Toshiba Battery Charges In 10 Minutes

Slatterz writes "Toshiba has unveiled a battery prototype that offers a 90 percent charge capacity in just 10 minutes. The Super Charge Ion Battery (SCIB) is capable of handling 5,000 to 6,000 recharge cycles, compared to the typical 500 offered by standard lithium-ion batteries. The new battery is composed of a durable material that offers a high level of thermal stability and prevents overheating."

Comments

a better link

[Tumbleweed]

Is the InfoWorld article this seems to have come from:

Right here

This is being shown in a laptop, and will be in a Schwinn bicycle next year.

This sounds good, certainly, but I'm *really* hoping eeStor's superduperultracapacitor technology works out as advertised. That will change the world.

Re:a better link

[szquirrel]

Even better, this article. More tech specs.

Re:a better link

[lysergic.acid]

SCiB batteries can endure 5,000 to 6,000 recharge cycles, compared to around 500 cycles for standard lithium-ion batteries, according to a Toshiba executive manning the company's booth at the Ceatec exhibition in Chiba, Japan. At the show, Toshiba showed a prototype SCiB battery installed in a Dynabook laptop. The laptop was matched

only 500 cycles, really? that seems a little low. do they mean that after 500 charges the battery begins to decrease in capacity, or that the battery will start to fail completely after 500 charges? because that seems really really low to me.

i mean, most rechargeable batteries today are Li-ion batteries, right? i just wanna know how many recharges i have left on my PSP.

does it help if you make sure to plug the battery back into the charger before it's out of charge? what can you do or not do to help preserve the capacity and life-span of a li-ion battery?

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[Nefarious Wheel]

I respectfully suggest we should call this a "Shipstone" (obligatory Heinlein reference ("Friday")).

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[Anonymous Coward]

Its on a Schwinn bike now. I got to ride one last week at the Interbike trade show. This thing kicked ass up the hill and i saw with my own eyes that it charged to 100% in 7 minutes. I believe the Battery on the schwinn had 10 cells. Simply amazing!

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[Korin43]

Wikipedia lists ~1200 charges on a Lithium Ion battery, but there's a [citation needed], so I can't give you a better source :(

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[retchdog]

I think it's pretty close - at a rough educated guess, I'd say that after 500 cycles without disciplined use (see below), you'll be around 30% of factory capacity. (I'm assuming a cycle every 1.5 days)

Supposedly keeping the battery between 30% to 70% charge is helpful; there are utilities for this for laptops, don't know about PSP. Running it all the way down is very bad, and when I got lazy about it, my battery life did plummet (though it may have just "aged" independently, it seems connected).

High temperature is bad too, but there's not much you can do about this usually, especially with a PSP. However, it's worth saying that my thinkpad X-series battery (which is at the edge of the laptop, at the hinge) is faring a lot better than my iBook battery which was planted right atop the circuits. :-/

Re:a better link

[Anti_Climax]

I've heard it said that Li-Ion batteries are typically rated for the number of full charge cycles it takes to reduce their effective capacity to 80% of what it was originally. Supposedly, partial charges effect the longevity of Li-Ion cells in a proportional manner so they handle 2x as many discharges to half capacity as they do full drains. YMMV

Re:a better link

[nmos]

only 500 cycles, really? that seems a little low. do they mean that after 500 charges the battery begins to decrease in capacity, or that the battery will start to fail completely after 500 charges?

Lithium Ion batteries start losing capacity the first time you charge them but I think the lifetime of a battery is the point where it has half of it's design capacity. FWIW 300-600 cycles really does seem to be about how long my various cell phone and laptop batteries seem to last.

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[abdulla]

Wikipedia says >1000, even that seems small from what I remember. I remember a Sony tech spec somewhere that said something in the few thousand.

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[MeepMeep]

only 500 cycles, really? that seems a little low. do they mean that after 500 charges the battery begins to decrease in capacity, or that the battery will start to fail completely after 500 charges? because that seems really really low to me.

i mean, most rechargeable batteries today are Li-ion batteries, right? i just wanna know how many recharges i have left on my PSP.

does it help if you make sure to plug the battery back into the charger before it's out of charge? what can you do or not do to help preserve the capacity and life-span of a li-ion battery?

Li-ion batteries are usually limited by 'calendar' life, not charge cycles - they start losing capacity the moment they are packaged at the factory and generally last a couple of years before they become too weak to use.

However, there are some strategies to extend their life:

1. Keep them cool (but not frozen)
2. Keep them at around 40% charge

Now, this probably isn't too useful for batteries that you are actively using - however, if you have spare lithium batteries lying around that you aren't using at the moment you might want to drain the charge to about 40% and zip them up in ziplock bags and put them in the fridge until you need to use them (check it once in a while to make sure they haven't drained to zero charge because that can kill them).

Also, this means that you should avoid letting your Li-ion batteries get hot unnecessarily, like leaving them in a hot car in the summer.

This is a good reference http://www.batteryuniversity.com/parttwo-34.htm

Re:a better link

[Java1964]

Can't wait for this to be put in a Tesla. i might have to shift around some funds for a deposit-- wait-- what funds? Ok-- looks like i'll settle for the Schwinn instead.

Re:a better link

[lysergic.acid]

hrm... well i guess it's a good thing that i've only let my battery die once or twice since i got it. with replacement batteries costing $40~50 a piece, i'll have to be more attentive about my charge state.

i seem to remember seeing several different stories on /. about "revolutionary" new battery techs, but i still haven't seen any alternatives to traditional li-ion batteries being sold at commercial retailers. IMHO lithium-titanate batteries look promising. manufacturers are claiming that these new lithium batteries can recharge in under 10 minutes--and that's for use in electric vehicles. this New Scientist article reports that mobile devices using lithium-titanate can recharge in 6 minutes, and each battery is capable of going through 20,000 charge cycles.

i'm guessing this technology is probably still too expensive to bring to market. it'll probably only be used in electric vehicles or other such applications which require much more durability and longer life-spans than traditional Li-ion batteries currently provide.

Re:a better link

[Timbotronic]

I'm increasingly sceptical of EEStor. They've just signed another "worldwide exclusive" deal with a tiny company called LightEVs for all 2 and 3 wheel vehicles. The deal they did previously with Zenn covers all small to midsized cars so they've now conceeded a big chunk of their margin to a couple of nobodies. You've got to wonder - how are these companies adding value? What's their track record? Why hasn't EEStor made deals with more established manufacturers? A single working prototype which has the performance they claim would have the majors beating the door down. I hope I'm wrong about EEStor, but it doesn't look good.

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[shmlco]

Those are 500 FULL cycles. Use 33% of the battery one day, recharge, 33% of the battery the next day, recharge, and 33% of the battery the next day, and recharge, and you'll bascially have used one full cycle.

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[Kagura]

Hey, I just removed the "citation needed". You're good to go.

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[Kagura]

I haven't read the article. Are you saying that the battery electronically switches the cells used so that they each get the same charge/use time, like solid-state storage medium?

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[Merls the Sneaky]

You trust Sony to not over inflate the numbers?

Re:a better link

[lysergic.acid]

so does this mean that keeping a rechargeable battery _fully_ charged (90~99%) is worse than keeping it at around ~40%?

i had thought it was the constant change/fluctuation in its stored charge that wears it down (ie. going from 100% down to 0%, then back up to 100%, so on and so forth...) since these articles always talk about how many "cycles" each battery can survive. i guess i should try to learn the chemistry behind batteries.

thanks for sharing that link. it's very informative.

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[WoLpH]

Yeah but that's Sony, with Sony batteries you'll never reach the promised number because the battery will go up in flames before that ;)

I would like to see some independent news about this battery though, 5000-6000 charges sounds great but I'll believe it when I see it. I really doubt it will be feasible to pump currents like these in a laptop. Perhaps nice for electric cars though :)

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[Nimey]

No. Shipstones were far better than even this little dandy.

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[Nefarious Wheel]

True, but these puppies could conceivably be as disruptive.

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[torkus]

Beg to differ. That's 3 cycles.

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[Macman408]

It's 3 partial cycles, but in terms of battery lifetime, it's roughly equivalent to a full discharge-charge cycle. For example, see the second from last paragraph on Apple's battery site.

