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Post# of 4081
Interview with Prof. Han Jianfang, ZJMY CTO
https://youtu.be/TZMO89w2Dvw
This interview took place in an office of Golden Bell Battery Company in Anyang, Henan province on September 17, 2018. Professor Han does not work for Golden Bell.
0:04, Q: Professor, Han, I'm very fortunate to meet you here today. I have read your papers but I don't understand them because I'm on in your field of research. I remember that your paper talking about cold machine technology. What is the essence of this technology?
0:29, A: Cold machine technology is basic difference between fuel engine vehicle and electric vehicle. Fuel engine must use heat, heat circulation to generate powder and action. EV, on the other hand, use electric motor, so theoretically it is not hot machine, only because small amount of heat is generated due to friction. In the early stage of EV development, including Tesla, the heat generated from friction, has been deemed as necessary and normal. When heat is accumulated to certain level, it has to be treated to dissipate the heat so the machine can function normally. From this point of view, there is no difference between fuel engine and EV, both are heat generating body. This is something the EV industry does not pay much attention to. How to let the electric motor deliver energy without producing heat is a goal. How to achieve this goal, minimize the heat from friction, only thing can be done is increasing its energy transformation efficiency. Right now, fuel efficiency can reach over 30% in fuel engine, maximally 40%. So the heat generated in the process has to be removed by forced water circulation. This is how hot engine works. In electric vehicle, the core part is electric motor. The heat from it derives from two sources: one, friction of bearing produces small amount of heat, another source is from motor when electric power is transformed into revolving action power, there is a loss of energy. Generally the transformation efficiency in EV is about 90%, much better than fuel engine. Our understanding is that permanent magnet synchronous motor, the efficiency can be up to 95%. But there is still 5% loss due to dissipated heat. If this heat remains, it will burn electric motor. We are focusing this five percent difference. make a big deal about it. Through our optimized design, our motor efficiency at the best performance can reach 98.2%. This is the best result as reported in literature. At the same time, we manage the efficiency in the average working range from low speed to high speed. Tesla's motor, the average efficiency within working range from low speed to high speed, is about 80%. BYD and Geely, in China, has no much difference from Tesla in their power system. about 80%. Because Tesla motors are from China. This efficiency, is deemed as a constant and normal. But we believe it is not normal, still has room for improvement. Our average efficiency is also increased, up to 94.13%. This is about 14% higher than industry norm. So through our optimization effort, the heat generation is minimized, almost no heat at all. When you touch the motor, feel slightly warmer than normal temperature. Under extreme working condition with high power output. the temperature will be 30-40 degree higher than normal temperature. So through surface heat dissipation, electric motor will be protected from overheat, so there is no need for a water cooling system. So our system reaches the goal of cold machine by minimizing heat generation and avoiding cooling system, and save energy for this additional energy consumption. In most of EV, this energy consumption takes away about 5-8% of energy. We eliminate the energy loss from this.
7:44, Q: This does not include heating in winter and AC in summer time?
8:00, A: The heat generated from motor friction and collected by water circulation is very little, not enough to heat up the car during the winter. So heating and AC in EV uses different mechanism from fuel engine. The efficiency loss is about 20% difference.
9:09, Q: I remember that our car has better safety than the most popular cars such as Tesla. Tesla car's accident could cause total car wreckage and death. How we achieve the safety through our technology?
9:30, A: Several aspects. First of all, we use battery swapping model. Swapping model is mainly for business operation, This type of vehicles requires sometime two shifts a day, drive takes rest but the vehicle is still running. The charging pole method requires several hours, which will affect the business bottom line, so the drivers are not happy with that. Providing fast battery swapping will increase the business efficiency of operators. This approach, also greatly improve battery safety our battery is separated from vehicle body, battery charging in a separated location under professional care, is much safer. Any risk of overheating, or fire will be eliminated. This part of risk takes about over fifty percent of all fire accidents during battery charging time. By doing this we already eliminate 50% of safety risk.
11:17, Q: By using this battery swapping technology, 50% of safety risk is eliminated?
11:29, A: Yes. In swapping station, trained professionals are on duty, things like over-charging will not happen under the supervision. Any abnormal situation happens, power source will be automatically cut off. So the safety under professional care is about three to five times better than blind charging, ie. charging without human care. In the best scenario this risk could be virtually eliminated. In addition to our motor heat elimination and swapping technology, our battery PACK has some specially technology, and our whole vehicle assembly technology, including battery storage location under the rear end will eliminate the accidental touch with ground by about 80%. Tesla vehicle, its battery is a big p=flat bed under the bottom, about two square meters, every point could cause heat out of control because of collision. When the car is running, a rock hit the bottom and bounce onto the bottom of battery. Our battery is only about 0.5 square meter, one quarter of Tesla's. Besides, our swappable battery is enclosed into a case. So our car during drive, the probability of accident caused by collision and random hit by rock, under testing condition, reduced by 80%, comparing to Tesla vehicle. Therefore, because of the whole body design, the risk is reduced during charging, and during running. In addition, we have our special technology in battery PACK technology which is out patent and we can't elaborate here. Combining all these technology, our car has fire risk about 10% of Tesla vehicle.
16:10, Q: So the risk is greatly reduced under both charging and running conditions?
16:20, A: Yes.
16:23, Q: Yesterday I had a look at the prototype of swapping model. My concern is that different cars have different battery configuration and installation method, is the swapping station to be made to suit all types of batteries and installation?
