LIBERTY: Lightweight battery system for extended range at improved safety

Abstract

The Horizon 2020 LC-BAT-10-2020 project LIBERTY ("Lightweight Battery System for Extended Range at Improved Safety") focusses on the areas of battery lifetime, increased range, safety and environmental sustainability. The project aims to develop a battery pack that will have the same useful lifetime as those of current combustion engines, i.e. up to 20 years or 300,000 km. At present, the lifetime of a battery is typically lower, with guarantees of up to 10 years or around 150,000 km. LIBERTY targets a range increase of up to 20% compared to the benchmark vehicle, thus allowing driving up to 500 km on a single charge. Then, an ultra-fast-charging below 18 minutes is targeted, less than half the time realized by contemporary technologies. Improved and standardized battery safety and environmental life-cycle sustainability performance will serve other important aspects addressed by this project. To reach these goals the project is currently researching and developing the LIBERTY innovations described in more detail in the following sections.