A startup company has created a low-cost electric car battery with an energy density they say is almost three times as high as that of the Nissan Leaf battery.
California-based Envia Systems said that in tests performed under the sponsorship of the US Advanced Research Projects Agency, its new battery achieved energy densities of about 400Wh/kg. If the company is able to carry its battery's energy levels forward to high production volumes, it could enable creation of electric cars with a 300-mile all-electric range. What's more, Envia said it could create the new battery for less than half the cost of existing technology.
Envia Systems' lithium-ion battery reportedly offers three times as much energy as conventional lithium-ion, at half the cost. (Source: Envia Systems)
"If you double the energy density, then the amount of active material in the cell is cut in half," Atul Kapadia, chairman and CEO of Envia Systems, told us. "So if you have the same material, your cost gets reduced by half."
The creation of such a battery would be a huge step forward for the electric vehicle (EV) community. Today, electric cars are limited by short range and high battery costs. The Leaf, for example, has a range of 73 miles to 100 miles, and its battery offers an energy density of about 140Wh/kg. Costs are more difficult to gauge, but big, cooled, battery packs with structural protection and electronic control can cost as much as $1,000/kWh, while cells alone have been known to sell for $280/kWh from some overseas suppliers.
TJ - While the grid runs a little more to the edge in the northeast, line maintenance is a big cause of problems there.
Moving from Texas to Virginia 9 years ago, I was shocked at how poorly the line right-of-ways are maintained. Back home the power companies thought nothing of removing any trees even remotely threatening to lines; here they are content to carve a little path through the trees. The rest of the states up here are about the same.
EV cars will only be a practical alternative to good old gasoline when they can go as far as the driver can, so more like 1000 miles is needed than 300. Until then they will remain only a novelty, a city car for those that can afford to have multiple vehicles, and have enough money to not even care about the extra money spent to be using an EV. An EV has more in common with a boat or a motorcycle than a gasoline powered car. If Envia indeed lives up to it's claims, although I'll admit skepticisim, there certainly are a lot of other markets that would use this battery technology other than EVs, so I hope their business plan is not banking on EV sales to survive. As for the use of "biological batteries", we have that now, it is call a bicycle.
Unintended consequences are always a big factor in any new thing. Both lithium and rare earth materials must be mined and refined and this leads to pollution. China is the big source for both of these items and has an abysmal record when it comes to pollution. It is only a matter of time before the "green" activists point out the consequences of going electric. This will drive the cost of the raw materials up or make them unavailable.
On the other hand a battery that better utilizes it's raw materials is to be welcomed because it uses fewer raw materials although it seems that the more efficient a battery becomes the greater it's safety risks and hence potential for widespread adoption.
A common theme in posts on articles referring to EVs or their batteries mentions the fact that if you charge the batteries with fossil fuels, you are really not reducing your carbon footprint. I agree with this assessment. I do believe EV's will be very complementary to wind energy. One of the knocks on wind energy is that wind often blows at night when utility load is reduced. Many people work during the day and park their car at night. In the upper Midwest at least, there is a massive potential for additional wind development. It is costly to build transmission lines to large load centers. EV's offer an opportunity to sink a portion of the wind generation at night and closer to home thus making the EV truly green, reducing the utilities anxiety on what to do with the excess power (reducing curtailment), and offering a domestic and green source of fuel for transportation.
What works in one geographic location, may not in another. There are opportunities to develop solutions based on the assets of a particular geographic location.
Fuel cell vehicles still need the expensive battery packs to even out and extend the fuel cell's energy production.
I was part of the first college FUTURE TRUCK team to get a fuel cell ford explorer to work (reletively speaking). We used two Prius battery packs to store the Fuel cell energy and provide an extended 'EV mode' range.
Hydrogen has high energy density, but it takes a lot of room to store enough to be useful. We had two 10,000 psi pressurized tanks that completely filled the back of the explorer; and vehicle range was not going to even come close to gasoline. A key to ever advancing the fuel cell for automotive purposes is developing a reformer so the vehicle can be powered by fuel high in hydrogen content, without the special storage needs.
Flywheels are great solutions for pulsed power applications where you need many Megajoules of energy for a second or less, but I have always been skeptical of their use for lower draw applications. Even with frictionless bearings, they still seem inefficient for low draw use.
As you and some of our readers have pointed out, Alex, infrastructure is the number one problem for hydrogen. There's also another problem. A few years ago when I last wrote about this, fuel cell engines were exorbitantly costly -- about $1,000 per kW generated. That means a 100-kW (133 HP) engine would have cost about $100,000. At the time (2005, I believe), the goal was to push the cost down to about $50 per kW generated. Since then, several manufacturers have experimented with conventional spark-ignited IC engines that could run on hydrogen as a way of driving the cost down. I don't know how far that research has come -- maybe one of our readers could fill us in. Or maybe it's time for us to revisit the subject.
I don't know about everyone else, but I'm leary of all the claims of late. It seems there are more than enough new "energy" companies willing to get a whole bunch of our money from the government and then go bankrupt shortly thereafter.
Yes, but why are you not supporting manufacturing in the US and create jobs instead of just lisencing the technology for manufacturing elsewhere? If that doesn't make sense economically, at least give us a chance to manufacture the special machines for production domestically. Manufacturing in the USA is hurting and the last thing we need is to see more exported industry.
Of course - existing "car mechanics" and "infrastructure" are ready for almost any new fuels includinh bio but EV has " no exhausted gases" and are safer - no explosion @ collision! The batterries are their problem and the way CA company is going is well seen future of small (1 to 10 person) transportation means.One more factor is their Life Expectancy.
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