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Israeli Firm Makes Kilomile Claims For Electric Car Battery Tech
cylonlover writes with this tantalizing excerpt from GizMag "Israel-based company Phinergy claims to have developed metal-air battery technology that promises to end the range anxiety associated with electric vehicles. The company's battery currently consists of 50 aluminum plates, each providing energy for around 20 miles (32 km) of driving. This adds up to a total potential range of 1,000 miles (1,609 km), with stops required only every couple of hundred miles to refill the system with water."
From TFA (I know, but there were no comments yet ;-):
The company says the aluminum plate anodes in its aluminum-air battery have an energy density of 8 kWh/kg, but the batteries are not rechargeable. Once the energy is expended, the plates, which add up to around 55 pounds (25 kg) per battery, need to be replaced. However, the company points out that aluminum is easily recyclable and that swapping the battery out for a fresh one is quicker than recharging.
That makes it a lot less appealing, I would say...
a fuel cell, not a battery.
"The company says the aluminum plate anodes in its aluminum-air battery have an energy density of 8 kWh/kg, but the batteries are not rechargeable. Once the energy is expended, the plates, which add up to around 55 pounds (25 kg) per battery, need to be replaced. However, the company points out that aluminum is easily recyclable and that swapping the battery out for a fresh one is quicker than recharging."
Oh I see, so one anxiety is traded for another...
Kilomile? Yes, let's combine two units of measure arbitrarily.
Sounded exciting, clicked the link, but it is NOT RECHARGEABLE. As in, you have to throw the aluminum battery away once you've used it. Even the company say it's a "range extender" to use alongside a lithium battery, and as for the 1000 miles, I don't see any evidence for that in the article.
So the battery supposedly has a 1,000 mile range, but you have to stop every 100 to 200 miles to refill it with water? ... So it only has a 100-200 mile range. And on top of that, it's a disposable (recyclable) battery, not a rechargable one ... pros and cons to that, but it does require an infrastructure of replacement battery stations. Certainly better in my opinion than a charging station, but at least charging stations exist.
In the end, if the aluminium can be recycled completely to make new batteries, then, this has potential. Depends now on cost, safety, ease of maintenance and most of all performance. You can do 1000 miles.. at what average speed?
Their mileage seems a little off. The total kW/h in this seems to be 200 at the weight of the battery (25kg @ 8 kW/kg). The chevy volt would only go about 750miles on that much juice. (36kWh/100 miles)
I thought that this technology had been suppressed by "Big Oil"?
If this works as well as it is claimed to, then be prepared for an aggressive change in US policy towards Israel!
I am Slashdot. Are you Slashdot as well?
Why was this modded down? If he had said the same thing about South Africa while Mandela was in prison, it would be pumped up to +5 immediately. Israel is an apartheid government, with a state religion! We should be boycotting them AND Saudi Arabia.. but such is the power of money...
Not a battery, just a fuel cell.
with stops required only every couple of hundred miles to refill the system with water.
Then the system has a range of a "couple of hundred miles" and not 1000. It has a *charge* for 1000 miles, but the car's range is only as good as your worst stat.
They treat people of different citizenship differently. Apartheid! They have the audacity to set up checkpoints at the border of their territory. Apartheid! My god. They built a wall. Apartheid! Never-mind the violence of the intifadas and the fact that the security measures have *worked*, it's "Apartheid!" This is nothing like SA, where there were laws in place discriminating against people on the basis of race. I see nothing wrong with treating people of different nationalities differently. Muslims who hold Israeli citizenship have *exactly* the same rights as Jews... in some cases even more considering they do not have to serve in the Military. Were this not the case, you might have a point, but it's not, and you don't. All you serve to do is insult the people who suffered under actual apartheid.
actually, such is the power of a group in controlling American media and thus the mindset of the average moron, mod gp up.
Only I can judge you.
Who the fuck came up with that dumb word? Someone needs a nice hearty punch in the dick for that.
well I DON'T buy 4 of whatever you're buying, so I'm canceling YOU out!
omg! They have the audacity to destroy the economy of a group of people whose land they happen to be illegally occupying. Zomg! They have the audacity to decide they like any piece of land being farmed by a Palestinian and illegally raze the land and put up new condos for their "settlers". Zomg^2! They can roll up to any Palestinian occupied farm, park their mobile home, claim harassment and soon have a garrison of Israeli stormtroopers protecting "their" newly settled land. Not to mention the bombing of innocent women and children.
