Group Demonstrates 3,000 Km Electric Car Battery

Jabrwock (985861) writes 'One of the biggest limitations on lithium battery-powered electric cars has been their range. Last year Israeli-based Phinergy introduced an "aluminum-air" battery. Today, partnering with Alcoa Canada, they announced a demo of the battery, which is charged up at Alcoa's aluminum smelter in Quebec. The plant uses hydro-electric power to charge up the battery, which would then need a tap-water refill every few months, and a swap (ideally at a local dealership) every 3,000km, since it cannot be recharged as simply as Lithium. The battery is meant to boost the range of standard electric cars, which would still use the Lithium batteries for short-range trips. The battery would add about 100 kg to an existing Tesla car's battery weight.'

Comments

Hm....

[thieh]

I wonder whether anyone will remember doing this sort of maintenance (filling the tap water part) without some sort of big warning or display somewhere.

Re:Hm....

[Rosco P. Coltrane]

The car grinding to a halt would be a pretty efficient warning.

Re:Hm....

[MiniMike]

That's a small detail. If it can use tap water, it can also use water from the condenser coil or filtered rainwater collection. Or they could just add a small reservoir (similar to the windshield wiper fluid reservoir) which gets topped off when they change the battery.

Or they could just fill it up with the "amazing, mileage extending super water" which would be sure to hit the shelves soon after these batteries are released.

Re:Hm....

[luis_a_espinal]

I wonder whether anyone will remember doing this sort of maintenance (filling the tap water part) without some sort of big warning or display somewhere.

I wonder if anyone will remember changing oil as a sort of maintenance without some sort of big warning or display somewhere. #thestupiditburns

Re:Hm....

[drinkypoo]

So, we have a hot battery venting hydrogen through its air intakes.

What makes you think that you're the only person who ever thought of hydrogen venting? This is a solved problem even on car batteries. Hydrogen vents, and nobody cares. Maybe they'll need an explicit vent system. Oh noes!!1!1!!

Re:Hm....

[flyingfsck]

Quick, go and patent your mileage extending super water!

Re:Hm....

[BitZtream]

If your car battery is venting hydrogen, you're already fucked on a different scale. The vent is to prevent violent explosions in one form (over-pressure) but raises the risk of a hydrogen fire. The trade off is worth it, but the solution is to prevent the battery from going to the point of venting.

Once you've caused hydrogen generation you're well on your way to destroying the battery anyway.

Re:Hm....

[drinkypoo]

If your car battery is venting hydrogen, you're already fucked on a different scale.

It is normal for car batteries to vent a small amount of hydrogen during "normal" operation. Modern alternators put out over 14.5 volts in most cases, while older ones and generators typically put out less than 14, sometimes barely over 13. This permits quicker charging, but also leads to overcharging which causes offgassing.

Re:Hm....

[Grishnakh]

Pretty much every car these days has an aluminum engine block (and cylinder heads). No one uses cast iron blocks any more, except possibly some truck diesel engines and even that's unlikely. In addition, aluminum suspension arms are pretty common too, as well as aluminum wheels. I'd say there probably aren't any new cars now that have less than 100kg (220 lb.) of aluminum in total.

Re:Hm....

[fahrbot-bot]

Or they could just fill it up with the "amazing, mileage extending super water" which would be sure to hit the shelves soon after these batteries are released.

Don't give Monster Cable any business ideas...

Re:Hm....

[kenaaker]

Here's a prime example of someone speaking with absolute certainty and near complete ignorance.

The "extremely nasty" chemicals in the battery are aluminum and oxygen. Solid aluminum metal will yield 8kWh of electricity per kilogram of aluminum mass when reacted with oxygen. When aluminum first became an affordable material it was referred to as "solidified electricity" because of how much electricity the Bayer process consumed to refine bauxite. Also, the aluminum is basically consumed by being transformed back into aluminum oxide. But, if you run the alumina back through the Bayer process you get aluminum metal again. Pretty much a closed cycle.

Re:Hm....

[Belial6]

And, there is no reason that the water levels could not be monitored with a sensor that simply shuts off the car before the levels get too low. You set the gauge in the dashboard to show "Empty" as some value greater than the shut down value. As far as the user is concerned, the car is empty when the gauge says it is empty, and there is no risk of the water running too low.

Re:Hm....

