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The Replacement For the Battery?
jackd writes "Great article in Technology Review, bordering on 'too good to be true,' about a small company in Texas that is developing the replacement for the electrochemical battery. The device is a kind of hybrid battery-ultracapacitor based on barium-titanate powders. Quoting: 'The company boldly claims that its system... will dramatically outperform the best lithium-ion batteries on the market in terms of energy density, price, charge time, and safety... The implications are enormous and, for many, unbelievable. Such a breakthrough has the potential to radically transform a transportation sector already flirting with an electric renaissance.'"
Everybody who can pump 90kW into a car battery, please stand up.
Leave cars to companies that specialize in cars, like Honda or Ford, that can apply your batteries to already working hybrid or electric cars with manufacturing, distribution and sales in place. If you have amazing [anything] technology - focus on that technology instead of re-inventing its applications.
I've blogged about this EESTOR stuff twice already:
s torage_r.html a pacitor.html
http://digitalcrusader.ca/archives/2006/09/power_
http://digitalcrusader.ca/archives/2007/01/ultrac
And I remain unconvinced that they are going to actually achieve what they claim. And even if they did, we don't have the 10,000amp service at my house necessary to actually charge them at speed. And we haven't heard anything about "leakage" (or "self-discharge") rates.
It's all vapor ware until they show us a functioning prototype instead of just bragging about materials purity...
augment your senses: http://sensebridge.net/
Nano fibers used to increase a capacitors surface area i believe was the concept. Capacitors look to be coming mature
a deep shade of skeptical. In fact I'm borderline disgusted. A claim like this should ONLY be made when at least an engineering sample is available for review.
I'm tired of "too good to be true" products whose primary goal is to draw VC.
Geez.. ultracapacitors.. we had supercapacitors till now.. whats next.. ubercapacitors? ubersuperultracapacitors.. anyhow..
So far, the supercaps i know of are quite expensive, and their performance degrades - i.e. with each charge cycle, the capacity gets smaller and smaller. I am not sure what the lifespan of a supercapacitor is, but it surely isn't terrbily long. I guess for the current applications (flash in cameras for example) its not all that critical - how many times is flash used over the lifetime of the camera.. If the lifespan is really improved, then they may be onto something.
I bet in a few months, they will only be somewhat better and in a year, it will turn out that their product is actually inferiour for mots applications. Same scam over and over again.
Most ACs are not even worth the keystrokes to insult them. Be generically insulted by this and ignored otherwise.
10 amp-hour 12V Li-Ion Battery: 500 grams ($100).
versus
10 amp-hour 12V Ultracapacitor (or 36-amp-second 12kV ultracapacitor): 50 grams ($100).
Current-limiting resistor of sufficient wattage rating to ensure that ultracapacitor storing that much energy won't vaporize any conductor that it happens to touch...: 450g. ($Priceless)
The company is expecting delivery of the systems later this year.
Great. Call me on December 31 and I'll tell you how it's looking. At least they gave a date of delivery. We'll know when they didn't make it. Not that I'm hoping they'll fail. I would be a good fit for an electric car. But I'll never buy a chemical battery based electric or hybrid. Why? I'm in Alaska. Capacitors can work at low temps much better than the chemical batteries. Not to mention a cell phone with longer life, lighter laptops, and cheaper rechargable everything that would come out of these if they work as advertised.
Learn to love Alaska
Are they going for a patnet or do they have one? If so it is guaranteed that they are either full of shit, or will be so high priced that it won't be worth it.
Or does the stock not yet exist either?
There's nothing Intelligent about Intelligent Design.
Perhaps the same could be used here. Pull into a "gas station". Dump & replace the whole battery pack (or the old powders or whatever) and pick up fresh. That would make a lot of sense from various angles. You won't have to fit a 10kA feed into every house. Just one hefty feed into the recharge station.
Of course, for any such technology to work, there is going to have to be some sort of regulatory standard for batteries (just like there are for fuels and oils) to ensure interoperability.
Engineering is the art of compromise.
I find this shocking.
Not so sure. About a year ago, I've seen an Oshkosh military hybrid truck using ultracapacitors instead of batteries (for weight and safety).
I see the claim about charging in 10 minutes---but I've never seen them claim that will happen at home. It is indeed quite clear, as you've figured out yourself, that a residential hookup just doesn't have the capacity for a fast charge. But frankly, that's not that big of a deal, because in practice it will not be impractical to recharge a car at home over the course of hours.
It's when you're on a long trip and you need to refill and go that you'll be wishing for a filling station with an ultracap-compatible, high-power electrical supply---for which you'd likely be willing to pay a premium kWh rate.
