QUICK CHANGE SODIUM-ION TRACTION BATTERY FOR COMMERCIAL VEHICLE APPLICATIONS

Heavy goods vehicles transport goods to businesses and consumers throughout the UK. However the majority of these vehicles are diesel powered meaning they are a huge contributor of road related greenhouse gases and Nox emissions.

The UK government has set themselves a target of a 15% reduction in HGV greenhouse gases by 2025\.

For medium sized HGVs (8 - 18 ton) alone there are approximately 88,000, 1 - 15 year old trucks on UK roads at any given time.

Meaning the 15% by 2025 GHG reduction for all HGVs is a challenging task.

Operators are slowly beginning to adopt measures that help to improve a reduction in vehicle emissions, However they still remain sceptical due to high costs combined with a lack of real world testing.

Tesla, Nikola and Cummins have show cased some of their new technologies for large battery trucks but even these are some number of years away from becoming main stream.

HGV emission reduction needs to be targeted in the near term.

Currently a small yet successful retrofit industry concentrates on pollution reducing or fuel saving technologies for small vans and buses.

The purpose of this feasibility study is to take the retro fit market one step further by helping to implement a cost effective battery solution so as electric powertrains are then not only a system adopted by new vehicle purchasers.

Currently over 50% of the cost for an all electric powertrain lies within the traction battery technology.

AJE Powertrain Limited a leading research and development organisation along with Faradion UK Ltd a world leader in non-aqueous sodium-ion cell technology will as part of this project conduct a feasibility study looking at the benefits of taking sodium-ion cell technology and applying it to the worlds first sodium-ion traction battery pack for a medium range HGV.

As well as the technological aspect the project will also focus on a swappable battery pack system that will allow for a quick change of the depleted battery packs and the environmental benefits of sodium-ion cell technology when compared to that of the more traditional lithium-ion traction battery application.

Should this feasibility study prove to be successful then the aim of the consortia is in due course to publicly introduce a lower cost sodium-ion traction battery alternative to the commercial vehicle industry.