Critics of electric vehicles are rubbing their hands: ah ha! We told you so. Technology costs too much. Consumers don’t want it. Manufacturers are losing millions. Despite the pitfalls, the electric market is at a historic peak and is even flirting with the point of no return. Government decarbonization targets only require a little steering wheel… Third text in a series on the occasion of the Montreal Electric Vehicle Show, which opens Friday: the next generation of batteries will be waiting for ten more years.
The battery of the future will not see the light of day before 2035. The next generation of this key part of electric cars is not coming soon, admits in an interview the management of the Electricity Research Institute of Quebec, IREQ. This postponement until tomorrow does not prevent the Hydro-Québec innovation center from growing and reinventing itself.
The strange Tesla towers erected inside the big brown cube of IREQ in Varennes go off almost every week. Hydro-Québec transformers have been tested there since their installation in the 1970s. The state corporation’s main research center combines these “old” technologies with new equipment. Many of its offices have been renovated in recent years. The large hangars of yesterday were converted around 2015 into state-of-the-art laboratories with an artificially dry atmosphere – in order to avoid damaging the battery prototypes. Hopes were focused on the development of a so-called “all-solid” battery whose theoretical calculations suggest 1000 km of autonomy for an electric car.
Unfortunately, this long-awaited holy grail for 2025 will not leave the factory anytime soon. Or in “symbolic” form, in high-end vehicles. The general public will not see the color of this before the next decade, says Pierre-Luc Marcil, general director of the battery section of IREQ, in an interview. It is not easy to find an “energy density” that is safe, ergonomic and interesting for large industry. “We put a lot of effort into “all solid”. When we saw where the market was going, well, we reoriented certain projects,” he says.
This does not mean that IREQ is slowing down its growth. The construction of a new building has occupied Hydro-Québec since 2022 on its industrial land. Once the project is completed, the state-owned company plans to install its employees there who carry out “administrative, network management or information technology functions,” according to a spokesperson.
With an overall budget of $170 million, IREQ earned $8.8 million in 2022 by selling its patents and commercial licenses. Research adapts according to market demands, explains Pierre-Luc Marcil. “There is a change of direction that is being made. We deploy our efforts in certain places versus others. The other element is also that there is increasingly a pooling of research efforts being made. Movements within the ecosystem are taking place. But, in terms of search slowdown from a battery perspective, we don’t see it at all. »
According to his forecasts, the “all-solid” will not soon replace the place of the current so-called “lithium-ion” battery. This technology would still contain enough promise for us to concentrate the brain juice of a hundred researchers at IREQ.
More than twenty elements
Among the half a thousand employees at IREQ, there are 268 scientists, including a few dozen born abroad. This international component — present at IREQ since its beginnings — is particularly illustrated by the research director, Chisu Kim, of Korean origin. She also succeeded another new Quebecer, Karim Zaghib.
“To make a battery work,” she compares in an interview, “there are more than twenty substances that exist and are interrelated. It’s very interesting in terms of diversity. It’s just like our team that helps create new solutions. If one element doesn’t work, the entire battery no longer works. We have diversity: not only nationality, but different expertise in mechanics, organic chemistry, inorganic chemistry, to create innovative ideas. »
The one who directs the science of the research center has combined 12 years of experience in the Korean electrification industry before coming to settle in Quebec. The quality of family life here above all convinced her to choose Montérégie, she says, among other reasons.
“It was more difficult to find short-term solutions, so I thought I would focus on longer-term solutions. I decided to return to science and work as a researcher at IREQ. »
Cutting-edge research is experiencing a form of labor shortage, confirms the scientist. She estimates that the industry will need 100,000 more scientists in North America alone within a few years. The lack of brains would therefore be one of the “blocking elements” in the creation of the next generation of batteries.
This report is supported by the Local Journalism Initiative, funded by the Government of Canada.