Consortium is Creating 'Passports' to Track Contents and Repair History of Europe's EV Batteries

Slashdot reader schwit1 shares this report from an automotive blog called The Truth About Cars: A group of German automakers, chemical concerns, and battery producers have announced the joint development of a "battery passport" designed to help government regulators trace the history of the cells. The consortium is funded by the German government and is supposed to work in tandem with new battery regulations that are being prepared by the European Union.

According to the German economic ministry, officially the Federal Ministry for Economic Affairs and Climate Action, the overarching plan is for the EU to mandate traceable hardware be installed in all batteries used in the continent by 2026. Those intended for use in electric vehicles are up first, with the passport scheme also serving to chronicle everything from the vehicle's repair history to where the power cell's raw materials were sourced.
Reuters reports that batteries "could carry a QR code linking to an online database where EV owners, businesses or regulators could access information on the battery's composition." This digital tool should also make it easier to recycle raw materials inside batteries, the government statement said, which would cut dependence on foreign suppliers which control the vast majority of resources, like lithium and nickel, essential for battery production.

At face value

[Baconsmoke]

This is an interesting concept. It could be very useful. As long as it isn't used for anything else but what they say they're using it for. Which of course is probably naïve, but we'll see.

used to lockout non dealer swaps and repairs

[Joe_Dragon]

used to lockout non dealer swaps and repairs

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[buck-yar]

Unless they put circuitry and software to do DRM, that's not possible. Even if they do, at some point no matter how much circuitry or software there will always just be a positive and negative leading to a cell.

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[Seven Spirals]

I own an EV and I wish you were right, but it's far more complicated. The batteries have CAN interfaces to monitor their capacity, temperature, and charge rates. When even the tiniest thing doesn't work, the car refuses to move or can only go 10MPH (turtle mode). Replacing the (completely proprietary and non-standard) batteries is an ordeal. In my case, it's actually possible (from a wrecked vehicle or an OEM battery from New Zealand now unavailable), but in most cases (other EVs) it's not because of what i

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[ArchieBunker]

You're not that important, seriously. The government already knows the VIN of the car.

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[SuperKendall]

You're not that important, seriously.

When data collection and compute power is cheap enough, everyone is in fact that important to governments.

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[buck-yar]

Good point. Even if you aren't important now, its important to save all your data so if by some chance someone wants to investigate you in the future, they have a large amount of data to look at. Hopefully they come to the correct conclusions and don't just make up some wild tale of treachery like they did to Jose https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]

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[Rayfield k.]

You're not that important, seriously.

If that was true they wouldn't bother to covertly collect personal data and cooperating with foreign governments to spy on everyone.

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[buck-yar]

Probably worse than that. The FBI agent that lives down the street can look up anything the NSA has on you. Lets not forget the FBI supported the fabricated by Hillary Clinton lies about Trump to get the FBI and later special counsel to launch an investigation. Based on a made up tale by Hillary, his political opponent.

https://yro.slashdot.org/story... [slashdot.org]
https://yro.slashdot.org/story... [slashdot.org]

If you "read online tech publications like Linux Journal or BoingBoing" or TOR you are an extremist according to NSA
https://y [slashdot.org]

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[Rayfield k.]

Funny, I don't feel very extreme. All I do is I play with wires, pick up trash in the woods and play with the frogs.

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[drinkypoo]

You're not important enough to spend money on

The battery pack having a QR code on it doesn't help anyone track you without physically inspecting the vehicle and scanning it

Odds are good that you won't even be able to scan it until it's been removed from the vehicle

What you're saying is true but irrelevant to this discussion

European bureaucracy at its best

[Anonymous Coward]

Track and count every molecule

If you take a walk, we'll tax your feet...

QR code, really?

[fahrbot-bot]

batteries "could carry a QR code linking to an online database

How about a simple, probably smaller, serial number that people can enter into an online database?

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[fahrbot-bot]

batteries "could carry a QR code linking to an online database

How about a simple, probably smaller, serial number that people can enter into an online database?

... and human-readable, for, say, local use.

(Which I meant to include before pressing Submit instead of Continue Editing when distracted by the phone...sigh.)

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[drinkypoo]

Perhaps they will put the number next to it. In any case we all carry around phones and those phones can have a QR scanner app, and looking at the URL (assuming they don't just put the code in the QR, and no URL at all) will generally tell you what you need to know in cases like these.

What I want is a stamped serial number. If it ain't stamped in metal, it's fucking worthless, because it won't be there by the time you need it.

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[drinkypoo]

Meds. Don't skip them.

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[jsonn]

A QR code will likely contain a/the serial number, but it can also store a lot of additional data in a machine readable form for offline use. Essentially, it can contain all the data on the spec plate. It can also contain a digital certificate, which helps to protect against at least some forms of forgery.

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[devslash0]

Either is a bad idea. QR codes can be easily forged but it's equally easy to just stick a new S/N copied from an original component onto the part. You'd need some sort a PKI cryptographic signature for this to work without fail, but then we're entering the real of DRM.

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[PPH]

As long as the stickers can be peeled off easily, they can be applied to other units. Just offer a few cents per sticker to the third world kids recycling them. And they'll get returned before the batteries are thrown into the bonfire to recover precious metals.

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[schwit1]

Counterfeit stickers coming from China in 3 2 1 ...

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[nugatory78]

Why Stickers? it would be easy enough to embed the code into the casing. Of course they could then swap the internals....

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[DontBeAMoran]

Let's just wait a few weeks, they'll add blockchain to their idea.

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[VeryFluffyBunny]

Shh!! Don't give them ideas!

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[Virtucon]

funniest thing I've heard all week..

UK has this for car chasis' already

[VeryFluffyBunny]

The UK has had a central database for car chasis serial numbers for decades so this would be applying the same idea to the batteries too. It's commonly used to identify stolen cars. It should work the same way for the batteries, I suppose.

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[drinkypoo]

Frankly what makes the most sense is just to put the VIN on the battery pack for original packs. This covers battery info and also theft tracking. There's no need for a separate number. New packs can have a different numbering scheme that makes it obvious that they're not a VIN.

Which batteries are they talking about?

[Catvid-22]

All I read in the article is that the proposal will cover EV batteries. I'm not a Tesla (or other EV) owner. But from all the videos I've seen of EV batteries, each EV battery unit is itself made out of individual cells that are themselves batteries! In the Wikipedia articles I consulted, these are so-called 18650 batteries, which look kind of like big fat AA/AAA batteries. These "cells" can be taken out of the EV battery and repurposed as standalone rechargeable batteries for, say, electric lanterns (not like a lead-acid battery, which is built as a single unit). So my question is, would the individual battery cells also be tracked or only the EV battery "pack"?