- VW’s unified EV cell format brings cell-to-pack battery design
- Cuts prices, units stage for cell-to-body and simplified EVs
- Means EVs with extra vary and vitality density, maybe decrease weight
- LFP and NMC chemistries on the identical format, possibly solid-state, sodium-ion
Volkswagen’s imaginative and prescient of the place it could be by the tip of the last decade with electrical autos has developed in recent times. However simplification is the key phrase, and its plans to deal with a single EV battery cell format go proper together with that.
This week, in a know-how replace held simply earlier than the corporate’s Volkswagen Group Annual Convention, the worldwide automaker and its battery-making PowerCo startup shared a more in-depth take a look at how these unified cells will probably be packaged in upcoming EVs from VW, Audi, Cupra, and several other of its different manufacturers, within the close to future.
As these unified cells arrive—quickly, however on a timeline not but detailed, particularly for U.S.-market EVs—they’ll carry a new battery pack structure, packaging the cells instantly into the pack. This permits extra vitality density, in addition to a lighter pack, mentioned VW officers, and the method permits VW to be extra versatile with variations for various fashions and markets.
Present MEB battery pack structure
VW EVs set to maneuver on from modules
Right this moment’s electrical autos constructed on VW’s MEB EV basis, together with the ID.4 and ID.Buzz, incorporate shoebox-sized modules of pouch cells; these are then built-in into the battery case (above). However as VW outlined this week, the next-generation battery arriving as quickly as late this 12 months for Europe could have the cells instantly mounted into the battery housing—primarily in 4 rows spanning longitudinally alongside the battery case within the instance proven (photos of the demonstration case weren’t allowed).
The battery pack case evolves considerably to accommodate the cell-to-pack structure, with the mechanical ribs that act as attachment factors for the modules lowered whereas reinforcements have been added elsewhere.
Battery pack structure with cell-to-pack
Present MEB battery pack structure with module-to-pack
Cooling has been utterly reworked for the brand new cell kind and association. The flat faces of the cells permit simpler temperature management, and the housing on the surface has been utterly reworked—with probably the most noteworthy change showing to be a sample of slender cooling channels over a high plate. It’s not not like the cooling method for use in Honda’s 0 Collection EVs (though these could have modules).
On the cell stage VW won’t solely monitor cell voltage but additionally temperature. The battery administration system stays of the wired (vs. wi-fi) kind.
2025 Volkswagen ID.Buzz
Doubtlessly extra vary in MEB fashions—like ID.Buzz?
Officers additionally mentioned that there’s potential for longer packs with “method greater vitality content material” versus the present capability—maxed out at 91 kwh (or 86 kwh usable) with the pack within the Euro-market ID.7 and U.S.-market ID.Buzz, at present the 2 longest MEB autos.
Inexperienced Automobile Studies reads that as a reasonably sturdy suggestion the Buzz may acquire extra vary inside the subsequent few mannequin years, because it merely wants it with a view to match its road-trip mantra—though VW officers wouldn’t say a lot.
Though Volkswagen confirmed the battery technique as on the way in which for its ID.2 and ID.1 EVs arriving in Europe over the subsequent couple years, it recommended that the non-extended-length demonstrator we noticed in contrast roughly to the 82-kwh (77-kwh usable) pack in immediately’s ID.4.
Officers emphasised that actual figures for battery capability, vitality density, weight, and extra will probably be launched on the IAA Mobility 2025 auto present, set to be held in September in Munich. As proven, the preliminary pack is 400-volt, however extra particulars about that and charging are additionally forthcoming at IAA.
2024 Volkswagen ID.4
On the core: EV cost-cutting
As for these cells themselves, they’re a key piece in VW making a transfer to decrease cell prices and allow extra inexpensive EVs.
“The unified cell format constructed in response to our personal international and uniform know-how normal would be the foundation for enormous economies of scale in cell and battery methods,” mentioned Michael Steiner, head of analysis and improvement for the Volkswagen Group, on the occasion.
