By Kyle Proffitt
April 9, 2024 | Shoichiro Watanabe, CTO of Panasonic Vitality, accepted the Shep Wolsky Battery Innovator Award final month on the 2024 Worldwide Battery Seminar. In his deal with, Watanabe championed the three-fold enchancment in battery vitality density seen over the past 30 years of improvement and expressed appreciation for the elevated adoption of electrical autos and Panasonic’s relationship with Tesla.
A Battery Innovation Profession
Panasonic Vitality is ramping up manufacturing, Watanabe stated. He confirmed a graph of cumulative cylindrical battery manufacturing for EVs at Panasonic, starting with 1865 cells (identical as 18650) in 2010 completely inside Japan. They expanded in 2017 with the meeting of 2170 cells within the US, the place three clearly delineated phases of accelerating slope may very well be seen, akin to what Watanabe described as “hell manufacturing”, getting higher however preventing by COVID, and at last getting issues labored out. This all added as much as 15 billion cumulative cells in 3 million EVs by the tip of 2023. At present, Watanabe says, they common output of 5.6 million cells and devour 160 tons of cathode materials per day.
“Battery manufacturing is all the time a bottleneck to increasing EV manufacturing,” Watanabe stated. According to this, he reported 50 GWh of complete generated batteries (40 US, 10 Japan) in 2022 and Panasonic’s imaginative and prescient for increasing to 200 GWh by 2030.
Panasonic plans to stay with the cylindrical cell. “It’s the identical form. It’s a quite simple reply,” Watanabe says. A gigafactory requires an enormous funding to stand up and working, and sticking with this dependable design has allowed Panasonic to enhance yield each 2-3 years. “That is completely completely different than semiconductors or liquid crystal industries,” Watanabe stated, referring to fields the place know-how permits for main advances over shorter durations of time. Moreover, Watanabe says cylindrical cells have the very best vitality density, an environment friendly form for improvement, and supply manufacturing benefits.
Watanabe highlighted cylindrical cell security. He stated Panasonic has quite a few concepts for introducing new applied sciences and new chemistry, however the issue is available in balancing components similar to capability with security. Nonetheless, he stated that the smaller cell and uniform form makes this balancing act simpler. He pointed to the iron can encasing their cylindrical cells and stated it is rather vital for its melting level above 1500 levels Celsius, which prevents the propagation of a thermal runaway occasion from one cell to a different.
He additionally championed the reliability of the design, mentioning the included facet cooling and the related benefits within the space of quick charging. With Panasonic having over 100 years’ expertise in producing dry batteries, Watanabe says this cylindrical design permits larger productiveness. “We will present dry batteries sooner than machine weapons,” he jokingly reported.
Managing Environmental Impression
Panasonic is making efforts to have a constructive environmental affect, however Watanabe says that solely 14% of the carbon footprint could be attributed to battery manufacture on the manufacturing unit. The remaining emissions all originate within the provide chain from mining to materials supply and are basically inbuilt to bought supplies. Nonetheless, Panasonic has set a purpose of decreasing the corporate’s complete carbon footprint 50% by 2030, together with taking steps to handle inefficiencies within the provide chain and dealing with extra native companions. One step contains growing relationships with plenty of websites within the US and Canada for buying pure graphite, copper foil, and cathode supplies, decreasing the space these supplies should journey.
Watanabe confirmed drone footage of a brand new Gigafactory beneath development in De Soto, Kansas, about 200 acres in measurement, which reportedly plans to supply 30 GWh yearly. Utilizing classes discovered of their Nevada manufacturing unit over the earlier 5 years, Watanabe stated Panasonic has over 500 particular line objects for improved manufacturing within the Kansas manufacturing unit, which he believes will translate to twenty% or larger enhancements in productiveness.
Watanabe additionally reported two new cells that Panasonic is engaged on with vitality densities of 800 Wh/L or extra. These contain collaborations with Sila and Nexeon for silicon anode enhancements and extra undisclosed cathode and course of enhancements. Lastly, Watanabe stated that Panasonic is all the time striving towards greater capability and lighter supplies and dealing on new designs and processes. He demonstrated this with a lithium metallic anode cylindrical battery that usually experiences jelly roll deformation from the amount adjustments. Nonetheless, after sure design optimization steps have been utilized, no deformation occurred.