Per the article,
So, let's see...lead-acid batteries have a energy density of 30-50 Wh/Kg. Lithium-ion is 110-160 Wh/Kg. If it packs 10x as much as lead-acid batteries we can expect an energy density of 300-500 Wh/Kh. About 3-4x that of li-ion battery. Although the claim doesn't seem overly outrageous I find it unlikely that someone has managed this sort of improvement while the rest of the world is clueless.
If two groups are independently getting similar results in terms of potential lifetime (>10y; 600,000 cycles) and speed of charge, then we can be more hopeful IMHO.
http://m.earth.org.uk/
Wake me when there is a demo of this miracle battery if I could actually produce something this fantastic and I wanted investors overnight I'd demo it on video put the demo on youtube and sit around waiting for cash. I need to start a vaporware company so I can get some VC.
I think the invisible hand of the market has its middle finger extended
--A wise old fart named SC0RN
That is no doubt what the company is betting on.
As likely as it was in September: http://hardware.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=06/09/ 25/1837254
The good news: everything in the article is true, and they've already started production with a major worldwide OEM.
The bad news: it's Sony.
__ Someday, but not this morning, I'll finally learn to use the preview button.
The 10x comment must be pretty rough. From the article, the EEStor ultracaps will come in at 280Wh/kg, with Li-ion at 120Wh/kg and 32Wh/kh. So really, it's more like 2.3x the density of Li-ion. I dunno, that doesn't seem that far to me.
From TFA:
There is no "I disagree" mod for a reason. Flamebait, Troll, and Overrated are not substitutes.
This is what I was talking about... http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flow_Battery http://www.refueltec.com/
Engineering is the art of compromise.
The trick is to modify the composition of the barium-titanate powders to allow for a thousandfold increase in ultracapacitor voltage--in the range of 1,200 to 3,500 volts, and possibly much higher.
Oh man.. as if tossing a charged capacitor to an unsuspecting victim wasn't funny enough already.
https://www.eff.org/https-everywhere
This might be some shocking news to you - but your big oil companies didn't end up rich and powerful by being morons. I fail to see the financial gain in Shell (or any other big oil) buying the company and disbanding the project. Wouldn't it be more sensible for them to buy the company, finish development, and then have a strategic advantage over their competitors by being able to roll with the punches as oil demand goes down and demand for high performance energy storage goes up.
Actually, no, what I have written is crazy. I forgot to take into account that these are the same people that suppressed the 400 mile to the gallon carburettor and had the guy killed that invented the car that only runs on water.
Um, you mean like the recently announced Chevy Volt (made by GM, the "company that killed the electric car"), which has a 40 km capacity on battery, and a small electric engine that kicks in as a generator when the battery runs out? They expect to be producing it in two or three years.
What was once true, is no longer so
If the battery works the way they claim it does for as cheap, etc., then they stand to make much more money letting the company flourish then selling it to Shell. Even if they did sell it, Shell would have the wits not to destroy the technology; they would just become a more diverse (and profitable) energy company as a result of the accusation.
The Not For Hire ran on a batacitor charged on the grail stones. According to Phillip Jose Farmer these things were supposed to have been developed in the early 80s. 5th paragraph.
The preceding post was not a Slashvertisement.
Those are fantastic claims. Do you have sources?
-=Lothsahn=-
Ultracapacitors are good for hundreds of thousands of cycles. It's one of their advantages over a rechargeable battery.
If the current owner has a mind at all, he will realize that he might just have a silver bullet if Shell is that interested. That means he won't sell.
As long as a company doesn't have 66% of its shares on the market, it's not that easy to buy out a potential competitor.
Free beer is never free as in speech. Free speech is always free as in beer.
You mean like the one designed by Porsche and produced by Lohner, with the advancement of hub motors (like the GM Sunraycer), more than 100 years ago?
KFG
yes, lets not by it and be the sole owner and reap many hundreds of Billions of dollars, look like the good guys, and watch are competors dry up over night, that wouldn't make sense at all.
Idiot.
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
For a hybrid, that is ok. The power does not need to be stored long-term. And batteries loose a lot and die fast if they have to be charged fast. Capacitors are very good in that department and may be suberiour to batteries if you have several 10's of charge-discharge cycles that may be interrupted at arbitrary times per hour.
Of course it is possible that we will have capacitors in 10-20 years that can sort of compete against todays batteries. But the claims made seem very inflated.
Most ACs are not even worth the keystrokes to insult them. Be generically insulted by this and ignored otherwise.
I hate to be a party pooper, but I doubt that something as revolutionary as the Chevy Volt will not be on the market in the next 5 years by any American automaker. I've been casually watching concept cars for a couple decades now, and very little of the dramatic tech makes it into production vehicles. It seems that they're just a way to keep people excited while they churn out the stuff that really sells: big cheap boxes.