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[retiarius]

Hmm ... only ~50 Wh/kg in the pack containing
2000g of 4.2 Ah x 2.4V, hardly different than NiMH.
Perhaps it's not cheaper or more efficient energy-density-
per-unit-weight/volume wise, but has better cycling.

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[Rei]

This is basically the same technology AltairNano uses -- a traditional LiCoO2 cathode and a nanotitanate cathode replacing the traditional graphite one. In large format, you get 70-80Wh/kg. It's a little better than NiMH in that regard, but not much. It's also a lot more expensive (AltairNano's are $2/Wh; hopefully a heavy hitter like Toshiba can bring prices down). Where the chemistry shines is everything else. It's incredibly stable, rapid charges, handles a very wide range of operating temperatures, has a ridiculously high power density (~5 kW/kg), fire resistant, highly efficient, and so on down the line.

It's one of a variety of relatively new, commercially available li-ion chemistries, each with their own strengths and weaknesses. When you hear of lithium ion battery packs in electric vehicles, with the exception of Tesla, they're usually these new chemistries, not traditional LiCoO2/graphite cells. The next-gen chemistries look even more impressive, but we'll have to wait for them ;)

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[Rei]

SCiB *is* titanate. As for what you have available, that depends on what you're buying. For laptops, yeah, I'm not aware of any alternative-tech li-ion packs. But if you're just buying cells, you can readily get phosphate and spinel cells. Better energy density than the titanates, and while not as ridiculously stable, they still blow conventional li-ion out of the water.

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[Rei]

They're limited by both. And any numbers or stats you've seen for "li-ion" are only applicable to traditional, LiCoO2+graphite cells.

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[andy_t_roo]

"Begin at the beginning; proceed through the middle until you reach the end, then stop." -- or in the case of a Li-ion battery, stop before the end as running them out can ruin them (recharging them after they reach a too low voltage can potentially create a combustable gas, so there is a safty cutout in there to kill most Lion batteries once they get too flat)

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[jimdread]

This is the one I'd go for. Toshiba press release: "Toshiba to Launch Innovative Rechargeable Battery Business" dated 11 December, 2007. From Toshiba press release to slashdot in under 10 months. Impressive! It's pretty much the same thing, all the specs are in there like voltage, capacity, size, weight.

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[Idaho]

Beg to differ. That's 3 cycles.

No, it's not.

See http://www.apple.com/batteries/ , and this is how they measure cycles for the warranty (they guarantee 80% of original capacity after 300 full charge cycles, otherwise you'll get a free replacement iirc) so I'd say that's what matters.

If you have a MacBook, you can see your battery cycle count by typing this:

ioreg -l | grep Cycle | cut -d= -f2

Mine is at 52 cycles (bought it in May '08), but I'm using it 8+ hours a day. So I've owned it for 5 months, at this rate it will reach 300 cycles after 2-2.5 years, which isn't too bad.

Re:a better link

[Lonewolf666]

Looks great for "micro-hybrid" cars that use only a small battery for recovering braking energy and a boost on accelerating. In these applications, you need a lot of power density. Or simply as a starter battery (good bye lead-acid).

For plug-in hybrids or electric only cars, LiPO4 is also interesting:
somewhat higher energy density, and the lower power density is not a problem due to the larger battery. An example of a system that seems to be commercially available:
http://www.valence.com/products/epoch_overview.html

Re:a better link

[marsu_k]

Supposedly keeping the battery between 30% to 70% charge is helpful; there are utilities for this for laptops, don't know about PSP.

Somewhat offtopic, but I've been wondering about this: my main laptop is currently also my main desktop. As such, while I run it off the battery every now and then, it's plugged in most of the time. Does this have a negative effect on the battery life? Should I use the battery more often?

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[cerberusss]

eeStor's superduperultracapacitor (...) will change the world.

Change? Charge, you mean. :D

Re:a better link

[cerberusss]

It's definitely not ideal. If you keep it in your laptop, it's going to be much warmer than room temperature (because the laptop is warm) and fully charged.

Basically that's really bad storage. See here:

Wikipedia on Li-ion battery life

To summarize the above page, it's best to store a battery a bit less than half-charged, and not above room temperature. So to preserve your battery when you really need it, take it out.

Re:a better link

[electrictroy]

>>>Use 33% of the battery one day, recharge, 33% of the battery the next day, recharge, and 33% of the battery the next day, and recharge, and you'll bascially have used one full cycle.

Nope. You see, batteries are a lot like dogs. If you overfeed your dog, he won't live long. If you underfeed you dog, that too can shorten his life. If you alternate between stuffing your dog full of food, and then not feeding him for a whole week until he's skin 7b ones, that too can damage him due to the stress. But if you feed your dog moderate amounts of food, on a regular basis, he'll live a happy long life.

Your battery is the same way. As long as you keep it in the "comfort zone" of 40-90% charge, it will last a long, long time. If you overcharge it or undercharge it, then you're putting stress on the battery, and that causes permanent damage. The damage slowly accumulates until the battery's internal design short-circuits & dies.

Back to your example:

Since you treated your battery gently, only discharging it to ~60% charge, you avoided stressing it. So effectively that counts as 0.1 cycles subtracted from its life, not a full cycle. This method of always keeping batteries between 40-90% is also used in Toyota & Honda hybrid cars to extend their NiMH battery life to 300,000 miles. (If they discharged the battery completely, then the lifespan would only be 50,000 miles, as is the case with their EV cars.)

Final thought:

I prefer NiMH to Lithium Ion. NiMH batteries are a lot like NiCad batteries - they keep going and going and going. I have NiCad batteries that are over twenty years old, and yet still continue powering my devices. Unfortunately LiIon batteries only last 4-5 years; I don't like batteries with builtin death dates.

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[Falstius]

My trek and I kick ass up the hills and I can eat a meal in well under 7 minutes.

oh ... an electric bike. lame.

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[Sandbags]

Yup, you are correct. partial charge = partial cycle. Li-Ion batteries do NOT degrade with age What the poster above was refering to is Ni-Cad battery lifecycle depletion. This does not effect Li-Ion, Li-Po, or thoshibas new batteries (called Li-Tit by some).

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[Sandbags]

The benefit of Li-Tit (SCiB) is not density, it's charge time. Li-Tit batteries reach 80+% charge in 90 seconds. Yes, some other batteries hold more charge per volume or charge per weight, but Li-Tit batteries have a MAJOR advantage in automobile use where volume is not as much of an issue as charge time.

The Li-TiT (SCiB) batteries first of all are old news, and I don;t know why this is on /. now. It;s not only old news as far as science, it's old news as in they've been sold on the open market in large volume for over a year!

They were developed primarily with 2 ideas in mind: Being able to be a viable power source for a car (extreme reliability in all temps and a quick charge cycle that's equivolent to the time to fill a conventional gas tank), and for heavy use mobile users who will kill a battery, and although they might have occasional short term access to a power outlet, can't wait an hour to recharge and needed a better option.

Li-Po spinel cells are still Li-Ion technology. The spinel anode can handle high voltage and high temp, allowing larger and fewer cells to deliver the same power. Though this provides slightly better power density, they're costly, subject to overheating (including a much higher probability of causing burns) and are not good in high temp environemtnes (outdoors on summer days). Typically, Spinel based cells also can't replace your existing battery pack as simply replacing the cells is not an option in most notebooks, the batteries have some built in intelligence that helps the notebook use power more eficiently, and without it, even having more power available usually means less battery life.

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[AncientPC]

Lithium ion batteries tend to lose 20% current max capacity on a yearly basis stored at room temperature.

On top of that, charge cycles do reduce the life of the battery. I work for a company that supplies laptop batteries to Apple, HP, Dell and one of the tests that we're required to show is an x% max capacity after y number of cycles.

Faster charging also deteriorates the anode compound faster and will reduce the max capacity faster as a result.

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[Alioth]

I think a couple of years is pessimistic. My mobile phone battery is 4 1/2 years old - while it's noticeably weaker than when new, it's certainly not useless and is still good enough. My laptop, a PowerBook, is 4 years old and I'm still getting around 3 hrs out of a charge (when it was new I could get a bit more than 4 hours or so, if memory serves). Admittedly I don't live in a hot country.

