Oak Park’s Bollinger Motors, an electric truck company, has filed a patent for its battery pack design. The pack is suitable for heavier applications such as medium duty trucks and agricultural and construction equipment.
The scope of the patent includes the mechanical, electrical, and systems-engineering innovations.
“The heart of every EV is the battery, so it was crucial for us to develop our own battery pack in-house,” says Robert Bollinger, founder and CEO of Bollinger Motors. “Our engineering team has created a pack with high-strength structural properties, exemplary cooling features, and state-of-the-art software.”
The battery pack is composed of modules in 35 kWh strings that can be connected in series or parallel to form a variety of pack sizes and configurations. Pack sizes will include 35, 70, 105, 140, and 175 kWh and higher, with many sizes capable of 350-volt and 700-volt configurations.
The modules are connected to both sides of a symmetrical and structural I-beam. The I-beam includes channels through which cooling fluid is pumped to extract heat away from the battery modules. The I-beams also provide cross-vehicle structural support and help protect the pack from side intrusions.
The battery management system has also been developed in-house and has been created to handle any number of strings. One battery management system can be manufactured for all future battery-pack sizes and voltages. It monitors voltage, current, and temperature at multiple points within the pack and manages the system accordingly.
The system also works with other vehicle-control units to maintain optimum operating conditions that increase efficiency and extend battery life. It includes detecting and isolating faults to enable continued vehicle operation.
The battery pack was designed for safety, high energy density, and high continuous power capacity.
Bollinger Motors will manufacture battery packs for its own vehicles and plans to make them commercially available for standalone applications starting in 2021. It filed the patent on Oct. 12.
The company was founded in 2015 and recently moved its headquarters from Ferndale.