Only I can judge you.
"You do realize that whenever one of you assholes boycotts some Israeli company, I make sure to buy 2 of whatever they're selling"
That won't work. Firstly he wanted to draw attention to this BDS Israel boycott, and he succeeded, and you helped him. Pro Israeli mod's used their mod points to drive it to -1, but you are at +2 and it flags the comments for others to read. I would never have read his comment if you weren't there flagging it.
Secondly, each time you buy two, you're wasting your money. It's always easier for him to avoid any Israeli products, because they don't have an exclusive on anything he wants. He doesn't go without, he just chooses a competitor's product. You on the other hand, end up paying twice, and have to buy the Israel product, even if there was better or cheaper ones.
So to him its a triple win, 1. he boycotts Israel, 2. he got you to promote his comment, and 3. you end up being punished for your counter boycott by paying at least double.
Plus you flag yourself as irrationally pro-Israel in any future discussion, which will prevent you from appearing to be any sensible balanced viewpoint on Israel.
that's ok, because I then boycott them twice as much, lets see who runs out of money first.
Only I can judge you.
The problem is that Israel does not allow the Palestinians to make anything at all. They have a controlled border, they can't even import concrete to repair the buildings that Israel has blown up.
Olive oil & soap ?
I'm not a coward by any name.
Consumers don't want this. They want something to recharge at home during the night without having to visit "stations" in order to refill water or aluminium. Also, we already have a distribution system for electricity and gas, there will be no costly third aluminiumbattery-system.
"different citizenship"... You're full of it. They are the indigenous people of the area and were violently displaced by radical zionists. Deported from their own land! So basically, fuck you!
640 miles should be enough for anyone.
"Believe me!" -- Donald Trump
There has been a claim of "revolutionary battery technology" from some US energy lab every month- carbon nanotubes, lithium air, etc. But few have ramped up to daily production road use. And few have gone bankrupt with $100s millions US DOE grants along the way.
I really, truly hope one of these claims becomes reality one day. I would like a 1000-mile electric car in my garage that costs the same as a petro car.
Seriously, this looks like a great way to range extend electric cars by putting it on a small tow-able trailer, or something that plugs into the rear similar to the trailer hitch carriers.
I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
I love the units used in the summary title. Kilomile? A better statement would be Megameter.
Well, better than that, any company that works with Israel on any product I automatically avoid too.
Sometimes it's a bit harder, but just reading Engadget, the Israeli company is always there trying to promote themselves, so it's relatively easy to avoid them. So when choosing a console for example, the XBox Kinect (licensed from an Israel company) meant I opted for the PS3 instead.
I know it doesn't have a direct measurable effect, but it makes me feel like I'm doing something positive. Taking a little time each day to choose one product over another, and understanding that each time I do it, a few dollars less make there way into Israel.
Sometimes I have to do partial rejects. I turned off Google autocomplete search, it was developed in Google Israel (and besides it use to annoy me that the autocomplete was sent to Google, if I typed it in before switching to DuckDuckGo to do the actual search).
Clue time: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bantustan
The South Africans claimed that blacks, coloured, Indians, etc., were not their citizens. They were in fact citizens of powerless, discontinuous territories that were basically controlled by South Africa. Since there was no work in these bantustans, the majority of their population commuted through South African checkpoints each day. They also claimed increasing amounts of territory for their own minority, ethnically defined population.
Also, Israeli's dominant, "centre right" party Likud claims that God wants Jewish Israelis to have all the territory for themselves (all of what was previously British Palestine). South African Boer culture included similar thoughts.
The parallels are not unreasonable.
The map is not the territory.
I didn't buy 10 soda streams, enjoy your overpriced fizzy saccharine water.
2)Price wise, the cost to replace 55 pounds of aluminum is about equal to gas. Maybe a little lower if you get paid back some for the used aluminum. Not much, but at least a small gain economically. Pollution wise it is worth it.
3) Range of a gas car is normally around 300 to 400 miles. (http://solarchargeddriving.com/editors-blog/on-evs-a-phevs/706-whats-your-gasoline-cars-range.html) Range of a car using this technology should easily be the same (just because some idiot thought they need to refill the battery with water every 100 miles doesn't mean a good engineer can't install a large spare water tank to refill it on the go.
excitingthingstodo.blogspot.com
Israelis do not hold that all Muslims or Arabs are not citizens. That is an important distinction which you miss, unintentionally or otherwise. There were no suicide bombers in SA either.
