Renault, Airbus to develop battery tech for cars and airplanes

Renault SA and Airbus SE are partnering to advance battery technology for next-generation cars and planes.

Engineering teams from the companies will jointly research and develop solutions on energy storage, one of the roadblocks to longer-range electric vehicles, Renault and Airbus said Wednesday. The partnership also will help Airbus develop tech linked to hybrid-electric aircraft.

The pact reflects companies’ efforts to better navigate the costly and difficult electrification shift by teaming up with peers. Renault Chief Executive Officer Luca de Meo this month presented a complex split of the automaker’s electric-vehicle and combustion-engine businesses.

“For the first time, two European leaders from different industries are sharing engineering knowledges to shape the future of hybrid-electric aircrafts,” Gilles Le Borgne, Renault’s executive vice president for engineering, said in a statement. “Aviation is an extremely demanding field in terms of both safety and energy consumption, and so is the car industry.”

The cooperation will focus on energy management optimization and battery weight improvement as Renault and Airbus seek to move from current cell chemistries to solid-state designs to double battery energy density by roughly 2030. The companies pledged to look into the entire life-cycle of future batteries including recycling to reduce their carbon footprint.