Thermal Management

The market for electric vehicles is set to exceed $1,000bn by 2030 but potential consumers are still concerned with range, cost and safety. Whilst this draws attention initially to the battery, an equally important factor and unifying component of electric vehicles is the electric motor and its effective thermal management.

The pandemic infection of COVID-19 has led to the lockdown of a considerable number of cities, leading to reduced pollution activity. With the large number of renewable energy sources employed in the last decades to decarbonise the energy sector, a growing number of energy storage devices have been coupled with renewable energy sources.

The electric vehicle market is growing rapidly, and with it the demand for fast charging, increased energy density and improved safety. Something that all these areas have in common is heat. Charging a battery quickly generates a lot of heat, with the extra energy capacity of modern and upcoming electric vehicle batteries, extracting this heat becomes more challenging.

The EV market is booming. The battery is a key feature for both cost and performance, the chemistry and cell levels are extensively discussed. However, everything else that goes into a pack is often overlooked.

2030 will be the global 'tipping point' for sustainable mobility in the world's largest cities, according to Kantar's Mobility Futures study, confirming the IDTechEx study just before. Kantar predicts private car journeys in the world's largest cities decreasing 10% by 2030 due to the sharing economy, multi-modality, autonomous vehicles and ageing population.

Masterclasses are the ideal way to train staff on emerging technologies. Bracketing the IDTechEx show in Berlin, the IDTechEx masterclasses on 12th and 15th May 2020 will contain the latest insights and analysis on their chosen topics.

Some of the biggest hurdles to widespread adoption of electric vehicles are range anxiety, battery longevity and safety. As the electric vehicle market grows and for it to reach its full potential, there is an increased need for effective thermal management of the vehicles.

Thermal Interface Materials (TIM) are not glamourous but are often an essential component found in all manner of electronic and energy storage applications. Indeed, they are absolutely pervasive. They are truly a diverse technology in terms of suppliers, material options, deposition techniques, applications, market requirement and performance levels. This makes them difficult to analyse.

In this two-part article Dr Khasha Ghaffarzadeh, a leading industry expert and Research Director at IDTechEx will discuss the global graphene market.

The electric vehicle market is growing very quickly. IDTechEx forecast that the total market will exceed $1,000bn value within the next 5-years across all categories: land, sea, and air. This huge growth is resulting in a large amount of turbulence within the supply chain. In particular, the material considerations are different to traditional internal combustion engines and provide a significant opportunity or threat - depending on your viewpoint.