Slashdot Mirror

it's unclear exactly how Daimler plans to produce its batteries in a larger-scale energy-storage operation.

Perhaps by writing big checks to battery suppliers like Tesla and Panasonic? And of course from their current supplier for electric vehicles: A123Systems.

"Here we report lithium ion microbatteries having power densities up to 7.4mWcm2m1,which equals or exceeds that of the best supercapacitors, and which is 2,000 times higher than that of other microbatteries." WTF more do you want? you can calculate almost everything from there.

For god's sake, if you're going to quote technical math, can't you at least get it transcribed right? 7.4mWcm2m1 is utter nonsense. I realize for reasons unknown slashdot does not implement even elementary HTML markup like Greek letters, superscript and subscript. Preview shows garbage from cut and paste, so just improvise.

The article says 7.4 mW cm^-2 micrometer^-1, which are pretty bizarre units, but readily convertinle to 74 GW/m^3, or 74 MW/liter. That gives us the power density in meaningful form, and it seems pretty damn impressive to me.

"74 MW/liter" would imply 3 litre sized batteries could power an Enterprise-class aircraft carrier. Impressive would be a slight understatement.

mW / cm^2 / micrometre = 10^-3 W / (10^-2 m)^2 . 10^-6 m = 10^-3 W / 10^-10 m^3 = 10 MW / m^3 aka 10 Megawatts per cubic metre.

So I think we're looking at 74 kW / litre. Which is still impressive. It also ties in with the A123 data point on Figure 3 of the Nature preview and this page http://www.a123systems.com/prismatic-cell-amp20.htm quoting "4,500 W/L" energy density.

Looking at Figure 3 on the Nature preview, they seem to be offering energy densities of 0.1 to 10 microwatt hours / cm^2 / micrometre, or 1 to 100 Wh per litre. This would imply that at full output these batteries discharge in seconds. Right now these seem to be top of the range* capacitors. James Pikul hints that there is more to come: "if you want high power it’s very difficult to get high energy. But for very interesting applications, especially modern applications, you really need both. That’s what our batteries are starting to do."

I'm hoping this means they can drive the performance into that upper right quadrant of figure 3.

* = I refuse to climb any further aboard the super/mega/ultra/mithril superlative escalator.

You're right; I read http://www.a123systems.com/567491e6-ed98-429f-b4a6-3ae3df789b90/media-room-2009-press-releases-detail.htm wrong. That's what I was basing it on.

The $250M was not a loan guarantee, it actually was a matching grant - for each dollar the company spent on certain qualifying expenses, the feds would match a dollar. A123 eventually drew about $130M of the nearly $250M that was authorized. Press release: http://ir.a123systems.com/releasedetail.cfm?ReleaseID=403090 The money was free in that sense, but came with strings - the factory that A123 built with help of that federal money means the U.S. government retains an interest and gets a say in what happens to the assets in bankruptcy.

Developments in Lithium-Air batteries are rapidly making them viable, and are conservatively estimated to give ten times the power/weight of Li-Ion.

There's also been a number of advances in high-surface-area electrodes that dramatically increase charge and discharge rates. Some of these have already made it to market, such as the MIT spinoff A123 Systems - which coincidentally enough has developed a Lithium Iron electrolyte that handles extreme temperatures very well..

There's a great deal of industrial interest in improving battery technology, and claiming that there's been no breakthroughs in years is simply ignorant, I'm afraid. If you're paying attention, the future of batteries looks pretty rosy.

The article alludes to the plant's status as "largest" is due to the fact that it is 40,000 sq. feet (quote: "The collaborative facility, named Liotech, will have an area exceeding 40,000 square feet – making it the largest lithium-ion battery factory in the world.")... But in the US a plant recently opened totaling 291,000 sq. feet (see http://ir.a123systems.com/releasedetail.cfm?ReleaseID=506787 ). Which is it? Largest by cell count perhaps?

