- VW’s unified EV cell format brings cell-to-pack battery design
- Cuts prices, units stage for cell-to-body and simplified EVs
- Means EVs with extra vary and power density, maybe decrease weight
- LFP and NMC chemistries on the identical format, possibly solid-state, sodium-ion
Volkswagen’s imaginative and prescient of the place it is perhaps by the tip of the last decade with electrical automobiles has advanced in recent times. However simplification is the key phrase, and its plans to concentrate on a single EV battery cell format go proper together with that.
This week, in a expertise replace held simply earlier than the corporate’s Volkswagen Group Annual Convention, the worldwide automaker and its battery-making PowerCo startup shared a better have a look at how these unified cells can be packaged in upcoming EVs from VW, Audi, Cupra, and a number of other of its different manufacturers, within the close to future.
As these unified cells arrive—quickly, however on a timeline not but detailed, particularly for U.S.-market EVs—they’ll convey a new battery pack format, packaging the cells immediately into the pack. This permits extra power density, in addition to a lighter pack, mentioned VW officers, and the strategy permits VW to be extra versatile with variations for various fashions and markets.
Present MEB battery pack format
VW EVs set to maneuver on from modules
At present’s electrical automobiles constructed on VW’s MEB EV basis, together with the ID.4 and ID.Buzz, incorporate shoebox-sized modules of pouch cells; these are then built-in into the battery case (above). However as VW outlined this week, the next-generation battery arriving as quickly as late this 12 months for Europe may have the cells immediately mounted into the battery housing—primarily in 4 rows spanning longitudinally alongside the battery case within the instance proven (photos of the demonstration case weren’t allowed).
The battery pack case evolves considerably to accommodate the cell-to-pack format, with the mechanical ribs that act as attachment factors for the modules diminished whereas reinforcements have been added elsewhere.
Battery pack format with cell-to-pack
Present MEB battery pack format with module-to-pack
Cooling has been fully reworked for the brand new cell sort and association. The flat faces of the cells enable simpler temperature management, and the housing on the surface has been fully reworked—with essentially the most noteworthy change showing to be a sample of slender cooling channels over a high plate. It’s not in contrast to the cooling strategy for use in Honda’s 0 Sequence EVs (though these may have modules).
On the cell degree VW is not going to solely monitor cell voltage but additionally temperature. The battery administration system stays of the wired (vs. wi-fi) sort.
2025 Volkswagen ID.Buzz
Doubtlessly extra vary in MEB fashions—like ID.Buzz?
Officers additionally mentioned that there’s potential for longer packs with “method larger power content material” versus the present capability—maxed out at 91 kwh (or 86 kwh usable) with the pack within the Euro-market ID.7 and U.S.-market ID.Buzz, at the moment the 2 longest MEB automobiles.
Inexperienced Automotive Reviews reads that as a fairly robust suggestion the Buzz might achieve extra vary inside the subsequent few mannequin years, because it merely wants it with a purpose to match its road-trip mantra—though VW officers wouldn’t say a lot.
Though Volkswagen confirmed the battery technique as on the way in which for its ID.2 and ID.1 EVs arriving in Europe over the following couple years, it advised that the non-extended-length demonstrator we noticed in contrast roughly to the 82-kwh (77-kwh usable) pack in at the moment’s ID.4.
Officers emphasised that precise figures for battery capability, power density, weight, and extra can be launched on the IAA Mobility 2025 auto present, set to be held in September in Munich. As proven, the preliminary pack is 400-volt, however extra particulars about that and charging are additionally forthcoming at IAA.
2024 Volkswagen ID.4
On the core: EV cost-cutting
As for these cells themselves, they’re a key piece in VW making a transfer to decrease cell prices and allow extra reasonably priced EVs.
“The unified cell format constructed in keeping with our personal world and uniform expertise normal would be the foundation for large economies of scale in cell and battery programs,” mentioned Michael Steiner, head of analysis and growth for the Volkswagen Group, on the occasion.
