Staying up to speed with electromobility

By Jess Crutchley

There’s never a road without a turning, as they say, and the growing trend towards cars powered by electricity is transforming our driving experience and making a giant leap towards reducing the environmental impact of mobility. Great stuff. But with electromobility at full throttle, the sophisticated technologies and production processes that make these developments possible in the first place sometimes get overlooked.

You’ve probably heard of lithium-ion (Li-ion) batteries – they’re the rechargeable ones you find in consumer electronics such as your mobile phone. Each battery is a complicated piece of equipment in its own right, housing the battery cells themselves, their electrical connections and control electronics. Today’s battery manufacturers rely on lasers in light of the high levels of precision and control they offer. But did you know that laser systems also play a big role in the production of the batteries used in battery electric vehicles (BEVs) as well as some aerospace applications?

Lasers make light work of numerous tasks, including cutting, welding, marking and heat treatment operations. Without getting too technical, laser beams can be used to cut and weld copper or aluminium foils for the battery electrodes in BEVs. The laser is then used to seal the electrodes in a case containing the electrolyte – all with a flawless weld seam. And in aerospace applications, laser heat treatment is used to harden component surfaces, protecting them from wear with little or no distortion. Take a look at the following pages for more information: https://www.laserstoday.com/2017/04/laser-applications-in-battery-production/ and https://www.spectra-physics.com/assets/client_files/files/documents/AP_29_Laser%20Process%20for%20Li-ion%20Battery.pdf

Taking place this February and organized by the Fraunhofer Institute for Laser Technology ILT in Aachen, the Lasersymposium Elektromobilität LSE delves into the wonderful world of laser technology for electromobility applications. The event will shed light on a whole range of topics, including how lasers are used in welding and production processes for batteries and electric vehicles. Fascinating! For more details, see: https://www.ilt.fraunhofer.de/en/press/press-releases/press-release-2019/press-release-2019-1-11.html

You might be wondering what this has to do with translation and content generation. It’s pretty simple: at Klein Wolf Peters, we work with a number of customers from the transport and electromobility sector, so we’re always interested to hear about, read about and attend related events to keep pace with all the latest developments affecting our customers – and all the relevant terminology. We make it our mission to understand the principles behind the technologies and trends and to put ourselves on our customers’ wavelength. This way, we can deliver cutting-edge content for international audiences that is just the ticket – and gear up for what’s down the road as well.