Belgium-based EconCore has announced a partnership involving AZL, Audi and others to establish the potential of using composites for battery housings. This eight-month collaborative project will assess the technical challenges, opportunities and benefits of developing battery casings for electric vehicles using a variety of materials, including thermoplastics.

The project has been established by industry network group, AZL, who specializes in composite-based lightweight technologies and seeks to drive innovation though sharing knowledge.

The first phase of this project will be focused on understanding what the potential opportunities and challenges are. For the EconCore team, this means pre-selecting thermoplastic materials, using different composite skin layers and working through different geometrical design variants, to optimize the honeycomb material to obtain desirable characteristics and share findings with project partners.

The honeycomb materials.

A primary goal for electric vehicle OEMs is to increase the vehicles operating range, through weight reduction, without compromising on strength and quality.

EconCore believes that there are even greater potential benefits from using honeycomb sandwich materials, as they have incredible strength while being very light, compared to aluminium or steel alternatives.

EconCore already has experience using honeycomb material in vehicle interiors, which can be compression moulded to produce three dimensional shapes. If the initial phase goes well, the plan is to progress to a prototyping stage.

Tomasz Czarnecki, COO of EconCore, said, “After successfully establishing the use of the technology in automotive interiors, we feel there is tremendous potential in using composite materials for battery housings and EconCore is now actively working with Audi and other industrial partners, to explore opportunities and to learn how the thermoplastic honeycomb technology can be applied into this area.”

Belgium-based EconCore has announced a partnership involving AZL, Audi and others to establish the potential of using composites for battery housings. This eight-month collaborative project will assess the technical challenges, opportunities and benefits of developing battery casings for electric vehicles using a variety of materials, including thermoplastics.

The project has been established by industry network group, AZL, who specializes in composite-based lightweight technologies and seeks to drive innovation though sharing knowledge.

The first phase of this project will be focused on understanding what the potential opportunities and challenges are. For the EconCore team, this means pre-selecting thermoplastic materials, using different composite skin layers and working through different geometrical design variants, to optimize the honeycomb material to obtain desirable characteristics and share findings with project partners.

The honeycomb materials.

A primary goal for electric vehicle OEMs is to increase the vehicles operating range, through weight reduction, without compromising on strength and quality.

EconCore believes that there are even greater potential benefits from using honeycomb sandwich materials, as they have incredible strength while being very light, compared to aluminium or steel alternatives.

EconCore already has experience using honeycomb material in vehicle interiors, which can be compression moulded to produce three dimensional shapes. If the initial phase goes well, the plan is to progress to a prototyping stage.

Tomasz Czarnecki, COO of EconCore, said, “After successfully establishing the use of the technology in automotive interiors, we feel there is tremendous potential in using composite materials for battery housings and EconCore is now actively working with Audi and other industrial partners, to explore opportunities and to learn how the thermoplastic honeycomb technology can be applied into this area.”