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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?"
Fast charging sounds great until you look at the power levels.
Based on some of the numbers floating about it looks like a 100 mile charge requires on the order of 30-50 kWhr (depending on vehicle size, efficiencies, driving patterns, etc.). Delivering this level of charge in 5 minutes means delivering between 360,000 to 600,000 watts to each "pump" at the station -- that's 600 to 1000 amps at 600 V. Delivering enough electricity to service station (a single road-side recharging station might need 3 to 6 MW of peak power to cover 5 to 10 "pumps") will probably tax the local distribution network and require construction of a lot of new power generation and distribution capacity.
As long as electric cars are an oddity, they won't tax the power grid, but any serious level of adoption could make things interesting.
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