Written by James Orme Tue 9 Jul 2019

Cloud-based battery management to improve electric vehicle battery performance and reduce cell ageing

Bosch has announced a cloud-based service aimed at extending the life of electric vehicle batteries.

The German company said the cloud service — dubbed ‘Battery in the Cloud’ — will supplement vehicles’ onboard battery management systems by combining data and machine learning to slow down cell ageing. Bosch is feeding the algorithms with real-time contextual data, including ambient temperature and charging habits.

The first customer of the service is Beijing-based mobility giant DiDi, which boasts over 550 million users and tens of millions of drivers on its platform.

“Bosch is connecting electric-vehicle batteries with the cloud. Its data-based services mean we can substantially improve batteries’ performance and extend their service life,” said Dr. Markus Heyn, board member of Robert Bosch GmbH.

How does it work?

Bosch said the service counteracts stress factors that cause batteries to age, such as fast charging, excessive charge cycles and sporty driving styles.

For example, as fully-charged batteries age more quickly at high or low ambient temperatures, if a battery approaches full charge under these conditions, Battery in the Cloud will kick in to reduce charge by a few percentage points.

One of the biggest headaches blighting the electromobility industry is the highly-sensitive recharging process, which, if not managed correctly, can cause battery cells to permanently lose performance and capacity. Bosch said the battery service uses algorithms in the cloud to calculate an optimum charge curve for each individual charge, thus helping to conserve battery cells.

The same algorithms also harvest on the data lake produced by the aggregate fleet of vehicles connected to the service (Bosch is calling this “Swarm intelligence”) to identify other stress factors affecting battery life.

Finally, data uploaded to the cloud is also used for preventative maintenance. As soon as a battery fault is detected, the driver or fleet operator is notified so they can get themselves to the garage before the problem escalates.

Bosch said its service goes further than competing services, such as Advanced Charging Technologies and Greensmith, by optimising both fast and slow charging and control electricity and voltage levels during the recharging process:

“Whereas existing apps with charge timers merely allow drivers to time the recharging process so that it is carried out when demand for electricity is low, the Bosch solution goes much further, offering a specially developed recharging process as part of the company’s new battery services,” reads the press release.