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Toshiba's One-Minute-Recharge Li-ion Batteries
TheGuano writes "No idea if this is related to Altair's six-minute-charge Li-ions,, but Toshiba has just announced a similar Li-ion that recharges to 80% capacity in one minute, while losing only 1% total capacity after 1000 cycles. It's set to debut in 2006 for use in hybrid cars (my current Toshiba Satellite doesn't get very far on battery power, but it's a beautiful shade of blue), but 'should' make its way to other, hopefully smaller devices eventually."
I regularly run through airports leeching power briefly between flights. I would pay handsomely to recharge 80% in a minute my: Laptop, Cell Phone, Video Camera Batteries, etc.
900 amperes may seem like a lot, but I have seen electrical systems in aircraft designed (with safety margins) for 1500 A, and have also seen ground equipment peg an ammeter past the 2500 A mark. Starter/generators in larger, general aviation, aircraft typically draw 750 A at room temperature with cooled down engine, to get the engines up to speed. More current when cold, and at altitude they have to be able to spin an engine that could easily be at ambient temperatures around -40 degrees.
Large bus bars, and multiple 00 or 000 guage wires can easily handle that much current with high temperature insulation. The common tables of ampacity for stationary use are very conservative, and you must take into account the assumptions of those tables.
Then, my understanding is that most hybrid and electrical cars use more like 250-400 volt battery systems, so current handling would only need to be in the 225 to 360 ampere range.
Probably you would want actually to stop from 60MPH in about 3.5 seconds, and also you would not likely need to dissipate all the energy as generated electricity. In any case the engineering is not as difficult as it might seem, and with good enough bumpers and airbags, who needs brakes anyway?