Re:a better link

[lysergic.acid]

oops. =P

if SCiB is lithium-titanate, then why didn't they just say so in the article? is SCiB a brand name? because i haven't seen SCiB mentioned in any of the other li-titanate articles i've read. in any case, i feel like a complete ass now.

Re:a better link

[Fumus]

Yes, it's bad. If you use your laptop as a desktop, take out the battery. Google a bit to know what's the best way to store it and you're good. I used my T40 for two years almost constantly plugged in and now the battery holds five minutes, tops.

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[Rei]

I wasn't talking about Li-Po. I was talking about two different techs -- lithium iron phosphate and the stabilized manganese-nickel (or other) spinels. These are both cathode techs, not anode; they're both paired with graphite anodes. Example manufacturers of each are A123 and LG Chem. Power densities are generally around 3kW/kg, much higher than traditional li-ion. Energy density is usually 90-110Wh/kg for cells, less for packs -- lower than traditional li-ion's ~160Wh/kg. Neither are subject to overheating, and can be abused to heck and back, including 100% DoD cycles. Both can be charged in 15-20 minutes and discharged in under 10. Both take many thousands of cycles to reach a 20% loss of capacity even at high charge rates, assuming a modicum of climate control on the pack.

Re:a better link

[electrictroy]

>>>Li-Ion batteries do NOT degrade with age

"A unique drawback of the Li-ion battery is that its life span is dependent upon aging (shelf life). From time of manufacturing, regardless of whether it was charged or the number of charge/discharge cycles, the battery will decline slowly and predictably in capacity. This means an older battery will not last as long as a new battery due solely to its age, unlike other batteries." - Wikipedia. Hmmm. Who to believe?

Well I know neither NiCad or NiMH decline with age (just usage), so by process of elimination it must be the Li-Ion battery that ages even when not used.

Re:a better link

[electrictroy]

>>>It's 3 partial cycles, but in terms of battery lifetime, it's roughly equivalent to a full discharge-charge cycle.

Nope. Since the battery was only discharged to ~60% full, there was no stress placed on the battery (no undercharging or overcharging). Therefore those three partial discharges are more like 0.1 cycle. As long as you keep a battery between 40-90%, the chemistry will stay almost-new in function.

This is the technique both Toyota and Honda use to extend their NiMH battery life to match the life of their hybrid car. Avoiding stress extends life far into the future.

Re:a better link

[PitaBred]

I don't like them either, but they power devices for so much longer and deal much better with "random" charging, where you don't charge it all the way or discharge it all the way. I'll take a short lifetime for the flexibility of being able to not kill it by only partially charging it.

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[Sandbags]

I don't know where Wiki got this. Li's due age over time, charged or not, and there is some marginal capacity drop (less than 4% anually while holding a 40% charge or more, and its even slower when fully charged). Sure, a completely discharged LI-Ion battery might degrade as fast as 20% in a year just sitting on a shelf, but since charge loss is minimal over time, and batteries are shipped charged, this is highly unlikely. If you completely dischare your laptop by leaving it in sleep mode, then for some reason don't charge it for a year, yes, potentially you could loose 20% capacity. Most batteries in the field loose only a couple of percent, and this loss has nothing to do with charge cycles. A battery is considdered "failed" when it falls below 80% of it's original life. Most last longer than 3 years, some newer types, like those being installed in Prius, are rated for not less than 80% in 10 years, with 1500+ charge cycle life. NiCads are considddered failed when they reach 50%... and many reach this in 3-4 years.

Ni-MH batteries have a memory, and require conditioning. Failure to reoutinely dischare to empty and charge all the way to full dramatically limits the battery's ability to shed energy. This is called battery memory, and a common end to most laptop batteries which are rarely completely discharged when plugged in. Though they don't age on a shelf, under normal use, they have dramatic fall-off unless meticulously cared for. Ni-Cad batteries can loose as much as 20% of the stored charge in a few weeks and the pace quickens as charge level drops. NiMH can loose 30% or more. Li-Ion loose charge at about 4% anually and can keep a charge for several years unused.

In lapotops, or in a car, even a cell phone, rarely do we fully use the battery. Most times we're charging again at 30-50% remaining power. Many laptops rarely fall below 70% charged as they're simply lugged from one outlet to another. This would reduce the efficiency of NiMH by 50% or more, to a level below failure, in less than a year. In cars, this is really bad...

Over 2.5 - 3 years, Lii-Ion will have dramatically more charge life than any other competing battery technology, aside from newer Li-Polymer batteries which use an alternate cathode material which helps prevent this corrosion and loss over time. Li-Tit batteries also exhibit this phenomnenon.

So, yes, if you don;t actually USE your batteries, and leave them in discharged states, the Li-Ion have a flaw. Under normal use however, this degredation is minimal, and charge cycling does not degrade battery performance. NiCads and NiMH get worse with each successive charge, and faster if that charge is not from 0-100. Batteries are intended to be USED, not sitting idle, so drawbakcs caused by ill-utilized charging are not really a considderation.

Pepole generally say "Li-Ion don't die with age" because they're referring to USE as the aging agent. Over time, an ill used li-ion battery might loose 10% over 3 years, less for newer batteries, like the ones in cars and high performance laptops. NiCads get worse over time if you use them, at many times the pace of Li-Ions natural slight degredation. The only way to prevent this is to NOT USE Ni based batteries... ?

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[Anonymous Coward]

Smart batteries (like those used in a lot of laptops) have little EEPROMs onboard that keeps count of how many times you've charged your battery. My Dell Latitude D600 has this. The battery will artificially "die" and refuse to charge long before the actual life runs out. (Mine stopped at the 500 charge mark.)

Re:a better link

[Pollardito]

I used a MacBook Pro similarly for about a year, and the battery was only good for about 15 minutes fully charged

Re:a better link

[lysergic.acid]

hrmm... i wonder why other hardware manufacturers don't integrate that kind of charge-balancing system into their battery-powered appliances to reduce the stress on the battery. it seems like a smart thing to do.

you could simply use an LED to indicate when the battery is reaching the 40% mark, and let user set whether they want the battery to recharge just to 90% or all the way to 100%. this leaves it up to the user whether they want to recharge less often or keep their battery for longer.

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[shmlco]

"Since you treated your battery gently, only discharging it to ~60% charge, you avoided stressing it. So effectively that counts as 0.1 cycles subtracted from its life, not a full cycle. This method of always keeping batteries between 40-90%..."

Well... Apple's site discusses this pretty thoroughly in terms of iPhone battery life, and they're in the 30%=1/3 camp.

Unlike the Prius system of keeping batteries between 40-90%, an overnight iPhone recharge ALWAYS recharges the battery back up to 99% (effectively 100%). Perhaps always returning back to a full charge makes the difference between 0.3 and the 0.1 you suggest.

Realistically, however, some days it's 30%, some days it's 60%, and on a couple of days a month it might get as low as 10%. Varying conditions such as these could make the 30%=1/3 cycle the best "rule-of-thumb" guide, true?

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[Kirkoff]

Different types of batteries tend to have different behaviors.

Li-ion batteries are good at around 40% for storage and should be kept cool.

NiCads are the ones that should be discharged all the way occasionally. NiMH are similar although they are not as sensitive to not being fully discharged. Interestingly, these sorts of batteries have a similarly shaped discharge curve but it is a few percent weaker. This combined with shutoff circuits that react at a certain voltage is why the battery life on old camcorders and laptops seemed to drop off so quickly.

Lead Acid batteries are probably the most tolerant of overcharging. If you let them drain to zero, they will have a short life. There are starting batteries like in cars that are good for short, high amperage bursts. There are also deep cycle batteries that are not as good at delivering hundreds of amps but they are much happier with being run down.

 

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[wildstoo]

Nope. You see, batteries are a lot like dogs. If you overfeed your dog, he won't live long. If you underfeed you dog, that too can shorten his life. If you alternate between stuffing your dog full of food, and then not feeding him for a whole week until he's skin 7b ones, that too can damage him due to the stress. But if you feed your dog moderate amounts of food, on a regular basis, he'll live a happy long life.

Sorry, dog analogies are no good, I'm going to need something car-related for this concept to stick.