That is a great question. There are other people who know more about EVs than I do in this kind of capacity, but one really good proof of concept example is what MAGICC has been doing. Imagine that you have not just your EV but hundreds or thousands of them and they have the smarts to talk back to a central computer. Now you can start getting really clever with the computer calling on those EVs in series to produce frequency regulation services. You'll get paid (the figures out of MAGICC would suggest something like six dollars a day is possible - not going to make you rich, but I wouldn't say no) and the grid operator now has a very fast ramping system that could potentially aggregate up to several MW and enhance grid reliability and efficiency.

By the way, a few posters have suggested this is going to kill your battery. I'm not going to scoff at that, but the technology is getting WAY better and attending conferences like the ESA conferences will quickly give you the idea that a lot of really clever people are putting a fair chunk of research into improving the technology.

Not to gloss over the problems, but this is what being a researcher is all about, and it's really exciting.

It's this limitation that requires ICE vehicles to have complicated gearboxes and clutching systems to ensure they utilise their power band as speed increases.

EVs often have gearboxes too. As some Teslas do. We both agree the electric power band is about twice as wide. Twice as wide isn't enough to eliminate the need for a gearbox for peak performance.The transmission in my car has a total ratio spread (not counting the torque converter) of 6.05. The electric motor's power band width advantage of about 2.5:1 still would leave a transmissionless EV at a disadvantage of about 2.42. If it wants to stay in its high output, efficient range across a breadth of speeds it needs a gearbox, albeit one with markedly fewer gears.

Yes, you can just forget it and go without a gearbox, but you're going to give up efficiency and/or performance. And before you say the difference isn't huge, remember this gearbox-less EV would be at almost the same numerical disadvantage to my gearboxed ICE that you proclaimed to be a big selling point of an electric motor over an gearboxless ICE.

I'm not arguing that the Volt is not electric. I'm stating that it was originally sold as being "Pure electric drive", but it has since been found out to be "Mostly electric drive", which is a large difference.

Agreed. It's not pure electric drive, and GM's hedging "there is no fixed ratio between the ICE and the wheels" is garbage too. No ICE vehicle sold today has a fixed ratio between the ICE and wheels and yet we don't try to say the ICE isn't driving the wheels.

However, I don't agree it's a large difference to the customer. Would you really rather have (even) worse range extended mpg just so you can say your vehicle is a pure series hybrid? The bragging rights don't seem worth the downside to me.

While it is an achievement, Toyota could do the exact same thing with a software change and a second battery pack, which shows just how small a step this really is.

The Prius cannot provide full performance in EV mode as a Volt can because the Prius doesn't have an electric motor that is rated at the same output level as it enjoys with the ICE and electric motor on. There have been plenty of Prius conversions already which have software changes and additional batteries and the results do not yield anywhere near the performance of a Volt. You don't get any useful EV-only range, merely decreased fuel consumption for X number of miles (40 in the case below).

http://www.a123systems.com/hymotion/get_charged

The Prius would require some changes, including a more powerful motor system in order to work as an EREV (PHEV with usable zero-emissions range).

However, I do agree that the difference between the two is smaller than what once was thought, it just isn't anywhere near zero, at least not right now.

Given the EV1's 100+ mile range and highway-capable driving speed (When using the 1st generation NiMh batteries they were fitted with), this is more of a step backwards, and a real disappointment for EV lovers everywhere.

The EV1 was a whole different animal. Turns out two seats and limited range was a deal killer for many people, and that's before you even talk about the ridiculous price of the EV1 (cost if you will since GM never passed on the true cost to the customer). Sure, the Volt is overpriced, but it's nothing next to the EV1. If you want to talk about how neato a car is, talk about the Tesla Roadster. But neither the Tesla nor the EV1 had any real impact, the Volt (and of course the Leaf) thus stand a chance of being a lot more important.

A) I'm always very skeptical of big corporations trying to greenwash. I have lots of technical quibbles with the design of the Volt. However even I admit it's an honest effort.

