With over 1.4 million Electric Vehicles on the road in 2024 and a large push from government and vehicle manufacturers for drivers to switch over to EV’s, service centres have long been wondering how they will be able to service this ‘new’ vehicle type. For servicing and support, will EV drivers need to visit OEM service centres or will independent workshops be able to continue to support their customers as they make the switch to a full electric vehicle. 

Understanding how EV’s work 

Gone is the combustion engine and in its place is usually, a modular battery pack. An EV’s battery pack is not one single battery, it actually consists of lots of smaller batteries (modules) that are grouped together, providing the vehicle with the voltage and capacity to power the vehicle. From a servicing workshops perspectiveThe main advantage of a modular designis that it makes maintenance possible.  

What Challenges do Modular EV Packs Present? 

The main challenge faced is that all of the individual modules need to be in sync and working together. Over time, each module will start to become imbalanced and perform differently compared to the other modules around it. This is caused by a variety of different factors such as the amount of times they’ve been charged, the temperatures that they have had to face and their usage patterns. All these factors can deteriorate module health, causing performance issues for the whole pack. For the customer this could mean reduced range and longer charging times.  

Diagnosing faulty modules requires advanced diagnostics and support as each module needs to be individually tested and maintained, this is not possible with a conventional battery testing equipment.  

How to turn EV challenges into service opportunities 

To be able to offer EV servicing workshops need specialist equipment. Due to EV’s being relatively new compared to other vehicle types, tools and processes haven’t been standardised resulting in EV maintenance equipment being difficult to obtain in the aftermarket. Until now. Using Midtronics advanced technologies and their connections with vehicle manufacturers we now offer an advanced EV servicing tool, xMB-9640 Module Balancer. By implementing xMB-9640 workshops  are able to provide EV module balancing and maintenance services for EV customers.  

xMB-9640 has been designed to bring EV Module Maintenance to the aftermarket with powerful diagnostic features whilst having an easy to use and understand user interface. xMB-9640 has 3 main uses… 

1, Module Balancing 
2, EV Pack Discharging 
3, Module Diagnostics 

The module balancing application will test each module and give an overview of each module and state of health. If one of the modules requires servicing the  xMB -9640 willbring that module back up to match the state of charge of the other modules in the pack.  

The second application of xMB -9640 is for EV transporting and for further maintenance. Due to the potential volatility of EV packs when transporting them, shipping companies require all electric vehicles to be discharged before transport. xMB-9640 allows the user to discharge the pack to a user selectable voltage and can produce a work report to go with the paperwork. 

The third application is EV Module diagnostics. xMB-9640  can produce afull report into the individual modules and full pack’s state of health. Individual module performance can be viewed directly on xMB’s clear  display. 

Future EV Challenges and How to get ahead 

Manufacturers are constantly innovating and producing new features that can sometimes make maintenance challenging. We are committed to supporting our customers to overcome these challenges by offering high specification products with qulaity training and ongoing technical support. Meanwhile keep up to date with everything EV bysigning up to our ChargedUP EV newsletter.