This method of always keeping batteries between 40-90% is also used in Toyota & Honda hybrid cars to extend their NiMH battery life to 300,000 miles. (If they discharged the battery completely, then the lifespan would only be 50,000 miles, as is the case with their EV cars.)

Ahhh.. that's better. Clear as crystal now.

The summary neglected to mention the fact

[Anonymous Coward]

That it's powered by fairy dust and was invented by unicorns.

Re:The summary neglected to mention the fact

[Anonymous Coward]

Don't forget the magic blue smoke.

90% = Bad Marketing?

[Anonymous Coward]

Why wouldn't Toshiba just under-rate the batteries- effectively making 90% = 100%?

I mean, just from a marketing standpoint, if you can say your battery charges to 100% of it's /rated/ capacity in 10 minutes, that sounds a heck of a lot better then having it charge to 90% of it's /rated/ capacity in 10 minutes.

-AC

Re:90% = Bad Marketing?

[Original Replica]

That would depend some on the application, if a 90% charge in your battery bank in a electric car will get you 50 miles, then "50 miles charge in 10 minutes" would sell just fine. But if they also want to be able to boast about the total battery life and charge capacity, they can't be under rating them "This flashlight charges in to full in 15 mins and can be recharged 5000 times". If the charge rate drops significantly for the last 10% of charge, then it would behoove engineers making products that use these batteries to design around a 90% ten minute charge.

Re:90% = Bad Marketing?

[oldhack]

...blah blah ... of it's /rated/ capacity in 10 minutes.

-AC

The signature is a forgery.

Re:90% = Bad Marketing?

[neapolitan]

Probably because then you would then ultimately charge the battery to 111% of its rated capacity, which would make people frightened.

Also, when measuring charge/discharge cycles, the rated capacity would be used, not the 111% rated capacity. I think that being straightforward is better, so I have very little problem with Toshiba's description.

Re:90% = Bad Marketing?

[Kjella]

I sorta don't see the problem in marketing, but maybe that's why I don't work there. Lots of rechargable products got a "Quick recharge" that's usually not ideal (less total charge, fewer recharges or whatever) and an "Ideal recharge" for regular use. Like say for example my cell phone - it's got one setting that's good for overnight, one if it's almost dead and you need it charge because in two hours you're going off to whereever. I don't think it would be that hard to grasp, in fact many probably would have a mental image of it filling up like with liquid which would be horribly wrong, but in practise the effect might not be all that different.

Re:90% = Bad Marketing?

[rjstanford]

How about, "This flashlight charges to full in 10 minutes. If you leave it plugged in for another two hours, you get an extra 10% 'superboost' charge!"

This is marketing language we're talking about, after all.

Re:90% = Bad Marketing?

[lysergic.acid]

oh i dunno, maybe honesty has something to do with it? not everyone is obsessed with advertising/marketing double-speak.

besides, why intentionally take 10% off of your advertised battery capacity? i think most consumers would be able to do the math and see that the competitor's 10 min. 90% charge is exactly the same as your 10 min. 100% charge--except the competitor's battery has 111% the capacity of your battery. that could be an extra 2 hrs. of music or games.

on a somewhat related note, a came across an interesting article while researching Li-ion batteries on wikipedia. apparently some Li-ion batteries are capable of being _fully_ charged in 10 minutes. so maybe this isn't as big of a breakthrough as it initially seemed?

Re:90% = Bad Marketing?

[Kagura]

for another two hours, you get an extra 10% 'superboost' charge!"

Maybe I can use this "superboost" to get through? I can combine it with a barrel roll

Re:90% = Bad Marketing?

[SoupIsGoodFood_42]

Probably something to do with the way charging works.

Re:90% = Bad Marketing?

[andy_t_roo]

shh, "they" don't need any more encouraging

Re:90% = Bad Marketing?

[bubblejet]

How about, "This flashlight charges to full in 10 minutes. If you leave it plugged in for another two hours, you get an extra 10% 'superboost' charge!"

This is marketing language we're talking about, after all.

You say it's funny... yet the rechargeable batteries I use for my digital camera say exactly that.

Re:90% = Bad Marketing?

[farnsaw]

I think most consumers would be able to do the math

Really? When was the last time you paid for something with cash and the teller hit "enter" too quickly and needed help determining how much change to give you?

Never underestimate the lack of math skills the average person has.

Re:90% = Bad Marketing?

[Shotgun]

Because they wouldn't be believed?

Batteries charge curve looks very much like an RC circuit. Very fast at the start, then tapers off and never really fully charges. The product isn't yet at the point of marketing to the public (who don't even know what an RC circuit is), so they're publishing numbers that knowledgeable people expect to see.

Re:90% = Bad Marketing?

[WmLGann]

Why wouldn't Toshiba just under-rate the batteries- effectively making 90% = 100%?

AC: The charges all go to 100%. Look, right across the board, 100%, 100%, 100% and...
WmLGann: Oh, I see. And most batteries go up to 90%?
AC: Exactly.
WmLGann: Does that mean it's more powerful? Does it deliver any more current?
AC: Well, it's 10% more, isn't it? It's not 90%. You see, most blokes, you know, will be watching porn at 90% charge. You're on 90% here, all the way up, all the way up, all the way up, you're on 90% on your charge. Where can you go from there? Where?
WmLGann: I don't know.
AC: Nowhere. Exactly. What we do is, if we need that extra push over the cliff, you know what we do?
WmLGann: Charge it up to 100%.
AC: 100%. Exactly. 10% more.
WmLGann: Why don't you just make 90% the full charge and make 90 be the top number and make that a little more?
AC: ...
AC: These go to 100%.

Re:90% = Bad Marketing?

[Sandbags]

The reason 90% is a target for batteries has to do with the input energy required to achive the charge. The higher the existing charge, the more resistance created trying to increase it further. Some of you math nuts out there can help me out and give me the exact equasion, which I have not had enough coffee yet to recall, but there is a scientific reason why we do not simply charge directly to 100%.

1st, charging to 100% vs 90% takes more than 10% more energy. Quite a bit more actually, and is wasteful.

2nd, charging to 100% at the current used to get to 90% fast would cause imense heat.

3rd, the idea here is the fast charge can be done for cars quickly (90 seconds) using extremely high high amperage cables (3 phase 400 amp 22 volt). Houses don't have these typically, but a filling station on a main road could have access to this kind of voltage from the street's main high volt line, and could also have overhead cable supports to assist drivers hefting the thick cable required to safely provide that energy.

At home, a 120 AMP circuit would likely be used, and take 2-3 hours to bring your car to the same 90% charge, but at that rate, likely going all the way to 100% would not be an issue. On a generic household 220volt line, charging would be 7-10 hours.

They specify 90%, because when filling up on the go, you would not want to pay for the excessive cost of that last 10% (20-30% more electricity), nor would you want to wait the extra 10-20 minutes needed to achieve the top off. It's inefficient on 2 counts. They specifiy this to ensure drivers of electric cars on these SCiB (AKA Litium Titranium) batteries know that the max 60 mile range of their car is at 100%, and that quick fill-ups might only get 55 or so.

Of course, Chrysler is talking about new cards with 300 mile electric ranges coming out. I'm assuming this is with onboard gas backup engines, like the Volt, but their information was unclear, and I imagine a caravan does have enough under floor space and undercarrige space to hold 4-5 times the batteris of a Prius...

Re:90% = Bad Marketing?

[russotto]

Some of you math nuts out there can help me out and give me the exact equasion, which I have not had enough coffee yet to recall, but there is a scientific reason why we do not simply charge directly to 100%.

There is, but it's nothing simple, and it's only for lithium chemistries. NiMH you can charge all the way up to 100% with a constant-current charger.

Re:90% = Bad Marketing?

[Sandbags]

I know you can charge to 100% on NiMH. Actually, Li-Ion and Li-Po can as well, the curve is just steeper at the end. The issue is when we approach max charge rates, the heat generated at the higher end of the carge curve becomes difficult to compensate for in Li batteries vs Ni, so Nis typically can full charge along a smoother curve, however, they also can't support the same charge rate over the full curve, nor do they have the same density. Even with trickling the last 5-10%, Li's normally charge faster than similar Ni's, and certainly reach 90% faster. They're also of course have higher energy density and lower weight to charge. Li's are not however as safe, and are subject to cascade failure and otehr nasty issues. Li-Po solves most of this, Li-Tit solves nearly all.