[drinkypoo]

Most modern batteries have a catalyst to convert the hydrogen and oxygen back into water.

You are completely correct. They "lose water" at a reduced rate because they are capable of taking oxygen from the air. However, the process is lossy over time as it causes sulfation, which is the process during which the hydrogen is released. The sulfates raise the internal resistance of the battery, which reduces both its charge capacity and its charge rate. The degradation happens unevenly, so the batteries tend to discharge (and charge) unevenly, reducing their lifespan.

It's probably best for forego traditional batteries entirely at this point. That's kind of annoying though, because of my vehicles, one of them has two batteries ($$$) and the other is German and takes an odd size.

haha. they call if "charging the battery"

[idji]

Why don't they get honest and say "Smelting aluminium at 960 degrees".

Re:haha. they call if "charging the battery"

[Mr D from 63]

Its hard to see how the energy cycle makes sense. Melting down the aluminum to reform a "charged" battery does not seem intuitively efficient. Even if the process is powered from beautiful clean hydro.

Battery trailers make more sense than swapping, IMO.

Re:haha. they call if "charging the battery"

[NotDrWho]

It'll be pretty damn efficient at putting a lot of money into the hands of the dealerships where you have to switch those batteries out, though.

Re:haha. they call if "charging the battery"

[NotDrWho]

I've learned quite a bit about smelting from playing Elder Scrolls Online. And so I feel qualified to say that smelting is actually very straightforward. Just go to a blacksmith station, open up your refine menu and add your ore, press the refine key, and you're done!

Re: haha. they call if "charging the battery"

[Anonymous Coward]

"Charging aluminum" consumes a LOT of heat + carbon (anode burning) + fluorine (escape from electrolyte). It's not just clean hydro-electricity.

Re:haha. they call if "charging the battery"

[Charliemopps]

Its hard to see how the energy cycle makes sense. Melting down the aluminum to reform a "charged" battery does not seem intuitively efficient. Even if the process is powered from beautiful clean hydro.

Battery trailers make more sense than swapping, IMO.

It appears to be based on the oxidation of the Aluminum.

The energy is released via a chemical reaction that draws oxygen from the air and uses water fed into the car by the user to turn the aluminum into alumina (similar to the reaction that turns iron into rust)

So using the battery literally destroys it. The aluminum is all still there. So it's not rechargeable at all. It's disposable. They recycle it at the smelter, they don't recharge it. I suspect it will be treated like other car parts and there will be a core charge that you get back for swapping your old battery in.

I've no idea how efficient the process is, that would really be the key question.

Re:haha. they call if "charging the battery"

[fnj]

So what do you think bauxite (aluminum ore) is? It's a mixture of aluminum hydroxides and aluminum oxide hydroxides, with iron oxides, clay, and titanium dioxide as contaminants. Essentially the discharged battery will yield an unusually pure form of bauxite.

Recycling ALUMINUM is just melting scrap aluminum metal so it can be refabricated into new aluminum products. As such, yes, it is arelatively low energy process.

Electrolyzing BAUXITE into aluminum, on the other hand, is extremely energy intensive. Changing bauxite (aluminum+oxygen+hydrogen) into separate components is quite like changine water (hydrogen+oxugen) into separate components. In each case, the elements "want" to be combined. Separating them requires vast amounts of electrioc energy.

Re:haha. they call if "charging the battery"

[meerling]

Below I've included some of the info from wikipedia on the subject of what Bauxite is and the process to turn it into aluminum. Also, there have been some fairly recent developments in the technology that is said to greatly reduce the amount of electricity needed for that final step, though I don't know if it's currently being employed, or if existing facilities can be retrofitted with it. Now for the wiki:

Bauxite, an aluminium ore, is the world's main source of aluminium. It consists mostly of the minerals gibbsite Al(OH)3, boehmite γ-AlO(OH) and diaspore α-AlO(OH), mixed with the two iron oxides goethite and haematite, the clay mineral kaolinite and small amounts of anatase TiO2.

