The influence of electrochemical battery aging process on an electric vehicle’s range

This article presents the influence of aging processes of the electric vehicle’s electrochemical battery. The increasing number of hybrid and electric vehicles increases the demand for durable and efficient sources of energy storage for vehicles. The vehicle's declared range is reduced over time. This is due to the aging of the battery that causes loss of its capacity and loss of its power. To minimize this phenomenon, manufacturers use counteracting solutions that include mounting additional cells in the battery that are switched on when the battery controller identifies a particular battery cell’s failure or high degradation. This is due to the deep and shallow discharges of the battery, the number of charge and discharge cycles, and the age and technology of battery packs. AMESim software was used for the simulation of the electric vehicle. The research was based on modelling the range of the vehicle whose cell capacity includes processes related to aging of the battery. An aging cell algorithm causes the capacity to drop and consequently reduces the range of one full charge. By modelling aging processes, it is possible to determine the battery’s probable capacity loss during vehicle use and to estimate how these processes affect the vehicle's range.