Region and Batteries for eVehicles – Serbs Developing Production of LFP Batteries, Slovenians Opening Battery Center

This week, the First Battery Conference was held in Belgrade, organized by the Slovenian company Emobility and the Serbian partner “Vozim na struju”. Top experts in their fields, from battery ecology, engineering, chemistry, recycling, production… came to the capital of Serbia and they all agreed that switching to e-mobility is what the region needed as well, as there was no other way, the organizers announced.

– It has become clear that batteries are becoming a kind of a central point for energy transition, which is necessary, even in Serbia, because Belgrade is one of the most polluted cities in the world – said the president of Emobility, Primoz Lemez, who added that the biggest success of the conference was that experts from the participating countries had connected and agreed some joint projects.

Alen Sagolj of Rimac Technology explained the engineering complexity of the battery assembly in the hyper sports car Rimac Nevera, showing that not just the battery chemistry, but also everything else related to this “monster” of 1.4 MV (around 2,000 horsepower), was extremely important for the car performances.

Dr. Gerfried Jungmeier of the research institute Joanneum in Graz, who has 30 years of experience in this field, concluded that the electric car, considering all the circumstances influencing the pollution, was much more environmentally-friendly than the car with an internal combustion engine.

When it comes to recycling, Robert Lukic, the director of Toyota Serbia, said that used batteries were so rare that it was no use disassembling them in Serbia, which is why they were returned to the factory with Toyota’s modern battery recycling facility.

Robert Dominko of the National Institute for Chemistry in Ljubljana presented one of the best world institutes for battery technology research in the world and its current projects.

According to him, the development of battery cells has only just begun. He announced that the Battery Center would be built not long after in Slovenia, where applied research for clients would be possible, and added that the funds for its construction had already been secured.

– This will be great progress in the research of batteries for the whole region and beyond – Dominko said.

An interesting lecture was held by Nemanja Mikac of ElevenES, a company from Subotica which is preparing for the production of LFP (lithium iron phosphate) batteries.

– That entails a different chemical structure of the battery, which of course has its pros and cons. However, each chemistry is good for something. This is a big thing for Serbia and we want this project in Subotica to be successful and to firmly anchor Serbia on the battery map of the world – Mikac said.

The conclusion from the conference is that we live in a region with extremely strong batteries, but that we need a bigger integration of countries in the region and state help, because the European battery industry will find it difficult to persevere in the American dumping policy which was recently adopted by Biden’s administration, and from the angle of development, we are already behind developed battery countries by around ten years.

– However, with the excellent Slovenian knowledge in chemistry, the Croatians and Rimac with the excellent engineering, the Serbian battery production tradition and natural resources, the Hungarians, who are the biggest producers of Bauer cells, and their mutual cooperation, this region could become by far the biggest and most successful battery region, at least in Europe, if not beyond – it was concluded at the first regional battery conference.

Emobility

Toyota Srbija d.o.o. Beograd

Rimac Technology d.o.o.

ElevenEs d.o.o. Subotica

Emobility Slovenia

Vozim na struju

Toyota Serbia

Rimac Technology

Joanneum Graz

National Institute for Chemistry in Ljubljana

ElevenES Subotica

Nemanja Mikać

Primož Lemež

Alen Šagolj

Robert Lukić

Robert Dominko

Gerfried Jungmeier

Rimac Nevera

Battery Center Slovenia

batteries for electric vehicles

LFP battery

production of LFP batteries in Subotica

production of Bauer cells

eMobility