Approximately 70% to 80% of the world's dry bauxite production is processed first into alumina, and then into aluminium by electrolysis as of 2010

Usually, bauxite ore is heated in a pressure vessel along with a sodium hydroxide solution at a temperature of 150 to 200 C. At these temperatures, the aluminium is dissolved as an aluminate (the Bayer process). After separation of ferruginous residue (red mud) by filtering, pure gibbsite is precipitated when the liquid is cooled, and then seeded with fine-grained aluminium hydroxide. The gibbsite is usually converted into aluminium oxide, Al2O3, by heating. This mineral is dissolved at a temperature of about 960 C in molten cryolite. Next, this molten substance can yield metallic aluminium by passing an electric current through it in the process of electrolysis, which is called the Hall-Heroult process

Re:haha. they call if "charging the battery"

[bobbied]

On one hand, that's only a little less than 1/2 of a typical oil change interval. On the other hand, the actual oil change is eliminated, and swapping this sucker in should be a lot easier than actually doing an oil change. For one thing, they won't be leaving off your drain plug.

FYI... "Typical Oil Changes" are no longer 3,000 miles but twice that. Newer cars generally suggest 7,500 miles or more and you can go longer in that older car too because the oil being used has improved. The 3,000 mile interval was born in the days when oil filters where optional equipment and motor oil broke down faster. Now days, you are wasting money and oil if you do this more than every 6,000 miles. Save the cash and the environment.

Link: http://www.edmunds.com/car-car...

Re:haha. they call if "charging the battery"

[necro81]

Its hard to see how the energy cycle makes sense

It makes about as much sense as other primary (i.e., nonrechargeable) batteries: alkaline AAs, lithium coin cells, and the like. Depending on where you live, those may or may not be readily recycled. In most of the United States, for instance, they end up in landfills. Too bad, too, there's a decent amount of refined metals (manganese, nickel, steel, lithium, etc.) in those things that could be recovered. I guess we'll just leave them as a buried resource for future generations to dig out of the ground again.

Re:haha. they call if "charging the battery"

[Immerman]

Smelting aluminum has actually gotten pretty efficient - despite the ore being relatively cheap there was a time it was more valuable than gold (hence the cap on the Washington Monument), and even today it's one of the most expensive common metals. Any improvement in smelting has great profit potential, so there's been a lot of advances aimed at improving the efficiency over the last century. The enormous energy inputs are getting pretty close to the minimums required to de-oxidize the aluminum (melting is incidental, and the thermal energy can mostly be recycled). There's a reason aluminum is nicknamed "solid electricity".

So the real question is how efficient the battery is at extracting energy from the oxidizing the aluminum. I too would like to know the actual numbers, but if it's capable of supplying power to a car without needing a large dedicated cooling system then that's pretty promising. And of course this is intended as an *auxiliary* power system only intended for use when the range of the primary batteries has been exceeded, so a much lower efficiency is acceptable - it exists primarily so that you never have to worry about being not quite able to make it home / to a charging station, though I could see it being nice for long road trips as well.

Given the inability to recharge them though, I do think I'd want 2+ batteries in the car, to be drained (and replaced) sequentially. I don't want my "emergency tank" anywhere near empty, but it's wasteful to recycle it while it's still 20% charged. So let me drain one completely while the next is still fully charged. Assuming I'm mostly driving on the primaries that also gives me a nice big time buffer as to when I replace the drained battery.

Re:haha. they call if "charging the battery"

[Immerman]

That's why you buy an EV whose primary, high-efficiency range is >= your normal daily usage. You add one of these just so that that isn't a hard limit - no need to worry about running out of charge a few miles from home because you ran a lot more errands than usual. Even if it cost 10x as much per Watt-hour as a primary battery charge that only mean only that, in the rare case when you exceed the range of the primary battery, your mileage costs increase 10x. Something to keep in mind, but if you only use the backup for a few % of your total mileage it won't significantly alter your operating costs.

Re:haha. they call if "charging the battery"

[Mr D from 63]

Quick and dirty math tells me one of these batteries has on the order of 600KWh of energy to deliver to the car (to drive the distance claimed).

So, the question is, how many KWh of energy does it take to smelt, reclaim, and re-form the battery (or whatever the process order is)? That's simplified and ignores other inputs like added material, but it is a starting point. For starters, does anybody have an idea what melting 100Kg of aluminum requires? It would be interesting to see.

Re:haha. they call if "charging the battery"

[Mr D from 63]

BTW, excellent point regarding the need to fully discharge the battery before 'recycling' to get full benefit. I hadn't thought of that, and it may be the single biggest weakness in this approach.

