Breakthroughs in lithium ion battery technology give Phoenix Motorcars' new SUT a range of more than 200 km and a top speed of 152 km/h.
Credit: Phoenix Motorcars
I opened my spiral notebook, slid it over to Alan Gotcher and handed him my pen. I wanted Gotcher, the CEO and President of the nanotechnology company Altairnano, to explain to me why his company's battery was different from - and better than - other lithium batteries.
We were sitting in an Irish pub two blocks from Washington, DC's Union Station. While we sipped our Irish brews and waited for dinner to arrive, Gotcher sketched onto my notepad a pair of diagrams: one, a conventional lithium-ion battery cell and the other, an Altairnano cell. They looked nearly identical, with the exception that Gotcher had left something called the SEI (separator electrode interface) out of the Altairnano cell. But this one small change makes a world of difference.
A conventional lithium ion battery consists of the following layers: an aluminum electrode current collector, a graphite anode, the SEI layer (a layer soaked in lithium salts that acts as the electrolyte to facilitate ion exchange), the cathode and a copper cathode collector.
Gotcher explained to me that the SEI layer is used to keep the lithium from reacting with the graphite anode, but that it also adds a resistive element to the cell, reducing its efficiency. His company's unusual nano-titanite-based anode doesn't need the SEI layer because it doesn't react with the lithium. Instead, its extreme porosity allows the absorption of many more lithium ions, which dramatically improves the storage capability of the battery.
The company claims that their battery shows a cycle life in excess of 20,000 charges and discharges while still retaining 85 per cent of its capacity to store energy. If proven, this would be a revolutionary breakthrough, especially since Altairnano also claims their battery can be recharged not in hours, but in less than 10 minutes.
By way of comparison, the typical lithium battery takes from two to six hours to recharge, its power density is less than 1,000 watts per kilogram (w/kg), and it operates over a temperature range of 0°C to 40°C. In contrast, Altairnano's data show that their battery has a power density of 4,000 w/kg and the ability to safely operate from -50° C to 75° C. But just how safe is "safe"?
To answer this question, Gotcher gave me a description of the various tests to which the company subjected the battery: short circuit, forced discharge, over charge, over discharge, nail puncture, crush, over temperature, and a drop test. The battery survived all these trials without any smoke or fire.
Just as I was beginning to grasp the exciting potential of Altairnano's technology (performance and safety in a battery could be the combination of features that gives the electric car a much-needed commercial nudge) our dinners arrived. While I stabbed at a salad topped with strips of chicken breast and Gotcher dove into his fish and chips, he explained that his company is providing the batteries for Phoenix Motorcars' sport utility truck (SUT).
Equipped with a 35kWh, 386-volt battery pack, the converted, Korean-built four-door utility will have a range of 217 km, a top speed of 152 km/h and a 0-100 km/h time of under 10 seconds. Gotcher explained that it will be fully highway capable and as such qualifies as a Zero Emission, Type 3 vehicle by California EPA definition. Gotcher glanced at me to see if I understood the significance of that fact. I didn't, so he patiently elaborated.
EVs
It's quite fun reading the letters from the folks "against" EVs. Have a look at http://www.teslamotors.com/. This is a "sports" car, weighing in at about 2,700 lbs. It will go from 0 to 60 mph in 4 sec, and oh ya, then you can drive 200 miles without recharge. Thats roughly the distance between L.A. and San Diego. That sure sounds like a piece of junk to me! Ya right!!!
The key to the system as stated in them movie "Who Killed the Electric Car" is in the power management system.
So if you take the key systems from the Tesla (batteries, motors etc) and modiy the power management system for power conservation, while still providing reasonable pick up (lets face it 0 -60 in 4 sec is far better than cars driven by most people that read this zine), I suspect the miles driven between recharges could be extended. From completely flat to full battery charge in 4 hours and a "typical" recharge in 2 hours. This sounds good to me as a very reasonable START.
And just as a closing remark. We as a society will make the changes of reducing our use of coal and pet. products on our own, or we will be forced to make the changes by changes in climate (You enjoying climate change so far? Well this is just the beginning.) I'd perfer to think that we as a society have the foresight to stop using our atmosphere as a waste site.
Carbon industry politics
In Australia the adoption of electric cars is being stymied by Federal Government intransigence. The touted reason is non-compliance with crash safety tests. The real reason is protection of the well entrenched carbon fuel industry and motor vehicle retail trade.
Until the existing government is removed, I can't see much improvement.
I am shocked to hear that
I am shocked to hear that the Canadian government is also not allowing the sale of electric cars like the zen. Isn't it about time that any move in a direction away from petroleum burning vehicles should be supported by our government... shame shame shame.