(you seem to know this already, post if for the others).

Re:90% = Bad Marketing?

[smithmc]

That would depend some on the application, if a 90% charge in your battery bank in a electric car will get you 50 miles, then "50 miles charge in 10 minutes" would sell just fine.

Hell no, it wouldn't. 5 minutes in a gas station gets me 400 miles of driving. That's 80 mi/mn, vs 5 for the electric charging station.

Oh Cool!

[Anonymous Coward]

Will this battery explode or just burst into flames?

Re:Oh Cool!

[Vectronic]

Depends on how charged it is... less than 90% it bursts into flames, greater than 90% it explodes.

Re:Oh Cool!

[Red Flayer]

C'mon now, this is from Toshiba, not Sony or Apple.

Everyone knows that Toshiba laptop "heat events" are caused by their mobile modules provided from Intel.

Although, to be fair, it appears Toshiba is hedging their bets... to determine if your Toshiba laptop's battery might explode, just check the fan motor and make sure it's not this model.

Re:Oh Cool!

[Jesus_666]

Actually, the incendiary Apple batteries are manufactured by Sony as well.

Re:Oh Cool!

[Wild Bill TX]

What happens at exactly 90%?

Re:Oh Cool!

[Vectronic]

flip a coin... or maybe somewhat explosive flames... like a flare...

Re:Oh Cool!

[Nimey]

That depends. Is it made by Sony? If so, probably.

Re:Oh Cool!

[Anonymous Coward]

Will this battery explode or just burst into flames?

The mushroom cloud logo makes me nervous.

Re:Oh Cool!

[Anonymous Coward]

I shudder to think what would happen if I charged it to 90% exactly.

Re:Oh Cool!

[EMH_Mark3]

It bursts into flames and then explodes.

Re:Oh Cool!

[owlstead]

Bad joke, since these batteries (at least according to the info on the internet) won't do such a thing.

90% Frosty

[Anonymous Coward]

in 10 mins

Yeah

[Anonymous Coward]

But you have to recharge it in an hour.

OK, now it's a prototype...

[Ungrounded Lightning]

A) When can we BUY it?

B) When can we buy it in QUANTITY for a REASONABLE PRICE?

Re:OK, now it's a prototype...

[lysergic.acid]

Altairnano has developed a lithium titanate battery used in the Phoenix Motorcar Sport Utility Truck that they claim fully recharges in under 10 minutes. but we'll have to wait till 2010 when the Phoenix electric SUT goes into production to see if these claims are really true.

still, it's pretty impressive that they've made a new type of Li-ion battery that can recharge in such a short amount of time.

Re:OK, now it's a prototype...

[DougF]

Really? A score of 2 for something that's A: Offtopic; and B: Completely ludicrous?

Re:OK, now it's a prototype...

[Anonymous Coward]

...But he was an impossibly bad president.

So like George W. Bush then.

Re:OK, now it's a prototype...

[Kozz]

I do like to point people to one of Carter's contributions:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Home_brewing#Liberalization:_post_1960

Re:OK, now it's a prototype...

[Anonymous Coward]

Wow, that thread got fucking hammered down. What's wrong, you people don't like beer?

overheating

[Anonymous Coward]

if it prevents overheating, then it can't be vaporware!

Sounds like LiFePo4

[imsabbel]

Well, the stats itself sound pretty much like A123 or similar cells: Lithium with an ironphosphate instead of cobalt anode material.

They have higher cycle times, and they can be charged at up to 5C without much problems (which would agree with the 10 min stated).

But they have a drawback: Only about half the energy density compared to normal Lithium Ions.

Not to mention that in order to really charge them that fast, you will need a much higher rated, and thus bigger/heavier PSU brick for the notebook...

Re:Sounds like LiFePo4

[eebra82]

But they have a drawback: Only about half the energy density compared to normal Lithium Ions. Not to mention that in order to really charge them that fast, you will need a much higher rated, and thus bigger/heavier PSU brick for the notebook...

On the other hand, this is only (to become) the first commercial version of this battery. Give it a few years and we might be seeing promising things.

Having said that, I don't think this product is directly targeting the laptop industry. For starters, as you mentioned, it requires more space. Secondly, when and if it gets commercially available for laptops, we'll be seeing fuel cell batteries as well. They offer more performance and that instant recharge factor as well.

I think this is an excellent product for items like lawnmowers, bikes and cars. But there is also another incredibly useful product segment. Think of things like electric toothbrushes and other small peripherals which don't require huge batteries and dozens of hours of usage. On one hand you get less power than Li-on batteries, but it makes up for the fast recharge.

Re:Sounds like LiFePo4

[thestuckmud]

half the energy density compared to normal Lithium Ions.

Indeed. The SCIB pack used in Schwinn bicycles has an energy density of about 50 watt-hours/kg. My lithium ion (cobalt) pack: 125.

Re:Sounds like LiFePo4

[Anonymous Coward]

Correct. Such cells like you mention can be charged in 10 minutes if you accept the reduced cycle count of 5-7k cycles as mentioned. These cells are available today off the shelf for RC models and in power tools if you want to play with them. If you don't always need 10 minute charge you can slow charge (1 hour) and have your cells last longer than what they power. Look again at the specs, some of the cells can do 0 to 100% charge in that 10 minutes. If you're going to play, the one thing never to do is overcharge them so you will need a balance circuit (again, available pre-built). Just remember these are not toys and you can get hundreds of amps short circuit from even a single cell so think about what you are doing as it is very easy to space out a moment and get a very nasty burn.

In a car rapid charge is a problem. Consider even a first generation 20 kWH pack: a 10 minute charge takes 100 kW of power and (do the math) you're not going to do that at home.

All these cells will show significant improvement in the next few years. Also remember that cells of a given chemistry can be optimized and built for high power density or high energy density so cells for your rail gun project aren't the best ones for running your laptop a week.

Re:Sounds like LiFePo4

[the eric conspiracy]

So you are saying that this may charge 90% in 10 minutes, but in my new quad core dual SLI 20" laptop it will be fully discharged in 10 minutes?

Re:Sounds like LiFePo4

[Anonymous Coward]

Fuel cells for laptops are bad for everyday use. 10-20 hours per discharge cycle? Charging from your outlet is cheaper. I can see it being used as an alternative to Li-ion when you don't have electricity. It would be very nice in disaster scenarios. Most people don't need anything more than 3 hours. For everyday use, we just need batteries that charge much, much faster.

Re:Sounds like LiFePo4

[myrdos2]

I noticed the same thing - and the Wikipedia lists the energy density of lead-acid batteries as 30 to 40 Wh/kg. What makes the SCIB pack worth using? I bet it's cheaper to use lead acid batteries, even if you have to replace them more often.

Re:Sounds like LiFePo4

[Rei]

Do note that this is 50Wh/kg small format. I'd expect them to get around the same ~70Wh/kg in large format that AltairNano gets. It's the same basic chemistry after all.

Re:Sounds like LiFePo4

[cerberusss]

So you are saying that this may charge 90% in 10 minutes, but in my new quad core dual SLI 20" laptop it will be fully discharged in 10 minutes?

It means that, no, Vista will not be able to complete the booting procedure.

R&D in the US

[oldhack]

I really wish more such news came out of American industries...

Sorry to play nationalist card here. Anyway, it is what it's cracked up to be, kudos to Toshiba.

Why 90%

[damn_registrars]

What is the purpose of giving us the time to charge to 90%? Is there something about the final 10% that takes longer to charge than the rest of the battery?

Or are they charging while running - and perhaps not able to get all the way to 100%? The article was lousy (to be generous) and doesn't say what it would take to reach 100%.

Re:Why 90%

[imsabbel]

Yes, there is:
Typically, the last few % take a as long as everything before together. Its just that the nature of the chemical reactions involved: During the charge, the battery voltage increases. The charger OTOH cannot push more than 4.2V (for normal batteries) respectively 3.7V for LiFePo4, in order not to damage the cells. This means that effective voltage drops during the charge, and duringe the last bits of capacity, there are only some 0.1V left. Add internal resistance, and its clear why it cannot fill up completely fast

Other comments suggested downrating, but that doesnt really make sense: as long as you leave it in the charger, it will gain charge for a while, so the real capacity is truely higher.

