Electric Vehicle Battery Simulation: How Electrode Porosity and Thickness Impact Cost and Performance

Abstract

Lithium-ion batteries almost exclusively power today’s electric vehicles (EVs). Cutting battery costs is crucial to the promotion of EVs. This paper aims to develop potential solutions to lower the cost and improve battery performance by investigating its design variables: positive electrode porosity and thickness. The open-access lithium-ion battery design and cost model (BatPac) from the Argonne National Laboratory of the United States Department of Energy, has been used for the analyses. Six pouch battery systems with different positive materials are compared in this study (LMO, LFP, NMC 532/LMO, NMC 622, NMC 811, and NCA). Despite their higher positive active material price, nickel-rich batteries (NMC 622, NMC 811, and NCA) present a cheaper total pack cost per kilowatt-hour than other batteries. The higher thickness and lower porosity can reduce the battery cost, enhance the specific energy, lower the battery mass but increase the performance instability. The reliability of the results in this study is proven by comparing estimated and actual commercial EV battery parameters. In addition to the positive electrode thickness and porosity, six other factors that affect the battery’s cost and performance have been discussed. They include energy storage, negative electrode porosity, separator thickness and porosity, and negative and positive current collector thickness.