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UK Design Challenge Extends Quest for Lighter, Less-Costly EV Batteries

Dec. 13, 2023

With an extension to 2025, the UKRI hopes to encourage more participants in developing and commercializing advanced EV batteries in its Faraday Battery Challenge.

Lee Goldberg

Related To: Electronic Design

This article is part of the TechXchange: EV Battery Management.

England's UK Research and Innovation (UKRI) organization extended its Faraday Battery Challenge through 2025 and is inviting new participants to apply for funding to develop and commercialize advanced battery technologies. UKRI, a non-departmental public body sponsored by the Department for Science, Innovation and Technology (DSIT), is investing up to £541 million to further develop a UK battery technology industry aimed at improving:

Battery lifespan
Battery range
Charging rate of batteries
Reuse, remanufacture, and recycling of batteries

These funds are being used to help underwrite the cost of battery-related feasibility studies, industrial research, and experimental development activities for both academic and commercial organizations.

The Faraday Battery Challenge sponsors academic, scientific, and commercial research related to technologies and products that can enable the UK to take leadership in next-generation battery production.

One group of participants in this next phase is Altair, JLR (Jaguar Land Rover), and battery manufacturer Danecca, who are collaborating on a project to create a new design process for electric vehicles. Their project focuses on developing an integrated structural battery pack and wireless battery cells that will enable the design and manufacture of products with increased efficiency, reliability, and sustainability.

Altair says that it will use the new design process to develop vehicle prototypes that feature a new, lighter body, offering more room for the battery without the additional weight.

JLR will also apply Altair’s C123 process, a unique three-stage concept development process for body-in-white structures. The company will also perform optimization with Altair's OptiStruct FEA solver, a part of the Altair HyperWorks design and simulation platform, utilizing the solution’s newly developed electrothermal features.

The Challenge's past participants include I-CoBat, a company dedicated to battery cooling technologies, MAT2BAT, a developer of battery module design tools, as well as Nexeon and Echion, which are involved with advanced battery architectures.

A complete list of projects currently funded by the Faraday Challenge can be found here. For more information on the Challenge, click here.

Read more articles in the TechXchange: EV Battery Management.

About the Author

Lee Goldberg | Contributing Editor

Lee Goldberg is a self-identified “Recovering Engineer,” Maker/Hacker, Green-Tech Maven, Aviator, Gadfly, and Geek Dad. He spent the first 18 years of his career helping design microprocessors, embedded systems, renewable energy applications, and the occasional interplanetary spacecraft. After trading his ‘scope and soldering iron for a keyboard and a second career as a tech journalist, he’s spent the next two decades at several print and online engineering publications.

Lee’s current focus is power electronics, especially the technologies involved with energy efficiency, energy management, and renewable energy. This dovetails with his coverage of sustainable technologies and various environmental and social issues within the engineering community that he began in 1996. Lee also covers 3D printers, open-source hardware, and other Maker/Hacker technologies.

Lee holds a BSEE in Electrical Engineering from Thomas Edison College, and participated in a colloquium on technology, society, and the environment at Goddard College’s Institute for Social Ecology. His book, “Green Electronics/Green Bottom Line - A Commonsense Guide To Environmentally Responsible Engineering and Management,” was published by Newnes Press.

Lee, his wife Catherine, and his daughter Anwyn currently reside in the outskirts of Princeton N.J., where they masquerade as a typical suburban family.

Lee also writes the regular PowerBites series.