Ricardo : PlugVolt and Ricardo to collaborate on automotive battery education

Ricardo will offer a behind-the-scenes look into its automotive battery, hybrid and electric vehicle analysis workshop to attendees of the July 2016 PlugVolt Battery Seminar in Detroit.

While electric cars remain a small fraction of new vehicle sales in the United States and Europe, market analysts are seeing increased global demand for electric vehicles on the short term horizon, primarily driven by the Chinese automotive market. Engineers at the major automakers and their suppliers continue to advance battery and alternative energy storage technologies to remain competitive in a dynamic industry under heavy pressure to reduce costs and innovate. Educational events such as the PlugVolt Battery Seminar on July 26-28 in Detroit, Michigan, are key to bringing industry experts together to focus on core technical issues that will support improved cost, reliability and safety of the emerging hybrid and electric vehicle segment.

To support the PlugVolt Battery Seminar, Ricardo will offer a unique opportunity for delegates to take a behind-the-scenes look into the battery, electric and hybrid vehicle analysis workshop at the company's Detroit Technology Campus on July 27.

'The key industry stakeholders and subject matter experts gathering at this event from North America's leading utilities, global automotive OEMs, tier 1 system developers and battery manufacturers, share a common goal of clean transportation and a renewable and sustainable future,' said JC Soman, director of marketing at PlugVolt. 'Ricardo has conducted extensive research and study on the entire electric and hybrid vehicle ecosystem, some of which our attendees will get to learn at this event. While networking with industry experts, the facility tour will offer an up-close look at battery systems for most major types of electric and hybrid electric vehicles presently sold in North America.'

Engineers and technical specialists at Ricardo have already benchmarked more than a dozen hybrid electric and battery electric vehicles (xEV) including Volkswagen e-Golf, BMW i3, Chevy Volt and Tesla Model S.

'Electric and hybrid powertrains will be an essential part of the transportation mix for future urban mobility,' commented Ricardo Strategic Consulting vice president, Jason Schug. 'We at Ricardo look forward to supporting PlugVolt and its Battery Seminar attendees, sharing with them Ricardo's experience and insights in the design and cost impacts of different powertrain systems.'

The July 2016 Battery Seminar will highlight several in-depth presentations on topics including:

• Fundamentals of electro-chemistry - thermodynamics, electro-kinetics, types of reactions, cell design principles
• Latest advances in raw materials - anodes, cathodes, electrolytes, separators
• Overview of manufacturing processes - cylindrical cells, prismatic cells, pouch cells
• Battery safety - charge and discharge control, tools for evaluation
• Technologies beyond Li Ion - LiS, Li-Air
• Emerging technologies for large-scale applications - flow batteries, high temperature batteries
• Fuel cells - solid oxide, PEM

For more information about the PlugVolt Battery Seminar visit www.batteryseminars.com, or to learn about Ricardo's benchmarking products and services visit http://estore.ricardo.com/product-category/report/benchmarking-report/xev-benchmarking.

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