Volvo Car Group has announced their development of what they term, “A revolutionary concept for lightweight structural energy storage components that could improve the energy usage of future electrified vehicles.” Using carbon fiber and other composite materials to make batteries and supercapacitors within structural panels, Volvo hopes to offer “lighter energy storage that requires less space in the car, cost effective structure options and is eco-friendly.” This blog reported on earlier efforts by Dr. Emile Greenhalgh at Imperial College in London, working on creating energy storage with simple carbon-fiber/fiberglass/carbon-fiber sandwiches as an academic lead partner with Volvo. His work is directed toward creating structural supercapacitors, while efforts at Volvo in Sweden, led by Per-Ivar Sellergren and working with his nearly two-decade-old patents, are aimed toward crafting lightweight batteries to replace metal structures. Funded as part of a European Union research project, and concerned with improving energy storage, the effort has Volvo as its only car manufacturer. The car maker’s project …