As autonomous vehicle fleets and robotaxis prepare for commercial deployment at scale, the industry faces an unaddressed operational challenge: traditional EV batteries were never designed for 24/7 duty cycles. Built around human driving patterns of driving, parking, resting, and overnight charging, current cell designs struggle under the continuous fast-charging, thermal buildup, and constant utilization that autonomous fleet economics demand.
To explore how advanced battery architecture can bridge this gap, EV Charging Magazine sat down with Dr. Moshiel Biton, CEO of Addionics. Dr. Biton discusses the impact of Electrolyte Motion induced Salt Inhomogeneity (EMSI), how 3D-structured current collectors reduce internal resistance and fast-charging degradation, and why unit economics for robotaxis will ultimately depend on battery utilization over pure driving range.
EV Charging Magazine: Today’s EV batteries are engineered around consumer use (overnight charge, drive, rest). How does a 24/7 robotaxi duty cycle change the physical and thermal stresses on cells versus a typical consumer EV?
Dr. Moshiel Biton: Traditional EVs benefit from human behavior: drive, park, charge, rest. A robotaxi removes much of that recovery time and repeatedly discharges, fast charges, and returns to service. That makes EMSI, Electrolyte Motion induced Salt Inhomogeneity, more important: with limited rest, salt-concentration gradients can persist, making ion transport less uniform and increasing plating and degradation risk. Addionics changes the transport architecture itself. Our Smart 3D Porous Current Collectors create additional electrolyte and ion pathways, improving salt homogeneity and current distribution. In controlled 0-100% SOC cycling at 1C charge and 1C discharge designed to expose EMSI, Addionics cells maintained substantially more stable discharge capacity than matched reference cells. For robotaxis, the target is not only range, but stable performance under continuous high utilization.
EV Charging Magazine: Frequent DC fast charging and near-continuous deployment drive heat buildup and degradation. How does Addionics’ 3D-structured current collector reduce internal resistance and thermal hotspots during rapid charge cycles?
Dr. Moshiel Biton: Fast charging is fundamentally a transport problem: if ions and electrons cannot move fast enough, local resistance, polarization, heat, and plating risk increase. Conventional current collectors are dense and impermeable, while Addionics’ porous 3D structure creates shorter ionic pathways and distributes electrochemical activity more uniformly. In recent pouch-cell testing, Addionics cells showed 26% lower internal resistance than reference cells. In published fast-charging testing, they reached 25% charge in five minutes and completed charging in just over 25 minutes, versus just under 40 minutes for reference cells, while retaining capacity better under repeated fast charging. The value is not simply more charging power, but accepting that power repeatedly with less thermal and degradation penalty.
EV Charging Magazine: For fleet operators, uptime drives revenue. From an energy-economics standpoint, why are charging speed and cycle life becoming more important than simply increasing pack size?
Dr. Moshiel Biton: For autonomous fleets, battery performance is unit economics. Every minute spent charging, cooling, or out of service reduces revenue, while early degradation drives replacement cost. Better battery performance gives operators two options: more productive hours from the same pack, or the same operating requirement with a smaller, cheaper pack. In our simplified robotaxi model, expanding the usable operating window from 50% to 70% provides 40% more usable energy. The same usable energy could theoretically come from a pack about 29% smaller. For a $50,000 robotaxi where the battery represents 35% of vehicle cost, that is roughly $5,000 per vehicle, or about $5 million across 1,000 vehicles. Battery performance is therefore part of the business model, not just a specification.
EV Charging Magazine: Fleet solutions must scale without major retooling. How adaptable is Addionics’ 3D electrode architecture to existing manufacturing lines and chemistry roadmaps (e.g., LFP, NMC, solid-state)?
Dr. Moshiel Biton: Scalability is central to our approach. Addionics changes the current collector, not the chemistry or the production system. Our copper and aluminum Smart 3D Porous Current Collectors are designed for existing electrode manufacturing and roll-to-roll processes. The structure is not fixed: we use proprietary cell modelling and AI-based design tools to tune the metal architecture for the chemistry, electrode design, loading, and application requirements. We have worked across LFP, NMC, silicon-containing anode systems and more. The goal is to improve transport inside the cell without forcing manufacturers into a chemistry change or factory reset. Innovation only matters at scale if it can enter real production lines.
EV Charging Magazine: As robotaxis scale over the next 3–5 years, what single shift in battery design or charging infrastructure is most critical to make these fleets financially sustainable?
Dr. Moshiel Biton: If I had to choose one shift, it would be from range-first to utilization-first battery design. A robotaxi cell should be built for high daily energy throughput, rapid recharge, limited rest, long life, and predictable repeated performance. Charging infrastructure must evolve too, but faster chargers alone do not solve the problem if the cell cannot repeatedly accept that power without accelerating degradation. The battery, charger, fleet software, and operating model need to be designed around the same duty cycle. The autonomous era requires batteries built around how machines work, not around the rest periods of human driving.
Key Technical Performance Highlights
Internal and third-party testing of Addionics 3D current collector cells under high-utilization conditions demonstrated:
- Cycle-Life Test: 1 Ah NMC/graphite pouch cells using Addionics current collectors reached 96% discharge-capacity retention at 580 cycles, compared to 370 cycles for standard reference cells—representing approximately 60% more cycles to the same retention point.
- Internal Resistance Test: LFP pouch cells featuring Addionics 3D current collectors demonstrated 26% lower internal resistance versus reference cells.
- High-Rate Charging Test: Addionics pouch cells achieved a lower peak temperature rise and maintained higher charge-capacity retention under rapid charging regimes than conventional reference cells.
Looking Ahead: The Future of Autonomous Energy Economics
This Q&A with Dr. Moshiel Biton underscores a critical shift in the electric vehicle ecosystem: as autonomous fleets redefine urban transport, battery development must evolve from a focus on pure driving range to continuous operating efficiency. By re-engineering the physical electrode structure with 3D porous current collectors, companies like Addionics are tackling the core thermal and degradation bottlenecks of rapid charging, offering fleet operators a viable pathway toward long-term profitability and sustainable 24/7 deployment.
