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Interview: Darryn Nowicki Electric Vehicle Director, Continental Automotive, Part I

March 12th, 2008 | Posted in: Battery, Engineering

Continental Automotive is the Chevy Volt battery pack integrator working with A123 Systems. I had the chance to interview Darren Nowicki who heads Continental’s North American Hybrid Electrical Vehicle Unit, and has integral knowledge of the Chevy Volt battery packs development.

Are you involved with the Continental team that has designed the initial prototype and future packs for the Chevy Volt?

Yes.

Is that work being done in Germany or the U.S. or both places?

The current work split is that the battery pack itself is being done by the team in Germany and then were doing all the electronic controls here in the U.S. All of the core technology for the packs right now comes out of Berlin.

Are you designing just the pack or some of the controls of how the pack may interact with the rest of the vehicle?

The controls that were developing do a few things. They’re primary function is all the hardware and software that monitors and controls the state of the battery. So it controls the state of charge, and the state of health of the battery and it will also help with the cell balance. So it will look at all the different cells, it takes very precise measurements on every single cell and then there are a series of calculations and then based on that it will do adjustments to make sure that all of the cells are balanced properly.

The electronic controls are also monitoring the overall temperature of the environment of the cells and then based on that will adjust the thermal controls, in this case a liquid cooled battery pack so well be able to know how hot the battery may be getting and provide more cooling as required.

The final piece is also to communicate to the rest of the hybrid system so that it knows how much charge is available and what it can and cannot do with that battery.

Can your system tell the car to be able to turn on the generator for example?

The total control of the hybrid system is not necessarily in the battery pack electronics. There is an overarching hybrid control module is typically what they would call it and that would take into it from our module and also information on other conditions as far as the speed and anything else thats going on with the vehicle and it will then make the decision on what it can and cannot do based on how much battery power is available.

Is that particular control module in the vehicle being made by GM?

Somebody, not us.

How is your relationship with A123 Systems arranged?

There’s a very very close working relationship. There are numerous meetings and even what we call three party meetings where we will sit, GM, Conti, and A123 are all together at the same time. Those things happen quite frequently. Obviously a lot of what were developing for us to be able to develop the controls and develop the pack we have to have a very thorough understanding of the cells from A123 and their unique chemistry and then on the other side we are also providing a lot of our knowledge of batteries and battery cells that we have learned over the years and that is being fed back into A123. Its a very collaborative effort.

Is A123’s cell design for the Volt completed and final?

I’m sure its as final as you could call it at this stage with the first prototypes. I think for where we are today thats probably a good assessment for the initial cell. There will probably have to be some level of work done once these things get out into the field and GM starts doing some much more development on the pack level. They’re (GM) going to do a whole host of tests both in the vehicle and I’m sure in they’re lab at a pack level. So once that happens I’m sure as with any automotive product there will be some iteration.

Do you feel your initial packs are performing up to the standards GM required, as per your own testing prior to delivery to GM?

Absolutely. We wouldn’t ship anything without doing some level of testing to make sure we were comfortable with the whole pack that it was functioning. Those first two have been delivered. The second pack has been delivered to Warren last week.

Are you involved with the lithium-ion packs you will be producing for Mercedes (Daimler)?

Not really thats mostly being done with our team in Germany.

Are they working with a different battery supplier than A123?

Thats correct.

Continental’s CEO stated there would be production of packs later this year, is that related to the Volt?

Thats the Mercedes.

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Posted by: Lyle

27 Responses to “Interview: Darryn Nowicki Electric Vehicle Director, Continental Automotive, Part I”

jscott1000 Says:
March 12th, 2008 at 12:13 am

More good news about the battery. Let’s hope that things continue to work well.
David L Says:
March 12th, 2008 at 12:27 am

Great interview … Thanks, Lyle!
NZDavid Says:
March 12th, 2008 at 2:06 am

Great interview, but why only one pack a month for testing?
I would have thought GM would be testing dozens in various configurations including the mules.
Jean-Charles Jacquemin Says:
March 12th, 2008 at 5:17 am

Thanks Lyle to have been able to transmit us such informations.
Being from Western Europe, I am very glad that such a collaborative effort is done on both sides of the Atlantic Ocean.
A lot of work on batteries is done in a more secretive way in European companies.

