Why we built a battery software toolchain
Dr Yan Zhao
Batteries are a critical enabler of an electrified, sustainable future. From electric vehicles and grid storage to portable electronics; the performance, safety, and cost of battery-powered products hinges on the capabilities of their batteries. Yet the tools we use to design them remain fragmented, manual, and opaque.
Since our founding in 2019, we’ve focused on helping companies do more with the power they have. We started with a critical dimension of battery performance - charging. Through our first product, Breathe Charge, we’ve improved the charging experience across 28 models of OPPO and OnePlus devices, and most recently, Volvo Cars’ ES90.
Breathe and Volvo Cars are together improving the consistency of end-user charging experiences. ES90 drivers will notice 60% more consistency between the fastest and slowest time to charge.
But charging is just one part of the story. As the role of batteries expands across industries, so too must our approach to making them better. It’s no longer enough to focus solely on charging. We must deliver batteries that are safer, more cost-effifcient, higher performing, and easier to design and manufacture. And a development process with reduced risk, improved flexibility and acclerated timelines.
Achieving this requires looking upstream: to the architecture of the cell itself. From electrode structure and cell geometry, to chemistry selection and thermal dynamics, meaningful improvements depend on influencing how batteries are conceived and built, not just how they are used.
That’s why we’ve set out to build a new kind of software toolchain. One that supports battery design from first principles and enables a more agile, collaborative, and simulation-driven future for the industry.
The state of the battery industry: fragmented and rigid
Today, battery innovation is constrained by a heavily centralised model. Cell manufacturers dominate both cell design and production, leaving OEMs with limited visibility or influence. This worked when batteries were small, inexpensive components. But now? Batteries are the single most valuable component in an EV, and performance at the system level - vehicle range, charging speed, safety - depends fundamentally on getting the cell design right.
OEMs know better than anyone what their battery needs to do in the real world. But they don’t have the tools - or ability - to meaningfully influence cell design or to design a cell with all the relevant system context. The result? High costs, long development cycles, and suboptimal outcomes.
We believe this centralised model is on the brink of disruption.
Just as semiconductors gave rise to the foundry model - where companies like TSMC manufacture chips designed by firms with the best simulation tools - we believe the battery industry is heading in the same direction. A fragmented landscape of pure-play cell manufacturers will emerge. And in this world, cell design power shifts to whoever holds the best software.
The foundry model in semiconductors
Why battery design automation matters
Imagine a world where every battery engineer can simulate, iterate, and optimise cell and system designs at their desk, without having to send prototypes to a lab and wait weeks for results from empirical tests. That world already exists in electronics.
Electronic design automation transformed the semiconductor industry by integrating workflows, reducing risk, and enabling rapid, reliable innovation. Battery design automation can do the same for our industry.
Yet, today’s battery design workflows are manual, siloed, and inefficient. Here's how battery design automation compares to the mature electronics design automation toolchains:
Current state of electronic design industry vs battery industry
It’s no surprise that battery development is slow, expensive, and risky. We want to make it better and different.
Why there’s no battery design automation today
So why hasn’t battery design automation already happened?
One reason is information asymmetry. The knowledge required to design cells, such as how cathode porosity affects charge acceptance, or how separator choice impacts thermal safety, is trapped inside the walled gardens of a few cell makers. Many OEMs and startups know what their battery should do differently but not exactly how to get there; what variable to tweak, in what direction, and by how much, to achieve that outcome.
Another reason is the lack of tooling. Existing simulation software is often domain-specific (thermal, electrochemical, mechanical), lacks integration, and requires deep academic knowledge to use effectively. There's no solution to cell and battery design that reflects real-world constraints, and that also leverages industrialised parameterisation to produce quality, validated simulations and models at pace. Let alone deliver verifiable designs that can be implemented into manufacturing processes directly.
This is the void we are stepping into.
Our mission: democratise battery design
We are building a new kind of software toolchain. One that spans from the chemistry of the cell to the firmware in the vehicle on the road. Our toolchain comprises of three software solutions:
Breathe Design – battery cell design and simulation platform that enables fast, flexible development - from first concept through to system-level integration
Breathe Model – fully parameterised cell simulation that makes it easy to understand trade-offs and predict real-world performance
Breathe Charge – embedded adaptive charging software that replaces outdated, manual workflows with a faster, cheaper and more flexible way of developing and deploying optimal charge control strategies
Breathe’s battery software toolchain
This combination of tools enables a "left-shift" in the development process, where battery control software is co-developed with the cell hardware, not added as an afterthought. That means earlier visibility of constraints and risks, tighter integration of system design, and ultimately, better batteries.
Simulation-first development
The next generation of batteries will not just be tested in a lab. They’ll be engineered in a simulation-first environment, with tools that:
Replace manual trial-and-error with automated optimisation
Deliver robust design verification and sign-off processes
Support faster decision-making across teams and suppliers
We envision a battery industry where anyone, whether that’s an OEM, startup or independent cell designer, can access powerful design tools to create the optimal battery for their application. An industry that reduces battery development costs, increases agility, and strengthens the global battery supply chain.
Building better batteries
All in all, we’re creating a compelling software toolchain that starts with cell design, extends to cover battery simulation, and ends with optimal control firmware to extract every last drop of capability in the field using Breathe Charge. We’ve already proven our impact on charging experiences through our partnerships with Volvo Cars and OPPO. We’re now turning to the cell itself, with the same conviction and clarity.
Whether you're a battery engineer frustrated by the limits of your current tools or a product leader seeking better range, performance, and margins - we’re building for you. Stay tuned for a deep dive into our software, starting with why we built an answer first battery simulation tool - Breathe Model.
Together, we can build a better battery industry. One simulation at a time.
Want to experience part of our toolchain for yourself? Download our free Molicel P45B Breathe Model instance - ready-to-run, so you can get to know Breathe Model. Try it today to explore how simulation software can support your battery system development.