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Not all lithium batteries are the same. The state-of-the-art does not stand still. There are several different formulations out there, based on different chemistries. The short shelf-life problem has been licked with newer battery designs. AltairNano, for example is claiming lifetimes of 12 to 20 years for theirs.
Ditto thermal runaway. LiFePO4 batteries, for example, can be punctured or shorted without igniting. There's a picture of one being drilled while still functioning on the bottom of this page:
http://www.iloveebikes.com/batteries.html
...they are very expensive...more expensive today than they were 10 years ago.
This is not true. All technology items get cheaper over time. I have even seen lithium traction batteries from China priced competitively with lead-acid batteries. Here's a page - some EV experimenters are using these batteries, and imported Chinese EVs will use them:
http://everspring.net/product-battery.htm
As far as price and Chinese batteries. I avoid them like the plague. My experience with off brand batteries from China has been horrible. I will stick with name brands only. And those prices have not come down. They have continued to rise. A Dell replacement battery for a 5 year old laptop is a lot more than it was when new. How do you account for the huge rise in cost to convert a Prius to PHEV? 3 years ago they were talking $5k to convert with NiMH and $12k for Li-Ion. Today a conversion is $24k to $32K. That is not going down. Only going up as I see it.
Last and most important to me. If you buy those Chinese Traction batteries, how long are they guaranteed? Who pays to ship them back when they are defective? I want to see a practical EV as much as anyone. I would even be an early adopter. I would have to be able to justify it on some level. So far none can be justified. I am not into messing with a vehicle anymore. I did my time rebuilding engines and transmissions. I will leave the mechanic work to the young generation. I did test drive the Xebra sedan. It was interesting. It would not be usable for me except as another toy.
Cool It, Baby
GM's Secret for Safe Lithium-ion Batteries: Cool It!
General Motors Vice Chairman Bob Lutz raised eyebrows in battery development circles when he said recently that GM was “100 percent confident” that it has whipped the overheating problem that is hampering development of lithium-ion battery packs for electric and hybrid cars.
Now the General’s secret can be told.
Tony Posawatz, vehicle line director for GM's E-Flex electric vehicle platform, told Green Car Advisor during an interview in Detroit that instead of mounting a frontal attack on battery design for the Chevrolet Volt extended-range electric car that is under development, engineers circled around and attacked from the flank.
“We’re going to use liquid cooling,” he whispered.
Running coolant lines through the big array of lithium-ion battery cells that will store energy to propel the Volt and other models built on the E-Flex platform adds cost and isn’t as elegant as developing a battery that won’t overheat, Posawatz admitted. But it is enabling the automaker to keep on its self-appointed schedule: Volts in the market by 2010.
It's creative thinking like this that got the Prius on the road in the first place. Toyota had all kinds of problems with the original Prius battery system and finally figured it all out.
Here is a REALLY GOOD PAGE which details a lot of what GM is doing with hybrids and battery technology. Impressive.
GM focuses on catching Toyota
You get charged a lot for replacement parts like this because you are a captive audience. However, every battery product like this contains standard battery cells. You can often save lots of money on your laptop battery by going to a rebuilder, who will simply replace the cells in your existing battery pack. I do this every three years or so with my rechargeable lawnmower. The manufacturer wants $300 for a battery pack. I replace the cells myself for about $50. Laptop battery makers are smart enough to make the battery casing almost impossible to open, so most people won't try to do this.
Unfortunately, the cells in your laptop battery pack probably come from China or Korea. There are no li-ion manufacturers in the United States. In fact, here's a government report on this very topic:
http://www.atp.nist.gov/eao/wp05-01/contents.htm
OK, I think the issue here is that you think the Thunder-Sky batteries I pointed you to are an 'off-brand.'
In reality, Thunder Sky is right up there with A123 as a major player in the EV battery world. Unlike A123, they have made their batteries readily available to EV hobbyists for several years now.
Here's a page with just a few of the many hobbyist EV projects powered by (relatively) inexpensive Thunder Sky lithium batteries:
http://www.austinev.org/evalbum/battb/THUN
These batteries are real, and they already work! China is a major player in EV batteries (since almost all our Li-Ion batteries come from there already.) Personally, I believe the first mass-market pure EV will come from China, at a price nobody else can match.
I am sure you are correct about China building the EVs we get in the USA. The Xebra is one of the first to be sold here. It is from China. I would say India will follow close behind.
PS
I like IVO cool van.
Advanced Battery Technologies has their own unique technology, an improved polymer-lithium-ion battery. What they have done, however, is to partner with Altair, and borrow their nanomaterial electrodes.
Their product looks promising, as it promises greater energy density than the other 'safe' li-ion battery chemistries under discussion.
Every time I read about them, testing is still going on. If the stock price is jumping, maybe something is going on, but I don't know what.
