Volvo became the first manufacturer to use the proprietary Breathe Charge technology of the British company Breathe Battery Technologies. Founded in 2019, it develops software for managing the charging of electric vehicles. In particular, it allows you to monitor the state of the battery to reduce charging time and increase the range.
Volvo expects Breathe Charge to reduce the time needed to quickly charge next-generation electric vehicles from 10 to 80% capacity by almost a third. According to the tests, the improvement was between 15 and 30% depending on the type of battery.
Breathe's software uses an adaptive approach to real-time battery management. While traditional charging is carried out in stages, taking into account a certain algorithm.
The algorithms used by Breathe take into account the state of the block to avoid the formation of a metal coating on the surface of the anode. In lithium-ion batteries, it usually consists of graphite. The appearance of a metal layer contributes to a decrease in battery capacity and an increase in internal electrical resistance. This not only affects the performance of the electric vehicle, but also accelerates the aging process of the battery.
Another side effect of lithium coating is the formation of dendrites. They resemble the roots of a plant and eventually grow and penetrate between the anode and cathode. Which leads to the death of the battery. Intelligent software will allow you to avoid this.
Software has always been important for high-voltage lithium-ion batteries with embedded control systems. As technology advances, it may become as important in battery development as the evolution of chemistry.