H1perChain

Battery technology across the broad range of challenging battery electric vehicle (BEV) applications is yet to reach a level of maturation enabling significant commonality of designs and components. As well as being isolated from battery design and development (D&D), the embryonic UK and global Tier 1/Tier 2 supply chain is highly fragmented, and fails to meet critical OEM requirements for: 1) cost-performance competitiveness with ICE-powered variants; and 2) quality-assured series manufacturing capacity and flexibility to meet diverse product variety requirements.

High-performance battery cost/kWh remains circa 4-times higher than industry targets for cost-parity. Over 70% of these costs arise from non-cell-related components and manufacturing. Mutually-dependent commercial and technical barriers exist across product design, pack production and the UK Tier 2 component supply base.

Hyperbat Response

The H1perChain project targets a step-change in high-performance battery cost, and readiness for flexible series production volumes. The H1perChain Project will realise a novel digital manufacturing platform, to concurrently address scalability and manufacturing technology developments across the supply chain. H1perChain represents a significant step towards Industry 4.0 digital transformation, with delivery of architecture to digitally integrate the end-to-end product lifecycle across the full value chain.
Effectively capture all the application and manufacturing cost sensitivities of the system down to component level, thereby providing an unprecedented level of detailed, accurate and dynamic cost-modelling data for the key supply chain functions. Via the digital integration of live manufacturing data into D&D workflows, H1perChain enables the utilisation of multi-dimensional cost-reduction strategies by the complex inter-related developments across battery engineering and design-to-cost, Tier 1 assembly and supply of Tier 2 components.

Innovation Outcomes

The objectives are aligned with the standard phased business processes (bidding, product D&D and procurement planning), and on-track with the pre-commercial validation of a representative OEM pipeline programme, with the full-scale production launch of this programme within 1-2 years of completion of the H1perChain project.:

Digitalisation platform:
Architecture for data capture across the product lifecycle/value chain and design-for-manufacture feedback; model development and integration

Battery design and engineering:
3-D model parameterisation; native BEV architectures (e.g. flat-floor structural packs); volume-dependent design-for-manufacturing feedback (component-level, impact of different cell geometries)

Business process development:
OEM application and design/integration inputs to D&D; cost-modelling of application-specific component/assembly-level cost-sensitivity, and integration into tendering process

Digital twins (Hyperbat facility and battery):
Design, virtual commissioning, live manufacturing and ongoing data capture

Series pack production:
Automated module/pack assembly; cell joining; in-line testing

Tier 2 scale-up:
Volume-dependent cost-reduction planning; internal make-or-buy decision for each component (Hyperbat); Component/manufacturing process development; QA

Services:
Feedback of in-use data into manufacturing; down-stream supplier integration
Expansion of B4 showcase manufacturing facility in the NV2 expansion area at Hyperbat

Wiring Harness Manufacture
Addition of in-house low volume wiring harness manufacturing capability