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New Material Transforms Car Bodies Into Batteries
MikeChino writes "As battery manufacturers race to produce more efficient lithium-ion batteries for electric vehicles, some scientists are looking to make the cars themselves a power source. Researchers are currently developing a new auto body material that can store and release electrical energy like a battery. Once perfected, scientists hope the substance will replace standard car bodies, making vehicles up to 15 percent lighter and significantly extending the range of electric vehicles."
I can imagine it would make a multi-car pile up quite exciting. Just another effort to make real life more like a Michael Bay movie.
According to TFA their plan is to make the body panels act as one plate of a huge capacitor. I can't even begin to list all the technical flaws in their proposal; just reading it made my head hurt. They really should run their promotional pieces past a real engineer before spreading them all over the net.
You just need to learn how to be a leader.
Nerd rage is the funniest rage.
I really hope we get this electric car thing figured out soon because I am just about sick of following smoke belching vehicles every day.
The tech is here. Modern batteries can rapid charge in minutes (given adequate cooling) and yield hundreds of miles of range. The issue is cost. For most EVs, battery packs are generally limited in size by price, not volume or weight. And not just battery cost that's the problem; quality AC drivetrains are expensive as heck right now. You can't even use a lot of mass-produced accessories with EVs if the conventional accessory requires a gasoline engine to be running. The good news is that it's all about volume. Your typical LFP or manganese li-ion pack combined with an AC drivetrain uses almost no rare or expensive raw materials. You have lithium salts ($4-8/kg), phosphoric acid (in the case of LFP), iron powder, a porous plastic membrane, graphite, etc in the battery pack; your motor optimally uses copper windings, but can also use aluminum; the inverter also uses copper or aluminum, plus things like silicon carbide for thyristors; etc. The expenses are primarily the huge amounts of labor and capital costs per unit because of very low volumes and because of the lack of production process refinement.
BTW, the article summary is wrong (and partly the article, too). What they're talking about is not a battery; it's a capacitor. Which means that even if the whole body is made of the stuff, it's not going to be enough energy capacity for reasonable range. Plus, you have to consider how it'll change your vehicle's weight, structural strength, etc. There is always a cost-benefit analysis to consider.
Still, it could potentially be useful for making less-critical structural elements (say, the bellypan) to use for buffering (rather than energy storage).
I'll BUILD someone to replace you. Some kind of gamma-powered monster, with a heart as black as coal!
Once again, in less than 30 minutes the Slashdot crowd finds multiple fatal flaws in the results of years of work by highly-trained educated people. And frequently without even bothering to RTFA! Is there nothing we can't do?
NOBODY expects the Slashdot Community! The chief weapon of the Slashdot Community is presumption...presumption and arrogance...arrogance and presumption.... Our *two* weapons are presumption and arrogance...and cynicism.... Our *three* weapons are presumption, arrogance, and cynicism...and an overweening sense of entitlement.... Our *four*...no.... *Amongst* our weapons... Amongst our weaponry...are such elements as arrogance, presumption...I'll come in again.
Biofuels are not a long-term solution. Corn ethanol is over two orders of magnitude more land-intensive than solar thermal. Algae is just under one order of magnitude more land intensive. Plus, biofuel creation requires water, fertilizer, processing, etc. And the combination of needing "lots of water" and "lots of sun" can be rather mutually exclusive, as the sunniest places in the country are desert. Solar thermal is closed loop.
If your goal is to turn solar energy into propulsion, pure electric is the way to go.
Although the long recharge time is part of it
That's what rapid charging is for.
the main part is that you do not want to buy more battery than you are going to be using since the battery will be one of the most expensive parts of the car.
Indeed, the real issue is price. But that will fall significantly with mass production. And the operating cost advantage will remain, so eventually, even if sticker shock remains an issue for prospective buyers, seeing a lease price that's significantly cheaper than a gasoline car's lease plus the cost of gasoline that month should eventually drive the point home.
Furthermore, the main point to oversized gas tanks is to make it so that you don't have to fill up too often in your daily lives. Filling up is, after all, a pain; who wants to drive out of their way to pay for the privilege of pumping carcinogens in the middle of a blizzard? One of your average EV driver's favorite benefits is the fact that you start each day with a full charge. You don't even have to think about it in your daily life. The only time range comes into play is when you take long trips. But what's the point of having 700-800 miles on a long trip? Dear god, if you drive 700-800 miles without stopping to rest or eat, please don't do it when I'm on the road!
Lastly: In 1989, a new top of the line battery hit the market: the nickel metal hydride cell. It boasted 45Wh/kg energy density. Today, just over two decades later, commercially available li-ion cells boast up to 220 Wh/kg -- almost five times higher -- plus an order of magnitude higher power density. This trend shows no signs of slowing down; rather, it appears to be accelerating. So take that into account when talking about range for the future.
I'll BUILD someone to replace you. Some kind of gamma-powered monster, with a heart as black as coal!
Why not just make the batteries swappable at service stations?
Too many variables. How much charge is in the current battery, how much wear and tear are in the battery you just got versus what you just gave, what happens when you get a partial dud, how many batteries can be swapped out a day, the physical labor of swapping batteries, what do you charge/how do you come to the cost and how does that make you competitive with your competition.
I thought it would be a smart idea to change out the electrolyte instead of the whole battery, but it wasn't actually all that smart either.
Don't know something? Look it up. Still don't know? Then ask.
Cellulosic butanol is way more exciting than cellulosic ethanol.
Fuckin' A! Whenever anyone even mentions cellulosic butanol I can barely contain my enthusiasm! ;-)
This ain't rocket surgery.
Thanks for mentioning solar thermal energy instead of photovoltaics.
One other solution that has not been considered is the use of solar thermal energy to synthesize gasoline and diesel fuel from carbon dioxide. Sandia is working on it with their "CR5 thermochemical engine". It's estimated at 150,000 gallons/acre/year of REAL, drop in replacement GASOLINE - not ethanol, not diesel. At 24 MPG (U.S. average), 3,600,000 miles/acre/year. It is clear that thermochemical engines will beat biofuels in efficiency.
Of course, the real question is cost and rare element usage. No one likes to talk about that.