South Korea’s leading electric vehicle (EV) battery manufacturer LG Energy Solution Ltd (LGES) has announced the launch of its new battery management total solution (BMTS) service, called “B.around”, along with a new logo.
The move was made in response to rising safety concerns in its domestic market, in the wake of a major fire which started in a parked Mercedes-Benz EQE model in an apartment complex in the city of Incheon in early August, which spread to more than 100 nearby vehicles.
LGES last month announced it was exploring opportunities beyond battery manufacturing, to promote safer use of batteries with the launch of its battery management total system (BMTS) as a business.
The company said its BMTS uses various battery-related data to examine the battery’s condition and ensure optimal performance and safe usage, adding “what differentiates LGES’ BMTS from conventional battery management solution (BMS) services is that it will offer more advanced solutions by including comprehensive and enhanced functions ranging from safety and battery degradation diagnostics software to tailored solutions for software-defined vehicle (SDV) platforms.”
The BMTS includes advanced functions such as “measuring the voltage, current and temperature of batteries while constantly monitoring various other conditions to ensure a safe and optimized battery use experience.”
LGES confirmed B.around will offer software, hardware and complete solutions for SDVs. The software is largely divided into two categories: safety diagnostics software, which preemptively detects and alerts users of abnormal signs indicating potential future issues such as thermal events; and battery degradation diagnostics software which examines and predicts a “battery’s future capacity to promote longer and healthier use”.
The SDV platform-optimised solutions use SoC (System-on-Chip), cloud and AI computing technologies, with new technologies currently under development in collaboration with industry leaders including Qualcomm Technologies.
LGES said that its BMTS technologies “were developed using empirical data obtained by disassembling and analyzing more than 130,000 battery cells and 1,000 battery modules, with the company taking advantage of its unique capabilities and insights as a long-standing battery manufacturer. The BMS software has already been applied to more than 100,000 EVs, securing a safety detection accuracy rate of over 90%, and the battery degradation diagnosis error rate in the 1% range, top-level in the industry. The company also holds over 8,000 BMS-related patents.”
LGES said it is also actively promoting Battery-as-a-Service (BaaS) business, by utilizing its core BMTS technologies and battery lifecycle data, and is also looking to apply the B.around brand to this segment.
Brandon Kim, head of BaaS Business Development Department at LGES, said in a statement: “LGES is the only battery manufacturer to provide a management service for the battery’s entire lifecycle, including BMS solutions. Like B.around’s brand vision, our goal is to always be close by so that we can provide differentiated customer value based on the technological capabilities we have accumulated over the decades.”