Re:Why 90%

[Anonymous Coward]

It's the 90-10 rule. There are similar, but heretical versions of the true rule - do not be swayed.

Re:Why 90%

[Spoke]

If you think of a battery as a bucket where the battery charge is indicated by the amount of water in the bucket.

Now imagine that you are trying to fill that bucket as fast as possible, which means using a firehose, and that spilling any water means damaging the bucket.

Getting the bucket close to full without making a mess is a lot easier than getting it 100% full which means you need to slow the fill down to trickle to make sure you don't over flow or splash water everywhere.

Charging the last 10% of battery capacity is difficult because the battery does not readily accept a charge as it's nearly full. This means to get the last 10% of capacity you need to slow down the charge rate, which means that in this case, it may only take 10 minutes to get to 90% full, but it may take another 30-60 minutes to charge up that last 10% without damaging the battery.

Re:Why 90%

[Anonymous Coward]

Yes, it's because those writing the article couldn't handle the 11.111111111... minutes it takes to charge fully.

Re:Why 90%

[Anonymous Coward]

I beleve this is how alot of Lithium Ion charging systems work. They very quicky charge the battery to around 80-90% capacity, then they slow the charging rate for the final 10-20% to keep the battery from having over charging issues.

If i remember correctly the user manual for my standalone sony infolithum M series battery charger states something simlar. Im pretty sure it said something about when the charging indicator goes out the battery is at about 80% charge. The battery would be fully chared about 1 hour after the indicator goes off. I dont have that manual handy thoough so i cant quote it exactly.

Im guessing such as system as Toshiba has developed would probably actually take 30-45 minutes to get the battery topped off.

Re:Why 90%

[Macman408]

Others have given more technical details, but for a real-world example; the iPod Classic charges to 80% in 2 hours, and 100% in 4. The other iPods are the same, except the nano charges to 80% in 1.5 hours and 100% in 3. Any lithium ion battery should be charged in a similar manner.

You can find more information about charging LiIon batteries here.

Re:Why 90%

[NaturePhotog]

It's based a long-standing rule of project cycles, known as the 90/90 rule: the first 90% of the project takes 90% of the time, and the last 10% of the project takes the other 90% of the time. Or at least that's how most software projects seem to end up... :-)

Re:Why 90%

[Sebilrazen]

I just spat Newcastle all over my keyboard reading this post. Luckily it still appears to be work

Re:Why 90%

[NaturePhotog]

I just spat Newcastle all over my keyboard reading this post. Luckily it still appears to be work

Keyboard, shmeboard...won't somebody think of the Newcastle!?! Let's all have a moment of silence for a nice brown ale gone to waste.

Re:Why 90%

[Anonymous Coward]

You're an idiot, and are giving the rest of us ACs a bad name. Please don't post here anymore.

Re:Why 90%

[Anonymous Coward]

The real problem is the rule is recursive (the last 10 % of the original last 10% also takes 90% of the original time)

Re:Why 90%

[black_lbi]

I don't know for certain, but my guess is that it's related to a certain standard used in order to facilitate the comparison between different battery manufacturers.

Another example of using the 10%-90% "standard" (quote from wikipedia)

In electronics [...] rise time (also risetime) refers to the time required for a signal to change from a specified low value to a specified high value. Typically, these values are 10% and 90% of the step height.

Re:Why 90%

[Anonymous Coward]

I rushed to the BBC website hoping to read that Geekzilla was eating The Toon. But no such luck. Are you referring to the nasty brown ale?

Re:Why 90%

[Von Helmet]

s/bucket/petrol tank
s/firehose/petrol pump

Re:Why 90%

[Shotgun]

Just to refine your analogy a bit.
The bucket is being filled with a siphon hose connected to a second bucket. The fill rate is determined by the water height difference between the two. As the first one fills, the water level evens out, and the flow rate drops.

The water flow very quickly at first, but waiting for that last 1/4" could be a very long ordeal.

Re:Why 90%

[Anonymous Coward]

Luckily it still appears to be work

You are drinking Newcastle and reading Slashdot while at work?

Re:Why 90%

[Anonymous Coward]

I just spat Newcastle all over my keyboard

I'm sure the residents of Newcastle aren't too keen on the idea of being spat all over anything.

Previously on Slashdot:

[Randle_Revar]

http://hardware.slashdot.org/hardware/07/12/13/1714258.shtml

Re:Previously on Slashdot:

[nobodyman]

Are you implying that the this story is a dupe? It's not really, when you read TFA's. The article from the previous slashdot story is from before Toshiba has released anything. Now the battery is out (for industrial applications), and the most recent slashdot article refers to Toshiba's laptop battery prototype.

Re:Previously on Slashdot:

[Randle_Revar]

No, I saw the difference, I just thought readers might be interested in the previous coverage.

Anyway if it was a dupe, wouldn't I make a headline like: "DUPE!!! Slashdot sucks!" ? :-)

Bullshit Meter

[sexconker]

Story about battery tech + 7
InfoWorld + 5
"prototype" + 10
" in just " + 15
"Super" + 3
A new acronym + 6
"capable of ... compared to standard ..." + 4

Total - 50.
It stinks, but who knows - it may just be a fine cheese or chocolate.

On the other hand, the Vaporware Meter is off the charts, and the "durable material" and it's claims broke the poor Economic Feasibility Meter.

Re:Bullshit Meter

[Randle_Revar]

These batteries are already available, for example see:
http://www.toshiba.co.jp/about/press/2008_09/pr2401.htm

This is a prototype of a *laptop version* of the battery.

Re:Bullshit Meter

[Anonymous Coward]

Just because you are uninformed doesn't make it bullshit. Take some time, search the websites, and find the actual datasheets for the cells. Then go to Sears and buy a replacement pack for a DeWalt power tool or a hobby shop and get an A123 pack for a RC model.

Do some tests and report back when you have something real to discuss.

Re:Bullshit Meter

[sexconker]

No battery has ever lived up to it's claims.
Ridiculous battery claims have been around forever.

I don't need to do my own testing, they need to deliver and support their claims.

I'd like to see a power curve for these guys (from real use) and see how that curve degrades vs the number of charging/discharging cycles it's gone through.

Datasheets for cells? Yeah, those are accurate and truthful. I bet you get your full rated bandwidth, your laptop gets its rated battery life, your bank has no hidden fees, your insurance company cares about you, your websites don't sell your data to advertisers, your wireless provider doesn't intentionally insert fake calls or fees, and your politicians of choice are all good, honest people.

The fact is, it's been 8 and a half years since NEC's "breakthrough" in proton polymer batteries.
Battery claims are bullshit by default.

Re:Bullshit Meter

[sexconker]

"(1) Five minutes is the recharge performance of the SCiB TBP Series Module. Actual recharge times are defined by the products into which SCiB is integrated and on the peripheral components used with SCiB."

Do you really think laptop manufacturers are going to pony up for new charging circuitry?
Do you really think they'll pay more for the expensive interface materials in these new batteries? Do you really think they'll pay more to manufacture these batteries outside of Japan?

Cheap wins. It's cheaper to use the same old crap. It's cheaper to have it made in China. And it's cheaper to let them use shittier materials that will catch fire. All the while the company goes "Whoops. Bad Chinese!".

Having these batteries in expensive shit (fancy bikes, segways, and other hipster bullshit) is fine, but they will not succeed in the struggle for cheapness.

Cycling of lithium ion batteries?

[tuttleturtle42]

Comparing to the number of cycles for a lithium ion battery doesn't make sense as lion batteries don't primarily degrade from cycling. Unlike some other battery technology, there is a major difference between the battery life when you cycle a lithium ion battery 100 times repetitively, and cycle it 100 times keeping it at 100% for a month between cycles. While the first would have degraded some, the latter could have degraded enough to be mostly dead.

