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Nanotech Battery Claims to Solve Electric Car Woes
rbgrn writes "A123 Systems claims to have invented a Lithium Ion battery that not only can discharge at very high rates of current but can be recharged very quickly without damage to the cells or overheating. From their website: 'A unique feature of A123Systems' M1 cells is their ability to charge to high capacity in 5 minutes or less. That's a significant improvement over traditional Li Ion, which typically requires more than 90 minutes to reach a similar level of charge.' Using this technology, General Motors has announced a plug-in hybrid SUV and Venture Vehicles is developing a fully electric 3 wheel vehicle. Politics aside, the main technological hurdle to mass adoption of electric cars has been a fuel station replacement when driving distances beyond a single charge worth of range. Will we finally be seeing high current recharge stations in the next decade?"
All of the schemes for a high capacity, fast charging battery paired with fast charging stations suffer from the chicken and egg problem. The car buyers won't buy cars until there are lots of stations to stop at, and the service station owners won't convert revenue generating gas pumps to chargers until there are lots of cars that need them.
The solution is to build hybrids with fast charging batteries. Then car buyers can invest without fear of getting stranded. Once a large fleet is on the roads, service stations will start to convert.
BTW, this all asumes that TFA and similar techs are not vaporware.
A couple comments referred to gas stations needing to replace their pumps. Actually, a car that runs primarily on electricity with gas/diesel as a backup would be ideally suited to get charged at grocery stores, movie theatres, shopping malls, restaurants, etc.
Plug in, order amount of electricity, go do your shopping/etc. and come back to a car ready to go. Employers could also do this at their offices, at first offering it as an employee perk and down the road as an additional revenue stream.
This could create competitive advantage in the near team and additional revenue long term for many companies.
> The amperage required is not any more than typical household service, particularly if you are willing to let it charge overnight.
> 220 volts is even better than 110 for charging cars, and it really doesn't take more than your house already has.
Yes it would add a hell of a lot of load to the grid if everyone had an electric car cooking at home every night, but that problem is probably managable, since night time is normally lighter loaded.
The big question nobody wants to look at is Interstate recharging. Take a look at a big fscking Roadrunner station with twenty plus 'pumps' recharging batteries in five minutes and run those numbers. Put the sucker out in the boonies between cities and ask yourself where they are going to get the power from? Now imagine everyone is running away from a hurricane/terrorist attack and those 'pumps' are going to have to be able to hammer away for 12 plus hours with a line at every pump. Onsite storage isn't an option for that kind of demand and the grid as it currently exists simply can't do it either.
Everyone wants to think it just because 'big oil' doesn't want electric cars that the infrastructure hasn't magically appeared. It isn't. Even if the demand existed to justify it, nobody currently knows HOW to build it. These are hard problems, but we do need to keep trying to solve them because buying oil from our enemies isn't the brightest idea even if you think 'global warming' is a communist plot.
Democrat delenda est
What if you could make a standard for the batteries themselves and fuel stations offered quick change (not charge) capabilities where you pull in and replace your battery. A measuring device could credit you back for unused power in the battery you came in with and you would get charged for the power you take. This type of thing would have to be standardized and regulated (proper testing of batteries, quick change system and process, standard interfaces, centralized billing). Another idea might be to make commercial trucks use the same overhead wires that cities use for electric buses. The city would provide the power for free and the trucks would carry a reserve battery to get them to and from places where the wires don't reach. These are two ideas that are within our reach as a civilisation from a pure technical perspective. If the electricity is cleanly generated (wind, solar, hydro electric), it effectively would reduce hydrocarbon emissions.
"Question everything, including this!" - http://technoracle.blogspot.com/
Another feature is that it is a passively safe design; meltdowns simply aren't possible. Anyways, the interviews in the external links of that wikipedia article are very interesting and informative.
This is surely going to get lost in all the replies, but nevertheless...
How are electric cars going to impact pedestrian safety? They run very quietly; you can get hit by an electric car without knowing it's right behind you, whereas with classic cars you can at least hear the combustion engines from some distance away and take notice. What about kids? Blind people? Even animals might have problems - they stay away from noisy roads, but if the roads aren't noisy anymore...
On a sidenote, it would be pretty cool not to have noise pollution. I imagine a city with electric cars and without smog would be a very nice place to live in for humans and small animals, such as birds and squirrels. Perhaps we'd see more rare bird species in such a city. The quality of life would definitely improve.
Surely I'm not the only here to have seen that US documentary film about electric cars called: Who Killed The Electric Car? http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0489037/
Go watch it.
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