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Post by huon on May 16, 2014 16:41:30 GMT 9.5
This new battery, which uses carbon for both anode and cathode, looks promising: "Power Japan Plus says that its battery charges 20 time faster than lithium ion batteries; is rated for more than 3.000 cycles; and can slot directly into existing manufacturing processes, requiring no change to existing manufacturing lines." www.greencarcongress.com/2014/05/20140514-ryden.htmlOf course, we'll have to see whether it can deliver on those figures.
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Post by Roger Clifton on May 18, 2014 15:07:17 GMT 9.5
Huon points out a new battery technology that allows flash charging and withstands 3000 cycles. The link also claims that range would increase as regenerative braking can be more efficient, so that as a vehicle slows more of its energy of motion can be stored back in its battery. A high endurance for cycling would also be good news for solar and wind, if the new batteries are cheap enough to allow five minutes of production to be stored. With five minutes of energy available for dispatch, a unit could then bid to sell that much energy to the National Energy Market (in Oz), in free market competition with other despatchables like gas or coal. Currently unpredictable supply from wind or solar can only contribute into the grid if a political contrivance ("RET") forces the grid operator to accept the power regardless. Equipped with reliable storage, a commercial operator is then less vulnerable to a change of government removing the contrivance.
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Post by huon on May 23, 2014 8:56:35 GMT 9.5
Here's a battery that may help with grid storage: "Utility-Scale Battery Storage Costs Dropping "The cost of battery storage is falling quicker than most analysts presume and could be competitive with gas-fired generation--even in the US, where gas prices are low--within the next 18 months. "That's the prediction of Steve Hellman, the president of battery storage start-up EOS Energy Storage, which intends to launch its zinc-air battery next year with a price of $200- $250/kWh. "EOS has grabbed the attention of the renewables and the mainstream energy industry with its battery product which undercuts the pricing of lithium-ion batteries by a significant margin." cleantechnica.com/2013/12/18/utility-scale-battery-storage-costs-dropping/Again, we'll have to see whether this pans out, but it sounds promising. (And thanks, RC, for your helpful tip. I think I'll keep the redundant posts for a while--they're not doing any harm. But it's nice to have the ability to ax them.)
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Post by huon on May 27, 2014 16:40:50 GMT 9.5
With the introduction of the i3, BMW can now stand for "brave modern world".
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Post by huon on Jun 11, 2014 12:29:56 GMT 9.5
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Post by eclipse on Jun 13, 2014 21:36:46 GMT 9.5
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Post by huon on Jun 16, 2014 9:13:42 GMT 9.5
This aluminum-air battery is fascinating. How appropriate that an electric car, which can be made of aluminum, can now be powered by it.
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Post by huon on Jul 5, 2014 16:23:26 GMT 9.5
Tesla is coming to Australia. "Tesla is 'gearing up for a September launch,' according to Financial Review. And the Supercharger network is coming, too. Financial Review's James Hutchinson says that Tesla 'plans to build here the same superchargers that line US highways. "If the Model S succeeds in Australia, it will mark the first time electric cars have gained any traction. Hutchinson cites data from VFACTS that shows just 153 electric vehicles delivered between 2011 and 2013. Tesla Model S and the proliferation of Superchargers haven't yet failed to attract new buyers in any other market the company has entered. "The move to Australia comes appropriately after Tesla introduced its first right-hand-drive vehicles in the United KIngdom last month." www.fool.com/investing/general/2014/07/02/tesla-motors-incs-international-expansion-to-hit-1.aspx
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Post by Roger Clifton on Jul 5, 2014 20:07:27 GMT 9.5
Quoted above, the spiel for the aluminium-air battery would have us believe that by just adding it on board, our car has increased its range by 1600 km. However the burden is more than the weight of the metal. My car does about 8 km per litre, so fuel for a 1600 km journey would require me to start with 200 L of gasoline, about 150 kg. Can do. Since I am free to dump its waste in the atmosphere as I go, it would have zero weight at the end, so its average weight would be 75 kg. Less than an extra passenger. Compared to gasoline, aluminium has a similar energy density relative to its waste, aluminium hydroxide [but is used more efficiently in an electric car]. But instead of starting the journey with just an extra 150 50 kg of aluminium, we have also to add 150 50 kg of water for the hydroxide. We should not be allowed to splatter this white paint across the countryside, so we must carry that weight for the entire journey, a subtotal of 300 100 kg. It gets worse though, because the air-supplied oxygen that oxidises the aluminium adds an extra ~ 130 ~40 kg. So we must finish the imaginary journey with 430 140 kg of waste in the boot. [So the average burden is 95 kg.] PS: After reading my post, Scott pointed out that the power would be used by an electric motor, of much higher efficiency than a internal combustion engine. The altered figures above apply a factor of 3 (rather than Scott's 4) to correct my error.