Re:haha. they call if "charging the battery"

[tlhIngan]

The 3000 km is about 1864 miles.
So, how long does it usually take you to rack up that mileage?

The average car in the US travels approximately 20,000 miles/year. It's generally what they base warranties on and other things like leases .Some drive more, some drive less, but 20,000 average has held up for a long time now. (When you see those "160,000 mile/8 year power train warranty" - guess what!)

A battery that gets you 1800 miles per change would therefore require 11 changes a year, or just over a month's average driving.

You better hope that they have a regular battery in there and use the primary cell (yes, it's not recharging) as a range extender for those few trips that exceed the secondary cell capacity.

In this case, it'll be slightly better than those cars like the BMW and Volt that are primarily electric but tow a gas generator with them to offer extended range operations. This one keeps the existing simple low-maintenance electric drivetrain without having to add all the gas engine support components to the car.

Re:haha. they call if "charging the battery"

[Immerman]

There's a reason they nickname aluminum "solid electricity" - the cost of aluminum almost entirely reflects the energy needed to refine it, the costs of mining and shipping the ore are tiny in comparison. And that energy mostly remains in the chemical structure, ripe for the plucking by a battery such as this. Consider - the average car battery weighs ~40 pounds, more than half of which is relatively low-value lead, and it's sill cost effective to ship the sucker away for recycling. And smelter capacity could scale to whatever is needed, it's not like you'll start recycling millions of these things overnight.

As for alternatives, let's look at chemical energy densities:
46.4 MJ/kg --- 34.2 MJ/L - Gasoline
53.6 MJ/kg --- 22.2MJ/L - Natural gas (liquid)
142 MJ/kg --- 8.49 MJ/L - Hydrogen (liquid)
31.0 MJ/kg --- 83.8 MJ/L - Aluminum
~0.6 MJ/kg --- ~1.8 MJ/L - Lithium ion

Hydrogen is the clear winner by mass, but aluminum isn't much worse than the other alternatives, and wins hands down in terms of volume. Even if you manage to liquify hydrogen you're still going to need 10x the volume for the same energy content as aluminum.

Re:haha. they call if "charging the battery"

[Firethorn]

The average car in the US travels approximately 20,000 miles/year.

The 20k/year warranty isn't due to the average, it's to catch like 90% of people. The average is more like 12k - light duty trucks(pickups) average closer to 15k.

1800 miles per charge is 7 swaps, or about every other month.

If you keep even a 25 mile liIon battery in it though it'd become an annual swap for most people.

Re:haha. they call if "charging the battery"

[bobbied]

FYI... "Typical Oil Changes" are no longer 3,000 miles but twice that.

If you wait longer than 5,000 miles you're a boob.

Even if my owner's manual says 7,500 miles? Unless you have a really warn out engine, feel free to wait to 6,000 miles, no matter what you are driving, just be careful to check the oil and keep it full. You MIGHT have a case for 3,000 miles if you own a '56 Chevy w/o an oil filter, but for any water cooled car since the middle of the 60's when oil filters became standard equipment you are good at 6,000 miles.

Now if you have been running non-detergent oil for some reason (and I seriously don't know why you would or if you can even find it these days) and you switch to detergent oil, I would advise you run only a few thousand miles between the next few filter changes out of an abundance of caution, but after that you can back off to the 6,000 mile intervals with everybody else. But if you are pinching pennies enough to actually go looking for non-detergent oil, you are likely doing your own oil changes and probably don't need my advice anyway.

Re:haha. they call if "charging the battery"

[I'm New Around Here]

No, you would use the AL battery to the Mississippi River, then change it for another one.

Of course, YMMV.

Re:haha. they call if "charging the battery"

[jdschulteis]

What I'm wondering is why I want to carry around 2 months worth of fuel in my car and be sitting on top of that amount of potential energy in a crash?

Maybe because of the unlikelihood that all of that energy would be released rapidly enough to cause a safety concern?

Re:haha. they call if "charging the battery"

[matfud]

It is $240 ish dollars to buy 100kg of billet aluminium so less then $240 dollars worth of electricity to make that (and lots of that will come from ore not recycled aluminium)

Re:haha. they call if "charging the battery"

[Alsn]

My google fu yields the following:
http://www.world-aluminium.org/statistics/primary-aluminium-smelting-energy-intensity/
Efficiency varies around the world between 13000-16000 kWh per 1000kg of aluminium.