Steiner mentioned that EV batteries nonetheless account for greater than a 3rd of EV value—so the cells symbolize competitiveness not simply on value however on efficiency versus automobile weight.
Improvement of the unified cell format was performed at VW’s Middle of Excellence for Battery Cells in Salzgitter, Germany. The ability oversees battery methods, growth, and buying, and it has a accountability for almost all elements of battery expertise.
The unified cell format goals to cut back the complexity of battery programs and cells, and that additionally goes to optimize battery prices and allow decrease entry costs for quantity segments of the market. It’s additionally a part of an effort to coordinate the expertise wants for China, Europe, and North America.
VW Energy Day – battery varieties
Versatile chemistry, from LFP to sodium-ion to solid-state
It additionally permits the adoption of a number of chemistries with the identical cell format, permitting for a quantity NMC (nickel manganese cobalt) cell together with LFP (lithium iron phosphate). And it cannot solely accommodate the cell varieties VW has developed by itself but additionally next-generation sodium-ion or solid-state chemistries. A 2024 settlement between PowerCo and the solid-state battery tech agency QuantumScape, for example, permits PowerCo to make as much as 40 gigawatt-hours of solid-state lithium-metal cells yearly, with the choice to double that to 80 gigawatt-hours. The businesses concerned haven’t detailed a timeline
They’re additionally virtually right here—the NMC ones, that’s. VW introduced its plan for the unified cell format 4 years in the past this month. It promised then, in 2021, that it could ramp up manufacturing of those unified cells round 2025, in a small quantity at first, and it’s delivered precisely that.
VW unified cell format
PowerCo says it has already produced over 100,000 cells and efficiently examined them. That’s at its location in Salzgitter; PowerCo has two different manufacturing areas within the works, in Valencia, Spain, and in St. Thomas, Ontario (Canada). Valencia and Ontario are each as a consequence of ramp up in 2026.
Volkswagen has already mentioned that its Salzgitter manufacturing facility may have a goal quantity of 40 gigawatt-hours per 12 months—sufficient for roughly 500,000 EVs. And altogether, the three factories are as a consequence of produce as much as 200 gigawatt-hours of cells yearly.
VW EV platforms and E/E architectures
The way it all matches collectively: SSP + SDV + …cell-to-body?
VW is within the midst of large change, because it embarks on a grasp plan that goals, over the following few years, to consolidate a spread of various platforms and a number of other electrical and electronics architectures right down to a single modular Scalable Methods Platform (SSP) plus a software-defined automobile strategy that can make the most of Rivian’s zonal structure and reconceive the whole lot from how zones are outlined to the automobile interface itself.
Neither the production-bound ID.Every1 (beneath), previewing a sub-$25,000, nor the production-bound, sub-$30,000 ID.2all, which is coming earlier than that, are U.S.-bound. The ID.1 is about to make use of “parts” of the Rivian-derived zonal structure, mated with a variety of MEB parts carried over.
Volkswagen ID.Every1
SSP will arrive in full type within the ID Golf, which is due round 2028, VW says. That’s nonetheless a far-off risk for the U.S., though SSP will quickly after that propagate to a variety of fashions, varieties, and types from the entire group.
And the following cease, VW’s battery folks say, is cell-to-body tech—in EVs that had been designed from the begin to incorporate battery cells immediately into the physique. VW’s SSP will reportedly allow this, though it’s but unclear whether or not some or all automobiles on the platform will provide it and when.
What additionally nonetheless stays unsure is how shortly VW intends emigrate its inside combustion fashions to an identical modular and software-defined strategy, particularly now that it’d focus extra on hybrids or plug-in hybrids for North America.
And within the meantime, how shortly it migrates its present MEB EVs just like the ID.4 and ID.Buzz to this seemingly incremental battery-format makeover might find yourself offering a giant enhance to their vary, and enchantment.
