Our guest, Dr. Heiner Heimes, is managing senior engineer at the chair "Production Engineering of E-Mobility Components" (PEM) at RWTH Aachen University. As an expert in battery production engineering, he emphasizes that the development of lithium-ion batteries is an extremely demanding task and requires a wide range of skills: Knowledge in chemistry, physics, mechanical and plant engineering, engineering and power electronics.
In recent years, Europe has concentrated primarily on reducing the knowledge gap with the Asian region. From the point of view of our guest, quite successfully: With each new planning project, it is now more important to master all those challenges that arise from the ramp-up of the production of different battery cell series.
Dr. Heimes provides an assessment of which cell formats will prevail in the future and how European battery factories will have to deal with flexibilities around innovative cell chemistries. Central to this podcast is the question of what unique selling point European batteries could have in contrast to Asian competitors and how European cell manufacturers can generate the most value.
By the time the internal combustion engine is phased out in 2035, Dr. Heimes expects around 8 million battery-powered vehicles to be built in Europe each year. The European batteries required for this should, in the best case, be safer, more durable, more sustainable, but above all convince with their "made in Europe" quality.
Battery Atlas: battery-news.de/index.php/battery-atlas/
