“How quickly can you get me up and running and testing on the wBMS’s wireless network? That’s the first question customers ask,” said Shane O’Mahony, Product Marketing Engineer, Automotive Technology Group, ADI. “If that takes months, they just won’t do it. We’ve overcome that obstacle.”

ADI’s wBMS evaluation kit gets customers up and running fast—right out of the box. It’s a full, end-to-end wBMS, including multiple boards, software, and cybersecurity. “If you had to build a system from everybody’s components, it would take months just to get a prototype working,” said Shane O’Mahony.

Lotus’s LEVA powertrain architecture is designed for mid-engine high performance vehicles. The driver sits up front, behind the console and steering wheel. Everything else is behind the driver. Most of the vehicle’s weight sits in the middle of the four axles, improving weight distribution, stability, and handling. Other advantages of the design include increased safety and reduced wear. Lotus will leverage LEVA’s flexible architecture on other vehicle designs and future production models.

How do you design-in the battery pack once you’ve optimized the entire vehicle architecture for high performance?

Flexibility in battery restructuring is critical, particularly to the engineer designing the ever-changing shape of aerodynamic EVs. wBMS not only provided Lotus with a quick and easy path to develop versatility, scalability, and optimization—it offered the means to fit more batteries in the pack in a new vehicle design through the void left by harness removal. More batteries in the powertrain, under the right circumstances, translates to enhanced power performance and extended vehicle range.

“Lotus engineers are now free to design the car how they see fit, as opposed to designing the car as well as possible given the constraints of a battery harness,” said Roger Keen.

After years of use, when the wireless battery packs are capacity reduced and no longer ideal for optimum EV power performance, they can easily be repurposed for use in clean and sustainable second-life applications, such as less demanding energy storage systems and power grids around the world. “Spent” EV batteries have the potential of delivering the promise of an electrified future by storing excess solar and wind power.

“It’s an unsustainable business model to replace the entire battery pack every time a single cell or group of cells lose their capacity prematurely,” said Richard Lively, Director of Propulsion and Chassis Engineering, Lotus Cars. “ADI’s wBMS enables a quick, easy, and cost-effective solution to our repairability requirement.”

Repairability is key to keeping an EV battery and EV on the road.

Lotus Cars

Lotus doesn’t put a half-life on any of its vehicles—many are still on the road after 25 or 30 years as classic cars, creating a conundrum for the manufacturer. A car with virtually no half-life requires that you keep it up and running “forever” while maintaining the batteries at optimum performance throughout the vehicle’s lifetime.

With wBMS, serviceability is easier and faster for both road vehicles and trackside since the battery modules only have two terminals (positive and negative) and are software programmable for quick and convenient over-the-air updates. The cell controller lives with the battery module for life as one serviceable unit, furthering the simplified service model.

The repair business model is anything but new. It’s an essential cornerstone in almost every industry today, from homes to appliances, to tooth restoration. EV battery repair will also generate a significant business opportunity for local mechanics, spare part distributors, and OEMs. Its impact on a sustainable environment is vast.

“No other BMS competitor offers the same capability as Analog Devices to repair the battery. Repairability will help to set Lotus apart from other EV makers and save as much as six tons of carbon to the environment,” said Shane O’Mahony. “And it helps to ensure Lotus vehicle owners of decades of high performance driving enjoyment.”