Steiner mentioned that EV batteries nonetheless account for greater than a 3rd of EV value—so the cells symbolize competitiveness not simply on value however on efficiency versus automobile weight.
Growth of the unified cell format was accomplished at VW’s Heart of Excellence for Battery Cells in Salzgitter, Germany. The ability oversees battery methods, improvement, and buying, and it has a accountability for almost all points of battery know-how.
The unified cell format goals to scale back the complexity of battery methods and cells, and that additionally goes to optimize battery prices and allow decrease entry costs for quantity segments of the market. It’s additionally a part of an effort to coordinate the know-how wants for China, Europe, and North America.
VW Energy Day – battery sorts
Versatile chemistry, from LFP to sodium-ion to solid-state
It additionally permits the adoption of a number of chemistries with the identical cell format, permitting for a quantity NMC (nickel manganese cobalt) cell together with LFP (lithium iron phosphate). And it can’t solely accommodate the cell sorts VW has developed by itself but additionally next-generation sodium-ion or solid-state chemistries. A 2024 settlement between PowerCo and the solid-state battery tech agency QuantumScape, as an example, permits PowerCo to make as much as 40 gigawatt-hours of solid-state lithium-metal cells yearly, with the choice to double that to 80 gigawatt-hours. The businesses concerned haven’t detailed a timeline
They’re additionally virtually right here—the NMC ones, that’s. VW offered its plan for the unified cell format 4 years in the past this month. It promised then, in 2021, that it will ramp up manufacturing of those unified cells round 2025, in a small quantity at first, and it’s delivered precisely that.
VW unified cell format
PowerCo says it has already produced over 100,000 cells and efficiently examined them. That’s at its location in Salzgitter; PowerCo has two different manufacturing places within the works, in Valencia, Spain, and in St. Thomas, Ontario (Canada). Valencia and Ontario are each resulting from ramp up in 2026.
Volkswagen has already mentioned that its Salzgitter manufacturing unit could have a goal quantity of 40 gigawatt-hours per 12 months—sufficient for about 500,000 EVs. And altogether, the three factories are resulting from produce as much as 200 gigawatt-hours of cells yearly.
VW EV platforms and E/E architectures
The way it all matches collectively: SSP + SDV + …cell-to-body?
VW is within the midst of large change, because it embarks on a grasp plan that goals, over the subsequent few years, to consolidate a spread of various platforms and several other electrical and electronics architectures right down to a single modular Scalable Programs Platform (SSP) plus a software-defined automobile method that can make the most of Rivian’s zonal structure and reconceive all the pieces from how zones are outlined to the automobile interface itself.
Neither the production-bound ID.Every1 (beneath), previewing a sub-$25,000, nor the production-bound, sub-$30,000 ID.2all, which is coming earlier than that, are U.S.-bound. The ID.1 is ready to make use of “parts” of the Rivian-derived zonal structure, mated with plenty of MEB elements carried over.
Volkswagen ID.Every1
SSP will arrive in full type within the ID Golf, which is due round 2028, VW says. That’s nonetheless a far-off chance for the U.S., though SSP will quickly after that propagate to a variety of fashions, sorts, and types from the entire group.
And the subsequent cease, VW’s battery folks say, is cell-to-body tech—in EVs that had been designed from the begin to incorporate battery cells instantly into the physique. VW’s SSP will reportedly allow this, though it’s but unclear whether or not some or all autos on the platform will provide it and when.
What additionally nonetheless stays unsure is how shortly VW intends emigrate its inside combustion fashions to an analogous modular and software-defined method, particularly now that it’d focus extra on hybrids or plug-in hybrids for North America.
And within the meantime, how shortly it migrates its present MEB EVs just like the ID.4 and ID.Buzz to this seemingly incremental battery-format makeover may find yourself offering a giant enhance to their vary, and attraction.