On the other hand, I hope I'm wrong and if I am, I'd certainly be a potential customer for such a car, as I own a Prius and would love to see even more dramatic ways to reduce our oil dependency and polution.
Cheers.
Feh. I want to know two things:
Watts per kilogram (330) and Watts per cubic centimeter (not derivable from speculations).
Then I'll be impressed.
(a 25g AA battery at 1.2v output would store 6875 mAh, assuming a similar density to NiMH. Half of that would impress me.)
110100 1101000 1101000 1100110 0 1101111 1101000 1100011 1
As long as a company doesn't have 66% of its shares on the market, it's not that easy to buy out a potential competitor.
Although there are plenty of other ways a huge corp can put a little guy out of business WITHOUT buying him out... and as a last resort they can always rely on goverment lobbying to introduce new legislation at different levels (municipal and up) to put insurmountable obstacles in their path...
Best to keep quiet about something like this unless you're ready for production, really.
Seven puppies were harmed during the making of this post.
If the battery works the way they claim it does for as cheap, etc., then they stand to make much more money letting the company flourish then selling it to Shell.
And Shell will make an offer they can't refuse. "Either their signature or their brains will be on the contract."
What?
Taken from the Technology Review article:
"We're skeptical, number one, because of leakage," says Miller, explaining that high-voltage ultracaps have a tendency to self-discharge quickly. "Meaning, if you leave it parked overnight it will discharge, and you'll have to charge it back up in the morning."
The Jim Miller quote above confuses me, as Maxwell Technologies advertises a 125V output power module which is spec'd to only lose 70% of its charge after 30 days. So why is he contradicting his own company's products?
For those who are unfamiliar, while ultracaps sound fantastic, they are ultimately bound by the physical laws of capacitors, one law being that their output voltage drops (linearly) as they discharge. Maxwell Technologies knows about this, so they develop ultracapacitor arrays with extremely high internal voltages (4000+ V) and regulate the power output using efficient step-down converters. Battery cells, of course, do this naturally, because the electrochemical reactions generating the current do so at a voltage determined by the electric potential of the galvanic reaction inside the cell.
This is one reason why you don't hear much about using ultracaps in portable electronic equipment. While ultracaps may be relatively compact, they are still bulky, and though they may be able to provide the necessary voltage, you have to factor in doubling or even tripling the required voltage to use efficient step-down converters. The story gets even worse for charging. Let's say you want to charge using 12 volts DC. Do you run through dedicated charging circuitry which takes in "safe" voltage, but can only charge the ultracap at battery-style rates (low current), or do you try and charge the ultracap in its theoretical minimum charge time (high current), which means that the wall-warts you are used to seeing will look more like big, boxy IGBT/Invert-based welders (and you thought your xbox 360 power supply was big...)
In short, while it sounds good in theory, the practical challenges of discharging and charging ultracaps are fairly sizable.
First off, this was reported in Business Week back in 2005, with some of the same quotes.
What's striking is that Kleiner Perkins, one of Silicon Valley's top venture capital firms, is funding this. If they're funding it, it's not totally bogus; they will have done a due diligence and had some competent people look over the technology. There may turn out to be some reason it's not feasible, but if it was physically impossible, they wouldn't have obtained money from that group.
This technology sounds great! I'm just afraid that someone will have an overly-broad patent that ties this technology up with lawsuits.
The dyslexic atheist says, "There is no dog"
Where they're weak, however, is with energy storage. Compared with lithium-ion batteries,
high-end ultracapacitors on the market today store 25 times less energy per pound.
I fail to see how a battery with less capacity than the actual ones can be of any use.
Anyone care to explain?
I was pretty sure the order was supposed to go:
Capacitor
SuperCapacitor
Capacitor64
Capacitor^3
Gii
This one has more info. The other one was more business aspect. This one is lightweight tech and has a bit more behind it. Now, the skeptics can attack it.
I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
"So really, it's more like 2.3x the density of Li-ion. dunno, that doesn't seem that far to me."
But it is around a factor of 50 over other ultracaps.
This shouldn't be fracking rocket science.
Well, rocket science is simple at its heart and several centuries old.
But what you are looking for is more than 100 years old nonetheless. One might wonder where it went.
If I can't buy it then it does me no good.
One might also wonder if there were ways of acquiring one's needs without buying them, or at least reducing that which needs to be bought to the commodity level. It seems I can no longer buy a classic, double breasted trenchcoat because "nobody" is wearing them anymore. I do, however, have a sewing machine. Hello, my name is "Nobody."
Yes, a car is a bit more complicated, both physically and legally, but the principal still stands.
And since you're in the realm of dreaming, you might also want to consider if a car is really what you want to buy. Perhaps if we're shifting paradigms and all there is a better one.
