Job Opportunities in EV battery technology for better Career Growth

The first month of FY22 has seen the sale of 1.18 lakh units of Electric Vehicles, a threefold increase in the number of units sold. The price of fossil fuels have reached an historic high and will only continue to increase as the years progress, there is only so much petroleum that can be extracted from the Earth. This increase in demand for Electric Vehicles has also resulted in an increase in the number of career opportunities, not limited to the production of EVs. A simple search for EV job openings will throw out results from all facets of the EV ecosystem, from the OEMs that manufacture the vehicles, to the battery manufacturing companies, the grid operators, and the as yet untapped recharging ecosystem. 

 

Batteries - The electrochemical heart of the EV

 

The battery is at the heart of what sets the Electric Vehicle apart from its ICE counterparts, and the vast majority of Electric Vehicles use Lithium ion batteries. Lithium ion batteries have found such widespread acceptance due to its characteristic natures, 

 

1. Lithium is the third element in the periodic table, due to the virtue of which, it is the lightest metal in the periodic table. When the battery is charged, thanks to Lithium being the metal with the lowest weight, the Lithium ions move through the electrolyte with the smallest force. 
2. Lithium-ion has the highest usable capacity. 
3. They provide fast discharge capacity. 
4. Lithium being the most positive of all metals allows it to have the highest Electrochemical potential at -3.05V 
5. It also has a very high energy storage density at 500 Wh/kg. 
6. And it does not require any maintenance. 

 

 

Battery management systems 

 

A Lithium-ion battery pack is a collection of cells that have been connected to each other, parallel or in a series, and they require constant monitoring to ensure that the battery pack does not blow up. Typical battery management systems will ensure, 

 

1. Optimal charging and discharging. (Batteries often work in a voltage sweet spot between 3.8V and 4.2V and this system ensures that the battery does not move outside this zone)  
2. Cell balancing (to ensure that all cells in the pack are at the same voltage and at the same temperature.)
3. Dissipating heat from battery cells
4. Battery monitoring and control
5. Battery pack safety (to ensure that excess heat/voltage is removed from the battery pack) 

 

It is only because of prudent battery management systems employed by the OEMs that vehicles don’t experience catastrophic failures. Lithium ion cells cannot be heated to beyond 40c, have to be charged and discharged in a specific way - cannot be charged beyond their voltage levels. If charged/discharged incorrectly, the lithium ion battery has a tenacity to blow up. This is the primary reason why BMS exists. 

 

The one problem that is stopping mass acceptance of the Electric Vehicle is range anxiety. The best-selling E-scooters in the country have an average range of ~150 Kms, for a full charge. The best-selling EV in the US  market- the Tesla Model Y has a range of less than 400 Kms.  With Evs typically needing more than 4 hours to reach full charge, in the case of EV scooters, consumers are not keen on the idea of using their EVs for traveling longer distances. This range anxiety can be assuaged through increasing the number of electric charging stations, creating last minute connectivity infrastructure will help in lowering the apprehension that most consumers have towards Electric Vehicles. 

 

 

There is a better solution for this problem, Battery swapping. 

Which is exactly as it sounds, swapping an depleted battery for a new fully charged one. In theory, battery swapping should only take a few minutes from when an EV pulls into a charging station, pops out the old battery, slots in the new one, and leaves the station. This process is faster, cleaner, and might be even cheaper than charging the same EV at an EV charging station.  

 

EV battery swapping is feasible in India because the majority of EV users in the country are two-wheelers, which unlike four-wheelers can have easily swappable batteries. However, for battery swapping to find widespread use, there needs to be a series of physical and electrical standardization of batteries, only then can any battery swapping business model be viable. 

Alongside this, OEMs have to take into account the cooling technologies that are being used in the vehicles, such that it allows for a plug-and-play approach when it comes to battery charging. 

 

With the increase in the EV consumer market, the number of EV domain manufacturers are increasing as well. With multiple entry points into the market, engineers who want to start their career in the EV industry should have the skills that allows them to stand apart from the competition. The majority of employment opportunities for engineers in battery systems will be as design and development/validation engineers, where engineers will have to build test cases for the batteries that they are working on. Firms around the world are searching for competent engineers who can work on their R&D projects, building new battery technologies that can reduce manufacturing cost of batteries or reduce the size of battery-packs. 

Engineers can also start their career in the field of battery maintenance and also build out charging infrastructures. If the news from Hero MotoCorp and BPCL is any indication there will be a slew of electric charging stations that will be added to existing petrol stations around the country. 

 

Of course, these are only employment opportunities for engineers who only want to work on battery technology. The EV market is blooming and hiring engineers from Mechanical to Computer Science, and everyone in between. Skill-Lync has been at the forefront of providing industry-relevant courses that have been designed to ensure that our students can start their careers in the EV domain. Our Electric Vehicle courses have helped our students start their careers in companies like expleo, Cyient, TATA ELXSI, Tech Mahindra and others.

 

To further help our students get a winning advantage over the competition we are launching a brand new EV design and development program, this program has been developed in partnership with Cyient. Students who have at least one year of experience in the EEE, ECE, EIE domains can enroll in this program. 

 

Cyient, in partnership with Skill-Lync, has developed this program to help them recruit 500 embedded engineers to their growing global workforce. 

 

Your future is only a click away. 

 

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