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."

Comments

Altair's == Toshiba's?

[TopSpin]

Doesn't look like it. The Altair battery uses "nano-crystals" to vastly increase the surface area of the anode. Toshiba has come up with some kind of "nano-particle" that... absorbs more Lithium ions. Neither of these advances appear to directly contribute to capacity. They improve charging (and discharge) efficiency.

So how much heat do these give off?

[DeafDumbBlind]

How hot do these babies get?

It is my hope

[eobanb]

...that this breathes new life into electric vehicles. The real problem with them right now is that it takes hours to recharge, whereas an internal combustion vehicle can just tank up at a service station in a minute or two. If this could work with electric vehicles as well, the scene could TOTALLY change. Imagine plugging in your car at the BP station for a minute or two, and being off on your merry way. The same goes for the insignificant capacity loss over time. Cells for electric vehicles are currently REALLY expensive, and heavy. Lithium ion cells are much lighter, and you could keep them for the life of the car.

Re:It is my hope

[cartman]

The problem wasn't that it takes hours to recharge. The problem was energy density: electric cars used conventional lead-acid or NiCAD batteries which were terribly heavy, relative to the amount of energy they stored. This greatly reduced vehicle range, because so much energy was expended carrying the heavy batteries. Adding batteries helped little, because that increased the weight of the batteries still further.

An example of these problems was the GM EV1, which had a range of ~40 miles in an underpowered subcompact. The problem was energy density: the EV1 devoted ~90% of its energy to carrying its own batteries.

Car manufacturers (like GM) considered using Lithium-Ion batteries, but were deterred by two facts: LiIon batteries are very expensive, and they need to be replaced every few years because they lose the ability to hold a charge. Replacing expensive batteries every 2 years or so made the vehicle costs skyrocket.

A LiIon battery that can be recharged many thousands of times, and that can be recharged in a few minutes, solves all of these problems. An EV can be built with a range >100 miles and an acceptable cost. Even long distances could be tolerated if you don't mind stopping every 100 miles or so for a brief recharge.

This potentially wouldn't even require a hybrid. Straight electric seems achievable.

Re:It is my hope

[Osty]

A LiIon battery that can be recharged many thousands of times, and that can be recharged in a few minutes, solves all of these problems. An EV can be built with a range >100 miles and an acceptable cost. Even long distances could be tolerated if you don't mind stopping every 100 miles or so for a brief recharge.

How many cycles before the batteries start losing capacity? If a battery has a 3000 cycle life (call it 8 years of daily recharges, more than enough life since most people will have replaced the car by then), but starts losing capacity after 750 recharges (2 years), that's not good. If the range is only 100 miles at 100% capacity and the battery is down to 80% capacity after two years, range has been significantly shortened.

Also, a range of 100 miles is still very small. 200 miles is really the sweet spot (that's about where the worst gas guzzlers are at today), but to be really fair that measurement should be in terms of end-of-warranty battery state. If the warranty is 4 years and the battery has degraded to 65%, I still want 200 miles. That means the car needs to do better than 300 miles when new.

100 miles on a new battery is fair for a commuter car in an urban area. However, that's not enough for most people* to replace their existing car. Keep in mind that if you misjudge your remaining charge, you can't just dump a can of gas in the tank and make it to the next stop.

* By "people", I'm really referring to "Americans, or other folks that live in an expansive country where a typical commute may be 30-40 miles round-trip, and vacation spots may be a couple hours away". Your 100 mile electric car would not be able to get you from LA to Vegas on a single charge, and good luck finding a place to recharge in the long, empty expanses of desert.

Re:It is my hope

[Deliveranc3]

Bugger that... plop the damn things down in front of traffic lights... long left turn boom full power!.

Auto credit card payment... Have it stick up to the bottom of your car.

This is cool because it helps efficiency

[Beryllium Sphere(tm)]

Lightly touch the brakes in a Prius, and the drive motor spins backwards as a generator, putting drag on the wheels and transferring the energy to the battery.

Stomp hard on the brakes in a Prius, and the battery can't absorb current fast enough to deal with the power surge. Mechanical brakes come into play. Energy that could have been recycled turns into heat in the mechanical brakes.

A super-fast charging battery could eliminate any need for mechanical brakes except as safety backups.

Re:chewbacca's flux capacitor

[bobcat7677]

RTFA, it says that the new technology not only makes faster charging possible, but also allows the batteries to handle much faster discharge. That's why the first applications will be Hybrid cars and powertools. Both applications beg for batteries that can handle massive power drains and turn around and fast charge without blowing up or shortening their lifespan.

Personally, this is exactly the type of battery breakthrough I have been waiting for. I opted to buy a standard Honda Civic because I realised that the battery packs in the current hybrids are likely to wear out as quickly as my laptop's battery and cost considerably more to replace...which makes the option fiscally irresponsible for someone like me (not to mention the performance deficit in the current models). But once this new battery tech hits the hybrids, they can be made to perform better and have the battery pack life more in line with the longetivity of the rest of the vehicle's components...which will mean the technology has matured enough to be mainstream.

Given that they say this tech should be here as soon as NEXT YEAR, I'm excited! There will be no excuse for car makers not to have hybrid models of all shapes and sizes after this.

One more quick item to note...fast charge/dischare hybrid power packs do already exist in a different form. It was setup as sortof a hybrid of hybrid. The power pack was a combination of huge capacitors for the quick power drains and charges, and then normal batterys along side those for sustained moderate charge/discharge (pulling a long hill or caosting down it). This hybrid/hybrid thing was discussed on slashdot before but here is the link for reference: http://www.ecolectrictechnology.com/