In the middle of last year, a collaboration between BMW and the American startup company was launched Our Next Energywhich is behind the Gemini battery technology.
The goal was to achieve a range of over 600 miles, or just under 966 kilometers.
Now a BMW iX equipped with a Gemini battery has achieved a range of a whopping 608 miles, equivalent to 978 kilometers, on the WLTP cycle.
This is around 50 percent more than a BMW iX gets on a charge in normal cases.
Two battery types
What distinguishes the Gemini battery from Our Next Energy from traditional electric car batteries is that it uses two separate battery types in parallel.
One part of the battery pack consists of traditional LFP cells, which have normal energy density but are durable and can power the car on journeys of up to 24 miles.
The second part consists of anode-free high-density cells that can hold significantly more energy in the same volume and provide for the rest of the range of 96 miles.
The LFP cells account for about a third of the total number of cells in the battery, while the anode-less ones account for the rest.
A battery as a range extender
The crux is that the anode-free batteries cannot withstand the rapid fluctuations in discharge that come from normal driving at different speeds.
The ingenious thing about the system from Our Next Energy is that you basically use the anode-less battery as a range extender.
The LFP battery thus manages the propulsion of the car, and can be charged with a relatively even power from the anode-free battery during longer journeys.
Also better for the environment
According to One Next Energy, battery packs of this type also have advantages from an environmental point of view,
Electric cars are often criticized because their batteries contain large amounts of rare earth metals that are both expensive and environmentally unfriendly to extract.
A battery pack containing both LFP cells and anode-free cells should be able to contain around 20 percent less lithium, 60 percent less graphite, 75 percent less nickel and 100 percent less cobalt.
Not tested outside the world
A range of almost 100 miles in a standard BMW iX sounds a little unbelievable – especially with a battery with a significantly less noble content.
So far, however, One Next Energy’s BMW iX has only performed this in a lab environment and not out on the roads.
However, the company has previously demonstrated that their technology also works on the road with a Tesla Model S equipped with a Gemini battery, which got around 1,200 kilometers on a single charge.
Advances of this type, which offer longer range for the same size of battery, open up not only electric cars that go further on a charge, but also smaller, lighter electric cars.
This will be welcomed by many as the large electric cars are not only expensive, but also pose a traffic hazard due to their weight according to, among other things, Euro NCAP.
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