All of the latest battery design articles are listed below. This list of battery design articles refreshes and new articles will appear here on top. Click here to return to main page. if you are interested to help us write articles, do reach out to us. Email: nigel@batterydesign.net or on LinkedIn.
- GB 38031-2025 “no fire, no explosion”
The GB 38031 page sets out what the 2025 edition of China’s traction battery safety standard requires. This post asks two different questions: how would an engineering team actually go about passing it, and what have the big battery makers said publicly about … Read more - When One Cell Fails: What Its Neighbours ExperienceWhen one cell goes into thermal runaway, whether you end up with a contained event or a pack fire depends on what its neighbours experience, thermally and electrically. This post sets out the heat paths that published test work identifies, what that work … Read more
- The impact of state of charge on transport in silicon anodesQuantifying microstructure differences across Gr-SiOx anodes stopped at states of charge from 0 to 100%. Introduction Fast charging in graphite-silicon suboxide (Gr-SiOx) composite anodes depends on maintaining efficient ionic transport as the electrode evolves during lithiation. This is particularly challenging because the two … Read more
- Megawatt Charging: What 1,000 kW and 10C Mean for Cell and Pack DesignMegawatt charging for passenger cars has moved from a slide-deck number to a product. BYD describes a platform that moves energy at 1,000 kW, and in March 2026 it said a second-generation Blade battery can take up to 1,500 kW at its newest … Read more
- Large-Format BESS Cells: 314Ah to 587Ah and BeyondGrid storage cells have grown quickly. The 280Ah and 314Ah LFP prismatic cells that defined the early 2020s are being displaced by 500Ah-plus formats, with 587Ah, 628Ah and 684Ah in production or launch, and claims above 1000Ah announced [1]. The interesting engineering question … Read more
- LMR Cathodes: Lithium Manganese-Rich Cells ExplainedLithium manganese-rich (LMR) cathodes are back in the conversation because a major automaker has put dates on them. General Motors and LG Energy Solution have said they will build prismatic LMR cells at Ultium Cells, with pre-production at an LG facility by late … Read more
- Why Is the US Regulating E-Bike and Scooter Batteries?Summary for battery pack producers The US Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC) has proposed making battery safety for e-bikes, e-scooters, hoverboards and similar products a federal legal requirement. Today it is a patchwork of voluntary UL standards, retailer conditions and city rules. If … Read more
- The Single-Particle Illusion: Why SPME Fails to Predict High C-Rate BottlenecksAION Engineering INC For years, battery engineers have relied on the Single-Particle Model with Electrolyte (SPME) as the industry standard for cell simulation. SPME operates on a convenient mathematical simplification: it collapses the entire complex, porous electrode into a single representative particle. At … Read more
- Cell Energy Density Roadmap to 2035How much energy will a cell hold in 2030, or in 2035? (If you need a refresher on the two measures, see cell energy density.) Most answers to that question start from a target or a press release. This one starts from the … Read more
- Golden Ratio for Cell DesignJerry Wan’s post (right) asks whether cell design has a “golden ratio” for aspect ratio. He concludes that there isn’t a universal one, and that’s right. But the reasons are worth working through, because the best shape changes completely depending on where the … Read more
- CATL & Quibo Mobile Power Plant Ultra 2.0CATL and Quibo’s Mobile Power Plant Ultra 2.0 packs up to 2,036 kWh, a converter, EV chargers and a solar inverter into a 20-foot container. What the IAA 2026 placard discloses, what it leaves out, and how it compares.
