Innovative EV Solutions: Future Built on Experience

Intralox has provided our customers with reliably inventive solutions that solve their toughest conveyance challenges. We’re excited to provide those innovative solutions to electric vehicle (EV) battery and auto manufacturers. Looking back, the histories of Intralox and EVs have led to transformations worldwide. While EVs have transformed how we think about travel, movement, and renewable energies, Intralox has transformed conveyance technology.

See how Intralox is inventing the future of EV battery and auto conveyance technology

EV Battery and Auto Manufacturers and Intralox: A Connected Past

1971: A year of firsts. Apollo 15 was the first space mission to use the Lunar Roving Vehicle (LRV), the first manned vehicle driven on the moon. Completely electric, the LRV helped raise the profile of electric vehicles. That same year, J.M. Lapeyre founded Intralox after filing the patent for the modular plastic conveyor belt.

2006: Tesla Motors announced its intent to produce an electric vehicle with a range of 200+ miles. Sixteen years later, dozens of EV battery and auto manufacturers are designing and building new electric models, constantly pushing us closer to a world of energy efficient vehicles.

2007–2008: Intralox’s Activated Roller Belt (ARB) and Dual-Stacked Angled Roller Belt (DARB) technologies were introduced to customers across the world. These technologies including DARB S4500, DARB S4550, and ARB S7000 continue to enable future-ready, innovative solutions for many industries, including EV battery and auto manufacturing.

Our History of Transforming Movement

As we continue to push the boundaries of modern conveyance, a look back at how we got here.

Experience in Action

Intralox has built partnerships with auto and tire manufacturers with the goal of overcoming their toughest challenges. In this time, our solutions have decreased energy usage, maintenance costs, labor costs, forklift traffic, operating expenses, and green tire scrap. When paired with our innovative EV experts, these solutions make impacts for EV battery manufacturers as well.

Intralox works with EV battery manufacturers to solve for traditional challenges, such as the inclusion of elevators and returnways on their conveyors. Not only does this decrease throughput, it increases footprint, maintenance cost, and total cost of ownership. Our ARB™ and DARB™ almost eliminate the need for pallet returns, reducing conveyors and footprint by up to 50%. In addition, our no-touch technology ensures batteries are handled gently, increasing throughput by 2-3 times.

The Future of EV Battery: The Challenges

EV battery and auto manufacturers have set ambitious capacity and throughput goals for 2025–2030 and are building greenfield plants to reach them. In some cases, however, the goals are outside of what their new plants can accomplish, and some manufacturers may decide that building greenfield plants is too expensive. If so, existing lines will need to run faster to reach throughput goals.

EV battery and auto manufacturers have also committed to increasing the number of models they offer. Each model usually has multiple battery sizes, so the unique battery packs available will grow exponentially. It will be too expensive for battery makers to dedicate lines to individual SKUs. Existing lines will have to become more flexible to accommodate more SKUs as time goes on.

EV batteries are delicate, and current manufacturing standards for some parts of the battery building process are extremely high and require expensive machinery. EV battery and auto manufacturers will need to determine how to make battery cells, modules, and packs in a more fault-tolerant or “industrial” way as opposed to the techniques needed for very high-tech manufacturing, such as using semiconductors. Decreasing how delicate batteries are will also help in increasing throughput.

With demand for EV batteries higher than ever, EV battery pack manufacturers are widely differentiated and have significant differences in performance based on their cell chemistry and battery management systems. Looking into the future, winners will emerge, technologies will converge, and the market should commoditize. This will increase focus on conveyance and reducing operational costs at large.

Inventing for the Future

No matter the challenge, EV battery and auto manufacturers won’t have to face it alone. They can count on Intralox’s innovative technology, industry-specific expertise, research and development teams, and extraordinary customer support to be there right alongside them.

We’re not just planning for the future. We’re inventing it.