Renault Group has signed an agreement with Airbus to research and develop new energy management systems and more energy-dense batteries.
Engineering teams from the carmaker and aerospace giant will pair up and focus on improving energy storage and reducing energy consumption for long-range EVs and “future hybrid-electric aircraft” respectively.
The cooperation agreement “will look for the best pathways” to move from current cell chemistries to all solid-state designs which could double the energy density of batteries in the 2030 timeframe, the pair said.
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The joint work will also study the full lifecycle of future batteries, from production to recyclability, “in order to prepare the industrialisation of these future battery designs while assessing their carbon footprint across their entire lifecycle”.
Renault Group’s engineering head Gilles Le Borgne said “aviation is an extremely demanding field in terms of both safety and energy consumption, and so is the car industry”.
“… Driven by the same ambition to innovate and reduce the carbon footprint, our engineering teams are exchanging with those of Airbus to converge transversal technologies that will enable both hybrid aircraft to be operated and the vehicles of tomorrow to be developed,” he added.
Airbus CTO Sabine Klauke added that “bringing together Renault Group’s experience in electric vehicles with our own track record in electric flight demonstrators will allow us to accelerate the development of the disruptive technologies required for future hybrid aircraft architectures in the 2030s and beyond”.
Airbus separately announced this week that a hydrogen-powered fuel-cell engine architecture with cryogenic storage could feature in an all-new zero-emission aircraft to enter service by 2035.
“Airbus is already well on track to design, build and demonstrate such a megawatt-class propulsion system, in under four years from now,” the company said.
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