In other news

[FriendSite.com]

Sony has just released a battery that goes from 90% to 0% charge in 10 minutes, but they get rather hot as a side effect

And if the battery known as

[davidsyes]

"The Super Charge Ion Battery (SCIB)" blows up on/in your lap, you will have what will be called:

SCAB-- Super-Charged Area Burn

and be known as:

SCAB-- Super-ComBobulating Alpha, Burning

(Class A fires include anything that leaves an ash after complete burning: paper, wood, mattresses, clothing, and people. Live people running around on fire, as I was taught in the USN, are affectionately known as "Screaming Alphas"...

Yeah, but then your battery really could go to 11

[Overzeetop]

How could any geek not want a battery like that?

We do

[WindBourne]

but W and the neo-cons KILLED the majority of our long term research and throw most of it towards coming up with hi-tech close term solutions for the DOD. In essence, they shutdown a lot of long-term multi-discipline research in our universities and various companies like GE, IBM, Lucent, etc and channeled it into a number of companies (GM, L-MART, Rathyeon, Halliburton, etc).

Re:We do

[Anonymous Coward]

And socialists cut babies up and feed them to their dogs for breakfast.

Kill the socialists, cut their throats.

Re:We do

[Anonymous Coward]

And Obama wants to kill Nasa. It's not just the "Neocons".

Re:We do

[Anonymous Coward]

Yep, as a moderate liberal European, I think ALL your politicians on BOTH sides of things are a bunch of whack-jobs. There's lots of Obama support on this side of the Atlantic, but I think it's mostly just because they're looking at what he's saying, but not really thinking about it.
It basically comes down to good, but impossible to implement (Obama) or very very bad (McCain). Given that choice, I'd go with Obama, but given the third choice of a sensible independent, my vote'd be for neither of the big boys.

And it's powered by babies?

[Cormophyte]

First thing through my mind when I saw the headline. I've been hanging around the internet far too long.

so whats new ?

[savuporo]

A123 LiFePO4 batteries have been charged at 10-15 minute rates by RC crowd for a couple years by now.

Not impressed!

[Anonymous Coward]

My 6-year-old Toshiba Laptop take 10 minutes to charge to 100% of it's actual charging capacity... ... and it dies about 10 minutes later!

A hint

[Leuf]

The 10 minutes and the full capacity are in large bold print.

Only 500 cycles?

[east coast]

What the hell are people doing to Li-ion batteries that they only last 500 cycles? I have several Li-ion devices and none of them have ever needed a battery replacement after 500 cycles.

Re:Only 500 cycles?

[Fantastic Lad]

Perhaps a better question to ask is, "What are YOU doing (or not doing) to your Li-ion batteries so that they last for so long?"

Consider the question asked.

-FL

Re:Only 500 cycles?

[pushing-robot]

First, that's 500 *full* cycles. Most people don't completely drain Lithium Ion batteries before recharging them.

Second, that's not 500 cycles until the battery dies, it's 500 cycles before the battery only holds a certain percentage — usually 80% — of it's initial charge.

What also kills Lithium Ion batteries is internal oxidation, which occurs whether the battery is cycled or not. Storing a battery at 100% charge actually causes the battery to lose life as much as five times faster than if the battery was at 50% charge. In other words, if your devices spend most of their time at less than full charge, your batteries will last longer than if you let them sit on the charger for years on end.

Speaking of which, I wish all notebooks, MP3 players, and other gadgets gave you the ability to set a charging limit. I've only seen the feature on some Sony notebooks (they call it a "battery care" utility). If you could limit your devices to, say, a 40% charge when they're just going to be sitting around the house all day, and only charge them up to full when you really need the battery life, you'd probably never need to replace a Lithium Ion battery again.

Neither

[Anonymous Coward]

It sublimates into toxic particles.

But noone will know that for years.

Been there Rode that- Schwinn E-bike

[Anonymous Coward]

I was one of the lucky few that got to see this battery in action last week at the Interbike show. I can vouch for the Kick ass factor of the Schwinn bike they had it set up on. I saw with my own eyes that the Schwinn battery was charged in 7minutes (although it was done with in a 220 outlet) I was told it would take 30 minutes in a 110v outlet to bring the 10 cell Schwinn battery to a full charge. Not too shabby.
For what its worth, the production cells Toshiba had on display were about the size of a deck of cards. I'm assuming they'll be able to shrink it down to a smaller size for laptops, ipods, etc..

Re:Been there Rode that- Schwinn E-bike

[TheLink]

Strange, why the difference between 110v and 220v?

What's the charging voltage?

Re:Been there Rode that- Schwinn E-bike

[russotto]

They were probably comparing a 110V 15A outlet to a 220V 30A outlet (e.g. a dryer plug).

More importantly,

[CSMatt]

How long does it take to discharge?

Re:More importantly,

[Kingrames]

Charges in ten minutes, empties in two!
Buy now, these batteries are going fast!

Re:More importantly,

[RealGrouchy]

Honorable or dishonorable discharge?

- RG>

Of interest...

[bryxal]

from TFA:

3. Rapidly rechargeable The superb safety characteristics of SCiB allow recharge with a current as large as 50 amperes (A), allowing the SCiB Cell and SCiB Battery Module to recharge to 90% of full capacity in only five minutes(1).

(my bold) Personally I don't have a 50A jack lying around.

Re:Of interest...

[beav007]

And you won't need one.

Let's use Australian numbers (because I know them):
Available voltage from a standard wall outlet: 240v
Available amps: 10
Using Ohms law (and assuming resistance will remain roughly the same), I should be able to get nearly 100A @ 24v using a step-down transformer. Most laptops have an input of around 19v. As long as the leads can handle the amperage, it shouldn't be an issue.

It's the leads that will be an issue. IIRC, cars need 50-80A @ 12v to start. The leads that come off the battery for the starter motor are pretty big, and they only need to handle that current draw for up to 10 seconds...

Re:Of interest...

[PayPaI]

100A is going to require at least 2 AWG wire. Good luck with that one. Also the connector on the laptop will be xbox-hueg

Re:Of interest...

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm pretty sure its around 500-900A @ 12v, but I could be wrong.

Re:Of interest...

[torkus]

Actually it's quite a bit more than that in a car. You'll see a good 3-500 amps and more depending on engine size, age, temperature and other starting conditions.

In fact, batteries are rated in cold-cranking-amps - i.e. the number of amps they can supply to start the car while cold (probably around freezing, not sure of the exact temp measured at). A hefty battery is rated somewhere around 8-900 CCA.

You're right though - the wiring only needs to support that load for ~10 seconds in a worst-case situation so the conductors don't have to be as heavy as they would otherwise.

Re:Of interest...

[Rei]

24V * 4.2Ah = 100.8Wh
Assuming 80% charger efficiency, you need to draw 126Wh.
Wall current is usually something like 117V (varies), meaning you need to draw ~1.1Ah
~1.077Ah in 10 minutes is 6 1/2A.
A wall socket supports 15A.

Re:Of interest...

[Yvanhoe]

So you say we need to have bigger leads between the power supply and the laptop ? This is not such a big deal...

Re:Of interest...

[beav007]

We are talking, at 2 AWG, just over 1/4" (6.5mm)* conductor diameter. Per wire. Not the lightest, most flexible, or most convenient size around...



* American Wire Gauge Tables

Re:Of interest...

[nmg196]

50A at 12V is nothing. A car starter motor is usually at least double this and on a diesel engine it can be 200A quite easily. We're not talking 50A at 240V here.

Re:Of interest...

[nmg196]

No.. the article refers to 12V or 24V charger for a laptop, not 110V or 240V mains electricity. It also only needs to handle it for a few seconds, so overheating is not a problem. The cables won't need to be any fatter than normal mains cable.

Re:Of interest...

[Tore S B]

That is for 50A at 110V, not for 50A at 19V.

Re:Of interest...

[bickerdyke]

Wall current is usually something like 117V (varies)

Yeah.. guess that's why they call it AC.....

Re:Of interest...

[SomeoneGotMyNick]

We are talking, at 2 AWG, just over 1/4" (6.5mm)* conductor diameter. Per wire. Not the lightest, most flexible, or most convenient size around...

But the guy at Best Buy told me that Monster Cables are the only way to go.....

They have a sale on all their 3' gold plated varieties for only $197.22 (with the purchase of selected model printers)

Re:Of interest...

[Anonymous Coward]

And a bigger power supply. The laptop I'm using is currently charging, plugged into 20V, 4A power supply. I wonder where would I put a brick ten times as big and heavy, generating ten times more heat. :/

Re:Of interest...