B) Toyota has partnered with PHEV post-factory mod manufacturers to honor their warranty. In fact some dealerships are licensed installers.

Healthy and proper skepticism will get you far in life. Cynicism won't.

Sure, people and battery companies are looking at this already. Altair Nano and A123 come to mind. But, utility-scale batteries (a.k.a. a crapload of smaller batteries linked together) like this are very pricey on a per-megawatt basis.

So the question they have to answer is whether the difference in electricity prices between peak hours and off-peak hours is enough to justify the cost of buying and maintaining the batteries. The economics are getting better over time as battery technology improves, but at this point there are only a few large battery installations like this in the country.

There are other ways of storing electricity during off-peak hours and using during on-peak. The most common is Pumped Hydro, which can be quite economical, but only if you have a big lake up a nearby hill you can use. So batteries may have a future.

This is more stupider. You assume we're going to run out of oil any time soon. Exxon says that there is plenty of oil and it's all environmentally friendly to drill for it.
/sarcasm

Tesla is screwed cause they didn't make partnerships with the best batteries out there. They're still using plain old lithium batteries. The best are nano phosphate lithium ion batteries. Chrysler also has a partnership with the only manufacturer. They can't lose unless they keep making that ugly 300M.

These nano phosphate batteries are the application of technology mentioned on Slashdot before.

Bingo. Although the safety of hydrogen storage isn't as bad as you make out - it disperses very fast and doesn't have the nasty habit of forming explosive vapour mixtures like petrol does. (Fun fact, stuffing a burning rag into a completely full petrol tank will just make it burn, and if you put the cap on quickly enough it'll probably just go out. Stuffing the same rag into a nearly-empty tank will probably vaporize you in the resulting fuel-air blast.)

No need to hold your breath for nanoscale-based batteries. The GM Volt uses A123 Systems nanophosphate lithium batteries. These are the one that've been in the news as "in the lab" for the last few years, with a cycle life measured in thousands instead of hundreds, and orders of magnitude higher power densities than older, simpler lithium batteries. Good things comin'!

Hydrogen is already obsolete. I mean, come on, [...bunch of very true things snipped...]

Hydrogen was obsolete from the start. Or rather, it was never physically possible to make a hydrogen fuel cell car, fuelled by renewable hydrogen, that could compete with battery-electric cars. The entire 'hydrogen economy' goal was pure fabrication, a colossal red herring designed by car manufacturers to protect their central product base. It was then taken up by the U.S. Government because hydrogen sound cool while "battery powered car" makes you think of the Super Hornet r/c car you had when you were a kid that you could never play with because it needed 8 AA batteries and they were always flat. All the government blahblah about the "hydrogen economy" neatly forgot to mention where we would GET this hydrogen, or if it was mentioned, there was handwaving about nuclear power plants and subsequent quiet mumbles about "aw fuckit we can just crack fossil fuels into hydrogen for now".

Consider the disadvantages of electric vehicles compared to traditional petrol vehicles, from the point of view of a company like GM or Ford:

• Require a factory retool - apart from the rolling chassis and interior, they are mechanically very different.
• Bulk of vehicle cost is in the battery, which is built by someone else.
• Virtually no parts replacement business - B.E.V.s are mechanically vastly simpler than petrol vehicles.
• No dealer service plans - B.E.V.s don't require oil changes etc.

The last three are all real deal-killers. For one, around half the cost of an EV is in the battery. Short of buying a nano-lithium-battery manufacturing plant, there's no way for them to make a profit on the batteries. Car manufacturers also derive a substantial portion of their income from spare parts sales, and the only replacement parts EVs are likely to need (barring collisions) in their first 5-10 years are tyres and brake pads. Lastly, new vehicles are generally dealer-serviced to keep the warranty, and again, EVs don't need regular servicing the way normal cars do. So financially, there's a strong incentive for car manufacturers to try and maintain the status quo.

