STUTTGART, Germany— One critical trend emerged during my conversations with many industry players at the Battery Show Europe and the Electric & Hybrid Vehicle Technology Expo Europe here last month: Battery thermal management is an important element in EV development and operations.
I attended the Battery Show Europe here June 27-30 with Dalibor Sablic, PSR senior business development manager-Europe.
An estimated 6,000 attendees walked the floor to discuss products and services with nearly 600 exhibitors at the show. There was a positive energy and outlook for the future of the e-mobility industry, a refreshing change in atmosphere following many quiet months caused by the COVID pandemic.
During the show, I had an opportunity to meet with representatives of Dow and learn about the wide array of products and services the company is developing for the e-mobility segment.
Mr Luc Dusart, Marketing Manager Future Mobility EMEA at Dow and Mrs Esther Quintanilla Lujan, Global & EMEAI Strategic mobility Leader at Dow discussed with me some of the latest industry trends and innovations as well as solutions being developed by Dow.
With the development of more high-performance batteries and charging stations, heating and fire management have become critical issues. As part of its product portfolio, for example, Dow has launched new solutions to better manage heat and fire protection.
At the show, Dow also introduced its innovative best in class portfolio of DOWSIL™ and VORATRON™ adhesives, gap filler, pottants, and battery enclosures solutions for EV batteries.
All these new products, in combination with other E solutions, are part of what Dow calls MobilityScience™. This is a platform that Dow created in 2020 to address the evolving needs of the industry through material science. According to Mr Dusart, some of the critical focuses of this platform are developing safer products, ones that are more sustainable and that deliver better performance.
Mr Dusart also explained how this platform enables Dow to be very agile and at the forefront of development of new technologies and products for their customers. When discussing the segments that are showing the strongest push to electrification, for Mrs Quintanilla and Mr Dusart it was evident that passenger cars and e-bikes are ahead of the curve. But Trucks and particularly pick-up trucks will show very strong growth in the coming years. However, EV products remain expensive for the moment and are not affordable for a vast part of the consumer market.
According to Mr Dusart, this could change in the next five to seven years, when he expects retail prices for EV vehicles to be on par with ICE vehicles. That will be the tipping point that will radically change the market for light duty vehicles, with EV products becoming dominant.
This critical mass will result in putting millions of EV vehicles and batteries on the road and into recycling processes. That is why sustainability is becoming more and more central in the industry. Mr Dusart said that over the last 12 months, more OEMs are making sustainability a key requirement for collaborations. Today, providing performance products is not enough.
OEMs require batteries that are designed with their full life cycle in mind including their recycling. MobilityScience™ offers another advantage in creating products that have a closed loop as one of its distinctive characteristics.
Among the most relevant collaborations of Dow on display at the show was the Jaguar Land Rover (JLR) formula E vehicle (picture below). This prototype race car is a showcase of the advance technologies that both JLR and Dow and other partners have developed for the EV industry.
If you are looking for more information on the latest trends emerging in electric vehicle technologies, subscribe to PSR PowerTALK or contact us at info@powersys.com. PSR
Left to Right: Luc Dusart, Marketing Manager Future Mobility EMEA at Dow, Emiliano Marzoli, Europe Operation Manager at Power Systems Research, Esther Quintanilla Lujan, Global & EMEAI Strategic mobility Leader at Dow, Jaguar Land Rover Formula-E Car.
Emiliano Marzoli is Manager European Operations for Power Systems Research
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