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Post by eclipse on Jul 6, 2014 11:21:10 GMT 9.5
Hi Roger, how does the Blees / Hansen boron car compare?
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Post by Roger Clifton on Jul 8, 2014 20:10:11 GMT 9.5
Scaling down those figures, aluminium does seem to be a practical fuel for an electric car. I imagine a car could be fitted with three battery packs each containing 10 kg of aluminium-and-water to power the vehicle for 50 150 km – or so. Every few hundred kilometres it would be time to drop into a garage to swap over two of the (now-14 kg) used packs for new ones. Tom Blees in Prescription for the Planet looked at boron (see also...) rather than aluminium, probably because the energy density of the metal is about twice that of aluminium. However in a similar battery its waste, H3BO3 has about 80% of the weight of Al(OH)3, so the advantage is not all that great. Also, boron - as boracic acid - neglectfully dumped into the environment in kilogram quantities is definitely pollution, unlike aluminium oxide, although its higher cashback value would better ensure that the used packs get back to the metal refinery.
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Post by Scott on Jul 14, 2014 21:07:03 GMT 9.5
Quoted above, the spiel for the aluminium-air battery would have us believe that by just adding it on board, our car has increased its range by 1600 km. However the arithmetic adds some unlikely implications to the scenario. My car does about 8 km per litre, so fuel for a 1600 km journey would require me to start with 200 L of gasoline, about 150 kg. Can do. Since I am free to dump its waste in the atmosphere as I go, it would have zero weight at the end, so its average weight would be 75 kg. Less than an extra passenger. Compared to gasoline, aluminium has a similar energy density relative to its waste, aluminium hydroxide. But instead of starting the journey with just an extra 150 kg of aluminium, we have also to add 150 kg of water for the hydroxide. We should not be allowed to splatter this white paint across the countryside, so we must carry that weight for the entire journey, a subtotal of 300 kg. It gets worse though, because the air-supplied oxygen that oxidises the aluminium adds an extra 130 kg. So we must finish the imaginary journey with 430 kg of waste in the boot. With an average burden of 290 kg, about 220 kg more than the gasoline fuelled journey, I rather suspect that my old car would fall short on the fuel efficiency on the way. It might even collapse towards the end from the sheer weight of waste on board. Right, except an electric motor including power electronics vastly exceeds the efficiency of an internal combustion engine, thus far less energy is required in the first place. The difference is about a factor of four. Weight savings can also come from removing the complicated combustion engine drivetrain, since an electric motor has vastly better characteristics than a combustion engine. Did you factor these into your calculations?
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Post by Scott on Jul 14, 2014 21:28:23 GMT 9.5
Scaling down those figures, aluminium does seem to be a practical fuel for an electric car. I imagine a car could be fitted with three battery packs each containing 10 kg of aluminium-and-water to power the vehicle for 50 km – or so. Every hundred kilometres or so it would be time to drop into a garage to swap over two of the (now-14 kg) used packs for new ones. Tom Blees in Prescription for the Planet looked at boron (see also...) rather than aluminium, probably because the energy density of the metal is about twice that of aluminium. However in a similar battery its waste, H3BO3 has about 80% of the weight of Al(OH)3, so the advantage is not all that great. Also, boron oxide neglectfully dumped into the environment in kilogram quantities is definitely pollution, unlike aluminium oxide, although its higher cashback value would better ensure that the used packs get back to the metal refinery. Who would want a vehicle that needs to be refueled every 100 km or so? Few would buy it over an ICE car, given the energy density of aluminium, a range of several hundred kilometers could easily be accomplished. This could even be accomplished with existing batteries. Tesla Model S uses 3.1 Ah NCA cells. Current state-of-the-art cells of the same form-factor are a little heavier, but they can do 3.6 Ah. Improvements are on the way. Therefore it's hardly inconceivable for a refresh of the Tesla Model S (possibly arriving in the next several years) having a 100 kWh battery and a range of 550 km. A smaller and cheaper car could easily have a 200-300 km range and be reasonably affordable. Charging times have already been reduced to ~30 minutes for an 80% charge with DC Fast Chargers. I haven't seen cost and energy density data for Lithium Titanate cells (they are inferior to others in terms of cost and energy density), but they are already being used in some EVs. These have been demonstrated to charge at rates of up to 12 C. At 10C charge rates and 3.5 C discharge rates. 80% capacity retention over 6000 cycles. FYI, a charge at 12 C would mean ~95% charge in around 4 minutes, obviously this would need a hell of a charger though.
