Withstands impact at 120 km/h without burning or exploding the battery: CATL has introduced the Bedrock chassis for electric vehicles
CATL, the world's largest manufacturer of battery packs for electric vehicles, has officially unveiled its new Bedrock chassis. It is positioned as the first "ultra-safe skateboard chassis" that can withstand a vehicle's frontal impact with a stationary object at 120 km/h without the battery catching fire or exploding.
Here's What We Know
Bedrock is designed to maximise battery safety in a collision. The Cell-to-Chassis design integrates the battery cells into the chassis, allowing for a common structural design between the two. And by separating the chassis from the upper body of the vehicle, it can absorb up to 85 per cent of the vehicle's crash energy. According to CATL, this figure is around 60% in current counterparts.
The current speed for the C-NCAP (China New Car Assessment Programme) frontal crash safety test is 56 km/h. CATL claims that the impact energy in such a scenario is equivalent to falling from a 12-metre building. At the same time, a frontal impact at 120 km/h is equivalent to falling from a 56-metre building.
In the more severe frontal pole crash tests, the contact area is only 1/6 of the frontal impact area across the full width of the car. At 120 km/h, the impact energy per unit area of the chassis in a frontal pole impact is 21 times greater than in a full-width frontal impact at 56 km/h in the C-NCAP test.
Presentation of the CATL Bedrock chassis. Photo: CATL
According to the Bedrock chassis developers, this performance is made possible by a design feature that provides for multi-directional impact energy dissipation and a combination of high-strength steel and aluminium. Additional protection of battery cells is provided by a highly plastic energy-absorbing film, high voltage circuit shutdown within 0.01 seconds of impact and other innovative solutions.
The first user of the Bedrock chassis was the Chinese carmaker AVATR. The latter is currently owned by Changan and is being developed with the support of CATL and Huawei.
Source: CATL