The vehicle batteries of the future are being developed now – and the EU’s LIBERTY project is playing a crucial role. The project is developing a battery that will give the vehicle a range of up to 500 km with ultra-fast charging of just 18 minutes. It will also have a service life of around ten years, the same as that of a vehicle with an internal combustion engine. This will make it possible, for example, to drive an electric vehicle from Graz to Munich, from Stuttgart to Brussels or from Eindhoven to Paris without having to recharge on the way.

In addition, the battery can be quickly recharged without affecting the remaining service life. This leads to improved battery safety and sustainability: In order to give the battery a second life after use in the vehicle, a second use (battery second life) is already planned for in its conception, for example as a buffer storage in a photovoltaic park or for storing the generated energy in the solar collectors of a municipal building.

LIBERTY is a strategic project for the field of electromobility funded by the Horizon 2020 programme of the European Commission and the participating industry. It has a budget of 11 million euros with a duration of 3 ½ years and is coordinated by IKERLAN S.A.. The battery specialists from VIRTUAL VEHICLE will be primarily responsible for safety-relevant topics such as mechanical cell integration, crash safety and thermal runaway analysis in close cooperation with the consortium.