BTW the current issue of the influent magazine The Economist has a full story on the subject of batteries for electric cars. They are moderately optimist : in the case of this magazine that means good news.
Jim I Says:
March 12th, 2008 at 6:42 am

The next 31 months are going to be very exciting and very LLLLOOOOONNNNNGGGGGGGGGG.
Dave B Says:
March 12th, 2008 at 7:15 am

Great interview. I’m curious if Lyle asked any questions about the mules…
Talks Says:
March 12th, 2008 at 8:08 am

Lyle,

Sometime back Maxwell struck a deal with Continental to supply Ultracapacitors for a major automobile manufacturer. You could have asked if that was for Volt.
Adam Says:
March 12th, 2008 at 8:13 am

#5 Jim, look at this way:

31 months, ~30 days /month

~930 days left… Just 1 day at a time..

I’ll bet the batteries will improve, I don’t see how GM can be so focused on 40 miles. I’ll take what I can get though.
Grizzly Says:
March 12th, 2008 at 8:39 am

This type interview is what this site is all about. Terrific job. I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again, it goes w/o saying that the "pack" is the battery, and it’s a lot more complex than gluing a few wafers together. That said, I think Continental is up to the task. I always wondered what a "tire" company was doing manufacturing the pack, but reading their web site it appears they’ve bought out all or part of Siemens’ auto electric group, so they’re much more than just tires.

Jean-Charles #4—Do you have the Economist issue date or what is on the cover? I know someone with a subscription, and I’d like to catch that article. Thanks.
nasaman Says:
March 12th, 2008 at 8:56 am

Great interview as always, Lyle!!! It again confirms the pack will be liquid cooled (& heated?), which is reassuring.

PS: For anyone here concerned about loss of battery life due to overheating, etc, let me say we’ve got lots of satellites flying in environments of +/- 300 degs and their admittedly different chemistry batteries (Nickel-Hydrogen, which is very similar to NiMh) are capable of 20 year lifetimes. I have no doubt the A123/Conti & LG/CPI packs can last >15 years with little difficulty.
Jean-Charles Jacquemin Says:
March 12th, 2008 at 9:08 am

Grizzly #9

The title of the article is "In search of the perfect battery", pp. 22-25 in The Economist Technology Quarterly, March 8th 2008, inserted in the issue of March 8th-14th.

The nice picture at the end is of the Volt concept.
Grizzly Says:
March 12th, 2008 at 9:29 am

Thanks J-C,

I found it….avec le tigre sur la couveur!

Good thing your English is better than my French ;) .
Donan Says:
March 12th, 2008 at 10:21 am

http://www.economist.com/printedition/displaystory.cfm?story_id=10789409
Jean-Charles Jacquemin Says:
March 12th, 2008 at 11:10 am

Donan #13 : Thanks for the electronic version.

Grizzly #12 : If you don’t mind (and thanks for your compliment), it is : "avec le tigre sur la couverture". Couvreur means a guy who goes on the roofs to build them or to repair them. But Cover in English means couverture in French which in turn may be used to mean a roof.
I hope you will not take this as an offense.
Computer-codger Says:
March 12th, 2008 at 11:19 am

Donan #13,

Thanks for the link. This is the best article I’ve read that summarizes battery history and the current state of affairs in battery development.
Jon P. Says:
March 12th, 2008 at 12:56 pm

#13 Donan,

Thanks for the link.

What a great un-biased article. Straight shooting about the pros and cons of each batteries checmical buildup. Very factual as far as the history of batteries.

This was my favorite part:
"GM hopes to start mass-production of the Volt in late 2010. That is ambitious, since the Volt’s viability is dependent on the availability of a suitable battery technology. “It’s either going to be a tremendous victory, or a terrible defeat,”

Well at least somebody gets it. If GM F*cks this up the next movie will be called "Who killed GM?"

930 days
Grizzly Says:
March 12th, 2008 at 1:26 pm

J-C,

I knew I should never have attempted that. High School French was quite a while ago.
noel park Says:
March 12th, 2008 at 2:46 pm

#13 Donan:

Yeah, thanks. Really educatioal.
butters Says:
March 12th, 2008 at 4:32 pm

Question: We know that the battery pack is cooled by a recirculated chilled glycol solution, but is there a dedicated (reciprocating vapor compression) chiller for the battery pack loop, or is there a single chiller shared with the A/C loop?

It would be more efficient and elegant to have a unified chiller, but the common chilled liquid temperature may be a challenge. If the two loops can’t use the same supply temperature, then the loops could be put in series, with the colder loop first, then a variable volume waste-source reheat coil, and finally the warmer loop.

