How Fiber Lasers Support the Breakthrough of e-mobility Discussed by Matt Wallis of SPI Lasers
The growth in the electric vehicle or e-mobility market has been explosive with a rise in vehicle population from around 0.74 million to over 5.4 million in only four years. But this preludes an astronomic rise in the population to between 125 million (conservative estimate) and 225 million (aggressive estimate) according to projections from the International Energy Agency.
To support this growth a range of technological advances are going to be required to support the move from fossil-fuel powered vehicles to electric vehicles. One such technology area, which can enable this growth is fiber lasers. SPI Lasers are a global manufacturer of fiber lasers and have produced this press release to highlight how their range of Continuous Wave and Pulsed Fiber lasers can be an enabler for future demand for electric vehicles.
Recently, SPI Lasers have published an infographic on the topic, which greatly helps to simplify conveying the information in an easy to digest visual format. We spoke to Matt Wallis, Head of Marketing Communications at SPI Lasers about the infographic and how SPI Lasers can support the projected rise in electric vehicle sales. We asked Matt, “So, why did you produce an infographic”, Matt replied “We have published many infographics in the past and felt this was a great way to convey all the information in a quick and easy to digest format. We feel it’s important to explain the projected rise in electric vehicle sales and how SPI lasers will be instrumental in supporting this rise.”
The infographic starts with some of the barriers to e-mobility breakthrough, which are battery supply, electricity availability, new e-vehicles cost, lack of charging infrastructure, lack of charging speed, lack of consumer knowledge, lack of trust and problems with the used e-vehicles market. You can view the infographic for more details of these barriers, many of which can be overcome by the use of fiber lasers. If these barriers are not overcome then undoubtedly the project number of electric vehicles will not be met, this will ultimately be bad for consumers and the environment.
We then spoke to Matt about the main areas that fiber lasers deliver. Matt said, “Fiber lasers help in many ways, for manufacturers a key area is quality and repeatability. Fiber lasers produce components with absolute precision, in whatever volumes are required. Lightweighting is another important area of e-mobility, our fiber lasers can help manufacturers to use lightweight materials.
Many metals worked with are dissimilar and don’t naturally weld together (e.g. copper and aluminium), our fiber lasers master any type of dissimilar metal welding, which isn’t always possible with other techniques. The speed of operation of our fiber lasers is also unparalleled and improves production rates when compared to traditional techniques”.
The infographic also discusses a variety of ways in which fiber lasers can be beneficial in e-mobility. “There are many specific ways in which fiber lasers help, we have summarised these in a list.” explains Matt.
• Ablation and cleaning – cleaning of battery cells, edge trimming (e.g. after welding and drilling operations), ablation prior to welding and hairpin ablation
• 3D printing – 3D printing of parts and components and rapid prototyping, tools production
• Cutting – component cutting, foil cutting and stator plate cutting
• Drilling – cooling holes, general fiber laser drilling applications and metal electrodes in batteries
• Engraving and marking – night and day marking, parts information and adding serial numbers – adding serial numbers to any part of an e-mobility vehicle, adding vehicle identification numbers
• Welding – Bus bar welding, differential metal welding, lightweighting, and stator welding
Matt continued, “The above are just a few examples. The SPI fiber laser range can help in many ways and we recommend interested parties to contact us for specific advice of how we can be of help”.
To learn more about how fiber lasers will support the breakthrough of e-mobility, view the following link: https://www.spilasers.com/case-study-e-mobility/how-fiber-lasers-support-the-breakthrough-of-e-mobility.
If you would like to visit the e-mobility section of the SPI Lasers website, click https://www.spilasers.com/case-studies/e-mobility.
Original Source PRFire.com