & Smart Charger/BMS #E-Mobility

A battery pack built with an integrated BMS, remote communication data bus constitutes a smart battery pack. The smart battery pack can now recharge itself from a smarter battery charger that in turn draws power from smarter grid.

The BMS is an integral part of any battery pack and ultimately an efficient BMS system takes out the best range and life from the battery capacity, converts to extended range for EV’s more power and efficient charging and discharging cycles from battery packs.

It is needless to say that today we have numerous battery manufacturers with the latest manufacturing technologies, the rechargeable battery market has majorly seen efficient manufacturing techniques. Significant advancements in cell chemistry right from using nano particles to using rare earth metals that help in achieving the stability of Lithium Ion batteries, the solid state Li batteries and Li Air batteries are technologies under development.

The management of the packs right from the charging modes to the discharging mode and to protect the the battery packs from any permanent damage is critical to the business of Lib storage system. Its a non-negotiable parameter given the high price rechargeable batteries are stamped with, failure erodes confidence in investment and negative market sentiments are disastrous, especially when it’s a new business venture.

A state of the art BMS can be help in overcoming the shortcomings and help plug loose ends for LiB e.g. thermal runaway, overcharging, discharging cut-offs,it provides excellent control over these factors that are detrimental to packs.

BMS topologies fall in 3 categories the centralized, the distributed and finally the modular ones.

The modular ones are the most favorable ones as they allow the interlinking of several packs and constraints with regards to size and numbers.Manufacturers can possibly overcome this by closer association and giving away some of the proprietary practices.

(Modular: A few controllers, each handing a certain number of cells, with communication between the controllers)

The failure of the battery swapping models are linked to several theories financial, regulatory, inventory management, farsightedness, foresightedness words generally used to point business model failures. But its technology that failed the model. Battery swapping is being explored again this timewith a more mature technology on its side. I guess it's achievable.