Personally, if I were running a big car company I'd sink my liquid assets into buying a solid share of A123 Systems, bite the bullet, and switch from building 350 cu in. behemoths to building moderate sized sedans with a 200km pure-electric range and optional (removable for more luggage space) range-extender genset.

I'm almost 40 now, my manager who is close to sixty pedal cycles most days of the year on a similiar route. The batteries and the extra capacity I've started with should easily last the rest of my commuting career: http://www.a123systems.com/#/technology/life/lchart1/ I rode all winter last year, you just have to wear ski pants, goggles and a face mask with decent gloves and layer up or down accordingly. For the days that it goes below minus 25 celcius or if we get a really big blizzard, I took the bus or drove my car in. There were only a few of those last year.

I am surprised no one mentioned Hymotion or their parent, A123 systems, that makes a conversion for Prius that allows you to charge your battery via plug. http://www.a123systems.com/hymotion DR

Hymotion, owned by A123systems, is selling a $10K battery pack (built using A123systems cells) for Prius owners that allows for upwards of 100mpg, but supplementing the traction battery with power from your home (you charge the battery pack at home, the Prius tries to use more electricity instead of gas). They currently have a waitlist of 200 people, with installs starting in a month. Obviously, demand exists if you have 200 people who are ready to spend the $10K.

http://www.a123systems.com/hymotion/products/faqs

http://www.a123systems.com/#/products/

The price of their cells continues to drop, they're light, can discharge safely down to low temps (20 F and lower), and last 1,000s of cycles:

ANR26650M1

# Typical fast charge current: 10A to 3.6V CCCV
# 70A continuous discharge
# 120A, 10 sec pulse discharge
# Cycle life at 10C discharge, 100% DOD: over 1,000 cycles

Agreed. The article is about charging stations, but the Volt and competitors will charge just fine on 220V in your garage overnight. Given the number of cars GM is talking about - up to hundreds of thousands, no grid upgrades are needed, especially since charging will likely be mostly at night.

I am a fan of the coming plug-in hybrids, since new battery technology can help them be cost-effective while reducing CO2 emissions and foreign oil imports. However, in the near-term, switching to natural gas cars like T. Boone Pickens wants, seems to make a lot of sense.

On the contrary, the mainstream category may well be easier to win, for several reasons:

  (1) Prize goes to the most sales, from the article. Mainstream will probably sell better.
  (2) Initial design is more difficult. Therefore, fewer entries will be made. That makes it easier to win.
  (3) Prize is definitely possible. One obvious way to do it, is to place electric drive (with clutch) in the front wheels, and gas drive in the back wheels. That gives you better acceleration, better top speed, and much better fuel performance. Now stick stable Li-ion batteries in there, and you should be able to meet your performance specs.

    Design your car to be based around a standard car frame (such as a mini pickup truck), and you should be able to make use of already-existing mass production (thus, cheap price). That is, you import the parts you want from a standard automaker, and rework the new parts.

    Honestly, I hope this does result in some large fuel reduction. Wind/Nuclear/Hydroelectric-powered cars, here we come (I hope)!

There is a video involving an electric drill which demonstrates the stability of A123 Systems' batteries. It used to be on their web site. Now you can find it at: http://www.autobloggreen.com/2007/08/13/video-nail-drilled-through-a123-battery/

Fortunately, for folks who enjoy a bit of flame and spark, they also drill a conventional battery. Check it out.

A123 Systems also has a good bit of detail on the safety of their batteries at: http://www.a123systems.com/#/technology/safety/

-Jon

There are many many different formulations of battery referred to as Li-ion. The newer variants such as nano-phosphate Li-ion from companies like A123 are no longer susceptible to thermal runaway, are capable of delivering enormous amounts of current, and maintain excellent energy density. These are the batteries driving record holding electric dragsters such as the Killacycle.

A123 and Valence offer Lithium Nano Phosphate and Lithium Iron Phosphate cells that can source current at up to 60 times their total amp-hour rating and still deliver 100% of their energy rating, and have excellent safety compared to existing Li-Ion and LiPoly cells. A123 has $350M to spend, and deals with DeWalt/Black and Decker on sale now, and Chevy Volt on the table. It's going to be hard for Stanford to catch up.

