The interplay between vehicle batteries and charging infrastructure is highly complex. It is further complicated by a high rate of innovation, long investment horizons, spatial dependencies in the charging network and differing demands from different vehicle segments. Jakob Rogstadius, Senior Researcher, RISE Mobility and Systems is one of the speakers at Battery Tech for EV 2022. He will address the feedback loops and emerging properties of the system and how can different charging infrastructure solutions shape the future of electromobility? We got the opportunity to ask Jakob a few questions before the event.
Could you please introduce yourself and your work at RISE?
In my role as senior researcher in the Mobility and Systems department at RISE, I work at the intersection of data science, systems-of-systems and electromobility. My current research focuses on system-of-systems analyses of electrification of light and heavy road transport, in urban an inter-urban environments. I hold a Ph.D. in computer science and my professional experience includes data driven research in a wide variety of industrial and academic domains, including the heavy vehicle industry.
Why is it important to focus on battery TCO?
Just like total cost of ownership (TCO) is far more important than the upfront cost of a commercial vehicle, the purchase price of battery cells or packs is only one of many components that affect TCO. Battery capacity in a commercial vehicle is a trade-off between the costs of capital, battery ageing, time and cargo carrying capacity and should be optimized accordingly. Smaller battery packs reduce direct costs but increase indirect costs. Furthermore, an excessive focus on the upfront cost of battery packs misses the substantial cost reductions that result from improvements in longevity, charging rate, very high/low SoC-level performance, and residual value.
What are the issues, and how do you overcome them, in terms of interplay between vehicle batteries and charging infrastructure?
Commercial vehicles can only realistically be electric if the risk of running out of battery charge during operation is negligible, while at the same time electric operation achieves lower cost than the combustion engine equivalent. Both minimum viable battery capacity in a given operational pattern and cost of charging are determined by the local density and placement of charging infrastructure. However, low charging cost per user requires that many users share infrastructure, which they can only do if multiple operational patterns are jointly considered. As operational patterns overlap, there is no natural boundary to this system and interaction effects reach far in both space and time. Most charging infrastructure is furthermore subject to competition from alternative charging locations, which substantially increases the dynamism of this system. In short, it is not an objective truth that even heavy long-haul trucks must be equipped with costly and heavy battery packs over 500 kWh – it is merely a consequence of several assumptions about how the charging infrastructure will be designed.
Using a custom-built agent-based simulation tool and data representing millions of transport routes on the entire Swedish road network, I have studied the interplay between heavy truck batteries and infrastructure for both static and dynamic charging. The simulation tool makes it possible to identify dominant feedback loops, tipping points and other emerging properties that prior research has largely ignored.
What needs to be done to speed up the development of charging infrastructure?
Speaking exclusively about charging infrastructure for the heavy vehicle segment, public charging opportunities must be made available. It matters less whether this is through fast charging at rest stops, charging at other haulers’ depots, destination charging, electric road systems or some other way of organizing the charging. My own analysis points to that electric road systems would be a cost-effective way to achieve ubiquitous public charging, and their implementation would be greatly facilitated by political decisiveness and industry willingness to agree on standard interfaces. More openness from DSOs regarding forecasts of the capability of the grid to deliver power at different times of day in different locations would greatly facilitate long-term planning by other stakeholders.
What’s the most important thing you would like to share in your presentation?
If we genuinely wish to decarbonize road traffic, no other strategy appears to be nearly as viable as a quick transition to battery electric vehicles. I hope to convey to the audience some of the complex interplay between vehicle batteries and charging infrastructure and how different paths to electrification of road traffic may affect, among other things, aggregate demand for batteries.
What are you most looking forward to by attending and speaking at the conference?
I hope to get feedback and new perspectives that my colleagues and I can incorporate in our continued research into how to best achieve rapid decarbonization of road traffic.