Batteries on the Cloud

I bought a new energy vehicle for 170,000 yuan, but when it was time to upgrade, I found that a second-hand new energy vehicle could only be sold for 40,000 yuan. What's more ironic is that replacing the battery also costs the same price.

Recent news has fully exposed the disadvantages of new energy vehicles. After five years of rapid development, the first batch of "pioneers" can't find any advantages in the used car market. According to the "China Automobile Retention Rate Report in November 2019" released by the China Automobile Dealers Association, the average retention rate of three-year-old pure electric vehicles is 36.4%, which is much lower than that of traditional fuel vehicles.

Consumers are worried that the degree of battery degradation cannot be tested, and new energy vehicles are rapidly iterating in terms of technology and battery life, which means that once new energy vehicles are out of warranty, their value will be greatly reduced when they enter the second-hand market. As for how to solve this problem, it may not be something that can be accomplished by a few people or companies.

From a technical perspective, suppliers have provided some solutions. The cloud battery launched by Bosch is one of the solutions to use technology to improve battery life, and it will even become an important basis for helping electric vehicles evaluate their second-hand residual value.

What is Cloud Battery?

The battery is not in the cloud, it is still in the chassis of each vehicle. The so-called cloud battery actually puts a new battery management system in the cloud. The cloud intelligent software function can continuously analyze the battery status and actively take appropriate measures to prevent or slow down battery aging.

Theoretically, the longer the battery is used, the more it degrades and the weaker its performance becomes. As a relatively high part of the cost of an electric vehicle, the life cycle of an electric vehicle depends largely on the service life of the battery.

As we all know, electric vehicles are equipped with a battery management system (BMS) on the vehicle itself, which is mainly used to collect, process and store important information during the operation of the battery pack, and can improve the utilization rate of the battery and prevent the battery from overcharging and discharging. Of course, it is also the main measure to extend the service life of the battery.

Every electric car has a battery management system inside | ZCOOL

With the development of technology, BMS has also seen many new features, such as adjusting the battery temperature according to the external environment to ensure that the battery pack is within a normal temperature range. Temperature control strategies also have different gameplay. Geek Park (ID: geekpark) once introduced the upgraded battery thermal management system of WM Motor in detail in the article "Why electric vehicles will become the "most friendly" cars in winter?"

What is the significance of establishing a separate system in the cloud in addition to the BMS of the electric vehicle itself? Geek Park learned that there are still big differences between the two.

First of all, cloud battery is not just a set of software or a product. It is a solution developed by Bosch for new energy vehicle batteries. It uses a series of means to extend battery life, such as protecting battery charging (Bosch calls it protective charging), helping downstream to evaluate batteries, and recording battery usage certificates throughout its life cycle (which may effectively boost the value retention of electric vehicles in the second-hand market), etc.

Secondly, compared with the vehicle's own BMS, the cloud battery can perhaps be called the Pro version. In an interview with Geek Park and other media, Bosch's cloud battery expert Zhu Kunxu mentioned the two dimensions of time and space to illustrate the capabilities of the cloud battery.

From a time perspective, BMS can only store three days of battery usage data, and relies on short-term usage to determine what kind of protection measures the battery needs. Cloud batteries, on the other hand, can store data throughout the vehicle's life cycle, giving a more accurate grasp of the overall situation.

In terms of space, cloud batteries are not only calculated based on the data of a single vehicle, but also based on fleet data analysis, so as to select more accurate and effective algorithms for battery evaluation. Bosch mentioned that the use of cluster intelligence is the key to faster and more comprehensive identification of automotive battery stress factors.

Cloud battery for fleet-based data analysis | Bosch

It is necessary to explain Bosch's definition of "fleet". It does not refer to a team of several cars in the traditional sense. Each single model of a brand can be counted as a fleet of cloud batteries as long as it is running on the road. The higher the sales volume of the model, the larger the "fleet".