Assuming the entire quoted weight of 100kg is aluminium (which according to the article the batteries are "made mostly of aluminium"), that's at best 50% efficient assuming your ballpark estimate of 600 kWh. Compared to an internal combustion engine that's not too shabby.

However, I feel like a demonstration like this probably used an extremely lightweight car in order to maximize the range for the test. I'm thinking 600 kWh is probably a bit too optimistic.

Re:haha. they call if "charging the battery"

[Enigma2175]

Quick and dirty math tells me one of these batteries has on the order of 600KWh of energy to deliver to the car (to drive the distance claimed).

So, the question is, how many KWh of energy does it take to smelt, reclaim, and re-form the battery (or whatever the process order is)? That's simplified and ignores other inputs like added material, but it is a starting point. For starters, does anybody have an idea what melting 100Kg of aluminum requires? It would be interesting to see.

Well, aluminium on the US commodities market currently sells for around $0.81/pound so the maximum cost for refining 100 Kg of aluminum from bauxite is $178. Refining from alumina (the waste product of this battery) is presumably cheaper because it removes all the refining steps in the process before electrolysis.

Re:haha. they call if "charging the battery"

[drinkypoo]

Sure in an old car, not in a newer one. Most new cars recommend greater then 6k miles.

Ask someone who is working in the trade and they will always tell you different. If you're not having oil analysis done, don't trust any of that shit. Replace oil at 5k and trans oil at 15k regardless of manufacturer's suggestions. The incredibly long intervals are always lies. GM Dex-cool coolant is supposed to last five years, it's a damned lie. Audi wants you to believe you will never have to change the fluid in the trans in the A8, that's an outrageous lie that can cost you thousands. And the companies that sell you oil want you to believe that an oil with as much as 80% traditional petro stock in it is a "full synthetic".

Did you even read the article?

You must be new here. It's irrelevant to this conversation anyway. The company that made your car would like to sell you another one. Change your oil.

Automatic swap

[Anonymous Coward]

With an automatic swap system on gas stations, it might provide an instant refuelling, something impossible with fixed lithium batteries currently. Possibly it might make sense to standarise such a swapping machine, and a respective battery compartment, before multiple standards arise -- one machine for a hydrogen cell, aluminium battery etc.

Re: Automatic swap

[AvitarX]

I'm all for standards, but I don't think battery shape, size, and placement for a car is a good thing to standardize. Too limiting for design I'd predict.

Re: Automatic swap

[Immerman]

Unless your primary is considerably cheaper or more convenient than the backup - like say it were conveniently rechargeable from any power outlet instead of needing to replace a large battery.

Re: Automatic swap

[Enigma2175]

Exactly since when have auto manufacturers standardized on anything? Go to AutoZone. Look at the oil filters. There are literally dozens, and that's a pretty common part. Hell, there's not even such a thing as a standard oil. Manufacturers have _never_ created a standard part, everything is unique by brand and model, and I just don't see this being any different. Exactly how large a battery are we talking here? Maybe, if the range was 5000km, it might be useful, because that's about the range of a severe-duty oil change interval, but I guarantee that it won't be as cheap as an oil change.

Auto manufacturers standardize when they are required to. A much better analogy would be the fuel fill port on a gasoline car. Although there are a number of different fuel door and cap designs, the design of the actual fuel fill port is the same on all unleaded-powered cars. The design of the pump nozzles that fill them is also standardized.

Swappable batteries make a lot of sense, especially if they are modular. Smaller cars could have 2 modules (with a bay for a third for longer trips), SUVs/trucks could have 3 or 4 scaling up to semi-trucks who could have 10 or 15 packs in parallel. Smaller modules would be easier to handle during swaps and would provide greater flexibility than swapping monolithic packs. This aluminium technology would fit right into such a system, before you take a long trip you could go have your day-to-day packs swapped out for some long-range aluminium packs so that you can do your whole trip without recharging.

Public transport

[should_be_linear]

This is great for public transport. Changing units every 3000 Km is non-issue there. Vehicles are in the garage over night anyway...

Re:Getting better

[Anonymous Coward]

Isreal wish to strategically extract themselves (and everyone else) from oil dependence for obvious reasons. The US government (read: energy companies) does not have the same goal.

