Daimler discusses ‘organic’ battery research and development programme

02 April 2020 Tim Urquhart

(Excerpt)

Daimler is working on advanced, 'organic' electric vehicle (EV) battery technology, according to an Autocar report. The company describes the technology as 'very promising' but it will be at least 15 years before to is viable for series production in cars available to consumers. Andreas Hintennach, Mercedes' senior manager of battery research, said, "It's a very promising technology. I've already seen it working in laboratories, where the results look really good, but we don't see that it's close to being used in production technology for now. It's around 15-20 years away."

Significance: Daimler has already debuted the technology in concept form in the Mercedes-Benz Vision AVTR sport utility vehicle (SUV). These 'organic' battery chemistries use graphene-based organic cell chemistry. Graphene is a very flexible and highly conductive new material that was developed originally at Manchester University in the United Kingdom and which has an enormous number of potential applications. This new and still highly experimental form of battery chemistry dos not use any rare earths or metals, and therefore means that batteries can actually be 'composted' and are entirely recyclable. It also gets rid of the need to use rare earth materials like lithium and cobalt, which have significant issues with ethical sourcing and supply.