American Battery Solutions :Building Next-Gen Battery Systems

As electric vehicles (EVs) become increasingly popular, driving range is emerging as the most important aspect. To achieve greater range, batteries must provide more energy per unit volume without compromising the design of the vehicle. The battery industry is focusing on cell and pack development that emphasizes better energy density and improved safety standards.

One company, American Battery Solutions (ABS), is an industrial and commercial battery manufacturer that engineers and develops high-quality lithiumion battery systems to meet the demanding requirements of the EV industry.

"We are a full-line battery manufacturer," says John Warner, chief customer officer of ABS. "We manufacture batteries ranging from the small, 24 to 48-volt lead-acid form factors to larger mobility propulsion batteries and stationary energy storage systems."

ABS operates a 170,000-square-foot manufacturing facility in Springboro, Ohio, with two gigawatt hours of capacity today and a 120,000-square -foot innovation center in Michigan where it performs engineering prototyping and validation testing. ABS has a 16,000-square-foot utility ESS team located outside of Boston, MA. It excels in its ability to customize solutions for different customers while keeping its core architectural designs intact. ABS also provides "off-theshelf" standardized products to meet regular demand.

One of its core products in the propulsion segment is the ProLiance T350-50, which is about the size of an automotive battery but with a flexible design specification.

It serves as the base architecture and can be grouped in series to give higher or lower energy configurations, making it suitable for a wide range of applications, such as buses, trucks, and rail. The company's Alliance family includes a low-voltage family of 24- and 48-volt batteries, and the grid energy storage division’s TeraStor offers 7.2MWh at 1,600VDC.

ABS uses the automotive advanced product quality planning (APQP) process and undergoes design verification plan and report (DVP&R), process validation plan and report (PVP&R), and production part approval process (PPAP) for all its products to ensure their products meet customer performance and quality requirements at a competitive cost. It provides highly automated alpha and beta prototypes made in the Michigan facility and works with its client to test and find the best fit before beginning mass production of the finished product.

By varying S (series) and P (parallel) cell configurations, as well as the number of modules, ABS can generate different custom types of batteries with different energy and voltages to meet the needs of high and low volume applications. This was helpful for a bus manufacturer that had a specific requirement for improving the enclosure but was not willing to change it. ABS provided 30 percent more energy into the same enclosure while meeting performance, mass, and cost requirements. This solution provided the buses with a high range capability and flexibility as they now required fewer battery packs. It led to overall reduction in weight and greater scalability.

ABS stays abreast of all industry developments to create the next generation of products. The company is in continuous talks with cell manufacturers about their new formulations to look towards solutions that will “future protect” its customers. With the aim of getting products into the market quickly to offer quick solutions, ABS works tirelessly to meet the evolving demands of the EV industry.