AI charging breakthrough extends EV battery life by 23% without sacrificing speed

23% extended EV battery life: New tech tackles risks of fast charging

"This can reduce capacity and may also affect safety, as unevenness in the structure of the lithium can, in a worst case scenario, cause a short circuit," said the researchers in a press release. The researchers found that their AI method maintains charging times within a few seconds of current standard speeds while reducing this internal wear. To address these issues, Professor Changfu Zou and Assistant Professor Meng Yuan developed a strategy based on reinforcement learning. The AI was trained using a digital model of a common electric vehicle battery and simulations of variables that impact both health and charging speed. "The AI model was trained to adapt the charging according to how charged or discharged the battery was at the time of charging," explained the researchers. "It also needed to take into account the overall health of the battery, as this is crucial to both capacity and electrochemistry. The result was a charging strategy that both keeps the charging time short and minimizes harmful reactions." The study demonstrates that it is possible to maintain current charging speeds while reducing long-term degradation. The researchers state that the strategy is cost-effective to deploy because it works through existing battery management hardware.

EV batteries just need some AI top-up nudge, and they get a big 23% life boost, finds research

Charging fast and lasting long seemed impossible. A new AI trick says otherwise. EV battery charging technology has always had to find the right balance between charging speed and battery longevity. If the charging speed is too fast, it wears down the battery. If the charging is too slow, nobody is happy. Researchers Meng Yuan from Victoria University of Wellington and Changfu Zou from Chalmers University of Technology in Sweden may have cracked this long-standing problem using an AI technique called deep reinforcement learning, and the results are pretty encouraging. Recommended Videos Their study, published in IEEE Transactions on Transportation Electrification, introduces a new AI charging system that learns to charge a battery quickly while actively protecting its long-term health. What's different about this new AI-based charging system? The system uses a machine learning method called TD3, which is a fancy way of saying the AI learns by trial and error across thousands of simulated charging sessions. What makes it different is that it adapts its charging strategy based on how degraded the battery already is. Most traditional chargers use a fixed routine. They start with full power and taper off as the battery reaches its capacity. The problem is that this routine doesn't care whether the battery is brand new or has been through hundreds of charge cycles. The new AI-based charging strategy sidesteps this by learning a relationship between the battery's health and the maximum safe charging voltage, then using that information to make smarter decisions in real time. Does the battery last longer? In simulations using a real-world battery model, the proposed method extended battery life by nearly 23% over standard charging methods, reaching 703 equivalent full cycles compared to just 572 with conventional charging. Charging time also remained competitive at around 24 minutes for an 80% charge. The team trained the entire system on a consumer-grade desktop with an Intel i5 processor and an NVIDIA RTX 3060 GPU. As the researchers note, this "demonstrates that the proposed framework can be effectively trained on widely available hardware without needing access to specialized high-performance computing clusters." It is still early days, and the method needs testing outside of simulations. But if it holds up, smarter charging could quietly become one of the biggest upgrades your next EV gets.

Scientists Just Discovered A Secret To Make Your EV Battery Live Years Longer

The simulation results are impressive, and could make a huge difference if commercialized. Artificial intelligence is already seeping into cars, with the technology now embedded into everything from autonomous vehicles to voice assistants. A new study now shows that AI could also extend your electric vehicle battery's life significantly by slowing degradation. Researchers at the Swedish Chalmers University of Technology said in a study published in the academic journal IEEE that they had developed an AI-based charging method that can optimize the current during fast-charging cycles, and extend the vehicle's battery life by as much as 23%. That number is huge, representing nearly a quarter of the battery's lifespan. According to some estimates, a Tesla battery can last between 300,000 and 500,000 miles, depending on its usage and charging patterns. A 23% improvement would mean nearly 70,000 extra miles on the low end and over 100,000 more miles on the high end, translating to several more years of usable range for drivers. To be sure, the researchers frame the battery life extension in terms of the number of charge/discharge cycles an EV can handle. "This work introduces the first explicit formulation of a lifelong battery fast charging problem," authors Meng Yuan and Changfu Zou from Chalmers University's Department of Electrical Engineering wrote in the study. "The proposed method achieves a significant improvement in performance, where battery lifespan is extended to 703 equivalent full cycles... representing a 22.9% improvement over the standard baseline." While modern EV batteries are already designed to last for years without defects or significant degradation, frequent fast-charging can accelerate aging. High-powered charging can stress the components inside the cells, potentially causing lithium plating, where ions build up on the anode, causing degradation. The AI-powered battery management system (BMS) aims to avoid exactly that. Researchers at Chalmers used "reinforcement learning" within the BMS. It's a machine learning technique that engineers use in systems to learn through trial and error for the best possible result. On the EV batteries, that means adjusting the current based on the pack's chemistry and state of health during fast-charging cycles. As the battery ages, the AI adjusts the voltage to ensure that aging components like the anode, cathode, and the electrolyte aren't stressed. Americans drive about 13,476 miles each year on average, according to the Federal Highway Administration. For drivers who rely on fast-charging frequently, this new AI-enabled charging method could allow them to keep their EVs for several more years, which is great for their wallets and also good for the environment. Fewer batteries means less need for raw materials and a lower manufacturing-related carbon footprint. However, it's worth noting that this smart charging experiment was conducted in a lab, and not on physical batteries out in the real world. If this is proven in the real world, it could leave a lasting impact on battery warranties, the used EV market, and just how the industry thinks about long-term health and longevity. And the researchers claim their method doesn't just slow down charging to preserve battery health. "The proposed approach maintains comparable charging efficiency while largely extending battery lifespan, demonstrating that lifespan enhancement can be achieved without compromising charging speed," the authors of the study said.