Nevertheless, I'm quite excited about all these new Lithium battery technologies and have written a brief article about them for enthusiasts. I think there will be tremendous competitive pressure from these deals and developments, and 2008 will see a big change in batteries, relegating Lead Acid and Nickel Metal Hydride increasingly to niche application status.

Oh, come on, now. It's been a good year. The iPhone brought multi-touch displays into the mainstream. Google started the Android project. Hybrids made huge gains with new battery technology. VoIP? How about Skype and the new Asterisk appliance, or even the Free Telephony Project? I see the same list, but somehow I see it in a more positive light, but heck, I'm an optimist. I saw the moon landing, too. I also witnessed the birth of the personal computer, cell phones, and the Internet. Computing power increased a mind boggling amount, memory went from $1M for 64K bytes to $50 for a gigabyte, and of course disk storage went nuts.

As for real revolutions, I don't believe in them. From airplanes to telephones, when I dig into the story of innovation, I find instead a series of incremental improvements. All we've really been missing lately is those OMG moments like a moon landing. I'm jaded too... when a 5-year-old boy gets to see the first moon landing, he expects amazing things for the rest of his life. At 44, I'm still waiting for a comparable moment. When I think about it, I feel let down. The trick is to step back and realize that the revolution has been happening every day, little by little, just without the OMG moments.

Apparently the supplier and GM are using a nanophosphate version of the LI battery, supposedly a lot safer (and I've read elsewhere closer to what is in a hand held power drill than a laptop).

I've searched in the article for info about the battery technology and can't find it, but from the quick charge time, I am guessing that these might be Lithium Nanophosphate batteries from A123 systems.
They charge and discharge quickly and don't have nearly the safety problems of Lithium ion or Lithium polymer batteries.

Here's a video of the nail test A123 vs a standard LiIon cell, like the ones used in laptops.

The A123 cells have other advantages, such as a lower fully-charged voltage, that are helpful to systems that have specific voltage requirements, such as those designed for 12v-14.4v automotive-type systems. The fully charged voltage of LiPo and LiIon are too high (~16v).

There are various different technologies:

a) Lithium-ion-battery
b) Lithium-ion polymer battery
c) Lithium nanophosphate batteries from A123 systems
d) Lithium titanite batteries from Altair Nano

All have their own pros and cons.

a) is cheap and available
b) has the highest energy density
c) can't explode and can discharge fast
d) can be charged very fast (1 min)

And now you can add technology e) to this list.

So all those lame comments about exploding batteries are well lame. I've even heard about most of those technologies here on Slashdot. Slashdot readers should know better ...

Bye egghat

Who said anything about using standard Ii-Ion batteries? TFA just says they are using Lithium batteries. I would imagine they are using LiFePO4 batteries (Lithium phosphate batteries) as have already been covered on slashdot several times before. The nano particle versions of these have charge characteristics similar to what are described in the article, have much longer duty cycles than lead acid batteries, much better power to weight rations and capacity, and have significantly improved safety over standard lithium Ion batteries. ( eg. you can cut them in half / shoot them / mash them to a pulp) and they wont explode.
Companies such as A123
and Valence Technology
and many others are already making these commercially available batteries.

They are also apparently recyclable and not as nasty on the environment as lead acid batteries either.

Sure, you can do the same with a tank of gasoline and a spark too. We all know how dangerous Lithium chemistries can be, but luckily there's progress being made. Care to comment on the substance of my post?

Hmm. Yes, but some companies have overcome a lot of the problems with lithium ion batteries by changing their manufacture.

The article quotes Don Sadoway commenting on the GM Volt: "I have real worries when we try to build a large format Li-ion battery with 100X the capacity and put it out there on the highway"
But GM are working with A123Systems for the battery packs (http://www.a123systems.com/newsite/index.php#/new s/news070809/) and they have solutions to most of the exploding battery problems...