Re:3000km is not a lot in the U.S. . . . .

[AGMW]

Damn. Yeah, good point. Shame really, 'cos them Israeli boffins have been working so hard on it and now they've got to just stop and do something else 'cos your commute is too long. You know, I bet they're kicking themselves for not asking you about your commute first 'cos they could've saved themselves the bother!
PAH! 3000km! 3000 schkilometers I say! Not to menschion we don't even have any kilometers in the US anyway.

Re:3000km is not a lot in the U.S. . . . .

[guises]

No... a 50 km commute could easily be handled by your lithium battery. So you would need zero of these per year of that's all that you were doing. This is a range extender - a way to shut up all those people who keep complaining that the 300 mile range of the Model S is just unacceptable. You don't even need a Model S though, you'd do just fine in a Leaf.

Re:3000km is not a lot in the U.S. . . . .

[c]

When I worked in one inner suburb of a medium-sized city, and lived in another, I commuted about 50km each way, 100km in total, and hence 3000km over the course of a little over a month.

It's an add-on to a pure-electric car to extend the range. The Nissan Leaf, for example, is rated at at least 120km/charge. So, in theory you'd never actually draw on this magic battery for your daily driving. It'd only be if you had longer trips or weren't able to plug in one night, etc.

The average commute in North America is well within the range of a plug-in electric vehicle, and this thing is just icing/insurance. There's going to be outliers, but if we routinely killed ideas because they didn't work for 100% of possible scenarios, we'd still be shivering naked in caves (fur being too darned hot for those in warmer climates...)

Re:3000km is not a lot in the U.S. . . . .

[Joey Vegetables]

OK, sorry, my fault for not carefully RTFA. I did not mention that while my family and I do drive a great deal, almost all of it is within 75km of home. This *plus* a standard battery probably handles my situation, plus the occasional longer road trip, just fine.

It's a real issue.

[Anonymous Coward]

I wonder whether anyone will remember doing this sort of maintenance (filling the tap water part) without some sort of big warning or display somewhere.

I have an antique electric tractor. It's 41 years old and runs great, with almost zero maintenance; it uses about 20 cents worth of electricity to mow an acre of grass. If I replace the motor brushes every 30 years, and periodically wash out and maintain the corrosion-prone battery compartment, it will last forever.

But the achilles heel of these machines is battery maintenance, which consists of watering the big lead acid batteries and properly charging them. There are no mysteries in this process, and no great difficulties - you just have to remember to do it, and the batteries simply will not forgive forgetfulness. Properly cared for batteries can easily last twelve years, but it's very common for people to ruin a $600+ set of batteries in two years or less, simply from a lack of mindfulness. That changes the economics of it, which are heavily front-loaded. If your batteries last ten years, the tractor is much cheaper to own and operate than a gasser, but if you destroy your pack in two years, you waste that huge upfront battery investment and take a financial beating.

The Toyota Prius's NiMH battery packs were designed with this human reality in mind; the intelligent battery management electronics are the key to that car's success. Tesla took it one step further; they not only have intelligent battery management that does not require functioning user brain cells, they also built a high cell count charging system that allows rapid charging without compromising battery capacities.

Depending on humans to do battery maintenance doesn't work, in practice, except in the case of engineering geeks who are not even slightly behaviorally representative of the species as a whole.

Re:It's a real issue.

[Mr D from 63]

The electric tractor thing is pretty cool, particularly considering the failure of the "Raven" recently sold a Lowe's but later pulled.

Excellent points about battery care. Thanks for sharing.

Re:It's a real issue.

[rjstanford]

I'm glad that internal combustion engines don't have any kind of fluids that you need to change every few thousand miles then. Just imagine how impossible a situation that would be, especially if failing to change them could actually damage or destroy the engine! Better to stick with the tried and true.

In unrelated news I saw another "jiffy lube" going up down the street from my office. When will the homosexual agenda cease their corruption of young minds?

Read the Article!

[Roger W Moore]

When I worked in one inner suburb of a medium-sized city, and lived in another, I commuted about 50km each way, 100km in total, and hence 3000km over the course of a little over a month.

