Slashdot Mirror
G.M. Opens Its Own Battery Research Laboratory
Al writes "Bankrupt automaker G.M. has taken a significant step towards reinventing itself by opening a battery laboratory in Michigan on a site that once churned out internal combustion engines. The new facility lets G.M. engineers simulate all kinds of conditions to determine how long batteries will last once they're inside its vehicles. Battery packs are charged and discharged while being subjected to high and low temperatures as well as extremes of humidity. Engineers can also simulate different altitudes by placing the packs in barometric chambers. The facility has also been designed so that engineers located in New York and Germany and at the University of Michigan can perform experiments remotely. Despite its financial troubles, G.M. has committed to producing the Volt and is already working on second- and third-generation battery technology at the new lab."
...I'd own part of a battery research laboratory!
GM was so far ahead of everyone else with the EV1. Sure it was a money loser, but had they kept that line of cars around in limited production they could have worked out all sorts of problems with mass producing electric cars and they would have owned all the patents and know how in the area for 20 years. Instead, they killed the program, dumped all the IP they gained from it and went back to building SUV's and pickup trucks.
Insane.
This lab has been there for some time.
I saw it on PBS comparing the old EV1 battery to the new Volt pack.
Apparently it was recorded in 2005.
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1046766/
I'm not seeing how this story or any other story about GM and their "Volt" is noteworthy. The Volt is not a marvel of engineering. It's not innovative. It's the same crappy "hybrid" concept that every other auto maker has tried to push. The Volt only goes 40 miles on a charge before rolling over to the gas engine. And at the nearly $40,000 price point, why bother buying it? If you spent a bit more money, you can buy a Tesla Model S, priced at about $50,000 (assuming you can get the rebate). The Model S doesn't even have a gasoline engine, goes over 7 times farther than the Volt on a single charge, can go from 0 to 60 in under 6 seconds, and looks a hell of a lot better than the Volt IMO.
If GM uses this new laboratory to produce cars with no gasoline engine (all electric), I'm on board. But if they use it to push this ridiculous Volt and other similar hybrids onto the market, it'll be just another waste of our taxpayer dollars.
Umm...what batteries are you referring to that are dirty, nasty, and hard-to-recycle? Lead-acid batteries, sure, I'll grant that. But that's not what is being proposed for electric cars.
This http://www.treehugger.com/files/2008/03/tesla-electric-car-batteries-non-toxic-recycled.php is closer to it.
With regards to life, I recall hearing that the newest generation of lithium batteries last far more cycles than your laptop's battery, though I cannot provide a link at the moment.
As for ultracapacitors, yes they're neat and could work. But the battery tech we have now is much closer to reality than our current ultracapacitor tech. Should ultracapacitors work out, we'll be grateful we started building the infrastructure to support our battery-powered cars.
from the same wikipedia article:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rav4ev
Whether or not Toyota wanted to continue production, it was unlikely to be able to do so, because the EV-95 battery was no longer available. Chevron had inherited control of the worldwide patent rights for the NiMH EV-95 battery when it merged with Texaco, which had purchased them from General Motors. Chevron's unit won a $30,000,000 settlement from Toyota and Panasonic, and the production line for the large NiMH batteries was closed down and dismantled. This case was settled in the ICC International Court of Arbitration, and not publicised due to a gag order placed on all parties involved.[1][2] Only smaller NiMH batteries, incapable of powering an electric vehicle or plugging in, are currently allowed by Chevron-Texaco.
Fixed that for you...
"Sure is nice that you spent your money on SUVs for the last eight years, that they didn't have any short term financial incentive to do research like this."
Maybe if they thought a little longer term and remembered "the energy crisis" from 1973 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1973_oil_crisis as they were designing their vehicles, people would want to buy them now.
Or maybe if GM hadn't discontinued the EV1 in 199 and then taken all the EV1's and crushed them in 2003 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/General_Motors_EV1, they'd have something to sell that people want to buy.
Or maybe if instead of discontinuing them in 2001, they still sold Suzuki G10 XFi engine based Chevy Sprints / Geo Metros which got 51MPG highway, 43 MPg city, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Suzuki_Cultus, they'd have non-hybrid cars that exceeded the new CAFE standards already.
GM had the products and manufacturing capability for success in the current economy, but they squandered it all on short term thinking, like investments in GMAC (which got about 7% of last Novembers TARP bailout money after declaring itself a bank, or $5 billion http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GMAC).
-- Terry