If Hamas, for example, was allowed concrete, they would build bunkers and fortified tunnels for smuggling rockets and it would never get to the people who need it. There are good reasons certain things are restricted.
There was a war. About 20 percent of the "palestinians" chose to stay and fight with the Jews. They, and their children, are still living in Israel. Those who voluntarily left were not allowed to return. Then there were two more wars, instigated by the Muslims, in which Israel gained land. I don't think land Israelis paid for their lives for in a defensive war should be returned.
If the battery were slung under the vehicle (as an another Israeli firm called Better Place proposes), then it could even be swapped out just by driving the car on to a ramp where a robotic arm extracts and replaces it in minutes. Also the battery is for exceptional situations so that 1000 miles might deplete very slowly since drivers would rely on rechargeable cells for the most part. So you might only have to do this once a month or once every half a year depending on your driving patterns.
Of course could be lots of reasons that this is a terrible idea. What's the energy cost of producing a battery and recycling it? What's the cost of building out an infrastructure? How many batteries would a car need to haul around to justify the additional range it supplied? Does the battery degrade when it's not in use or when it's used just once? Would other metal-air batteries be safe or cheaper to use? And so on.
So when did the definition for battery require the ability to recharge? Does that mean all these batteries I have are actually lies?!
Muslims who hold Israeli citizenship have *exactly* the same rights as Jews...
And they frequently have more rights than they would if they were living in a predominantly-Muslim country. I've met a journalist who is Arab and an Israeli citizen, and he much prefers being able to criticize the decisions made by the Israeli government over living in any of the surrounding countries where doing so would get him executed.
No. There are not good reasons to restrict certain things, like concrete or food or medicine. Israel is committing ethnic cleansing and running a ghetto. They are in the wrong, period.
'voluntarily left'... 'defensive war' that's funny, or would be if not for the tragedy. Damn, man! It 's coming out your ears!
It takes a lot of energy to refine aluminum. The battery is not rechargeable and requires recycling every 1000 miles. This does not sound workable in the long term. A car using this battery will also require another battery like Lithium Ion for situations where one needs a burst of energy or when one wants to take advantage of regenerative braking. This solution seems half-baked to me.
Israel is an apartheid government
Lets review the facts:
Arab citizens of Israel can vote.
Arab citizens of Israel can run for office and get elected.
Arab citizens of Israel serve on the supreme court.
Arab citizens of Israel can sue the government and win.
Arab citizens of Israel can worship as they please.
Sure sounds like apartheid to me!
Ah, the black white man! Got one of those living in the white house, yet institutional racism is alive and well in the US as well. The government of Israel has no right to exist. The indigenous people are the only rightful owners of the land. And the walls of Jericho once again need to be demolished by whatever force necessary.
Israel does not force Judaism on its citizens. You may be thinking of Hamas in Gaza, which has been enforcing Islam and intimidating people to convert to Islam. They have religious police enforcing dress codes and most recently segregated all schools by gender, including private schools.
Some people die at 25 and aren't buried until 75. -Benjamin Franklin
There was a war. About 20 percent of the "palestinians" chose to stay and fight with the Jews. They, and their children, are still living in Israel. Those who voluntarily left were not allowed to return.
.... and then the Government of Israel handed out the land of those who were not allowed to return to Jewish settlers.
That sounds like pretty neat description of ethnic cleansing to me.
Yes, the all powerful Jews run America and brainwash everyone. They are trying to take over the world! Round them up before it's too late.
Just like the United States has no right to exist?
No. There are not good reasons to restrict certain things, like concrete or food or medicine.
Israel does not restrict food or medicine.
Shipments are inspected since they are often used to smuggle guns & explosives, but aside from that, no.
Muslims who hold Israeli citizenship have *exactly* the same rights as Jews...
And they frequently have more rights than they would if they were living in a predominantly-Muslim country. I've met a journalist who is Arab and an Israeli citizen, and he much prefers being able to criticize the decisions made by the Israeli government over living in any of the surrounding countries where doing so would get him executed.
So in both Israel and 'predominantly-Muslim' countries he gets walked all over by the ruling elite. The difference being that in Israel he get's to complain about it and watch as his complaints are ignored while in a 'predominantly-Muslim' he'd get a smack-down from the security forces (Which he'll also get in Israel if somebody in the intelligence services suspects he has might have ties to Hamas). I can't really decide which sounds more fun... being a second class citizen with an option on going to jail or a guaranteed trip to jail if you open your mouth.