KFG
Along with the desk-that-charges gizmos and hard-chip that converts heat-energy to electricity, until I see one (or at least hear about one on a reputable site other than their own), I won't believe they are trying to do anything other than get hype to achieve the allocation of the almighty grant.
Ginga no Rekshiya Mata Each page.
If they can make a reasonable electric battery for a car that provide power for trips up to 60 km or so without needing a recharge, transportation could change dramatically.
Yeah, then all we'd need is this shit called "energy."
KFG
this is nearly half that http://www.amazon.de/MaxCell-3200mAh-Akku-Digitalk amera-usw/dp/B000MMQTT2
- Disclaimer: Information in this post deemed reliable but not guaranteed.
Be careful. Slashdot has been running lots of stories that are "investment opportunities". Read this, the first comment to the story linked from the Slashdot story. I didn't write it, it was written by someone with the nick Emosson, but it sounds correct. (Also, read the other comments showing skepticism of the idea.):
"Unfortunately EEStor never made and will never make the supercapacitor described in the patent because they ignore a well known physical effect, called "dielectric saturation".
"Barium titanate has been used in capacitors for decades, due to its high dielectric constant: (PDF file).
"However, the dielectric constant drops as the electric field strength increases: http://www.nap.edu/books/NI000488/html/49.html
http://prola.aps.org/abstract/PR/v71/i12/p890_1
"At a hypothetical field of 3500 Volts over a thickness of 12.76 micrometers, as proposed in the patent, the dielectric constant of barium titanate would be orders of magnitude lower than the claimed 18500, reducing capacity and energy density by the same factor...
"This has been discussed in more detail by Prof. Anatoly Moskalev on December 24th and 26th, 2006 in
http://www.teslamotors.com/blog1/index.php?p=43
"with an update on January 20th, 2007:
http://www.teslamotors.com/blog1/?p=46."
Also read this comment considerably below:
"Further evidences of EEstor's hype! by Roger Pham 1/22/2007 10:41 PM
"In his patent #7033406, Richard Weir, EEstor CEO, cited data published WAY BACK in 1985 from the Japan's Journal of Applied Physics, as basis for the high dielectric property of Barium Titanate (BaTiO3)powder, when coated with aluminum oxide and calcium magnesium aluminosilicated glass. If BaTiO3 capacitor was so good way back in the 1985, the likes of the GM EV1 would be around evey street corners since 1996, or the Prius would have been a PHEV way back in 1997!
"What held back coated BaTiO3 powder from becoming a SuperCapacitor was the fact that BaTiO3 has dielectric property that varies by nearly ten folds with just typical seasonal swing in ambient temperature, and the fact that its dielectric property drops by as much with high electrical field strength, as Emosson has brought up!"
barium titanate has an extremely high dielectric constant of around 5000 at room temperature. see http://www.sjsu.edu/faculty/selvaduray/page/papers /mate115/hsiaolin.pdf
This is hundres of times more than polystyrene, but the challeng is still formidable:
A cap with 320Wh/kg or 1GJ/m^3 or 1kJ/cm^3 at 3kV would require:
C/cm^3=0.7Farad
Since C=k*e0*A/d, e0=8.8E-12, k=5000
we get C(BaTiO3)/cm^3=4.4E-8*A/d
and with A*d=1cm^3 (not all of the cap can be dielectric so this is a ceiling)we get:
A=4m^2 and d=250nm
So with d=250nm, and U=3kV, the voltage across the dielectric is 12GV/m. Breakdown voltage for most ceramics are less than 300MV/m.
This would imply less than 1% the capacity claimed. Still an incredible feat, but the car would only go a few km.
don't cut it off www.mgmbill.org
Two things - first it may not be as revolutionary as the claims so may be similar to other things already in development - and second GM is not a US only company. Their US products may be unfit for export and in danger of losing on quality to China but their cars from Germany and other places certainly are of good quality.
Sorry, but this is drivel.
Shell can't afford it. If it is even half of what its proponents claim it is, the value of the technology is in the multi-trillions. Shell doesn't have that kind of cash sitting around. Perhaps they borrow it? Then they have to pay off the debt, and they are competing with the other major oil companies who don't have to service a huge debt. Perhaps a comglomeration of major oil companies? The coalition will not hold together, because the first oil company that does not join reaps all of the benefits and none of the costs.
GM might buy it.
...not by it...
...watch are competors...
You came here from Digg, didn't you?
Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence.
This has been hyped every few months (VC funding cycles?) for a couple of years now. I remember it was supposed to be in Cars last year, I expect I may be saying that next year as well. As of yet they have not delivered a single testable capacitor for anyone to test. I am not talking about a car sized unit, I am talking the smallest cell that delivers on any of the extraordinary claims.
I have seen a couple of people with some related physics knowledge examine the claims and indicate they can't see this happening.