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Post by huon on Jul 20, 2014 12:01:06 GMT 9.5
The aluminum battery would work best as a range extender. "Based on work begun in Israel in 2008, the company [Phinergy] is collaborating with Alcoa on this cost-effective and safe energy source. It's being proposed as a range-extender--not a primary propulsion battery--to automakers, including Renault-Nissan." "Aluminum is the most abundant metal in the earth's crust and Phinergy's durable technology reliable extracts 8.1 kilowatt-hours of energy--half of which is electricity, and half byproduct heat--per kilogram." Electric cars easily get 3 miles per kilowatt-hour. So one 1 kg of aluminum could take a car about 12 miles. And 100 kg would yield about 1200. One can envision this being used in a Nissan Leaf, or in the BMW i3 in place of its gasoline range-extender. www.hybridcars.com/renault-nissan-to-use-phinergys-aluminum-air-battery/
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Post by Scott on Jul 26, 2014 16:23:35 GMT 9.5
Energy density of the Nissan Leaf is 80 Wh/kg.
Tesla Model S has 7104 NCR18650A cells (3.07 Ah each, 46.5 g), a total of 78.5 kWh (aside: the pack is officially 85 kWh, I don't know why there is a discrepancy) and 330 kg (cell weight). Overall pack weight is 600 kg so the weight of the pack minus the cells is 270 kg. More efficient packaging with existing cell technology can decrease the weight of the pack significantly, but let's move on.
Moving to the NCR18650B cell, slightly newer, with slightly better characteristics (3.35 Ah, 47.5 g) will give the Model S 86 kWh and increase weight by 7 kg, so overall energy density will be 141 Wh/kg.
Going from 80 Wh/kg to 141 Wh/kg will increase range of the Nissan Leaf from 121 km (75 mi) EPA drive-cycle (200 km / 120 mi NEDC) to 213 km (132 mi) EPA drive cycle (353 km / 212 mi on the NEDC). Tesla packs require liquid cooling, however it's not inconceivable that less cooling will be required in the future as electrolyte chemistry is tweaked leading to reduced packaging weight, further reductions in weight can come from incremental improvements in cell chemistry.
Therefore, it's highly likely that EVs in the next five years will have a range of 250 km (real) or over 400 km if driving carefully, all using technology not substantially different to those used today. That means owners can essentially drive to (and return) from any two points in any metro area. The car will weigh about 1500 kg, nothing unusual and not require exotic materials for a reasonable weight. Pretty good I would say.
The only thing holding back EVs is the cost of the pack, hopefully it will keep decreasing at the rate that it has.
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Post by Scott on Jul 26, 2014 17:18:02 GMT 9.5
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Post by eclipse on Jul 27, 2014 8:59:16 GMT 9.5
Cost is a factor, but I also think wide-spread acceptance is. There's still that range anxiety. Rather than be grateful that they can drive at half the price per km for about 95% of their trips, they worry about the 5% of the trips that an EV might not cover. Looking at my own driving, I think that would be more like 0.1% of our trips!
So enter Tesla's battery swap program! Drive on, swap it out in half the time to fill a normal car, and drive off.
The main question? How do you know you're getting a good-as, or even better, battery than the one you just had? And who is going to cover the cost?