Tesla Tops 250
A new mileage mark for an electric production car
By MARK VAUGHN
Blowing away all previous mileage marks by production electric vehicles, the Tesla announced that its upcoming roadster recorded 255 miles on a single charge in a recent EPA City test cycle. It hit 235 on the Highway portion of the test. That gives it an EPA combined rating of 245 miles.
All that and Tesla still claims 0-60 in under four seconds. We have yet to drive one.
The Tesla two-seater is powered by 6800 tiny lithium-ion batteries. While the first lead-acid GM EV1s generally got 40 to 60 miles on a charge, subsequent nickel-metal hydride (NiMH)-powered units could usually go over 100 miles between plug-ins. The NiMH-powered EV1 went 140 miles in its EPA certification run in 1999.
The first 50 Tesla Roadsters will be produced in the first quarter of 2008, with another 600 planned by the end of that year. The roadster was originally planned for a summer ’07 debut, then fall of ’07.
Next up from Tesla is an electric-powered sedan called the WhiteStar, which was expected in 2009 though no update on its arrival date was given.
The roadster is to be built by Lotus in England, while the WhiteStar will come out of a new plant in New Mexico. A smaller sedan is next on the plate, with the goal being a full line of electric vehicles at some point in the future.
Now we just need a $100,000 tax credit from the guvmint like they gave the big SUVs a few years ago and we can ALL own a Tesla !!!
Good article. Minor quibble about terminology.
Those are called cells, not batteries. Batteries are made up of two or more cells. A laptop battery might contain 4 - 12 cells, for instance. In this case the Tesla battery has 6800 cells.
Advanced Battery's stock price continues to go up. ABAT closed today at $5.37 on high volume. There is definitely something going on. I bought shares of this company 18 months ago at 60 cents. I sold them about 6 months ago at $1.80. At the time I thought I was a genius. I've since re-evaluated that assessment of my investment savvy.
These are Chinese electric and serial hybrid cars. These do freeway speeds, but if you look at the FAQ page, you'll see that the cars they have been shipping to the US are speed-limited to qualify as NEVs (so they don't have to undergo expensive certification for US roads.)
It seems to me that whatever has been done do speed-limit them could probably be undone.
The most interesting thing are the prices. Several models are pictured, starting from just $4500. A little pickup truck is just $6500.
What do people think? What would I get fined if I got pulled over driving one of these on the freeway?
Besides the two vehicles on the top of the page with prices, the two vehicles in the middle of the page were priced (in an older version of the website) at $6500 and $7800 for the freeway-capable versions.
The last vehicle, at the bottom of the page, is lithium powered. Based on their other prices, and its modest driving range, I would expect it to be priced between $10,000 and $20,000. Maybe even closer to the bottom of that range. I know nothing about the quality of these cars (and I might be afraid to ask) but the prices are potentially game-changing.
I'd stay off the freeway...you'll stick out like a sore thumb.
I though the lithium-powered car on the bottom of the page ( http://fevehicle.com/services.html ) was interesting because of the stats listed. They are claiming 6kwh/100km traveled. If that's true, it's about 10 miles per kilowatt-hour. That's considerably more efficient than a lot of EVs out there. It would explain how they can claim a 200km range from a little 12kwh lithium battery pack.
To put that in perspective, If I charged a car like that using the off-peak electric rate I get here in Detroit (3 cents/KWH), it would only cost me 3 TENTHS of a cent per mile to drive it.
It sounds like the Chinese are doing some serious engineering on electric motors.
Here's an outfit that does EV conversions: http://grassrootsev.com/
I've got to say I'm more than a little skeptical about that claim. Saying it's considerably more efficient is an understatement. That claim is about twice what I've seen from other EVs of comparable size. Given that EVs are already incredibly efficient I don't think a 100% improvement is even possible. And if it was it would probably require incorporating all the most expensive cutting edge technologies out there in order to achieve this, which isn't consistent with their listed price.
However, a high miles per KWH figure isn't necessarily all due to efficiency improvements - it could just be a result of building a very small and lightweight vehicle. Such a vehicle requires less energy to move around. Still, 10 miles/KWH is a bit hard to believe.
I guess we'll have to wait until somebody tests the car.
Amp It Up
It's interesting that the Japanese manufacturers, who don't seem to have a problem meeting CAFE, are less interested in ethanol and biodiesel.
I disagree with the comment that we're a long ways from seeing EVs on the highways.
Not as gimmicky as this one though:
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2007/10/09/nissan_pivo_2_electric_car_robot/
http://biz.yahoo.com/ap/071009/aerovironment_demonstration.html?.v=1
I've been following Altairnano for a couple years. Their particular Li-ion chemistry has it's own pluses and minuses. On the positive side it appears to be safe, capable of fast charge/discharge rates, and provides a very high cycle lifetime.