Battery Electric Vehicles
BEV's are perfectly viable today with motors (either onboard or in wheel) and control systems being off-the-shelf. Battery life, range and cost are the only problems. Over twenty years ago I saw the answer to the problem, as have many others, but it receives no publicity, or support from business or government. Batteries should be standardised as per size and shape (think AA cells in cameras etc) and simply be leased and replaced when nearly discharged. This could develop into a profitable operation for gas stations and gradually take over from fuel sales. The oil industry should get into the battery business. I accept it would be slow initially, but so would setting up infrastructure for providing hydrogen for fuel cells. Remember the old adage, "Keep It Simple, Stupid".
I have a feeling the oil
I have a feeling the oil companies are already into batteries as they are into solar panels (BP)
George Monbiot (author of
George Monbiot (author of HEAT) suggests a system where batteries in electric cars are leased from petrol stations, whereby a driver may enter a petrol station and have a battery replaced in the same amount of time it takes to fill up.
The Electric Car Battery
The United States is disintegrating before your eyes and all the American people just want to argue about the political party, the political candidate, religion or race, instead of the best one to be our President. The truth is American has not had a good president since Franklin D. Roosevelt (1933-1945).
I really don’t care if the next president is a cross between a SNAKE and GUM-BOOT as long as he does the best thing for our great country and our great people and stop thinking about his own self interest.
WE as American citizen better wake up before all of these stupid politicians gives away every asset we have left (which is few) and completely destroy our country and the American Dollar.
To start off with we don’t need a fence on out southern Mexican border, we need a permanent CONCRETE WALL as high and as wide needed to stop these illegal aliens, drug pushers and terrorist from illegally entering our country. The only reasons why all these politicians want give legal status to millions of illegal aliens because they are in favor of a ONE WORLD GOVERNMENT and OPEN BORDERS so the big INTERNATIONAL COMPANIES can have cheap labor on demand.
Make ENGLISH the number one American language.
We should cancel the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) with Canada, United states and Mexico. Then pull out of the World Trade Organization (WTO).
But Clinton’s real emphasis in foreign policy was on what could be called economic globalism. He believed that the country’s security and prosperity depended upon removing barriers to trade with other nations and upon stabilizing nations with economic troubles. Despite opposition from members of his own party, Clinton pushed two major trade agreements through Congress in his first term: the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA), in 1993, and, the following year, a global trade agreement that created the World Trade Organization.
Now Bush wants to eliminate all the United States borders with the NORTH AMERICAN UNION agreement. Go to the following site:
http://www.humanevents.com/article.php?print=yes&id=14965
We should do whatever is necessary to force ALL of the Big American International companies to reverse the flow of factories and jobs to CHINA, INDIA and MEXICA. Every president since Ronald Reagan has encouraged the destruction of our manufacturing base (Republicans and Democrats are both guilty of this) and driven down the AMERICAN DOLLAR and if you want turn this country around this must be stopped now before it is too late. A country that devalues the currency and has no manufacturing base is called a third world country. Unless you want to call WAL-Mart and McDonald an American manufacturing base.
We should pull all of our troops out of IRAQ, GERMANY and SOUTH KOREA as soon as possible and stop any flow of dollars out of USA.
The big international oil companies and the automobile manufacturing companies are pushing the idea of developing nitrogen fuel to drive American cars which has so many problems that I think this idea is totally ludicrous and an impossible task.
The United States Government should start a Manhattan type project to develop a good low cost ELECTRIC BATTERY to drive an AMERICAN ELECTRIC CAR. Then the United States would be totally energy independent.
We must start thinking outside of the box with new ideas. Example:
Everyone knows that all the American power companies are presently tied into this large North American Electric Power GRID.
What if the American power companies which are already tied into every American home could make these electric lines so that the electric current could travel both ways?
Then the power companies could sell cheap electric power to charge the electric batteries of our new electric cars at night during non-peak hours and then the home owners could sell electric power back to the power companies during the peak electric operating hours. This is not a pipe dream and would work something like the internet works now. The idea here is to use all these new electric car batteries as a utility storage device and the American home owners could actually make money by owning an ELECTRIC CAR. This is an excellent idea and could actually work.
Then we could tell all those MIDDLE-EAST countries to take that CRUDE OIL and shove it where the sun doesn’t shine. ha, ha, ha
We should go to a ONE PAYER HEALTH CARE SYSTEM, something like the one in Canada, England or France. The only reason we don’t have a system like that now is because all the American politicians are paid thousands of dollars every year by the American Medical Ass. (AMA) and the American Pharmaceutical Ass. (APA).
Then the politicians feed us all this propaganda about how bad a single payer system really is. The people in Canada, England and France thinks the American people are all stupid to let our government push this propaganda down our throat and I totally agree with them.
Auto batteries
OK, so it's a year later - what's happened? Did you adequately challenge the promises made by self interested promoters?
re; EEStor and Ultracapacitor technology - Honda FCX for example
Clearly it seems this type of electrical energy storage technology exists. Honda FCX for example;
http://world.honda.com/FuelCell/FCX/ultracapacitor/
http://world.honda.com/FuelCell/FCX/ultracapacitor/charging/