Gerold Sluka

For over ten years, Gerold has been leading the battery development department at hofer powertrain. His responsibility includes developing various EV traction batteries for high-performance vehicles, sports and race cars; project management; and team leadership in the latest development projects for multiple renowned OEMs and Tier 1s. Additionally, his professional career is defined by active involvement in future-oriented research projects such as the D-SEe project, where the new universal fast-charging concept for electric vehicles has its roots. Here, he contributes to the consortium as the overall project manager in traction battery development, bringing his key knowledge and expertise.

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Presentation

BlueFire battery update.

This presentation will describe and provide an update on the development of a fully functional high-voltage battery. The BlueFire battery reaches extremely high C-rate and cycle stabilities. After various complex tests under real race conditions, the concept hypothesis was verified, and the system exceedded expectations. The latest results confirm the charging behaviour, showing that the battery can be charged from 0% to 80% SoC in under 90 seconds. This battery is designed for endurance races and is a perfect fit for 24h motorsport events. The prototype battery allows up to 25 minutes of race time on only one battery charge. The benefit of the technology for motorsport is that this sort of battery performance will begin to allow pit stops which in time will be of similar duration and frequency to traditional racing.