Nice to hear an informed opinion. Biofuels will have their place, and I hope that farmers can finally make a few bucks on corn and soybeans. However, we need to think in terms of "quads", or quadrillions of barrels of oil. That means we need to stop focusing on low-potential technologies like burning sewage waste, and focus on the big wins. Google's right on the mark here, since converting 50% of transportation energy to the grid would push the needle tons in the right direction. At 2X the well-to-wheel efficiency, the grid and plug-in-hybrids represent a cheap and easy way to make a real dent in the energy problem http://www.teslamotors.com/learn_more/foreign_oil. php. Given recent major battery advances like A123 Systems http://www.a123systems.com/, plug-in-hybrids finally make both green sense and financial sense. So, why hasn't Toyota started shipping them? Conspiracy theories abound...

For those who like details, A123 batteries kill Tesla's argument that smaller batteries just die faster, and don't save money. Small A123 batteries will last longer than your car, and never need to be replaced. They also have way lower series resistance, and can push one of those tiny 300HP induction motors http://acpropulsion.com/ with as much current than they can take. There's simply no reason that a modern plug-in Prius couldn't leave a Porche in the dust (ok, accept for those small hard tires, and crummy handling). By plugging into the grid, we give ourselves the freedom to produce energy however makes the most sense, whether solar, hydro, nuclear, gas, wind, or (God forbid) coal, oil sands, and oil shale. And if this sounds like an add for A123, it turns out that they're simply the first to market among many who will shortly sell competing batteries. Google continues to show some real vision!

A123 cells (based on Li-Ion tech) are being designed for this purpose (among others). I'm using them on combat robots currently with great high-drain/high-charge results. I regularly take them from 80% drained to 100% full in ~20 minutes but the charger is the main limitation there, not the cells. For additional tech-justification, DeWalt is using them in their Lithium power tools.

A123 claim a 90% recharge in 5 minutes (or 80% in 12 minutes for a higher energy density version):
http://www.a123systems.com/newsite/index.php#/tech nology/power/pchart5/

Nanoscale Lithium battery technology leads me to think A123 cells. The cell from this startup are already on the market, powering handheld screwdrivers and model airplanes. They use a patented LiFePo4 reaction(or was there some sulfur in it too, dunno) and their process is much more ideal for automotive transport than NiMH(not enough energy density) or LiPo(Lithium polymer, it's what's making laptops go up in flames the last few years). LiPo has the highest energy density, but is very unsafe when punctured in a crash(or when overcharged): all energy in them will release in a short time, possibly causing fire as the decomposing polymer inside escapes as a flammable gas. The other drawback is that they have a very short lifespan: Max 500 charge-cycles (better count on 100-200) or 3 years (cells degenerate even when not in use). Thus far LiPo cells are prohibitively expensive, and no hybrid owner would like to fork over a few K every year for new batteries.
the A123 process is much more resilient wrt to abuse: you can run them down completely unlike LiPo or lead-acid, the stand overcharging much better, and if punctured they don't go up in flames. The company rates their cells as being able to deliver 2000 cycles, which is much more than lipo, NiMH, NiCad or Lead-acid.
And as far as I know, they have no ties to Delft University, but I have not read TFA yet...
They are here.

The new nanophosphate based Lithium-Ion A123 cells can be recharged in under 5 minutes (about as long as it takes to fill up the twin 20 gallon tanks in a behemoth SUV) if an appropriate capacity charger is available. These are the batteries powering the Killacycle electric drag-bike to 8.16 second, 156mph, 1/4 mile EV records.

Even the older VRSLA batteries (like those used to start your ICE) used in most home-brew conversions can be recharged in 3-4 hours off a 30A circuit (dump charging from one battery pack to another can recharge those batteries in under 10 minutes as well). Most EV drivers simply plug there cars in at home overnight. It's the equivalent of having someone come to your house and fill up your gas car while you sleep. And if you run out of fuel somewhere all you have to do is find a power outlet. No need to hoof it to the nearest gas station.