[Anonymous Coward]

What you say?

Re:Of interest...

[sjames]

For safety, they'll need to be even bigger. The battery wires on a car warm up a good bit if you have to try starting several times. They are safe enough mostly because the battery can't provide that much current for long.

On the other hand, a home charger capable of 50A could easily cause a fire with the same gauge wire if there was a short.

For rapid charging at home, I imagine the charger will have to be integrated with a battery socket at least. Even then, it'll need to have a thermal cutoff in case the battery terminals are dirty.

Depending on the cell's characteristics, The battery pack may also need current limiting to prevent small bits of metal that short the leads from vaporizing explosively.

Re:Of interest...

[ncc74656]

The wire gauge needed for some application is determined by current; voltage only matters to the extent that the insulator around the wire needs to be thick enough to avoid dielectric breakdown. A power cord that carries 30A at 240V uses the same wire gauge (10 ga., IIRC) as one that carries 30A at 120V, but the thicker insulation on the 240V cord makes it a bit larger. 100A through some 24-ga. hookup wire will burn out just as fast at 1V as it will at 100V or 10kV; the higher voltages might make for bigger sparks when the wire finally melts, but the resistive heating of the wire is proportional to the square of the current.

Re:Of interest...

[I'm not really here]

I personally wouldn't mind having a "plug in quick charger" big honking thing to connect to a special plug on the battery, and a second smaller brick to connect when I just want to maintain/trickle charge the battery while at home. One to prep for leaving the house (plug it in 10 minutes before leaving) and one to use around the house. Sounds perfect.

Re:Of interest...

[Yvanhoe]

Then just plug the supply directly on the laptop. Do you really need a wire between your laptop and the supply box ?

Re:Of interest...

[beav007]

Any idea how much a 50A step-down transformer weighs?

Re:Of interest...

[MrNaz]

Monster cables are great if you're too rich to care that you're buying the technological equivalent of magic beans.

Build it!

[moniker127]

Okay, we've all seen the friggin super batteries they've come out with. Take your pick between this one and the 90 other prototypes. When will they actually put them into anything?

And

[metalcoat]

Only catches fire in 2!

Re:Yeah, but then your battery really could go to

[Anonymous Coward]

A battery that goes to 11.1? BRILLIANT!

my mp3 suppose to recharge in 3minutes

[holywarrior21c]

Guess what, my mp3 gets recharged 80% in 30minutes. This is sufficient for me. And one full charge lasts 50 hours on my mp3 player. i listen to the music on my mp3 very often and quick recharging really comes in handy. i no longer need to buy dozens of batteries each time i go to the walmart. but i wouldn't see this helping that much when it comes to power hungry laptops. my 4 year old laptop lasts less than 50mins without power. i don't think i wanna move around charging for 3minutes and work for other 40 mins. Raw battery time is more important than how quick it charges when it comes to case like my laptop. if my laptop lasts good 2hours than quick recharge time would worth having so. This would be a good application for electric cars also. quick visit to the station or nearby outlet for couple of minutes every 100 mile wouldn't be too much of hassle.

More details - this tells me nothing

[theBike45]

It's almost a given that any details about some new battery technology always avoids the negatives. Those hopeful or shilling simply avoid the bad stuff. other li ion batteries can be recharged quickly and either 1) cost a fortune and weigh a ton (Altair) or 2) diminish their lifespan by so doing. Regardless, it all comes down to cost.This article says nothing about practicality, weight, etc.

Computer battery

[theBike45]

TYhe battery is for computers - it is NOT of a cell format suitable for cars, unless you want to build a brainless Tesla style battery pack with 8671 batteries.

Charge time...blah

[oljanx]

It's the on the go time that really matters. Generally if I'm in a location where I can plug in my laptop, I'm going to be there for a while. So charge time doesn't matter. Give me long battery life!

Typically they mean 70-80%

[jriskin]

There aren't set standards but typically they mean after 500 cycles you have 70% or 80% remaining and thats considered done.

What's more important is that if they go 5000 cycles at 70% compared to 500 at 70% it doesn't matter what they are measuring to if its the same.

Love all these new Lithium chemistry mixes.

It doesn't blow up though!

[plasmacutter]

What use is a new technology if it can't explode..

bad geek!
bad geek!
*slap*

any relationship to the vandium redox?

[Anonymous Coward]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vanadium_redox_battery

Revised.

[HornWumpus]

The first 90% take 90% of the time. The remaining 10% are estimated to take the other 90%. Repeat.

Battery for electric cars?

[juhtolv]

I really hope Tesla and other electric car makers will use those batteries.

90 is the new 100

[meist3r]

This could seriously be one step forward on the way towards all-electric cars in the mainstream. The current problem, literally, is that the available batteries can provide fairly good performance but take way too long to recharge. Maybe there'll be loading stations that fill up your batteries in under 15 minutes which could be a short enough time for people actually to put up with it.

I think the manufacturers should agree on a standardized "battery-bay" that holds specific types of batteries which are replaced as they reach their capacity/performance limit. They could establish a nice model here that would still allow them to use their old infrastructure and keep the customers in a closed cycle. That's what businesses in the automotive industry are all about right now, right?

You drive up to the station, dock in the loading arm, the system checks your batteries:

More than 20-50 cycles left? (Or even less)
No: Replace battery pack with one stored at the site. Store/Ship old one to manufacturing plant for reworking. Load new battery.
Yes: Refill Battery
Yes, owner wants a new one: Charge early replacement fee in addition to the electricity/service cost.

Maybe multiple cylindrical shaped batteries (maybe AAAA?) that fit into ports in the side of the car would be an appropriate solution. You could incorporate that in many cars design, the loading socket (removing one battery at a time) didn't have to be much bigger than the regular gas cap we're already used to. Since the batteries would need replacement only every so often you could time the replacement cycle to avoid getting stuck in a battery loading frenzy on your way to an important meeting. The "dead" batteries then go back for refurbishment and are again "rented" out to customers to run them in their vehicle. I would prefer such a thing over hard-wired batteries in all the cars that, when they die, have to be replaced expensively.

Whoosh!

[Anonymous Coward]

Whoosh! That whooshing sound you hear is the joke whizzing over your head 42 furlongs up! Hee hee hee, Australian numbers, what a classic!

Re:Whoosh!

[fractoid]

Um... OK. Are you quite sure that "Australian numbers" doesn't simply refer to the RMS voltage and maximum current draw for our wall sockets over here? And torkus is correct, car starter batteries are designed for very high amperage rather than deep cycles, and can put out surprising amounts of current. They tend to go flat fairly fast under high load, though, and have abysmal (200ish or less) cycle lives.

Old, old, old, old news

[Anonymous Coward]

This was released by Toshiba nearly a year ago. See this

Re:Old, old, old, old news

[f()rK()_Bomb]

um, that was the prototype press release..... the batteries are actually avalible now...

and....

[Anonymous Coward]

and it explodes within 20 seconds.

The rest of the story

[Lost Penguin]

"Toshiba Battery Charges In 10 Minutes"
Explodes in 11 minutes....

RC Cars next? Prove the tech in a little car...

[Spokehedz]

And then move it into a bigger car, I say.

But otherwise, this is fantastic! When are these being put into electric RC cars/trucks? Finally, we will have that same 'edge' as Nitro racers, without all that damn smoke!

wait a minute.

[haubey]

90% in 10 minutes? Why not tell me how long for 100% so I can take out my plug at the right time. now i know why why my computer isn't staying on as long as others.....

New to slashdot?

[bopo_the_mofo]

We use bad car analogies here to inaccurately explain complex situations. Please revise your bad bucket analogy to conform. Tks.

got to admit

[WindBourne]

that is a BIG concern for me. NASA (not Nasa) is important to us and about to finally do some real work, even though I have my issues with how they are going about it. Of course, NASA has a LOW cost backup in spacex and bigelow as well as other companies that will be coming on-line. But the neo-cons have been absolute disasters to America (and I think to the world).

How the battery capacity compares to Li-ions

[Anonymous Coward]

Anybody found what is the SCIB battery capacity per liter or kilogram of the battery. How that number compares to Li-ion batteries?