Pandemic notwithstanding, electric car registrations have seen a 43% increase year on year in 2020. Battery electric vehicles (BEVs) accounted for two-thirds of new registrations. The arrival of AI has disrupted the electric vehicles ecosystem. Here, we look at the various applications of artificial intelligence in the EV pipelines.
Popular EV models like Tesla Model S 100D offer 355 miles, Hyundai Kona offers 198 miles, or MG ZS EV offer 214 miles on average. Besides range anxiety, the charging time is also a cause for concern. For example, a Tesla station takes 75 minutes for full charge. The lithium-ion batteries EVs use don’t get charged quickly like polymer batteries. To prevent damage to the battery pack, battery engineers must test an exhaustive series of charging methods to find the ones that work best.
“Batteries are highly complex components – chemically, electrically and in terms of software. But data analytics can help us to understand them better: how they are used, how they are affected by the driver, how they are impacted by other components in the vehicle,” said Rikard Vinge data scientist at Volvo
Battery technology is benefiting from the power of predictive analytics and data intelligence. The predictive maintenance facilitates high battery efficiency and operational reliability. Data science, AI, and big data tools are used to improve the performance of battery packs.
Machine Learning helps tap into the underlying potential and opportunity of battery life cycle management. The key to improving battery life lies in the data. Blending advanced electronics with IoT, data science and digital twin, Machine Learning uses the power of predictive intelligence to predict battery life, identify potential degradation/breakdown and their causes, fix delays/errors even before they arise. ML brings a layer of intelligence, after gathering and monitoring extensive data on battery life, performance, state of charge, stress from rapid acceleration and deceleration, temperature, number of charge cycles, etc. that are stored on the cloud, according to Akhil Aryan, co-founder of ION energy.
Google has collaborated with Ford to drive innovation. Ford aims to use Google’s AI, data science and analytical capabilities to improve customer experiences, accelerate the modernisation of product development, manufacturing and supply chain management, and fast track the implementation of data-driven business models.
Tesla leverages machine learning and artificial intelligence for their over-the-air fix. The engineers could use the AI system to update the software over cloud, saving users a trip to the service center. Volkswagen and Microsoft plan to do the same with the power of Azure IoT and PowerBI- that offers the customers telematics and productivity solutions.
Indian ecosystem
PURE EV, an IIT Hyderabad-incubated startup, has come up with an artificial intelligence-driven hardware to repair lithium-ion batteries of electric vehicles automatically. The researchers have developed an Artificial Neural Network (ANN)-based algorithm called ‘BaTRics Faraday’ to identify defects in batteries.
India’s first intelligent electric scooter manufacturer startup Ather Energy has detailed the basic algorithmic structure of their battery management system. “The BMS also needs to ensure consistency in performance even as the battery pack ages as part of natural degradation in cell capacity. Last but not least, the BMS also needs to compute the right SOC for display to the user,” Ather said in the blog.
Tork Motors is India’s first electric motorcycle startup. Business tycoon Ratan Tata had invested in the company a couple of years ago.
“Tork Motorcycles are powered by TIROS which stands for Tork Intuitive Response System which works as an operating system to facilitate motorcycle performance parameters, riding pattern data, and GPS data that can explain terrain irregularities that would facilitate machine learning. TIROS ensures that all the parameters are within the specified range to facilitate healthy battery conditions and performs automatic onboard diagnostics when systems undergo any errors. At any given point, TIROS ensures there are no cases of electrical accidents and even shuts off the electricals if the temperatures reach beyond specified limits. This prevents fire accidents as well as sudden failures,”said Kapil Shelke, CEO & Founder, Tork Motors.
Founded in 2019 by Manesh Jain and Angad Singi, FLO Mobility aims at automating e-scooters by controlling them without any on-field human intervention, solving electric vehicle fleet problems like optimising charge cycles, last-mile movement to match demand supply, vehicle cluttering and paving the way to build seamless micro-mobility operations.
FLO Mobility uses a feed optimisation algorithm, operator allocation algorithm, computer vision for object identification, and autonomous stack algorithms for perception, localisations, path planning, sensor fusion, etc.
The company has developed an autonomous repositioning solution for electric two-wheelers using an IOT and hardware stack consisting of cameras, sensors, sonar, edge processors and controllers.