16:52, A: From design point of view, it is flexible to two or three battery configuration, could be n, but the n can not be too big. Because our system is artificially intelligent, it can adjust itself for different cars. But this type of design will be very expensive, and it has to prepare many types of batteries, will will require high complexity of swapping station. By this is not our direction, our goal is to realize standardization on swappable vehicles, i.e. standard design of battery and its docking, battery casing, swapping platform, and battery shelf. This will greatly improve the working efficiency of swapping station. But who will be the leading one setting the standard, is whoever can do this best. We are confident to achieve this goal.
19:10, Q: So we are confident that we will become the industry leader and standard setter?
19:15, A: Yes we are confident that we will be the leader in this field, main player, standard setter.
19:25, Q: If we achieve this goal, we are going to change the ecology in the whole EV industry. The EV producers have to adopt your standard.
19:39, A: Yes. Our patents not only cover swapping station, our patents cover also battery docking system on the vehicle, including battery box or casing. All these will be standardized. All the EV produced in the future, only after adopting our system, can use our swapping system.
20:14, Q: The system we are building right now, is suitable for what types of cars?
20:22, A: We are targeting A and B class cars, or compact to mid-class cars, including SUV in the same class. Does not limit to models.
21:01, Q: I saw we are working on BAIC EU300.
21:20, A: Our swapping model takes totally different route from charging pole. Our approach will have huge impact on the charging pole and charging at home markets. We will much more value-added services, including battery leasing. The battery could be separated from car body, so that the car price in the future could be much cheaper.
22:13, A: So it is like I only buy a car without battery?
22:15, Yes. A bare car body. This will drastically reduce the cost of car and general public will be able to buy a car. So this model will not only bring charging convenience, but also whole business model. It will have revolutionary impact on the current EV industry as a whole.
22:37, Q: In other word, as a consumer, I only buy the battery-less car, without any concern of battery.
22:40, A: Yes. When a consumer buys a car without battery, the cost will be almost the same as fuel engine car. Secondly, You don't have any concern of drive range. Because we are continuing developing high range EV, under swapping model, range can reach 500 km. Thirdly, the buyer will not longer concern about the shelf life of battery. The battery does not belong to me, so I don't have to care about it. The user only pay battery fee when he use it. The fee will include leasing fee. With our technology system, we have our cost calculation, including swapping service fee, electric fee, battery leasing fee, and battery aging fee. With our swapping station professional care, battery shelf life can be more than doubled. The battery shelf life under professional car could be two to three times longer than ones without care. Right now, we can achieve the goal of two times of battery life with care. With more careful work, like replacing bad cells with good ones, we can reach three times of battery life. Our battery maintenance fee is very low. so that car owner can accept it. The significance is not only battery swapping, but also increasing battery life and reducing battery cost. The cost saving in our model is half less than you buy the whole car and replacing battery years after.
26:49, Q: We are building a standard size right now. Do we have other sizes, bigger and smaller than this one?
26:58, A: Yes. We have to build swapping station suitable for logistic vehicles, commuting buses. They will be different from what we are building right now. For right now we are considering standard size for passenger vehicles.
27:30, Q: So we are concentrating on taxi market?
27:40, A: Why we focus on taxi market? Because taxi car is the most operation intensive among all the vehicles. In other words, to replace fuel engine, the most difficult to overcome is taxi. If you can overcome problems in taxi market, other areas of fuel engine will be taken care of easily. So we choose taxi for our breakthrough. This doesn't mean that our technology has no value in private cars and government cars. It has advantages including battery life extension through professional care, decrease cost of EV life time cost, and convenience. This will benefit every vehicle owner. This does not mean that we are taking over the whole market. because the market always has fine classification. In the future, the plugin charging mode will have its place in places like America because individual family home, not like in China high rise buildings are everywhere. But swapping mode will bring much more benefit for the car owners which can't be shared by plugin charging customers.
30:08, Q: So in your opinion, the swapping mode will be the main stream in China?
30:16, A: Yes. It will play a major role. But we are not exclude the co-existence of plugin charging mode.
30:30, Q: So my understanding is that taxi EV requires swapping station, swapping station becomes a limiting factor for EV taxi market development. Am I right?
30:55, A: We have been working on the swapping mode for about eight to nine years. Our technical team have gradually completed and upgraded our technology, right now we have our fourth generation technology. We could have the fifth generation technology in the future. We have been focusing our effort to taking over the best market. The best market is the service vehicle market. Through the success in this market it will show to the masses that the swapping mode will the choice to the public. This process is interactive. So developing service vehicle market, then many benefits will be demonstrated to owners, manufacturers, battery makers, and related businesses. All of them will get benefit. Then who is going to reject better things? So the market will follow the best.
32:50, Q: What is your view of EV development in China?
32:57, A: I believe that China is the best soil for EV development. First because the government has strong determination. Secondly, China has the most complete industry chain, no matter electric motor, electric control, battery, business operation and coordination. It will be very difficult to start a new system in other places.
33:38, Q: In the future what kind of role ZJMY will play in this process?
33:50, A: EV industry, as an uprising industry, is going to replace conventional vehicles. Traditional vehicle industry, is a humongous industry ecology, is a trillion dollar industry in the whole world. Both the production and application are huge, having impact on all walks of life. How to make a change in the industry, we believe, ZJMY, could take a high point one of sub-categories, that it battery swapping station systems. This subcategory itself, is very big. For example, PetroChina and Sinopec are huge systems, the electric vehicle industry in the future also should have compatible size of swapping station systems. In this system, I believe ZJMY will have hope to play an important role and becomes a leader for the industry.
3:58, Han Zhiming: Definitely. Without any problem.