Must See: JLR is Giving Old Range Rover Batteries a Second Life

Land Rover is a name synonymous with luxury SUVs, but what happens to the batteries in their hybrids and plug-in hybrids once they reach the end of their road in electric vehicles? Instead of letting them collect dust, Jaguar Land Rover (JLR) has partnered with Allye Energy to create a genius solution: the Battery Energy Storage System (BESS).

Zero-Emission Power on the Go

This isn’t your average battery bank. The Allye MAX BESS takes seven used battery packs from Range Rover and Range Rover Sport PHEVs and gives them a new lease on life. These second-life batteries are simply removed from the vehicles and placed in customized racks, avoiding unnecessary processing.

Each BESS unit can store a whopping 270kWh of energy, enough to power the average UK household for almost a month. But that’s not all. It can also charge up to nine Range Rover PHEVs simultaneously.

Hello Clean Energy

The MAX BESS is a game-changer for off-grid events and remote testing. Traditionally, the automotive industry has relied on polluting diesel generators. The JLR engineering team is using the BESS to power the testing of the new Range Rover Electric, launching later this year, with zero emissions.

This switch is a big deal. A typical diesel generator burns through 16 liters of fuel per hour, generating a staggering 129.12kg of CO2 for just three hours of usage. JLR estimates that using the BESS for over 1,000 hours of testing will save more than 15,494kg of CO2 over a year – that’s the equivalent of one passenger taking seven round-trip flights from London to New York.

More Than Just Testing

The versatile BESS unit weighs less than 3.5 tons, making it perfectly portable. This allows it to be used for various applications, from providing energy storage for retailers to acting as a buffer for JLR’s network of over 3,000 retailers to support fast-charging electric vehicles where grid connections are weak.

The good news is, the BESS units won’t be exclusive to JLR. The company plans to make them commercially available for anyone to use.

Post Views: 0

#Jaguar Land Rover #Jaguar Land Rover South Africa

Posted By

Papi Mabele

Papi Mabele has a marketing background, he is a digital marketing expert with extensive experience in launching and building global brands in the emerging markets. Papi is also an avid tech writer, enthusiast and all round tech junkie. As a freelance writer and analyst he has been numerously published in Popular Mechanics (SA), GQ South Africa, Premier Magazine, Driven Magazine, Bloem News, Courant, The Weekly, Enthooze Magazine and PiE magazine amongst others.