Advanced battery system integration for next generation vehicles (2ZERO Partnership)

With the expected introduction of new cell technologies, specific choices for connections, cooling system concepts and materials for housing will play a crucial role in the battery performance improvements and the battery integration in the vehicle structure.

The development and integration of structural, thermal and mechanical aspects (at different levels of modularity or integration) will need to be improved, while exploiting the intrinsic advantages of innovative type of cells.

Proposals are expected to address all the following aspects:

• Structural battery pack design and integration in the vehicle considering trade-offs in all important areas such as energy density, thermal management, maintainability and repairability, crash safety, energy density, production cost, second life, dismantling and recycling processes.
• Smart thermal management systems for both heating and cooling, with smart interfaces to the vehicle systems (including energy-efficient preconditioning, using internal or external energy sources whilst charging), contributing to further improvements in the overall battery system efficiency and optimizing the overall battery system, also in consideration of passenger comfort.
• Novel cooling system concepts exploiting the reduced thermal constraints of generation-4 cells ensuring minimal impact on system mass and costs, especially taking into account the thermal and electrical interfaces of different possible cell geometries (e.g. pouch, prismatic or cylindrical).
• Take into account the development of the technical communication channel for the access and exchange of relevant data types from the battery management system (BMS), such as state of charge (SoC), state of health (SoH), temperature (T) or voltage (V) that are essential to ensure efficient and secure recharging processes.
• Digital twin of thermal behaviour of EV and battery for optimal chemistry / energy management and safety assessment of batteries.
• Enhanced communication between battery and vehicle control units for a more efficient battery operation by synchronizing ECUs of the BMS and the EV (links are expected to be established with projects funded under topic HORIZON-CL5-2023-D5-01-02: Innovative battery management systems for next generation vehicles).

Projects should take into account the access to battery information as defined in the proposal for the Renewable Energy Directive COM(2021)557 of 14 July 2021.

This topic implements the co-programmed European Partnership on ‘Towards zero emission road transport’ (2ZERO). As such, projects resulting from this topic will be expected to report on the results to the European Partnership ‘Towards zero emission road transport’ (2ZERO) in support of the monitoring of its KPIs.

Destination

Clean and competitive solutions for all transport modes (2023/24)

This Destination addresses activities that improve the climate and environmental footprint, as well as competitiveness, of different transport modes.

The transport sector is responsible for 23% of CO₂ emissions and remains dependent on oil for 92% of its energy demand. While there has been significant technological progress over past decades, projected GHG emissions are not in line with the objectives of the Paris Agreement due to the expected increase in transport demand. Intensified research and innovation activities are therefore needed, across all transport modes and in line with societal needs and preferences, in order for the EU to reach its policy goals towards a net-zero greenhouse gas emissions by 2050 and to reduce significantly air pollutants.

The areas of rail and air traffic management will be addressed through dedicated Institutional European Partnerships and are therefore not included in this document.

This Destination contributes to the following Strategic Plan’s Key Strategic Orientations (KSO):

• C: Making Europe the first digitally enabled circular, climate-neutral and sustainable economy through the transformation of its mobility, energy, construction and production systems;
• A: Promoting an open strategic autonomy[[ ‘Open strategic autonomy’ refers to the term ‘strategic autonomy while preserving an open economy’, as reflected in the conclusions of the European Council 1 – 2 October 2020.]] by leading the development of key digital, enabling and emerging technologies, sectors and value chains to accelerate and steer the digital and green transitions through human-centred technologies and innovations.

It covers the following impact areas:

• Industrial leadership in key and emerging technologies that work for people;
• Smart and sustainable transport.

The expected impact, in line with the Strategic Plan, is to contribute “Towards climate-neutral and environmental friendly mobility through clean solutions across all transport modes while increasing global competitiveness of the EU transport sector“, notably through:

• Transforming road transport to zero-emission mobility through a world-class European research and innovation and industrial system, ensuring that Europe remains world leader in innovation, production and services in relation to road transport (more detailed information below).
• Accelerating the reduction of all aviation impacts and emissions (CO₂ and non-CO₂, including manufacturing and end-of-life, noise), developing aircraft technologies for deep reduction of greenhouse gas emissions, and maintaining European aero-industry’s global leadership position (more detailed information below).
• Accelerate the development and prepare the deployment of climate neutral and clean solutions in the inland and marine shipping sector, reduce its environmental impact (on biodiversity, noise, pollution and waste management), improve its system efficiency, leverage digital and EU satellite-navigation solutions and contribute to the competitiveness of the European waterborne sector (more detailed information below).
• Devising more effective ways for reducing emissions and their impacts through improved scientific knowledge (more detailed information below).

Several levels of interactions are foreseen with other European initiatives, in particular with the Industrial Battery Value Chain (BATT4EU) partnership, the Cooperative Connected and Automated Mobility (CCAM) partnership and the Mission on Climate Neutral and Smart Cities, in particular:

• Joint topic “2ZERO – BATT4EU” D5-1-4 B – Innovative battery management systems for next generation vehicles (2ZERO & Batteries Partnership) (2023)
• Joint topic “CCAM – 2ZERO – Mission on Climate Neutral and Smart Cities” D5-1-5 Co-designed smart systems and services for user-centred shared zero-emission mobility of people and goods in urban areas (2ZERO, CCAM and Cities’ Mission) (2023)