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Technology game-changers move electric cars closer to mass market
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NXP Semiconductors, the biggest automotive chip supplier in China, recently established a joint venture with Datang Telecom to expand into the field of new energy cars.
Kurt Sievers, executive vice president and general manager of automotive business at the Dutch-based NXP, talked with Shanghai Daily about how game-changing technologies can make electric cars more commercially viable.
China’s new energy industry has been discussing whether it is ill-advised for electric carmakers to target the mass market. The only current way to justify the high cost of batteries seems to go after the high-end. What is your opinion on that?
I think both low-end and high-end products have a future. Tesla has been very successful in the premium market, while BMW has just launched a very small and economical electric car, the i3, and Mercedes-Benz has an electric smart car. The challenge for them is not so much about the cost as about the range. People don’t want a car that needs to go to a charging station every 80 miles. The value of using an electric car must be as good as what they know from a traditional internal-combustion engine one.
We are developing a new chip that will ensure optimal use of the battery. Battery management is all about cell balancing. Lithium-ion batteries, for example, consist of a number of cells. At a certain moment, the batteries appear to be empty, but in reality, it is just some of their cells that are empty. Through logic management, we can make sure all the different cells are equally coming down at the charging.
How do you think such a technology will change the new energy car market?
We think the chips we are developing here can boost the maximum range of electric cars by 30 to 40 percent. China’s electric car market is expected to grow at a compound annual rate of 70 percent from its current small base in the next decade as the government continues to extend its subsidy program to encourage the use of eco-friendly vehicles. I bet you if the range could be extended, electric cars sales would suddenly explode. And the pressure on the government to develop charging infrastructure would be reduced. We can also apply the same chip to hybrid cars, whose market is even bigger.
How much would that chip cost and how would it address the battery safety problem?
The chip won’t add too much to the manufacturing cost of electric cars, compared with the batteries that often make up the bulk of car prices.
Yes, there are a lot of concerns about electric cars catching fire, like cases involving Tesla cars.
I don’t think we can solve the problem. It is an inherent issue with batteries. I would say, in the long run, electric cars could be powered by fewer batteries with higher working efficiency, which would naturally reduce the chances of them burning.
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