Fraunhofer Institute for Transportation and Infrastructure Systems IVI
The partners of the eHaul project proved at their final event that electrified mobility can also be an efficient and CO2-saving alternative in the logistics sector: they proudly presented how Europe's first fully automated battery swap station for heavy commercial vehicles can change batteries in under ten minutes. This technology can optimize grid requirements and reduce the annual CO2 emissions of a truck by around 100 tons.
The project, funded by the German Federal Ministry for Economic Affairs and Climate Action (BMWK), started in 2020 with seven partners from logistics, energy supply, hardware and software system integration, vehicle technology and science. Together, they developed the prototype of an automated battery swap station and used it as an example for the electrification of long-distance transport in the Berlin/Brandenburg area as far as Dresden. Since its opening in November 2023, the station has been used regularly by the consortium's two haulage companies. During this test phase with two electric semi-trailer trucks, interesting insights were gained into the operation of the station and the vehicles. At the same time, a business model was developed for the operation of such innovative swap stations. The project will run until December 31, 2024, but the topic of battery swapping will continue to be pursued intensively in the eHaul network even after that. The fact that two spin-offs have already emerged from the project impressively shows that research transfer is a top priority at eHaul.
Fraunhofer IVI's Monitoring and Operating Strategies group supported the project by, among other things, defining the specifications of the e-truck and exchange station, adapting the telematics concept, battery diagnostics and the technical analysis of the exchange approach. Specifically, the contribution consisted of evaluating the condition of the batteries and developing an indeterminacy model. This enables the application of a confidence interval to the results of the state estimation.
“Batteries are particularly large and expensive, especially in heavy goods vehicles. It is therefore a central task to manage this asset well and to reduce the total cost of ownership as much as possible through intelligent operating concepts. We want to make an important contribution to this by monitoring and analyzing the batteries – even beyond the eHaul project,” says Dr. Frank Steinert, Head of the Vehicle Systems department at Fraunhofer IVI, describing the importance and objectives of the project.