BERLIN — Volkswagen and a expertise companion have mastered a battery manufacturing course of referred to as dry coating which if scaled up might reduce the price of cell manufacturing by a whole lot of tens of millions of euros a 12 months, its battery chief stated on Friday.
The carmaker, which is working with printing press producer Koenig & Bauer AG on the expertise, stated the 2 corporations are the primary to excellent the process for each the optimistic and detrimental electrode.
“Nobody else can do that as we speak,” battery chief Thomas Schmall stated at a media roundtable.
In conventional battery manufacturing, supplies for the cathode — or optimistic electrode — and anode — detrimental electrode — are utilized to a service foil by way of a chemical paste combination that should dry, requiring excessive quantities of vitality.
Dry-coating eliminates that step with an adhesive that doesn’t require drying, Schmall defined.
Tesla, which obtained the same course of via buying startup Maxwell Applied sciences in 2019, has up to now been capable of dry-coat the anode, however continues to be having points with the cathode, sources advised Reuters in March.
Volkswagen stated it has produced a number of hundred cells with its technique on a pilot line and needs to be prepared for industrial manufacturing by 2027.
Along with scaled-up manufacturing and cheaper uncooked supplies, the carmaker hopes the process will assist convey down cell prices by round 50%, Schmall stated.
Its cell crops underneath building in Germany, Spain and Canada will nonetheless have drying traces however may be retrofitted to take away them at a later date, PowerCo Chief Working Officer Sebastian Wolf added, releasing up round 15% of manufacturing facility ground house.
