“Imagine an Internet of Electricity” – NAWA Technologies Promises a Quantum Leap in Battery Performance

Dr. Pascal Boulanger spent 20 years at the CEA (French Atomic and Alternative Energies Organisation), working across a variety of fields including nuclear energy, solar photovoltaics and smart grids. In 2009, he joined one of the first R&D teams in Europe working on new nanocarbon structures, carbon nanotubes and graphene.

Within two years the team of researchers had shown that nanomaterials could be produced on a large scale and at a competitive cost.

In 2013 NAWA Technologies was born, spun off from the CEA; creating five, then fifteen and twenty five jobs in the first three years. It now employs forty staff.

The company, based in Aix-en-Provence, near to Marseille in France, specialises in nano-based clean technologies, especially for energy storage and composite applications. All of its products are based on one patented technology: vertically aligned carbon nanotubes (VACNT).

We talked to CTO and founder Boulanger and Ulrik Grape, NAWA’s CEO.

“An ultracapacitor is like a sprinter. It can be charged and discharged very fast but it cannot store much energy. A lithium-ion battery is like a marathon runner, slower to charge and discharge but capable of storing a lot of energy,” they tell Auto Futures.

“What NAWA Technologies has done is create an ultracapacitor that is ‘in between’ the two, capable of offering up to ten times more power and three times more energy than existing ultracapacitors, bridging the gap to lithium-ion. These ultracapacitors, called NAWACap, can charge in seconds (versus minutes and hours for lithium-ion) and have a long lifetime – over one million cycles (versus 3,000 for lithium-ion).

“It can be applied to the main battery chemistries of today and tomorrow, such as lithium-ion, and the results are that we believe we can improve battery power by a factor of 10, energy density by up to three, lifecycle by up to five and reduce charging time down to minutes instead of hours.”

They add: “Initial results with our partners show that an advanced lithium-ion battery with an Ultra Fast Carbon Electrode could double the kWh stored, meaning EVs could draw on more power and thereby more efficient way of using the energy to go further, or faster, making 800-1,000km ranges commonplace in a mass market EV. Charging time could be reduced to as little as five minutes for an 80 per cent charge, while battery lifecycle could be improved by a factor of up to five.”

In December, 2020, NAWA received the prestigious French Automobile Awards Technology of the Year prize for its carbon battery technology.

Racing Ahead

So far, so scientific. To demonstrate the potential of NAWA’s technology, it has developed  NAWA Racer, an electric motorbike concept that was revealed at CES 2020. Powered by a world-first ‘hybrid’ battery system, the motorbike combines the company’s next-gen ultracapacitors with lithium-ion to offer a range of 150km. 

“Marking the first time an electric motorbike has been designed with ultracapacitors, the hybrid system offers the best of both worlds: ultra-fast charging, incredible energy recovery and high-power output thanks to the ultracapacitors, and a long continuous range thanks to better lithium-ion management,” say Grape and Boulanger.

NAWA Racer was inspired by the original café racers of London in the 1960s, which were lightweight, powerful bikes used for short, quick rides between cafés.

“This combination has many advantages including reducing the size of the lithium battery and increasing its lifetime, reducing the environmental impact of the bike (less raw material, less recycling needs) while increasing the riding pleasure with better acceleration whatever the state of charge of the battery (SoC). In other automotive batteries in use today, performance is limited by the SoC; if it is low, the vehicle will not be able to accelerate anymore.”

Re-using more than 80 percent of the energy captured from regenerative braking, NAWA Racer uses a much smaller lithium-ion battery than would otherwise be possible. At just 9 kWh, it’s around half the size of a conventional electric sports bike’s battery.

“The hybrid battery concept is completely modular and applicable to any electric vehicle, from a small bike to a large car – and beyond. The efficiency improvements can reduce the size of the lithium-ion battery by up to half, or extend the range by up to double – or a combination in between depending on use,” they explain.

Expansion Plans

In February 2020, NAWA announced it had raised raised a total of €13 million in funding. New investors include the French investment bank, Bpifrance. The investment has allowed NAWA to install next-generation production line equipment in its facility in Provence.

Laure Michel, Investment Director at Bpifrance, stated: “We are delighted to participate in the NAWA Technologies adventure. The electrodes developed by the company set a new standard for batteries and ultracapacitors. Their technical, sustainable and economic characteristics offer huge energy storage opportunities to the largest markets in the world: communications, transport and the network.”

In November 2020, the company unveiled NAWA America – a new U.S-based unit focused on industrialising advanced composite materials. It also announced a research collaboration and license agreement with the University of Dayton Research Institute (UDRI) and a license agreement with MIT.

“The objective for NAWA America is simple: combine the expertise that exists within the Dayton operation with that of NAWA Technologies, harnessing the huge potential of our relationships and agreements with the University of Dayton Research Institute (UDRI) and Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), in addition to our relationship already existing with CEA. This will allow us to finalize development of NAWAStitch® and ramp-up to volume production in 2021,” they explain.

Imagine an ‘Internet of Electricity’ where all battery vehicles are connected.

Looking further ahead, we asked Boulanger and Grape for their thoughts on what EV charging will be like by the year 2030. They believe the next challenge is not how to improve the range of an EV but the ability of the battery to be recharged rapidly.

“If we really want to take advantage of the benefits of electricity, we need enabling technologies that allow cars and all other vehicles to be recharged quickly everywhere and at any time. This needs to be based on two technological foundations: an electricity grid that is reliable and powered by renewable energy – which will be the case in many countries – and battery technology that is fast-charging, has a long lifetime and lower impact on the environment.”

“It is completely contradictory that today 80 percent of consumers want cars with more than 400 kms of range while the same proportion drive less than 49 km per day (this figure is from a recent study by energy provider E.ON),” they add.

“However, imagine a future where you can charge your car when you stop at traffic lights in cities or recharge when you are driving on the motorway – or connecting electric cars to allow energy to transfer between them. For instance, recharging your scooter with your car.”

“NAWA’s Ultra Fast Electrode technology can make a huge impact on charging time – but our technology has huge potential to go even further if we can imagine an ‘Internet of Electricity’ where all battery vehicles are connected. That would enable a real energy transition by 2030,” they conclude.