Electric car: New battery technology to make Renaults more affordable

Renault's electric car division Ampere wants to reduce battery costs. Their recipe is called cell-to-pack batteries made from cells with lithium iron phosphate.

Renault R5

(Image: Renault)

Jul 2, 2024 at 11:34 pm CEST

4 min. read

Autos

Florian Pillau

This article was originally published in German and has been automatically translated.

Renault's e-car division Ampere made an ambitious announcement when it was founded at the end of last year: the aim is to sell around one million e-vehicles a year from 2031 and to reduce battery costs by 40 percent by 2027/2028 in order to achieve parity with conventional cars. The first 20 percent is to be achieved by 2026, Ampere says today. This will be made possible by cell-to-pack (CTP) batteries based on pouch cells with the inexpensive and robust lithium iron phosphate (LFP) cell chemistry.

The Group has launched the electric Renault R5, which will compete with new and announced electric car models such as the Citroën ë-C3 (driving report), Hyundai Inster, Skoda Epiq and VW ID.2all with entry-level prices well below 30,000 euros. This segment in particular is expected to accelerate the spread of e-cars and reduce production costs. All the major car manufacturers are in this boat due to their massive investments in the future, as e-mobility is already a given in the EU due to the net-zero CO2 target from 2035. But is unavoidable in the long term anyway due to its efficiency.

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Interesting small cars

The cheaper the car, the smaller the battery usually is, as it is still by far the biggest cost factor. Even if the range is perhaps soon no longer as overrated by many customers as it is today, the air remains thin in this area. Because of these challenges, small and micro cars are currently among the most interesting developments on the e-car market. Price-sensitive customers are forcing new technical solutions in the areas of cell chemistry and battery design.

To accelerate both, Ampere has surrounded itself with various production partners in Europe and operates a production network called "ElectriCity" with the French sites in Douai, Maubeuge and Ruitz as well as the plant in Cléon. CATL from China also builds LFP cells (in addition to those for Mercedes-Benz) for Ampere in its Hungarian plant, LG Energy Solution from Korea builds its NMC (nickel-manganese-cobalt) and LFP batteries in Poland and Verkor NMC batteries in Dunkerque, France. AESC Envision from Japan also manufactures NMC batteries in Douai. It is not only thanks to the technical progress of recent years, but also to the development of this European value chain that LFP batteries are now an "economical alternative to NMC batteries", says Ampere.

Cell-to-pack for pouch cells

They have made similar progress in China, Korea and the USA. Ampere's decisive cost advantage is said to come from applying the familiar cell-to-pack battery structure to pouch cells. The pouch-shaped cells are to be assembled directly into a self-supporting battery without their housing, as is already the case with solid round or flat cells. This is advantageous in terms of energy density, weight and costs because the module level, on which the individual cells are combined in conventional batteries, is no longer required. Ampere has not yet revealed any details about the structure, the voltage level that is important for fast charging and the preconditioning that is important for LFP. This "worldwide innovation" is being developed with LG Energy Solution and CATL and is primarily intended to facilitate the entry into e-mobility. CATL presented a particularly fast-charging LFP battery ten months ago, and the cell-to-pack principle two years ago.

The CTP LFP batteries are to be produced at Ampere ElectriCity in Douai, France, where AESC Envision is already working for Ampere. The first Renault models are to be launched on the market from the beginning of 2026. Ampere has not yet announced which ones these will be. It would also be conceivable to gradually convert electric cars already in production or to create cheaper versions in parallel to the versions on the market. The results that a research facility for battery cells in Lardy, France, is expected to deliver from 2025 onwards should contribute to further cost reductions.