E-Mobility Engineering 019 | In conversation: Stephen Lambert l WAE EVR l Battery case materials focus l Quality control insight l Clipper Automotive Clipper Cab digest l Optimising battery chemistries insight l Powertrain testing focus

44 May/June 2023 | E-Mobility Engineering Peter Donaldson talks to quality control technology suppliers about how they are adapting to the transition to EVs Fault finders I n a recent study of new-car quality, consumer intelligence company JD Power found that owners of battery EVs and hybrids report more problems than those of IC-engined vehicles, with BEVs averaging 240 problems per 100 vehicles and PHEVs 239, compared with 175 for IC vehicles. While more faults are to be expected in an industry gearing up for mass production of vehicles that embody complex new technologies, it is worth examining the issues and potential solutions from the perspective of quality control (QC) and inspection experts. Dominique Scheider, manager of transportation strategy and marketing for the EMEA region at Rockwell Automation, says that the more moving parts a vehicle has, the greater the potential for quality problems. Hybrids are much more complex than IC- engined vehicles, he says, but he points out that BEVs have fewer parts, so they should suffer fewer failures. However, mass production of BEVs is only about a decade old, and it is a highly innovative segment in which software changes rapidly and is sometimes updated on the fly. “These cars are often more or less rolling testing laboratories, capturing and sharing data as they are driven,” he says. “This results in unfavourable reports when comparing EV start-up quality with legacy car makers. The latter are muchmore conservative, and feature innovations with full quality control as part of their development cycle, whereas new BEVmanufacturers are detecting faults and improving quality as they go along.” Gareth Tomkinson, from Renishaw, which supplies data-driven manufacturing systems and software, says the relatively new and unproven nature of many components in EVs brings an inherently higher risk of failure. He adds that many of the methods used to process and assemble them are also new, and plants have yet to learn how to get the best out of them. “Also, manufacturers are in a race to gain an ‘early to market’ advantage, so there is a temptation to take shortcuts,” he says. “The most significant engineering challenges are in the battery and electric motor, and although they aren’t brand new technologies, their use case and performance specifications are higher than any previous commercial application at this scale.” Antoni Perera i Vernetta, engineering manager and business unit leader at Eines Vision Systems, which specialises in machine vision-based inspection Automated visual inspection and other machine vision systems are increasingly important in automotive QC (Courtesy of Eines Vision Systems)