• Overview
• Structure & Principle

The Second Revolution of the Automobile Industry - Electric Car Battery
"The Electricalization of Automobile!" Batteries for xEV

The Changing Paradigm of the Automobile Industry - Electric Car Battery

For around the last 100 years, automobiles have used internal combustion engines. Now, there is a growing trend toward developing electric cars with electric engines that use batteries. This electricalization is considered to be the second revolution in automobile technology, and it has become essential for automobile companies to realize the necesity of electric car battery for environment-friendly efficiency vehicles.

The first step toward electricalization began with plug-in, hybrid cars (xEVs) that employed both electric and internal combustion engines. With further research and development, it is expected that the share of power produced by the internal combustion engine will decrease as the power produced by the electric engine increases, ultimately resulting in an automobile completely powered by electricity. To further develop xEVs, it is necessary to develop electric car battery technology.

xEVs are mainly expected to employ lithium ion batteries because these batteries afford several advantages over the nickel-hydrogen batteries used in hybrid electric vehicles (hEVs) like the Toyota Prius. Lithium ion batteries produce twice the amount of energy for the same weight, offering greater mileage and double the output. In addition, because xEV batteries do not suffer from the memory effect with repeated charging and discharging, they have a longer life.
Considering this advancement in the automobile industry, Samsung SDI aims to become the leader in the electric car battery market by virtue of its world class lithium ion cell technology.

High outputThe motor of a xEV operates during ignition, hill driving, and high-speed driving. During this period, a lithium ion battery should be able to supply energy instantly to the motor, requiring an output of 50 times the energy produced by the battery of a laptop computer.

Long life spanIn order to avoid changing the battery of xEV regularly, a long life span (15 years, 25,000 km, and 5,000 charging/discharging cycles) is necessary.

Meet safety requirementsElectric car batteries that produce energy sufficient to power a car require high electric currents during charging. Therefore, safety during charging is an important consideration, as is preventing fires caused by impact from an accident.