product-guide
The Battery Passport Needs 100+ Data Attributes — Do We Even Have This Data?
Mostly, yes. A source map showing where each group of battery passport attributes already lives in a typical manufacturer — ERP, MES, PLM/PDM, test stations, and supplier documents.
The short answer
Almost certainly yes — for most of it. The battery passport's 100+ attributes sound like a data-collection mountain, but for a professionally run manufacturer the majority already exist in systems you operate today. The real problem is that they live in five different places that don't talk to each other, plus one genuine gap (upstream provenance) that no internal system was ever going to contain.
The source map
| Attribute group | Examples | Where it already lives |
|---|---|---|
| Identity & origin | Legal entity, manufacturing facility, unique battery identifier | ERP master data; serialization at end-of-line |
| Material composition | Critical raw materials (Co, Li, Ni, natural graphite) by weight | Cell supplier datasheets + your BOM in PLM/PDM |
| Carbon footprint | Declared value per the regulation's methodology, by lifecycle stage | Usually nowhere yet — needs calculation |
| Performance & durability | Rated capacity, cycle life, degradation data (EV/LMT) | End-of-line test stations; BMS telemetry |
| Build genealogy | Which cell lots went into which numbered pack | MES (if you run one); batch records otherwise |
| Due diligence | Supply-chain report references for the four critical raw materials | Supplier documents — often PDFs and email |
| End-of-life | Recycled content %, collection and recycling instructions | Product documentation; supplier declarations |
What this table tells you
Three things stand out when teams fill this in for their own operation:
- The internal rows are in good shape. Modern production lines generate a traceable digital record per pack — automated end-of-line testing exists precisely to support warranty, compliance audits, and root-cause analysis. If you're at that level of practice, the genealogy and performance rows are a mapping exercise, not a collection exercise.
- The engineering data is inward-facing. PLM/PDM holds the BOM, BMS firmware versions, and supplier specs in version-controlled form — but it was built to serve engineering and QC, not external regulators. Nothing in it publishes. That's a pipe problem, not a data problem.
- Two rows are genuinely missing. The carbon footprint (needs calculating to the mandated methodology) and due diligence (needs extracting from suppliers) can't be solved with an export script. They're the long-lead items; the table makes visible why.
How to run this exercise
Take the passport field list for your category, add a column for "system of record," and assign every field in a working session with ops, quality, and engineering in the room — it typically takes one afternoon. Fields land in four buckets: have it, know where (most), have it, scattered (supplier PDFs), must calculate (carbon footprint), must obtain (due diligence). The last two buckets become your project plan.
What this means for your team
Don't start by shopping for software; start by producing this table for one flagship SKU. It converts "100+ attributes" from a threat into a checklist — and most manufacturers discover the checklist is two-thirds complete before they've spent anything.