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?"

Comments

Hybrids will be the bridging tech

[Harmonious Botch]

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.

Re:conservation of energy

[KonoWatakushi]

I believe the problem with nuclear power has a lot more to do with disposal and storage than with the safety of the reactor. Well, good news, the Integral Fast Reactor solves this issue. It recycles the "waste" until it is entirely consumed and all the of the really dangerous elements are burned up as well. There is very little actual waste left over, and it is far far less dangerous than what is produced by conventional reactors. They only extract a few percent of the energy from the fuel, and throw out an enormous amount highly dangerous and useful material. By recycling this material, the IFR can actually consume existing waste! It would be a long time before any new Uranium would need to be mined.

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.