- Diagnosing Transition-Metal CrossoverAn ICP-OES/XPS Root-Cause Workflow Investigation of Catastrophic Battery Failures walks through one forensic case study of field failures in e-bikes and e-scooters. This page covers a narrower question that sits underneath a lot of those investigations: when a cell has aged badly or … Read more
- 10-80% Charge time is falling by 1.7 minutes a YearIn 2019 the median 10-80% charge time for BEV road cars was 39 minutes. In 2026 that median has fallen to 22 minutes. The fastest quoted pack in our database is 6.5 minutes and that is the 3rd generation of CATL Shenxing pack. … Read more
- Direct Cathode RecyclingSelective Relithiation vs Pyro- and Hydrometallurgical Routes Recycling Processes and Recycling Process Engineering both mention direct recycling in passing, alongside the pyrometallurgical and hydrometallurgical routes. This post stays with direct recycling specifically, and with the step that makes it viable at all: relithiation, … Read more
- CATL TECTRANS IIThe Battery Data Behind IAA Transportation 2026 IAA Transportation 2026 ran in Hannover from 15 to 20 September, and electrification was the theme running through most of the exhibitor announcements: Volvo, DAF, MAN, Scania and SANY all had electric truck news on the … Read more
- Solid-State Fast Charging: What the Test Data Actually ShowsEvery solid-state battery announcement over the past year or so has come with a headline charge time: 15 minutes, 12 minutes, sometimes under 10. Feels like a limbo dance at a bar, getting lower and lower as we all get drunk on the … Read more
- Solid-State Production Timelines2026 OEM Claims vs. Actual Dates Every major automaker and cell maker working on solid-state batteries has, at some point, put a year on when a real customer will be able to buy a car with one inside. Those years keep moving. This … Read more
- Stack Pressure & Interfacial Resistance for Pack DesignersEvery solid-state chemistry roundup mentions that cells need “stack pressure,” usually as a single line in a spec table. What that line means for the person actually designing the pack around the cell: This gets skipped almost everywhere. This is the pack-design follow-on … Read more
- Solid-State Manufacturing & Cost EconomicsEnergy density gets the headlines, but the reason solid-state cells are still confined to pilot lines and demonstrator vehicles has as much to do with the factory as the chemistry. Building a gigafactory for a solid-state cell is not simply “the same lithium-ion … Read more
- Propane to ElectricHow to Size the Battery for Your Forklift Fleet Author: Max Khabur, Marketing Director ENEROC USA A practical guide to moving a warehouse fleet from propane to electric trucks: the benefits of switching and the four variables that determine what size battery the job requires. … Read more
- AI-Guided Materials Discovery: Bayesian Optimisation for Electrolyte FormulationChoosing a solvent blend or additive package is fundamentally a search problem: a handful of components, each at a continuous concentration, combine into a space with far more candidate formulations than anyone could test by hand. The Electrolyte Solvent Ratios and Electrolyte Additives … Read more
- Automated Robotic Pack Disassembly: What Battery Recycling Can Learn from White GoodsMost EV battery packs are disassembled by hand today: a technician discharges the pack, then works through fasteners, wiring harnesses, adhesive joints and potting compound one pack at a time. It’s slow, and it puts a person directly next to a charged pack … Read more
- Quantitative Battery Venting: A Worked ExampleThe Venting and Physics of Thermal Runaway pages describe cell venting qualitatively: gas builds up inside the cell, a burst disc or crimped vent opens once a threshold pressure is reached, and hot gas and electrolyte aerosol are ejected. This post works through … Read more
- HV Isolation & Ground Fault MonitoringAn HV battery pack’s isolation from the vehicle chassis is normally maintained by design, but a monitoring circuit still has to watch for it failing in service: a chafed wire, a component drifting out of spec, or moisture ingress can all drop the … Read more
- Grain Boundary Dendrite Growth in Solid-State ElectrolytesLithium dendrites growing through a solid electrolyte do not behave like the diffuse, roughly uniform plating seen at a liquid electrolyte interface. In a polycrystalline ceramic or a cold-pressed sulfide pellet, the microstructure itself dictates where lithium goes: dendrites overwhelmingly nucleate and propagate … Read more
- LaminationLamination bonds the separator directly to both electrode faces using heat and pressure to soften a thin adhesive coating already on the separator before the electrode stack is built. Rather than leaving the separator as a free-floating layer held in place only by … Read more
- ATI Aircraft Battery Requirements 2026ATI’s 2026 Target Matrix vs the 2021 NASA Baseline Back in 2022 we covered NASA’s targets for electrified aircraft propulsion, which were deliberately broad: a single system level specific energy figure of 400 Wh/kg, a general expectation of “1000’s of cycles”, and a … Read more
- Engineering the LFP Cathode-Electrolyte InterfaceThe reference page on LFP’s cathode-electrolyte interface covers coatings and doping as the two established levers. There is a third, newer one that deserves its own look: treating the CEI itself, or the process that forms it, as the thing being engineered. Three … Read more
- DC vs AC ArcsBattery packs run on direct current, and that single fact makes their contactors, fuses and connectors behave very differently in a fault than the AC switchgear most electricians train on. The Arcing page touches on why DC arcs are harder to break; this … Read more
- Why Battery Startups Fail: Developing Technology vs. Shipping ProductsAuthors: Stephen Fratamico, Bud Collins Over the past 25 years, battery technology has improved dramatically, yet battery startups have struggled. At Catalus Capital, we have unique and extensive insight into the industry, resulting in an informed opinion on what young battery companies must do … Read more