To me it looks like an appeal to greed from VC vultures. Though I won't shed tears for them.
If the claims were true, they could submit one small capacitor for testing and the floodgates of money would open. The claims are revolutionary. But the behavior is not that of scientific breakthrough, it is more like trust us, it is great. Those who are smart enough to trust us will get the privilege of giving us their money.
I expect that if they do eventually deliver something it will turn out to be in line with the energy density of other ultra capacitors, there will excuses about production problems, perhaps indications that it will get better in the future, but they will have received the cash to get their business off the ground.
I think P was being sarcastic.
The Chevy Volt can't be produced and sold with today's li-ion battery technology. The batteries would be too expensive (I'm guesstimating around $16,000) and their service life would be too short (about 20,000 miles). GM are hoping better batteries will be available in a few years. I'm cautiously optimistic that they might be right -- but I don't really know and they don't really know.
Rubbish. Every year or so, some inventor comes up with an engine that runs on water, and it turns out to make about as much sense as the free energy machines of the 30s.
And every hour or so, a Slashdot poster fails to recognize the most blatant sarcasm.
Jeez Louise.
Capacitors explode... batteries explode... so how is one better than the other in this case?
Windows has detected an undetectable error.
This comment below the article linked by Slashdot suggests that the article may be part of a pump-and-dump stock scheme: "Re: Who knows? by JRIP 1/23/2007 3:40 PM".
Slashdot has been running a lot of "Investment Opportunity" stories recently.
... we can buy shipstones. Slide the rest of these posts under the door one lot over.
"Win treats sysadmins better than users. Mac treats users better than sysadmins. Linux treats everyone like sysadmins."
OK, I can't help it: The way Bert and I stemmed inflation was to tell the Secretary of the Treasury, the shrivel up little man with the enormous right arm, "Mister Secretary, The law says you have to sign your full name to each of them bills, no initial."
p 3
He gave us the dirtiest look, then started in signing his full name.
Here's another: http://www.bertandi.net/mp3/camdenpiercenewyork.m
Mentally transcribe the parent article into the correct thread and read in context... 8-)
Innocent people shouldn't be forced to pay for inferior software development.
--"Code Complete" Microsoft Press
Isn't this the 3rd year these startups have been pitching supercapacitors? The first one was in San Diego. In exchange for a super sized check, they gave you a 5F capacitor that supported up to 1V and recharged 100 times before it died. Still nothing new to report here.
The "electric car revolution" is a funny thing. As soon as you cross the Sunol grade, all the hybrids, vegetable oil, methane, ethanol, corn starch, soybean powered cars disappear and you're back in giant SUV land.
You are almost there, just put the parts together correctly. You said:
> Maxwell Technologies advertises a 125V output power module which is spec'd to only lose 70% of its charge after 30 days.
and
> they are ultimately bound by the physical laws of capacitors, one law being that their output voltage drops (linearly) as they discharge.
Now do the math. Or you could if enough numbers were available, so lets do it back of the envelope style. It's all about the discharge CURVE. Remember caps won't self discharge like a battery. That voltage is going to be slip sliding away from the small unavoidable losses and the that first 10% of the voltage drop will be seeping out what percentage of the watt-hours? 19% Ouch!
It will be like a car with a leak in the gas tank, the question is will be be a slow leak that can be ignored in most cases or will it feel like losing gallons per day. They are promising a car with a 500 mile range. Get the losses down where those Maxwell caps are and you lose 15 miles per day to losses. If the losses creep up to 5% terminal voltage per day to losses and recharge nightly and that will be paying for a 50 mile drive whether it sits in the driveway or runs all day. Large losses mean splitting it into banks and only charging what you plan on needing plus a reserve. Big lot of bother. Lets hope for low losses, but at the extreme voltages they are talking about I doubt it.
Democrat delenda est
No, Dig.
Wanna fight ? Bend over, stick your head up your ass, and fight for air.
This temperature "issue" is a red herring.
As the thing requires being kept above -20 to work, put it in a well-insulated box with an electric heater and see to it that the heater comes on if the temperature goes near -20. A heater working at those temperatures, and only looking for a rise of a few degrees in a very small volume, wouldn't consume much energy at all, and it can tap the ultracap for energy, or simply be plugged in. Or keep your car in a garage. Or both. Hell, around here, we have to plug in our cars now when it gets around -20, because gas engines don't work very well when they get that cold, either. My car has both battery and engine-block heaters.
Where I live (Montana) we see -40 once or twice a year in a cold year. Not yet this year, though we've been down to -20 once. I would *love* to have this kind of clean, high rate, long-lifetime energy storage available, and not just for cars. The cold, we know how to beat. Energy storage -- that's the issue.