They were convinced to leave by the surrounding countries, the rulers of which had hoped that Israel won't last for long and all the property would be up for grabs Real Soon Now(tm) and that they just needed a clean line of fire at the Israelis. It didn't materialize, and now they're screwed.
Ezekiel 23:20
I read years ago about a proposed "zinc economy" for batteries. You'd pump in little zinc pellets, the reactor would produce zinc oxide and electricity. You'd pump the zinc oxide back out. The station would use another electric reactor to refine it back into pure zinc.
Obviously it's messy. I assume this process is too. A nice bonus with the zinc system is that you can put the exhaust on your nose at the beach. The possible toxicity of excessive zinc and aluminum being spilled can't be ignored. It's not as bad as powering your car with benzine; but there are still considerations. Aluminum plaques are noted in Alzheimer's patients. AFAIK there is no definitive study linking environmental exposure to Al and dementia; but that doesn't mean it can't happen.
It sounds like you haven't really thought about it, in Israel: there is no dress code, allowed to hang out with unmarried girls / boys, alcohol, music, dancing, kissing in public, gay rights, women's rights, etc.
Yes, but unlike a beer can in this case the aluminum is probably being converted back to bauxite (or something similar) within the battery as it delivers power, so recycling it will require reinvesting all that energy again. Actually rather ingenious if the efficiencies work out well - aluminum is both energy dense and stable, and the recharging/refining process has already benefited from many decades of industrial scale optimization.
--- Most topics have many sides worth arguing, allow me to take one opposite you.
I think your first point is fair; there are Muslim/Arab Israeli citizens, and they have representation in their parliament as well. They are very small in number, though, so the net result is the same as South Africa: a single ethnic group that dominates the country.
Your second point I don't agree with. The SA authorities considered the African National Congress to be a terrorist group. There was violence committed by black South Africans and it was called terrorism. Mandela himself was jailed for allegations of terrorism, and not officially for his political ideas. In both cases the violence is only one-sided if you fail to consider the actions of the police and army, who I consider to be perpetrating violence on behalf of the majority and powers that be.
I would like to see one of two things happen in Israel:
1) The Palestinians get a real, viable state. There's different options here, like a demilitarized state, and different possible partitions but it should be a real state and not a bantustan. This option is favoured by some former Israeli intelligence officers as it basically maintains the status quo, but reduces the instability of the conflict.
2) The whole territory becomes part of Israel, and everyone who lives there is an Israeli citizen. Everyone is allowed to vote and has equal protection under the law. Jews would not be a strong majority under these conditions, as the current split in the former British Palestine is about 50/50 Jew/Arab, with more growth on the Arab side.
Right now Israel seem to be combining parts of 1) and 2) to their advantage, which is hardly fair and not sustainable.
The map is not the territory.
Gays can serve in the military. Even gay marriage is recognized, which is more than can be said for most of Europe or the US.
What makes suicide bombers so much worse than non-suicide bombers?
Do you boycott China products because of their child labor & pollution? Do you boycott Palestinian products because Hamas won't let girls be in the same classroom as men?
Ethnic cleansing? There are somewhere around a billion Arabs in the ME. I don't think you have any idea what you are talking about.
No one is buying the moronic divestment movement, but keep trying- it's better than strapping on explosives and murdering women and children. Is this some kind of make-work for otherwise wanna-be terrorists?
Actually seems pretty similar to gas to to me, except that you're replacing the tank as well as the fuel.
The one improvement I could see is using something like ten 5-plate batteries rather than one 50-plate battery and, insofar as possible, draining them sequentially. That way you could replace just one or two spent batteries to "top off the tank" after using a couple hundred miles of range extension. By coordinating with the rechargable battery that wouldn't seem to be too difficult even if you would normally need most of the batteries in parallel to provide peak power - just have an "optimized range extension" switch on the dash that would drain your weakest extended battery(s) to manitain cruising speed and save the rechargable for when a little extra "oomph" is necessary.
--- Most topics have many sides worth arguing, allow me to take one opposite you.
Brawndo! It's got what batteries crave! It's got electrolytes!
The primary issue is that the Arabs don't want a State! They didn't want it in 1948 and they've rejected every single workable proposal since then. Why do people ignore the fact that had Israel lost the '67 war, for example, that Israel would have been split between Egypt, Jordan and Syria? The Arab countries have no more interest in a Palestinian State than anyone else.