I know it is Slashdot and the summary is misleading about it "adding 100kg over a Tesla battery" but if you actually read the article you would learn that the idea is not to replace the existing Li-ion battery but to have this as well as a reserve. As you point out most people only drive short trips for which a Li-ion battery is well suited. This is just to provide a power for long distance driving.

However, depending on the cost, since this battery is only 100 kg and the current Tesla battery is 500kg you could imagine completely replacing the Li-ion battery with five of these and having a 15,000 km range which would probably do most people for the best part of a year. This would only work if it is cheap to replace compared to the cost of a Li-ion battery which lasts for 100,000 km and costs $30k. So assuming the cost of electricity to recharge the Li-ion palances with the installation costs of the multiple aluminium battery packs you would require, the cost per aluminium battery would need to be $900. The cost of 100 kg of aluminium (which seems to be the principle component) is $180 for 100 kg so this does not rule out such a price.

Sadly the killer for this, and all electric cars, is that assuming an internal combustion car uses 6l/100km of petrol the price of petrol would need to reach $5/litre before it became more expensive than the cost of battery or about a factor 4 higher than it currently is in Canada. Still give it a few more years of declining battery costs and increasing oil prices and we will finally be there!

Re:Only 1600km, not 3000

[jabuzz]

Wrong. It is 1600km for the battery fitted to the car in question, it is 3000km for 100kg of battery. They did not specify the size of battery fitted to the car that had it's range extended by 1600km but a bit of mathematics suggests around 54kg. Your reading comprehension is really rather poor.

Re:Does not compute

[Barsteward]

read the fucking article then you'll find out

So 15000 km if you replaced a model s battery pack

[oic0]

Why use them as range extenders. Why not just pack enough in to do a year of driving the recycle the filling and put in new plates? If it costs less than about $1500 to do most people would be fine with it.

extremely energy intensive

[rossdee]

Converting Aluminium Oxide to Aluminium is energy intensive, but it does not contribute to greenhouse gasses. The power for the smelter is supplied by hydro dams.

Re:What about displaced electricity

[cellocgw]

The power for the smelter is supplied by hydro dams.

Is this for a newly constructed dam? Is there water available that would otherwise NOT be used to generate electricity?

I'm not taking a position on the power-neutrality of these batteries, but would like to point out that one of the real-world problems with all of our electrical power plants is that they are very difficult to load-balance. If we could set up an "on-demand" aluminum re-smelter which operates only when grid-demand for electricity drops, the power plant could be run at a steady level 24/7.

Re:What about displaced electricity

[Firethorn]

If we could set up an "on-demand" aluminum re-smelter which operates only when grid-demand for electricity drops, the power plant could be run at a steady level 24/7.

That's a big 'could'. There's substantial energy penalties for turning them off.

Personally, I'm sort of hoping that EV batteries that are operational but too worn out for their original purpose(so holding 40-70% of original charge) are repurposed into standby/grid evening batteries. At a couple dozen kWh per pop, 1 battery per couple households would be enough to completely normalize electricity use.

Range extender

[DrYak]

You better hope that they have a regular battery in there and use the primary cell (yes, it's not recharging) as a range extender for those few trips that exceed the secondary cell capacity.

In this case, it'll be slightly better than those cars like the BMW and Volt that are primarily electric but tow a gas generator with them to offer extended range operations. This one keeps the existing simple low-maintenance electric drivetrain without having to add all the gas engine support components to the car.

Well that's exactly what TFA says:
car runs on the lithium battery.
when doing short trips like comuting between home and work ( typical everyday trips are 50 km according to TFA ) you simply run of the battery and recharge it at home/at work.
when doing long road trip, instead of stoping at a fast charging station, the alumium kicks in and is used to top the regular lithium battery.

Re:It's a real issue. - Optima batteries

[AaronW]

Even the Optima batteries, while better than many other batteries, still do not like to be overcharged.

The battery in one of my older cars lasted 10 years, I think because every couple of months I would run a desulfate operation on it with a smart battery charger. I wish they would build that technology in to car charging systems since it only cost pennies and can greatly extend the life.

After I got my Tesla I put the 12v battery in my Prius (an Optima replacement for the OEM when the OEM died) on a battery minder which does this and has proper temperature compensation. I only drove my Prius a couple times a year.

I might add that Tesla has several patents dealing with metal oxide batteries and using them in combination with lithium ion batteries. They already have the automated battery swap technology as well.