I'm a lot more concerned about materials availability and manufacturing practicality than I am any of these supposed limits; if they can just make them so they work under limited circumstances, I'm pretty sure we can adjust the circumstances if we cannot adjust the ultracaps themselves. Electricity is particularly friendly to voltage and current conversions. The available power's the same, or at least, barring the efficiency losses of conversion, which aren't horrible. And anyone who is saying that the environment is a problem is ignoring our demonstrated ability to create just about any environment we want, wherever we want to.
I've fallen off your lawn, and I can't get up.
Heard about this on the radio and looked it up a couple months ago:
0 06-07/06-022.html
http://www.brown.edu/Administration/News_Bureau/2
It's a battery-capacitor hybrid that has interesting properties. It's not at the same production level, but doesn't provide quite the same strong claims as the EESTOR system. Any opinions on the Brown effort?
Josh
gigantino.tv - Heavy but weighs nothing.
From time to time I've read the idea of swapping batteries in EVs as the solution to long charging times. It doesn't make sense for several reasons:
1) The most obvious reason is that different makes and models of cars will use differing battery packs. It would be very difficult for a station to stock packs for all cars that might show up.
2) Even for packs of the same type, there will differences in quality. If you just bought a car with 200 miles of range, would you want to have someone yank out your shiny new battery pack and replace it with one that had deteriorated to 80 miles range?
3) These schemes assume that it will be really easy and quick to replace the pack. That's far from proven. My estimate is that you're looking at a minimum of 20 minutes. While designing an automated system to swap packs is possible if they are all the same, it seems very unlikely that they will be.
4) Advances in battery technology are making it increasing less likely that the swap can be done quicker than a recharge. In the case of capacitors, the potential recharge times will so short as to make swapping a laughable proposition.
5) The propane tank example is a poor one if you want to support the EV battery swap idea. Where I live, the price of a refurbished and filled propane tank is ~$10/gallon which is much more than the value of the propane itself. One of the major factors is the cost of testing/refurbishing/replacing the tanks returned by customers which can be in arbitrarily bad condition.
6) People seem to miss one of the main advantages of EVs which is that the paradigm of periodically going to a "gas station" to get energy for powering our cars will mostly go away. Most EV charging will be done at home and with perhaps some supplementation at our workplaces. The only "gas station" type charging that needs to be considered is for the 5-10% of driving which is outside of a reasonable EV range. This will go down even further as EV ranges get higher.
7) The interim step towards full EVs is plugin-hybrids. These will be on the road within a few years and will bridge the gap from today's technology to the availability of long-range full EVs with a network of quick charging stations for those relatively few trips that take one far from home.
So, simply put, there will never be a large infrastructure for swapping batteries in privately-owned passenger vehicles as a means of extending range.
Isn't there other capicitors in an earlier story..
Nano fibers used to increase a capacitors surface area i believe was the concept.
There was also a similar development with lithium cells, also using nano-fiber graphite forests for electrodes, producing hysterical energy densities and recharge rates (like 80% in a minute or so), high efficiency (since they'd slag down at that rate otherwise), and both long lives and a large numbers of cycles (since the graphite nanotubes don't tend to degrade anywhere but at the tips, and very slowly there.)
Somebody also did something similar with lead-acids, of all things. Built the plates' base structure by plating the lead onto a graphite (non-nano) fiber base, rather than starting from a lead skeleton. Greatly increased charge/discharge rate and efficiency (since the graphite conducts better than lead) significantly reduced weight (like well under half of a regular battery if I recall it right) and enormous increase in number of charge/discharge cycles before failure (since the graphite skeleton holds its shape rather than participating in the chemical reaction, which is what's behind some of a lead-acid's failure mechanisms - thus letting the plates "heal".)
And then there's vanadium redox...
Lots of good alternatives in the pipe. A conglomerate of oil companies would be hard pressed to buy them ALL up and bury 'em. B-)
Bantam Dominique roosters crow a four-note song. Once you've heard it as "Happy BIRTHday" you can't NOT hear it that way
Geez.. ultracapacitors.. we had supercapacitors till now.. whats next.. ubercapacitors? ubersuperultracapacitors..
That's easy: Hypercapacitors.
(You can tell when they're coming by the amount of hype.)
Bantam Dominique roosters crow a four-note song. Once you've heard it as "Happy BIRTHday" you can't NOT hear it that way
Oh shi-...
That module is made up of 'normal' 2.7V ultracapacitors. These new folks are claiming 1000x that voltage per capacitor.
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It does indeed sound aw.. ahh crap!! low battery warning!!
-- Jim.
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Typing too fast.... before someone else points out the idiocy in my original post I'll fix a few of em myself.
> Get the losses down where those Maxwell caps are and you lose 15 miles per day to losses.