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Post by Scott on Jul 27, 2014 18:32:00 GMT 9.5
Lower cost per km doesn't matter if the car is too expensive to buy. Overall economics are what counts, at the moment most electric cars are not particularly economical. My average commute is only 25 km per day (drive to the train station), however for my old job it was 135 km. A few times I've have had to make round trips of 175 km for work or going to airport. This is before extra trips to the shops or whatever that same day. I also don't know what my commute will be like in the future. For myself at least, the range of current EVs is not adequate, I wouldn't even consider one. I suspect a large amount of the market is similar. We can do better than current EVs. If battery technology doesn't become good enough and cheap enough (I am 50/50 sure it will) to enable fix both of these then the PHEV will prevail, perhaps a PHEV with a 100 km electric range and a small range extender would sell well provided it's not too expensive. The BMW i3 is the closest thing to this, but it's far too expensive for what it is, maybe because it's almost entirely carbon fiber. One thing I do not yet understand is why Tesla can have an 85 kWh pack with a density of 141 Wh/kg at the pack level, whereas many other competitors are around 80-90 Wh/kg. A worse example is the Chevy Volt. 16 kWh, 198.1 kg, yet only 10.4 kWh usable, so usable energy density is 52 Wh/kg! Chevy Volt also has an 84 hp I4 ICE and two electric motors, one 149 hp and one 74 hp. I assume power electronics is required to drive each of those motors individually. It also requires a special fuel system to prevent the fuel going decaying if it sits in the tank for a long time. That's one complicated machine, no wonder it weighs 1700 kg and is fairly expensive. Again, we can do better than that. Regarding longevity, Model S users are getting pretty good longevity, one owner still has 93% of original capacity remaining after 75,000 miles. If you assume that 80% capacity is end of life, then the battery will last to 350,000 km. Assuming that a pack that has half the size, 42.5 kWh, will have half the life, the range of the battery life ends up being 173,000 km. Pretty good. Why is Tesla at 141 Wh/kg, while others are at 50 to 100 Wh/kg? They use a different chemistry to everyone else and a different formfactor, but why haven't others followed? I don't understand.
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Post by Scott on Jul 27, 2014 19:12:43 GMT 9.5
After some more thinking about this, I suspect the Volt as a PHEV will cycle its battery much more quickly than a pure EV with larger range, so to meet longevity requirements it's much larger than it needs to be. The Leaf has poor battery longevity as shown in the INL study. Seems to me like EVs scale up much more easily than they scale down... still can't see why nobody has built a mid-end sedan with a 40 kWh battery.... it's obviously going to be the next big thing....
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Post by Scott on Jul 28, 2014 0:50:33 GMT 9.5
Usually on this website and forum people talk about hypothetical technologies that should be implemented. It's also interesting how tech sites often focus on hypothetical technologies, for example battery swapping, fantastical batteries that don't exist, thorium powered cars (lol), rather than incremental updates to existing technologies. I suppose it generates lots of clicks. The difference here is I am going to give you a very good indication of what will happen. 1. Nissan is likely going to offer a bigger battery pack for enhanced range or possibly launch a new EV. ‘Game Changing’ Batteries To Enable Up To 186-Mile Range Nissan Leaf and New Infiniti EV(In reality the battery technology isn't much different to that offered today). Nissan Leaf Likely To Offer Larger Battery For Longer RangeNissan Tests 48 kWh Battery In LeafInfiniti LE delayed to add better tech, says Nissan executive(great looking car, also this source is a couple years old) 2. Tesla will launch the Model 3, a mid-range sedan with 200 mile range, and will likely receive battery cells from its own 'Gigafactory' or Panasonic. Tesla GigafactoryWill Tesla's Model 3 Make Electric Vehicles Mainstream?3. Other signs: LG Chem to supply batteries for 200-mile electric cars in 2016-CFOChevy Sonic EV With 200-Mile Range Is Coming In 2016!(misleading title, it's actually speculative, but fairly likely) 4. Advanced battery pack for Kia Soul EV(200 Wh/kg at the cell level for prismatic cells, pretty good! Leaf & Chevy Volt cells are 140 Wh/kg, Tesla are at 230 Wh/kg but different form factor that needs more packaging) While most will charge in their garage overnight, CHAdeMO and Tesla Superchargers are popping up everywhere for ~70% charge in 30 minutes for those who on the odd occasion need to travel longer distances, a bit of an inconvenience but not too bad. By 2016 the entire USA will be covered by them. Japan is already completely covered by CHAdeMO. (battery swapping is still yet to be demonstrated in the real wild, I don't think swapping the most expensive component is a particularly good idea....). Electric cars will soon also have the range that practically anyone needs, possibly even wants, let's hope they don't have ugly styling like their predecessors and are reasonably priced. Also obviously they won't destroy combustion engine and hybrid sales, some form of incentive is likely required to do so. Now, obviously larger packs will be somewhat expensive so may be out of reach for low end cars. And IMHO small packs like in the Leaf only make it only good for being a 2nd car car to get groceries and not much more. So it's still a question of how do you reduce carbon impact at the low end of the market. Diesels? Hybrid-turbocharger? Both?
