Renault Group and Airbus to advance research on electrification

Renault Group and Airbus’ engineering teams will partner to mature technologies related to energy storage

Renault Group and Airbus, worldwide leaders in the automotive and aerospace industries, have signed a research and development agreement that seeks to enhance synergies and transversalities to accelerate both companies’ electrification roadmaps, developing their respective products. This collaboration will support Airbus’ mature technologies associated with impending hybrid-electric aircraft and will be comprehensive at the Airbus Summit taking place on 30 November – 01 December 2022.

Main barriers to the advancement of long-range electric vehicles

As part of this collaboration, Renault Group and Airbus’ engineering teams will partner to mature technologies related to energy storage, which remains one of the main barriers to the advancement of long-range electric vehicles. The cooperation agreement will remarkably cover technology bricks related to energy management optimization and battery weight improvement and will look for the unsurpassed trails to move from current cell chemistries (advanced lithium-ion) to all solid-state designs which could two-fold the energy density of batteries in the 2030 timeframe.

The joint venture will also examine the full lifecycle of future batteries, from production to recyclability, to prepare for the industrialization of these future battery designs while evaluating their carbon footprint across their whole lifecycle.

For the first time, two European leaders from different industries are sharing engineering expertise to outline the future of hybrid-electric aircraft. Aviation is an exceptionally challenging field in terms of both safety and energy consumption, and so is the car industry, said Gilles Le Borgne, EVP, Engineering, Renault Group.

At Renault Group, its 10 years of experience in the electric vehicle value chain offers them some of the greatest feedback from the field and expertise in the performance of battery management systems, Le Borgne said.

Guided by a similar ambition to innovate and reduce the carbon footprint, its 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.

This cross-industry partnership with Renault Group will help them mature the next generation of batteries as part of Airbus’ electrification roadmap, said Sabine Klauke, Airbus Chief Technical Officer.

Net zero carbon emissions through 2050

Achieving net zero carbon emissions through 2050 is a distinctive challenge that involves cooperation across sectors. Bringing together Renault Group’s experience in electric vehicles with its record in electric flight demonstrators will allow them to accelerate the development of the disruptive technologies essential for impending hybrid aircraft architectures in the 2030s and afar. It will also foster the emergence of common technical and regulatory standards in support of the clean mobility solutions needed to achieve our climate targets, Klauke added.

Technological trends are shifting in a similar direction. Renault Group and Airbus cooperation will play a key role in bringing change to the transport environment, successfully contributing to the ambition of net-zero emissions by 2050 in the aviation and automotive sectors.