Since the power loss is not constant, which was the whole point, obviously this part has to be taken in the context of the next (fairly mangled) sentence and assume nightly recharging to 100% to enable the 500 mile advertised range. Which would be the logical course, so an unexpected trip could be undertaken without worrying about charging.
> Large losses mean splitting it into banks and only charging what you plan on needing plus a reserve.
Doh. The obvious method is of course to leave it one big bank and only recharge it to give tomorrow's driving plus a fudge factor if self discharge is a problem. (Explanation left as exercise)
But running the numbers a little more gets some disturbing trends. Assume the loss is only equal to 15 miles of driving per day as I did in the best case above. That means every single car would be wasting enough power to drive a NYC to LA round trip annually. But keep the caps around 25% charge most days would cut the waste in half. Assuming that the real world loss curve looks close to a perfect capacitor discharge.
Democrat delenda est
EEStor claims that, using an automated production line and existing power electronics, it will initially build a 15-kilowatt-hour energy-storage system for a small electric car weighing less than 100 pounds, and with a 200-mile driving range. The vehicle, the company says, will be able to recharge in less than 10 minutes.
I'm not so sure that I would like to drive a car that weighs 50-60lbs less than me.
Signatures are a waste of bandwi (buffering...)
Like a lot of people, I'm pretty sceptical about the claimed storage density and ability to hold charge for a long period of time.
However I think there's huge potential (excuse the pun) in coupling ultracapacitors with traditional batteries in hybrids. They can charge much more efficiently from regenerative braking or mains power, deliver big bursts of power back for acceleration and charge the batteries with any excess.
One of these days I'm moving to Theory - everything works there
You're both fucking shills.
+5, Truth
The argument that you can't fast charge an ultracapacitor at home only holds if you are trying to charge it directly off the mains. But that would be a silly design approach.
Instead, keep one device at home on permanent trickle charge from the mains, and then connect this home unit to your mobile units when they need fast high-amperage charging.
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We have an application using supercaps for short term power storage. It's part of a system that has a very high peak, short duration power draw - similar to a strobing camera flash. The caps have very good power density and don't degrade with the charge/discharge cycles. However, they do leak-down badly. They lose 50% of their voltage which is 75% of their energy in under an hour sitting on the bench. We could have gotten better leakage rating, but at the expense of much lower energy density. I suspect this is the tradeoff that Miller is referring to.
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The Wise adapts himself to the world. The Fool adapts the world to himself. Therefore, all progress depends on the Fool.
Shell can't afford it.
[...]
GM might buy it.
ROFL
GM is practically bankrupt, has massive pension liabilities and is burning cash at several $B per year.
Shell is making over $1B per month, net.
I think if anyone is gong to kill this off it will be the GMC and Fords of the world. Car Companies make a killing on servicing an replacement parts on combustion engines as part need regular replacements (spark plugs, oil filters, air filters ect) but the electric car needs virtualy no love, when was the last time sony needed to service your DVD player?. It was one of the reasons (according to the documentary who killed the electric car) that GM killed off the EV.
In the not too distant future, next Sunday A.D.
I bet the TSA is already drawing up plans to ban these things being brought within half a mile of an aircraft.
If you were blocking sigs, you wouldn't have to read this.
Or discharge (largely) the ultra-cap when parked in a garage or at a charger at work, and make sure the charger can give a complete charge in a few minutes (maybe combined with a timer). Read AMPS - probably not possible unless there's a local storage device that ISN'T an ultracap.... Could install vacuum flywheels in every home.
So don't expect them to replace batteries in cars, but they could greatly improve electric-only cars in combination with Lithium-ion batteries. Don't use the ultracap for long-term storage, but use it for performance and possibly for a just-before-trip "top-off".
GM killed the EV because the market was too small(10,000 vehicles does not a market make), they were losing money on it, and because they were not interested in the liability exposure. Some yahoo that thought that they could buy a $100,000 car for $30,000 is a pretty good bet to sue.
Car companies don't make all that much money on spark plugs, oil filters and air filters, there are too many other companies willing to undercut their prices with reasonable replacements. My car is on it's second set of spark plugs, which cost about $60, at 70,000 miles. I probably won't replace them again, maybe someone else will. Air filters add up to about $50 for every 100,000 miles you drive a car, if you replace them aggressively. Oil filters are only oem at the dealership, and between diy and quick lubes, I bet that dealers don't have that large a percentage of the oil change market.
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Nerd rage is the funniest rage.
They ran this last year too. Old news, no progress apparently.
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You're too naive. "Hour"?!?!. Pshaw!
Is it funny that they're touring the country to show you how great electric vehicles are by towing them in a trailer with an SUV?
I guess middle America is too crappy to stop and charge the thing.
I'd TOTALLY pay $15000 to feel what it's like to go 25mph!
