With the 3rd generation TWIKE, the decision had already been made in favor of the high-quality industry standard, which also improved significantly in terms of capacity in the following years. Coupled with the fact that the TWIKE 5 brought with it more demanding application requirements, the number of possible suppliers was reduced in advance to three cell suppliers. Of these three, only two suppliers were willing to look at the data sheets. One of the last two suppliers then announced that the cell favored by TWIKE would be discontinued completely, with no hope of obtaining a successor cell. “At the same time, the remaining supplier formulated further boundary conditions and also reduced the scope of the originally promised features,” the company explains. With the dependence on one battery supplier, it was not possible to move on to series production.
For this reason, the market was looked at again, with the aim of continuing to meet the targets set for high cycle stability and lifetime-friendly temperature behavior. In terms of capacity, the company would even have accepted compromises, whereas there was no room for maneuver in terms of height. “A battery that was too high would have resulted in a shift of the so-called H-point (the position of the driver’s hips, which is highly relevant for seat belt fastening and fields of vision) and thus a redesign of the entire vehicle. Raising the battery housing was and is therefore a no-go. Not the best starting conditions for a short-term replacement of one of the most important components in an electric vehicle”, as TWIKE itself is able to classify.
In the search for an alternative, a successor cell to the 18650 variant was chosen. This isbecause the pursuit of greater process reliability and a further reduction in costs created additional standards and sizes, which can also be optimally integrated into the TWIKE 5 battery box. Although this has increased the weight due to the more robust design of the individual housings , the increase in weight also lowers the overall center of gravity of the vehicle slightly. A positive aspect is the fact that the cycle and current stability according to the data sheet are considerably better than with the original variant. The energy content of more than 35 kWh even suggests a range of over 500 km.
Source: TWIKE 5 – Elektroauto-News.net
