Chevy Spark EV battery module teardown.

[@NXwilty]

My spark had a fatal error gm canada didnt want to touch 2 weeks ago. Your videos are so good! Very informative , very accurate! It gave me the confidence to drop that badboy out the car open it up and recharge lower voltage cell. I rebalance everything and my car is back to life!!! Lets hope for a long time! If you have some of those cell you won't use, im interested as i think it could help strech the lifespan of this wonderful car. Good work !

[@edsgarage2.0]

@@NXwilty great job! I'd be concerned about the out of balance cell failing again though... I've seen the models selling on eBay if that helps. Thanks for the comment!

[@NXwilty]

Indeed, i keep a close eye on it with a Bluetooth odb2. I can see 96 individual cell tension

[@edsgarage2.0]

@@NXwilty cool

[@TRYtoHELPyou]

THIS IS GREAT! Thanks for sharing. they built this battery well. A bit complex and stuffed full of stuff..... but well put together indeed.

[@edsgarage2.0]

Agreed, it's actually a pretty impressive design.

[@solarpunkstation]

IIRC from my time as a battery researcher (15-20 years ago), compressing pouch cells also leads to slightly higher capacity than an unconstrained cell. It's also more convenient for packaging, so it's a win-win unless they go too far into the spicy pillow stage and damage the containment. Again, it's been a minute, so take that with a grain of (lithium) salt.

[@edsgarage2.0]

No, I think you're right. I've read the same thing before. Something about preventing the battery's internals from separating too much prevents a loss in efficiency.... Or something. Lol

[@trevorjacobson9928]

Thank you so much for this video! 5 cells in my Spark's battery are out of balance, your work has me confident that if GM won't fix it I still have a shot. If you have 5 cells you'd be willing to sell me I'd be quite interested.

[@edsgarage2.0]

@@trevorjacobson9928 5 individual cells? Or 5 entire modules?

[@trevorjacobson9928]

@edsgarage2.0 I was hoping for just 5 cells. But turns out my battery is under warranty! Getting the whole pack swapped for free.

[@edsgarage2.0]

@@trevorjacobson9928 Awesome!

[@mpirron1]

I would sepsarate cells tabs from the copper using a bench-sharpened 3.5 inch putty knife, the compression is quite important puffy cells will eventually compromise and expose themselves to the air, you should not uncompress the cells unless necessary,

[@justthisguyyouknow666]

The cooling plates remind me of a old-school freezer wall with similar channels for the refrigerant.

[@edsgarage2.0]

I was shocked at just how thin the channels were... Pretty amazing actually.

[@mpirron1]

@@edsgarage2.0 fluid dynamics is in itself a whole scientific discipline and one of the key to unraviling the mysteries of the universe. Think about this for an exercize .... Gases are considered fluids, so air flows the same as water without respect to pressure and temperature (as will as you might say gravity I suppose), like in a vacuum.

[@mpirron1]

the frames are make of fiberglass reinforced plastic, the cooling plates are aluminum with a coolant fluid microchannel

[@edsgarage2.0]

@@mpirron1 sounds about right.... Where's your experience from?

[@mpirron1]

@@edsgarage2.0 10 years repurposing batteries for power walls and off grid solar backup in RVs, etc.andb for the last 3 years I have been fixing Chevy Volts

[@edsgarage2.0]

@@mpirron1 noice!

[@rf_dude]

Nice! Battery hacker's heaven. Seems there are 15 series cells. If this block was to be used for a 48V application, it would require 13S (typical 54V) or 14S (Telecom going to 58V) for float. Once the weak cell is identified, it could be discharged manually to 0V, then shorted to leave the remaining good cells in the string functional and intact in their nice case. Could this be viable? Or would the 0V cell expand and create pressure on the adjacent cells?

[@edsgarage2.0]

It's actually 32 total cells, 2p16s This module is the only one that has issue, so I'll find the bad cell and recycle it. As for the other modules, I'll be able to use all the cells. I wouldn't risk leaving a bad cell in a pack to be honest.

[@ericklein5097]

I guess its too late to say this (unless you haven't dissected the other modules) but tearing the cell tabs off what they are welded on (I guess you'd call it a bus bar of sorts, the U shaped pieces of copper) but those are likely welded on by an ultrasonic welder...so not something the hobbyist can redo....and trying to do resistance spot welding is going to be extremely difficult depending on the material of the tabs (often aluminum and nickel plated copper) There are some videos here on KZbin of people working on similar packs and fabricating compression style bus bars of their own but the question of resistance definitely exists....at the end of the day it will never be as good as the original ultrasonic weld to the copper pieces. Definitely restricts high discharge capabilities of any future battery you DIY. The best route for reusing these EV modules is to keep them together until you know what you plan on using them for and then do some brainstorming on the best way you can configure the modules to get your desired series connections by doing the fewest number of DIY series connections if you cannot replicate the original method of welding the cells together.

[@edsgarage2.0]

Yep, learned it the hard way 😂 But I did find a solution that worked, check out the next video in this series...

[@jpl9148]

Thanks so much for sharing this! Ok guys anybody have a better battery cell number for an upgrade in 2024 ?

[@edsgarage2.0]

Thx for the comment!

[@mpirron1]

There is no commercially available equivalent anywhere near the power density of these cells.

[@Mechanix360]

Is the Chevy spark ev batteries water-cooled?

[@edsgarage2.0]

@@Mechanix360 yep!

[@Mechanix360]

@ I'm looking at buying a 14' year spark with 65k miles. How long can these batteries go? Can I push them to past 150k?

[@edsgarage2.0]

@@Mechanix360 😬 That's hard to say... Current EVs, yeah no problem. But the Chevy spark EV unfortunately didn't have the most reliable battery. However, they're cheap and the battery is pretty easy to fix.

[@Detroitblue]

great job!

[@edsgarage2.0]

Thx!

[@mpirron1]

ultrasonic friction welded

[@wesr.e.3909]

"Only 8 volts!". However, you didn't take into consideration the CURRENT the cell can provide at that 8 volts. Just saying.

[@edsgarage2.0]

Yep, oh well... Lol

[@mpirron1]

It doesn't matter if the voltage does not provide enough electromotive force to overcome the natural resistance of human skin, about 50 volts, current cannot flow, so no amperage. Your generally safe 48 volts and below regardless of amperage rating, thats why you can grab the positive and negative posts of a 600 CCA 12v car battery and nothing will happen to you, but get a ground clamp, stinger, and electrode and you can weld steel with the same battery.

[@edsgarage2.0]

@@mpirron1 yeah he was referring to when I accidently shorted 8 volts with a screwdriver.