The major downside is that the energy density is not all that great. It is only around 65-70% of what other Li-ion chemistries are capable of. Meaning for a required range if you went with the Altairnano batteries the pack would weigh almost 50% more. In a pure EV application where you required 200+ mile range this would be a serious downside. But in the plug-in application where you only wanted to achieve 30-40 miles all electric range it would only result in another 100 lbs. in vehicle weight. IMO, not significant and more than offset by it's longevity.
Lots of work going on in battery tech. Something is going to shake out that is practical. Your ideas on the Altair design make perfect sense. Price is of course a big factor. I hope that is solvable.
http://gizmodo.com/gadgets/electric-vehicle/aptera-electric-three-wheeler-availa- ble-for-pre+order-304567.php
the latter would come in a hybrid and ev. ev range 120 and freeway speed capable apparently. Looks like a tag of mid to high 20s. They get around safety regs by making it a three wheeler apparently...like a motorcycle. This car is not for me, but interesting none the less. If you bought one of these and the volt actually works...you really might be asking yourself why you bought it.
Legal wrangles can be a problem for sure...though sometimes it seems the technology just goes ahead and they sort it out in the courts later.
The Palo Alto-based entity, Project Better Place, will raise its first round of funding -- $200 million -- with investments from Israel Corp., Morgan Stanley, VantagePoint Venture Partners, and a group of individual private investors managed by Pomona Capital CEO Michael Granoff.
I suppose. Seems like a bit of cart before horse though.
They are building ONE of the cars.
Just one.
Only....................ONE..............Car................
That is so ridiculous !!
Sell that car for $22,000 and sell hundreds, maybe thousands of them a year !!
Another "killing of the electric car" right before our eyes.
People THINK they need a much larger car than they do.
The VAST MAJORITY of American commuters could DAILY use a 2-seater with a 100 mile range. Tens of millions of Americans could use that car.
This "teeny-tiny" bullcrap needs to go away too. We all need to use the MINIMUM SIZED car we can get our travel accomplished with.
But we stupid Americans are too enthralled by BIG things to have any common sense when it comes to car choices.
You can be in denial all you want but that will not change the fact that there is not much of a market for this 100 mile range 2-seater at $22,000.
You know that the vast majority of American commuters travel alone?
And the vast majority travel less than 100 miles for that commute?
So why, praytell, would the VAST MAJORITY not be able to use a car which
A) Comfortably seats one person, or two going to the same place,
Has more than enough range for their commute AND their errands,
C) Has enough high speed range for the times their commute freeway "opens up" for them,
D) Uses ZERO GASOLINE and charges at night for a FRACTION of the cost of gasoline.
Anyone have a good answer to that question?
No, you don't.
And that's the PROBLEM.
I think the economic point is a valid one. If there was a market for anything, someone is going to fill that need with a product.
And it doesn't matter how great a product might be, if there's very little interest in it, it's not likely to be produced.
But there is no denying my stated facts that most American commuters could use that car for their commute and the fact that they do not clamor for it is indeed indicative of a certain "lack of logic" in making their car-buying decisions.
If it takes a few people being bold enough to call the attitude itself "stupid," then maybe someone's attention will be grabbed.
Revolutionary change is never completely civil and quiet. Ignoring the ignorance of the overwhelming attitudes of the American car buyer is not going to help.
Yes, there may be some fuel cost savings, but not enough to make up for paying an extra $10,000.
How would you know this? Of course, we will have no good way of measuring demand until a car like this actually becomes available mass-market.
There are several existing studies that show significant demand for electric cars, even cars with limited ranges and other flaws. Examples:
http://www.greencars.org/pdf/gcimarketing.pdf
http://repositories.cdlib.org/itsdavis/UCD-ITS-REP-96-09/
Certainly, as gas eclipses $4/gallon, the market for EVs will grow.
Our market research, conducted using standard
automotive industry techniques, shows 12 to 18 percent of new light-duty vehicle purchases in
California could be EVs if consumer-oriented vehicles were available at reasonable prices.
Electric vehicles also need to be tailored to consumer tastes in size, features
and functionality. That means they need to include four-door, four- or five-passenger sedans that include the amenities found in gasoline vehicles. Consumers have indicated they can deal with a contemporary EV’s range limitations if pricing is reasonable.
Good point, so let's look at this. Let's say your little car gets 30mpg, and gas hits $4/gallon. An average driver, at 15,000 miles/year, will buy 500 gallons of gas, which totals $2000/year. The electric car, at 1 cent/mile, costs $150 to fuel. This means the electric car pays for itself in fuel savings in about 5 years.
If gas prices continue upward, the car will pay for itself even quicker.