The most important point is that cloud batteries rely mainly on "data". Dr. Markus Heyn, a member of the Bosch Group Board of Directors, once commented: "Bosch connects electric vehicle batteries to the cloud. This data-based service will greatly improve battery performance and extend its service life."

Zhu Kunxu said that all functions of the cloud battery are based on big data calculations. The principle is to collect data from the vehicle's BMS and upload it to the cloud through the T-Box. After the cloud battery gives targeted solutions, it will be sent to the ECU (Electronic Control Unit) of the OEM and the vehicle.

The data-based solution also incorporates machine learning. Bosch Cloud Service will collect all battery-related data, such as current ambient temperature and charging habits, and transmit it to the cloud in real time, and then use the cloud's machine learning algorithm to perform accurate data evaluation.

Cloud-connected batteries help optimize charging processes | Bosch

For example, for the protective charging function, the cloud service does not charge according to the charging curve planned by the BMS, but adjusts according to real-time conditions and historical habits. The battery temperature will definitely be different when the vehicle is driving on a highway and on a congested city road. When charging, if the owner sets the destination, the cloud battery can also plan the charging curve in advance and increase the current when approaching the set travel time. All measures are to protect the battery life. Data from Bosch's tests in the laboratory show that the cloud battery can effectively reduce its loss rate by 20%.

Is mobile travel its ultimate destination?

Based on the data, Bosch's cloud service has many flexible ways to handle batteries according to calculations in different modes and situations.

Electric vehicles have always had some minor pain points that consumers care about, and mileage prediction is one of them. The range of an electric vehicle under NEDC conditions is 500km, but in reality the range does not meet expectations. This is actually related to many internal and external factors. Whether the air conditioner is turned on in the car, the heating has a 50% impact on the vehicle's range; whether the vehicle is currently driving with the wind or against the wind, and the road friction coefficient will all cause a loss in range.

This is a dynamic change. Therefore, car companies do not have accurate predictions of mileage, which can be improved after the intervention of cloud services.

It is conceivable that if the solution is applied, perhaps every electric car’s dashboard or central control screen will display personalized driving tips to effectively save electricity.

If this function is optional for individual drivers, then in the field of mobile transportation such as online ride-hailing, accurate prediction of mileage can be said to be a necessity.

Cloud-based battery enables accurate mileage prediction | Bosch

For example, if the electric car has only 100km of range left, the online ride-hailing platform will definitely not assign the order to the electric car. In the case of longer journeys, since the range cannot be accurately predicted, the travel company and the driver cannot be sure whether to accept the order.

Travel companies are too conservative in their order dispatching strategies. If the range of an electric vehicle is only 100km, the platform will only dispatch orders of 70km or less. As a result, fewer vehicles are available to receive orders, which affects the consumer experience. If cloud batteries are installed on vehicles to make real-time predictions of range, the current situation can be improved. Bosch predicts that cloud batteries can increase the order rate of travel companies by 5%.

On the other hand, due to the low operating costs, travel companies and online car-hailing drivers are very welcoming to electric vehicles. In terms of electric vehicle sales, Bosch revealed to Geek Park that 70% of electric vehicles sold in the first half of 2019 were sold on China's largest online car-hailing platform. If all online car-hailing platforms are included, about 80% of new energy vehicles are used in the field of mobile travel.

"What travel companies lack is not users, but transportation capacity," Zhu Kunxu said bluntly.

Cloud batteries are more suitable for online car-hailing platforms | ZCOOL

For car companies and travel companies, cloud batteries have certain commercial value. In the future, Bosch is also considering the integration of financial insurance into the intelligent interconnection of vehicles. Bosch does not seem to have deliberately fixed this function in a certain field. If car companies want to extend the optimization of batteries to the field of warranty or insurance, it can also be used as a differentiated selling point.

As for its greater commercial value, everything will have to wait until cloud battery technology is truly mass-produced in the second half of 2020 and the first phase of results are produced before it can go further.