And Palestine is the name given to Israel by the Romans. If anything, a "Palestinian" State would be entirely Jewish!
Heck Yeah! It's just too bad that trickle-charging is almost useless for range extension - if your car consumes 10kW to maintain cruising speed then even if you can provide a 1kW "trickle" you'll only extend your range by about 10%. The real benefit is just that you don't need a charging station to recharge when parked.
--- Most topics have many sides worth arguing, allow me to take one opposite you.
Europeans should go back to Africa.
He does not claim that is the definition. In fact he refers to it as a battery himself, as in "you have to throw the aluminum battery away once you've used it". He is just complaining that it is not a rechargeable battery.
For decades Iceland has been contemplating ways to export their cheap geothermal electricity, and aluminum batteries are one such idea. I'll leave it to someone not on a mobile phone to do a detailed search, but here is one link: http://evworld.com/article.cfm?storyid=765&first=3858&end=3857 The gist of Slashdot's linked to adver.... uh, article, is they think they have improved the process. Of course it appears they do it in their own custom built demonstration vehicle. There are ways to make custom built gas cars get almost that range on a tank of gas, but they aren't anything most of us would want to drive, and wouldn't pass US safety standards. So although this is probably good news, it also probably isn't as exciting or new as the marketing hype.
I see this as pretty unproblematic.
It's widely recognized from European humanitarian law that people form an attachment to a country after just a few years of living there, which is so strong that it's potentially a gross violation of removing them.
That means the descendants of the Palestinians who moved out by now have a pretty intractable attachment to their new countries.
If you are going to argue that people can have an undeniable attachment to a country because their parents were born there, then that puts deportation of illegal immigrants who have been out of their country of birth for 20-30-40 years into a whole new light.
They do, however, apply a separate legal framework to Palestinians than they do to Israeli Jews. Which is also the literal definition of apartheid....
Who the [...] came up with that dumb word [kilomile]?
Probably a techie, used to using prefixes to indicate power of ten scaling factors when talking about large or small counts or measurements.
But it's a perfectly valid construction. Quantities measured in non-metric units can also be expressed in base 10.
Assuming you CAN count in base 10, of course. B-)
Bantam Dominique roosters crow a four-note song. Once you've heard it as "Happy BIRTHday" you can't NOT hear it that way
This year, Israel's entrant into the Miss Universe contest is a black African. This from a country that brought you Bar Rafaeli (and even Aliza Gur, one of the original Bond girls). Images here.
Israel must be differentiating on something other than race. As for being a religious country, can you think of one Muslim dominated country that pumps out bikini- and monokini-clad models like Israel does? These women sure make me a believer, is that the religion you're talking about? Claims of apartheid and religious domination are absurd. If you cling to them you must not have a lot else to do. Maybe Israel is just trying to solve some real problems. Migrants and refugees from neighboring continents clamor to get in. Those fleeing from Muslin-on-Muslim violence come in, too, when they tire of the sport that makes Israeli violence seem as insignificant as its land area is relative to the Arab world.
Most importantly, I'm bored. I don't want to have to put up with this kind of name calling any more. Israeli Arabs choose to stay and be part of Israeli society. I'll listen to them with interest, but I can't find the energy to keep following along with this knee-jerk Israel-bashing trope.
Well, you've generally got more time to spot and stop a non-suicide bomber, because he has to get in, set up his bomb, and get out. This usually involves actions which can draw attention. A suicide bomber, on the other hand, simply has to arrive. Additionally, if the a suicide bomber is spotted the bomber still has the opportunity to set off the bomb early for a lesser effect.
Oh I agree it's technically valid, but how can you say it without feeling shame? I should change my second sentence there, too. They need a kilopunch in the microdick. Topical!
The "Jews" that stole the land and live there now are from Europe. They have no relation to the indigenous people. And either way. By your 'reasoning' the North American Indians have the right to take back their land also. I say we should hand them a few nukes and tell them to go for it.
what's with the blockade stopping all means of acquiring funds(industrial parts, concrete, etc essentials) for buying food and medicine then?
it's a stalemate. they're running largest ghetto there is.. sadly there is no way around that. they may have their reasons for running it but they don't have an exit plan - Seemingly the plan is that the palestenians just disappear into some hole in a ground eventually.
So what's your opinion on stealth bombers then?