Porsche acquires Varta lithium unit

[F1Ruaraidh]

What do we call this?

A start.....

V4Drive becomes V4Smart: Porsche acquires business unit for ultra-high-performance lithium-ion cylindrical cells from VARTA AG - Porsche Newsroom

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[chun]

What do we call this?

A start.....

V4Drive becomes V4Smart: Porsche acquires business unit for ultra-high-performance lithium-ion cylindrical cells from VARTA AG - Porsche Newsroom

These are not high voltage batteries, and they have no reserch or products in that category.
They make small batteries.

Automotive Electronics:
Mileage or Kilometer Counters, Onboard Com-
puters, Electronic Monitoring, Navigational
Equipment, Airbag Sensor and Gas Generators,
Car radios, Container temperature loggers,
Community Traffic Control Systems, Traffic
Volume Control, Traffic Chart Recorders, Taxi-
meters

The article says they used their batteries for the new 911 gts hybrid, which is a very very very small battery. So I guess they bought them to use them further for stuff like this? I don't see why they wouldn't source actually high quality modern batteries, but they, it's porsche... got to save every penny when charging 10x what other manufacturers charge for better tech.

Sounds like wasted money on a investment in old technology that will bring nothing... but we'll see. Nothing to do with EVs for sure.

If I were to make an analogy for this in the battery world, if chinese makers make EV batteries with alien technology, porsche decided to buy a company that makes batteries with sticks and stones.

 

[F1Ruaraidh]

Incorrect.

They are making lithium power cells and they were investigating ramping up into energy cells. However, they didn't want to scale from cells to modules etc so now Varta have sold the business unit.

No "cell" is high voltage by definition, they are around 4V. Once assembled into modules and then modules into packs, then there's high voltage. Energy and power are simply a trade you make at cell design time.

Porsche are looking into cylindrical cell manufacture. Once you have that capability, moving from power cells to energy cells isn't that difficult, it's more then chemistry selection, electrolyte volume and anode/cathode layer printing thicknesses on the substrates as well as tab design etc.

Your analogy is incorrect - Porsche have bought a fledgling cell manufacturing unit which they want to scale. A first step from moving away from someone else's pouch cells.

Been developing F1 and FE ESS for the last 15 years or so and have looked at Varta previously as a partner on projects so I do know which way is up here.....

 

[chun]

Incorrect.

They are making lithium power cells

And accoridng to their sell sheet for marketing, the usages in the auto industry are:
Automotive Electronics:
Mileage or Kilometer Counters, Onboard Com-
puters, Electronic Monitoring, Navigational
Equipment, Airbag Sensor and Gas Generators,
Car radios, Container temperature loggers,
Community Traffic Control Systems, Traffic
Volume Control, Traffic Chart Recorders, Taxi-
meters

As they are basically AAA batteries made with lithium. First use outside of that scope is the 911 hybrid, which they didn't even list.

Their cells have low power density, old chemistry.

But we will see if porsche can grow them. I wouldn't expect much in the next 10 years. We will likely see them in more of porsche's hybrid cars, but i wouldn't expect them in any full EV any time soon

 

[F1Ruaraidh]

Varta were developing a large format energy cell as recently as last year (2170). (shrug)

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