Electric cars aren't at a point where they can replace the ICE vehicle entirely, but they are certainly feasible for 90% of the driving that 80% of the US population does.

A123 Systems claims a temp. operation range of -30C to 70C (-22F to 158F).
Check: http://www.a123systems.com/html/tech/overview.html

Ivan.

Check the video on A123's site. It involves a power drill and some batteries. And fire....

http://www.a123systems.com/html/tech/safety.html

Enjoy.

These A123 cells are already in production and use. They are standard in the DeWalt 36V industrial battery pack. Most of the model airplane guys find it cheaper to ebay these and pull 'em apart for the cells than to buy them individually from A123.

They do perform extremely well, with about 2/3 the energy density of Li-Po, but with the dis/charge abilities of a good Ni-Cd. They are also supposed to have a very good service life, over 1000 complete charge cycles. At about 1/2 the price of Li-Po's I'm looking at picking some up for an upcoming EV project.

http://www.a123systems.com/html/home.html
http://www.a123racing.com/

My EV project:

http://www.easyracers.com/pod/

Gabe

But they do sell a bunch of $1500 electric mopeds, if you're interested in going that route.

There are some other vehicles out there, too -- you'll have to look for them, though. Some are only in development, like the x-cycle, while others are incredibly expensive, like the Sparrow.

Here's my suggestion.

I'm going to assume that you can get under the hood of a car, remove the engine, and essentially work on a car without killing yourself.

In that case, you probably want to get a street-legal old vw-bug or Ford Fiesta (or Yugo)... anyhow, something that is small and aerodynamic, and then convert it to electric with a $3000 conversion kit from e-volks. (They also have a $1500 conversion kit, but I'd go with the better one if I were you.) This is Wilderness Energy (which sells hub bicycle conversion kits, unfortunately also of Chinese manufacture and easily broken) expanded to automobiles.

Just... I'd go ahead and make the electric supply/recharge system separate from the vehicle, for the reason that you'll want to change it over later as you get more money.

Initially, you'll want Sealed-Lead-Acid batteries as can be had from Wal-Mart in the Bike section. They're cheap but heavy, and you string up enough of them to get whatever distance and speed you need.

But later, you'll want to convert to Lithium-ion phosphate, since it is lightweight, extremely efficient, long lasting, and doesn't blow up like a DELL.

Two sources for those are A123 and Valence.

EEstor is claiming to have a capacitor that blows away everything on the market today. And they have been claiming that for at least a year, I think, with no visible updates. I regard them as vaporware right now; I think the more recent strides in lithium ion batteries are more promising. A123 Systems and Altair Nanotechnologies both already have products out that can take a lot of current for recharging. A123 Systems has shown the large safety advantages of their chemistry in some demonstrations as well (see their website http://www.a123systems.com/ for one of the tests).

I think Toshiba and Sanyo were supposed to be coming out with their safer and faster-charging stuff soon too. They all try to use the "nano" buzzword; they're basically just finding chemistries that have smaller particle sizes and faster reaction rates. We'll see if this turns into something more practical for the consumer in vehicles.

4 years.

To whit: http://www.a123systems.com/ was founded by a professor of mine in 2001, and their batteries (while having roughly the same power density as normal lithium-ion batteries) can discharge at a rate of 3000 W/kg while being so safe that you can literally drill a hole through them without them exploding.

That's on the order of 5x the power density of typical lithium ions now.

They already have factories in China, and you can buy the batteries commercially. They won't improve computer life much though (increased power, not energy density). However, for applications like coordless power tools, these little guys can actually provide *more* power than a wall outlet rated at 20 amps (though only for 5-10 minutes of continuous use =) )

Most leaps in technology aren't that huge, small increments that you'd barely notice. Anectdotal evidence -- my cell phone needs to be recharged every three days or so. My old cell phone needed to be charged every night. Not that that's proof, not enough controls, but it's strongly suggestive of improvements occuring that sales people just don't understand well enough to brag about.