I also suggest routing the battery pack return lines through a simple radiant surface on the underside of the pack so that the liquid can be partially pre-cooled by the airflow rushing underneath the vehicle before returning to the active electric chiller.
Rashiid Amul Says:
March 12th, 2008 at 4:50 pm

#13 Donan:

That was a very interesting and educational article. Me, being the dumbest one here by far, had no idea that batteries are over 200 years old. I also though ni-cads were invented when I was a kid (1970s). Very educational indeed. Thank you for posting it.

-Rashiid
Grizzly Says:
March 12th, 2008 at 6:05 pm

Battery technology certainly hasn’t progressed as anyone would have thought. Probably because in most applications what we’ve got is sufficient.

Now, with electric vehicles on the horizon again, and gas prices where they are I’ve got to believe that we’ll see some real battery breakthroughs in the near future. There are also a lot of players in this field, and more are sure to come out of the wood work.
Rashiid Amul Says:
March 12th, 2008 at 7:12 pm

Grizzly, I have been in the computer field since high school. That would be about 25 years. I am astounded at the speed of computer technology during that time. Looking back over the last 200 years, battery technology is a real disappointment. But I agree with you. Perhaps there just wasn’t any real reason to make it better, until now. The potential EV market is a huge market as there are approx 600 million cars in the world today and that number is expected to double in the next 30 years. If we were to assume that 10% of those cars were EV, then 60 million battery packs is a reason to improve the technology.
Grizzly Says:
March 12th, 2008 at 7:33 pm

Rashiid,

Yes, and I would guess that there are more cell phones in the world than there are cars, but consumer electronics don’t evoke the passion that cars do. Can you imagine anyone being ecstatic about a doubling of Li-ion potency that would allow their cell batt to deliver 8 hours talk time instead of 4? You can recharge your cell anywhere and it sometimes only takes about 50 minutes, when it might just be sitting on a desk anyway. My guess is that the incentive to drive the technology just isn’t there.

I don’t believe this is the case with EVs, at least not in 2008 on. These are some exciting times coming and the drive for range hasn’t even hit the starting blocks.
Jeff J Says:
March 12th, 2008 at 7:55 pm

#20 Rashiid Amul , I’m sorry but that honor belongs to me !!! Just stepping off the plane in Ky ,I lost 50 IQ points. LOL #13 Donan, great link ,thanks IMO cell phones bought the R&D money to the table that pushed Battery Tech in to the 21 century , you also can’t forget NASA and the money they poured into R&D , As nasaman can explain better then I , Nasa needs for a Battery on most levels doesn’t cross over to consumer market need, ie. Northrop Grumman doesn’t mind shelling out 10 million for a battery pack that will last 30 years and operate in space conditions. Happily some of the technology does trickle down . Times have changed and as Rashiid pointed out 1.2 billion autos is a huge reason to invest in the R&D in battery technology. One can only hope that the battery can follow other sectors that have seen huge gains. It seams that moneys have started to find there way in battery tech.
Brian M Says:
March 12th, 2008 at 9:32 pm

Butters, #19:

The A/C loop is separate, and uses a refrigerant, not glycol. However, the gas engine coolant loop will surely be using a 50/50 mixture of water and ethylene glycol just like every other engine. I imagine that loop will cool the electronics and electric motor as well, but it may be too hot for the batteries (that loop can get up to 100 C or 212 F with the gas engine running on a hot day - I am not sure what the battery pack can handle).
Tagamet Says:
March 12th, 2008 at 11:02 pm

The "one day at a time" countdown initially sounded like a good idea to me, but given the timespan involved and all the inherently unknown variables between now and the Big Day, I fear being to vulnerable to getting close and then hearing,"oops, put another 30 days BACK on the clock. That would really hurt (and given the scope of the project is pretty likely). Then again, maybe things will just fall right into place and we can dance in the streeets earlier than 2010.
In any case, the time will pass like it’s in Dog Years. (g)
o.jeff Says:
March 12th, 2008 at 11:08 pm

Dear Mr. Nowicki,

Thank you for talking with Lyle and for all the information you provided. I believe the work you and your company is doing for the Volt is very important for the automotive industry and for the world. Never before has a car emerged that can both aid our national security by reducing our dependence on foreign oil and improve our environment by reducing emissions of all kinds. Please be successful–we are counting on you!