25mph top speed, 35 mile range, $15,000. I'm not sure if WonderCaps (TM) can save this company...
There's no way they can fail. Where do I send my money?
Um... Couldn't you just use another bank of capacitors? At home, you can charge one bank slowly, and when you get back from the trip, use them to dump power into your car.
:) OK, you win - and maybe it even looks like the technology that's inside the battery ("never sell one when you can sell two at twice the price").
Bah, capacitors? I'm still waiting for an excuse to have a big flywheel at my house.
The same concept applies at the gas station- just have a big bank of capacitors. On the other hand, this type of power is perfectly doable if you have a high voltage line going to the gas station.
A gas station? Is that like the thing in front of the parking space at the grocery store that charges up your car when you plug in the cable and swipe your frequent-shopper-card and then shows up on your receipt after you shop?
My God, it's Full of Source!
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I'm not saying we shouldn't be concerned about the safety issues---just that I think we can be reasonably confident that the obvious ones will be licked if this comes out to market.
Not necessarily - last week in my folks' town some kids were street racing after school - the unfortunate ones were in a Caddy STS which got hit side-on by a short bus, resulting in a massive fireball. 4 of the 5 involved were killed. The firefighters were losing their lunch on the side of the road.
But gasoline is terribly convenient, cheap and the energy density is fabulous. I've never seen a horse explode into a fireball.
My God, it's Full of Source!
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Who needs caps or a fancy battery when you can just drop a pill in the tank.
a nce_Fuel
h tm
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Well that's a problem of your own imagination, because the profit is definately there.
There have been numerous examples in the past of that type of business.
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The Ultracaps, IF they've pulled it off, will have to be able handle a dead short in the stacked cells for a pack or you'll have >350W/kg dumped in about a millisecond or so. That's a LOT of energy- if you thought exploding Dell's because of a Li-Ion pack were impressive... If they can't ensure no instant discharge in the case of cell damage, you're going to want to spread them all throughout the car with a distribution bus instead of a single pullable pack that gets a new one replaced to "fuel up" your car, not to mention it's going to be a big bulky thing that's not easily pulled. You're going to want an inductive charging system for safety reasons.
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there's no conspiracy theory needed to explain why electric cars aren't the panacea that various folks would have you believe. Combine the limited range available from any reasonably priced battery technology, the cost/life ratio of said batteries, the limited nubmer charging stations combined with the charging times required and it's easy to see why this "amazing" technolgy isn't quite ready for prime time. Come back when you find a battery that's got even 50% the energy density of gasoline, a charging time of five minutes, and a cost similar to that of the empty steel tank we're currently using.
It's always fun to blame GM for "killing" the EV1, (hey, this is slashdot, where any company with more than three employees or that makes an actual profit is "evil") but when you factor in the limited life of motor brushes and batteries, I don't see that electric cars are all that much less complicated to service. Leaving that aside, you've made the common mistake of confusing dealers with manufacturers. Ford doesn't make a penny when Big John's Ford does a transmission service on your 2002 Tarus. The service profit is just the dealer's gravy. Replacement parts aren't even much of a profit center, since so many are available from 3rd parties.
I'd love to see viable electrics, because I'm a motorcycle rider and I hate breathing exhaust fumes. But we aren't there yet.
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The Re-Fuel guys think you can easily make vehicles with a 50 mile range (and going further just means storing more juice). After 50 miles you just need a recharge which just takes a couple of minutes (pump out old and pump in new).
For example, my daily commute is approx 35 miles each way. I could easily do a re fuel for my trip home.
Services could very easily be provided that do a mobile recharge. While your car is in the parking lot, someone comes along with a tanker and refills.
Engineering is the art of compromise.
Car companies make money by selling cars. Toyota developed the reputation for having reliable cars. They sell more cars because of that reputation.
Also, many (probably most) people don't buy GM/Ford replacement parts. They buy NAPA, etc.
In new technology like this, they could make a killing on after-sale upgrades if they design the car right. "Hey, we've got a new ultracap design that holds its charge much better than the one in your car. Here's a limited time offer for replacements."
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A 20 horsepower electric motor typically goes for $600 or more. Highly efficient electric motors are more expensive because they require more copper and better quality magnetics. Most electric motors require slip rings or commutators, which will wear out. (There are designs that use permanent magnet rotors or inductive coupling, I don't know it these are suitable for automotive use.) Batteries and controllers and low production quantities add to the cost of electric vehicles.
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That's the right idea.
That that is is that that that that is not is not.
Just as A.C.Clarke predicted the use of satellites in global communications (did he get a patent?), so was this idea (supercapacitors replacing batteries) the science in an old science fiction story. Unfortunately, there was not room in the margins of my brain to write the full reference.