Their batteries aren't as energy dense or have as high the specific energy as the current stuff used in laptops and such. But they have some pretty extreme power densities. If there were a power source for it, the standard fast charge is 15 minutes.

I dont get it, why have a doubly complicated system, we all know that means more to go wrong, when a simple electric system would mean absolutely no gas consumption, and a very easy to maintain machine.

Like this:
http://www.gwev.com/wholevtelsco.html
http://www.e-cycle.ca/

Hi-energy battery tech:
http://www.a123systems.com/html/apps/trans.html

But gah... it's silly how people get scared after a few incidents where something goes wrong. Just because someone got sick eating an apple doesn't mean apples are unhealthy. Newer lithium ion batteries are different from the ones we commonly use, anyway, and their prices will come down as they get used more often. See this video for an example of how newer cells are becoming safer. And no, that's not HF gas like the Li-polys put out, hehe.

So really for the Lithium primary problem in flashlights it seems to be limited to a set of pretty specific circumstances.

It is still possible for these batteries to explosively vent if damaged. There was a fire at LAX when a forklift punctured a container load of these things and of course some other folks are selling safer chemistries and using this demo video to reinforce their claims:

http://www.a123systems.com/html/tech/safety.html

You are right though, careful design perhaps was not always done with some of the cheaper lights.

They may have their niche, who knows. Considering kits to convert PHEVs can be added now such that the price for the whole prius + PHEV is about what those cars go for, they'll have to keep their shoulders to the wheel to stay competitive. The PHEV kits are only going to get cheaper, so they better keep as good track of the latest battery tech as EnergyCS and the other PHEV folks do.

It strikes me (and most /. users it would seem) that fuel cell laptops are a total joke for countless reasons. Everyone knows that battery technology needs to take a quantum leap forward... well, it has - http://www.a123systems.com/

New electrical energy generation will become the problem after these super nanotech lithium-ion batteries get widely distributed (starting this year): http://hardware.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=05/03/ 30/0050228&tid=126&tid=137 http://www.a123systems.com/html/news/articles/0511 02_pr.html The electric energy market will need to expand rapidly, and a number of technologies will eventually compete, such as: Economical wind turbines; super solar photovoltaics; various stationary fuel cells (e.g., direct carbon and ethanol fuel cells, as well as alkaline and solid-oxide types); clean coal, peat, and biomass gasification for turbogenerators; nuclear fission using uranium, thorium, and their re-processed by-products; expanded R&D for safe, economical fusion power.

Your comment got me digging deeper. They have some good information here: http://www.a123systems.com/html/tech/overview.html .

The key seems to be some modified chemistry and electrodes that allow smaller lithium particles. Since the smaller particles have greater surface area per unit volume, more electro-chemistry, such as charging or discharging happens in less time. They mention that they have lowered the resistive load, as you suggested. Read the material for a more coherent explanation than I could hope to provide.

Personally, I'm very excited about this whole development. This is the kind of battery breakthrough that electric and hybrid vehicle enthusiasts have been waiting for. Not only are they claiming substantially better power densities (that means the rate at which they provide energy, 3000W/kg, not the total energy storage), energy densities (2x over conventional Li-Ion) and charge times (5 minutes), but they also claim to operate over a wider temperature range (-30 to + 60 C), have longer lifetimes and have greener (no heavy metals) and safer (less fire/explosion risk) chemistry . For hybrid cars the end result should be more energy captured by the regenerative braking systems, better cold weather performance, less battery weight, better gas mileage, no more battery swapping at 100,000 or so miles and, most important of all, better acceleration!

Time will tell if this is vapor(hard)ware, although the fact that they have products currently being manufactured for sale next year suggests otherwise.

PS Coding may result in the false belief that adding parenthesis is the perfect substitute for clear, linear writing.