New $72 million battery testing lab near Detroit expands UL Solutions global capabilities

DETROIT — The label with the circle containing the letters "UL" in black and the word "certified" stuck on the back of countless electric appliances for more than a century may be coming to electric vehicle battery packs.

In one of the biggest investments in the company's history, UL Solutions Inc. — which traces its roots to the late 1800s as Underwriters Laboratories — opened an 89,000-square-foot battery testing lab on a 13-acre site in Auburn Hills, just north of Detroit.

The lab's mission is to test battery cells and packs with the goal of improving safety in accidents and reducing fires, when the vehicle is in use or charging, said Milan Dotlich, UL's vice president and general manager of energy and industrial automation.

"What really makes our Auburn Hills site interesting is our fire testing capabilities," Dotlich told Automotive News. "We have three test cells that can do fire and abuse testing on a scale that really no one else in North America can match. Fire marshals and other interested parties are very interested in the fire characteristics of hybrids and EV batteries and how they react under thermal runaway."

UL's tests deal with punctures, crush, temperature, thermal shock, aging and fires.

The lab is expected to be fully operational by October.

Dotlich would not say how much UL spent constructing the lab. But according to the Michigan Economic Development Corp., UL committed to a total outlay of $72.2 million and the creation of 61 jobs.

The lab is already busy. Before deciding on Detroit, UL studied the need for an independent test lab and found there would be plenty of work.

"We are really looking at what is going on in the energy transition. We have done a lot of testing for industrial applications, for storage for grid-type applications. The demand for that has never been stronger," Dotlich said.

The Detroit area testing facility is the ninth UL Solutions operates globally. The company also has labs that test batteries and electrical equipment in Germany, China, South Korea, Japan, Taiwan and Spain. All the labs share test data and help devise testing procedures. New tests will be added as battery technology evolves. UL tests all battery chemistries.

"There are specific tests for certain chemistries that need to be done," Dotlich said. "Lithium ion typically has different fire performance characteristics than solid state, and different than nickel metal hydride. We adjust based on that. We can test most types of batteries."

UL scientists and engineers likely won't be doing any road tests of EV batteries and the power electronics that make up EVs. But they sometimes will be working at customers' facilities, where batteries are manufactured, assembled and installed. Part of the lab's work, Dotlich said, will be to validate tests done by automakers and suppliers.

UL recently worked with New York City authorities, Dotlich said, to improve the safety of electric bicycles, the cause of several deadly fires. UL's Detroit lab will be testing cells used in electric bicycles and motorcycles and for the grid backup.

"The energy transition is bringing us into electrified mobility, and we are going to continue to play in the places where grid modernization is happening and distributed energy resources, such as wind power and solar power and energy storage is needed to augment what is happening on the grid," Dotlich said.

"As the nation needs more and more power, we are here to help in that transition. As we add more power to the grid, we want to make sure it is done safely."