About:Energy has announced the expansion of its student racing initiative, ‘Drive to Recharge’, a program that aims to educate the next generation of battery engineers, address the Global battery skills gap and support the development of 3,000 battery engineers by 2030.
Since its launch in December 2023, ‘Formula Student: Drive to Recharge’ has rapidly grown, Formula Student is one of Europe’s most established educational engineering competitions organised by the Institution of Mechanical Engineers (iMechE). Teams worldwide design, build, test, and race small-scale formula-style racing cars, powered by petrol engines or electric motors. With advancements in electric vehicle technology, many teams are now switching to fully electric.
About:Energy has since expanded this programme to include 18 teams from eight countries. In addition to Formula Student UK, the expanded program now includes sponsorships of teams competing in several other events, such as, Formula Student in Germany, FS Alpe Adria, Formula Bharat in India, MotoStudent in Spain, the Shell Eco Marathon, and the Electric Solar Vehicle Championship in India. The sponsorship provides each team with a battery cell model of their choice, cutting-edge simulation tools, and educational resources to design a battery pack for a small-scale motorsports application.
By offering access to cell models, student racing teams gain deeper insights into cell behaviour, enabling them to make well-justified design decisions to stretch the performance limits and increase the key battery pack performance metrics, such as pack energy density and power density while maintaining safety.
The tools provided by About:Energy empower university students to enhance their battery pack designs using the same advanced modelling tools employed by the world’s largest companies. This programme aims to support existing government policy on training development focussed on the battery industry.
This announcement builds on the excitement of the Formula Student competition at Silverstone which happened July 20-21, About:Energy sponsored 9 teams that showcased their innovations and competed against some of the best engineering talent globally.
About:Energy has a close history with Formula Student with several of its employees previously participating in the programme including Gavin White, CEO of About:Energy, who was Team Leader of Queen’s Formula Student team which placed as the ninth best UK team in 2018.
Gavin White, CEO of About:Energy said: “Student racing competitions embody the ‘learning-by-doing’ approach, which is crucial in addressing the shortage of skilled battery engineers in our industry. Our goal is to accelerate electrification by creating a seamless modelling experience that leads to faster and more cost-effective battery development. By equipping the next generation of engineers with these tools, we educate them on battery modelling capabilities, preparing them for future careers in the industry.”
The benefits of the program include enabling student teams to design faster, more efficient cars that are expected to place higher in both the design competition and the dynamic racing competition events. Additionally, students’ employability is enhanced as they gain experience with industry-leading modelling tools and a deeper understanding of battery systems and simulation tools.
Michal Grzyb Team Leader, Light Electric Motorcycle (LEM), Wroclaw said: “About:Energy cell model helps us in designing new batteries and optimizing them both electrically and thermally, a task that has previously been very difficult, and sometimes even impossible when relying on physical experiments.”
These student teams operate on limited budgets and tight schedules, making physical testing costly and time-consuming. About:Energy battery pack models enable virtual testing and rapid design iteration. Simulations can determine the most optimal series and parallel cell configurations or the thermal management system type and layout without needing to build physical prototypes.
As the program continues to evolve, About:Energy plans to sponsor even more teams in the future, deliver dedicated modelling workshop, and battery pack design competitions to enhance students’ proficiency with simulation tools.
Through these efforts, About:Energy seeks to cultivate a skilled next generation of engineers and foster innovation in battery development to meet the challenges of the evolving battery industry.