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Post by eclipse on Jul 28, 2014 17:56:06 GMT 9.5
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Post by huon on Aug 21, 2014 8:26:43 GMT 9.5
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Post by huon on Aug 29, 2014 13:10:48 GMT 9.5
An Australian electric car, built by engineering students, has apparently set a world record: "...Sunswift eVe set a new world record for fastest average speed--more than 60mph--over 500 kilometers (310 miles) on a single battery charge, on July 23." grist.org/list/move-over-elon-these-kids-built-an-electric-car-that-beats-the-tesla-s/That record may fall when the Tesla Roadster gets its new 400-mile battery pack. But eVe will remain the undisputed champ of efficiency. Unfortunately, the news coverage is unclear about how much energy the car used. In the Washington Post article, the team leader says the car required the power equivalent of a 4-slice toaster--say, 1500 watts, or around 7.5 kWh of energy for the whole 5 hour run. But then the article mentions something about 20 kWh. Who knows? But either way, it's a remarkable achievement, and my hat's off to the team.
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Post by Roger Clifton on Aug 30, 2014 9:44:58 GMT 9.5
...the car required the power equivalent of a 4-slice toaster--say, 1500 watts Wouldn't 1500 W (2 hp) make it a "deux chevaux"?
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Post by Roger Clifton on Aug 30, 2014 19:52:41 GMT 9.5
Reusable rockets can make travel to space cheaper and more energy efficient. Here SpaceX brings back a booster ... A significant cost would be in having to carry so much oxidant to near-orbit, including enough left over to re-enter and gently land the first stage, a cost that would be relieved by using a more fuel efficient, air-breathing first stage. Aircraft such as F-15 are being planned to launch small rocket systems, in the " Airborne Launch Assist Space Access" program by US DARPA. However the saving is not all that much, because it only boosts by Mach one or so. The value of that program lies more in the flexibility of where and when the spacecraft can be launched. Much more imaginative (and more hypothetical) is the Boeing Small Launch Vehicle program. In this concept, the first stage is a supersonic aircraft releasing at a speed high enough (>1 km/s) to ignite a second air-breathing stage, a scramjet. Both air-breathing stages climb aslant through altitudes where they can get just enough mass flow of oxygen at their increasing velocity, supplying kinetic energy to the payload rather than potential energy. The rocket system is released and ignited at 30 km altitude or so but already at close to orbital velocity.
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Post by huon on Sept 9, 2014 12:38:03 GMT 9.5
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Post by Roger Clifton on Sept 9, 2014 17:37:19 GMT 9.5
the Sunswift solar car being a "deux chevaux", or like the Citroen 2CV. Well, 1500 W is two horsepower, hence the reference to the deux chevaux. Considering how slow a one-horse buggy goes, the 2CV must have seemed revolutionary to farmers in 1948. At least the horse was powered by grass! Being able to download and print a custom vehicle would allow a manufacturer to greatly increase the range of products offered, if the variations can be adequately tested in cyberspace without the cost of as many prototypes.
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Post by huon on Sept 26, 2014 17:33:57 GMT 9.5
I am very much taken with this prototype by Renault: "The Eolab is Renault's concept car for the Paris Motor Show next month. But it's much more than a slinky piece of eye-candy. It embodies two years'-worth of intensive engineering research and more than 100 innovations in powertrain efficiency, light weight and low drag. And it works. Top Gear has driven it." www.topgear.com/uk/car-news/renault-eolab-concept-first-drive-2014-09-16
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Post by huon on Sept 29, 2014 12:22:27 GMT 9.5
It's also heartening that Renault intends to put Eolab's plug-in hybrid drivetrain into a mass market car and sell it for less than $30,000.
"The powertrain has more short-term significance. It has a developed version of the Twingo's three-cylinder engine, making 75bhp, plus a revolutionary, simple, transmission-motor unit that fits the space and weight of a normal five-speed gearbox. Renault engineers say this is now under active development, to be used to sell plug-in hybrid Clios by around 2018. For well under 20,000 pounds, they say."
If such a vehicle were available today, I'd certainly consider it.
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Post by Scott on Sept 30, 2014 19:41:51 GMT 9.5
Lithium-ion batteries keep exceeding past expectations.
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