EC backs battery switch project

A consortium coordinated by Better Place and including Renault SA, Continental, Ernst & Young, TÜV Rheinland, KEMA and five leading European institutions has announced formal approval from the European Commission for an R&D programme to make it easier for European automobile and battery manufacturers to build electric cars with switchable batteries.
February 3, 2012 Read time: 2 mins

A consortium coordinated by 170 Better Place and including 2453 Renault SA, 260 Continental, Ernst & Young, 2236 TÜV Rheinland, 2239 KEMA and five leading European institutions has announced formal approval from the 1690 European Commission for an R&D programme to make it easier for European automobile and battery manufacturers to build electric cars with switchable batteries. This announcement is the first project for switchable battery electric cars approved by the Commission.

The project calls for the ‘EasyBat’ Consortium to develop ‘off-the-shelf’ automotive grade components and interfaces that enable the auto industry to easily integrate battery switching technology into their electric car platforms. The first large scale application of battery switching technology will be shown by Better Place and Renault with the commercial launch of the Renault Fluence ZE by year end.

The EasyBat solution will consist of interfaces for switching a battery in and out of an electric car quickly and safely; the connector interfaces between the car, the battery, the communications network, and the battery cooling system; and design specifications that meet European industry and safety standards. The solution will be integrated and tested on fully electric vehicles to ensure it meets production-grade manufacturing criteria and European safety standards.

Upon conclusion, EasyBat will have a next generation, commercially available solution for battery switch integration components and design plans that allow for different types of batteries, not just a single standardised battery. Car manufacturers that want to focus on proprietary battery technology can do so and still be able to integrate their technology into a switchable battery electric car platform as envisioned by EasyBat.

Part of the Seventh EU Framework Program (FP7), EasyBat is a 30-month project, which is expected to run until June 2013. The European Commission will contribute €2.2 million to fund the project.

For more information on companies in this article

Related Content

  • TRANSFORuM transport 2050 – European stakeholders express their views
    December 8, 2014
    The European FP7 project TRANSFORuM is to release four stakeholder-driven roadmaps towards the implementation of the European Commission's White Paper on Transport on 8 December. TRANSFORuM focuses on four goals of this document and provides recommendations for: Clean urban mobility, with the goal of halving the use of conventionally fuelled cars by 2030; shifting 50 per cent of long-distance freight over 300 kilometres to rail or waterborne by 2050; High-speed rail; and Multimodal transport information,
    Read More
  • New technology is changing the Weigh In Motion landscape
    June 5, 2014
    Exciting new weigh in motion solutions were showcased at Intertraffic. Guy Woodford reports For many years weigh-in-motion (WIM) has been used solely as a filtering mechanism to detect potentially overloaded vehicles, but introductions at Intertraffic may see that change. At the Intertraffic exhibition to unveil its Apollo range of British-manufactured axle weighbridges was Applied Traffic. The in-motion and static axle-by-axle weighing system offers slow speed and portable weighing solutions suitable for
    Read More
  • Parliamentary council urges UK gov to support EC safety proposals
    May 18, 2018
    A key UK safety body is calling for legislative action on European Commission vehicle safety proposals. The Parliamentary Advisory Council for Transport Safety (PACTS) wants the EC’s third mobility package to be adopted by the UK government. These measures are part of the Juncker Commission’s initiative to implement less polluting vehicles in Europe and provide more advanced technological solutions. This package outlines a new road safety policy framework for 2020-2030 and is accompanied by two legislativ
    Read More
  • Taking the long view of ITS
    March 24, 2015
    Caroline Visser believes the ITS industry must present a coherent case for consideration of the technology to become part of transport policy and planning. As ITS advisor and road finance director for the International Road Federation (IRF) in Geneva, Caroline Visser is well placed to evaluate quantifying the benefits of ITS implementation – a topic about which there is little agreement and even less consistency. She is pressing to get some consistency in the evaluation of ITS deployments through the use of
    Read More

Highlighted Content