Why We Need Electric Cars, Part II
In the first installment I discussed the three main paths we are taking to rid ourselves of the need for oil, concluding that the electron economy holds more promise than either the biofuel or hydrogen economy. I also talked about some innovations on the supply side that will make electricity more renewable. This installment discusses advances in battery tech that make various forms of electric cars more practical.
The past two years have brought a quiet revolution in high performance battery technology. The basic problem is: how do we make 1) high energy-density batteries that 2) recharge quick enough to make you want to give up your gasoline powered car? And the solutions have been developed largely due to nanotechnology, and rethinking the fundamental assumptions of how batteries are built and recharged.
Two approaches are gaining steam. The first the development of high performance, safe lithium batteries. Two companies are targeting their new battery technologies for the hybrid/full electric car markets - A123 and Altairnano. A123 got off the starting blocks faster with their nanophosphate lithium ion cells, because they are better geared for mass production. The new cells set new performance standards in nearly every important category. They’ve nearly eliminated cycle degradation - new cells are testing out at 300,000 cycles successfully. This means you don’t have to replace the battery pack during the life cycle of the car, avoiding a major maintenance expense. They are also targeting the widest possible market, offering separate products for full electric cars, plug-in hybrid electric cars, and plug-in hybrid CONVERSION KITS. You’ll be able to take a three year old Prius and upgrade it to 150+ MPG.
Altairnano, as I discussed earlier, is partnering with others to market a full electric vehicle, but they are mainly involved in the development of the lithium battery it uses. Their innovation is to apply nanotech-engineered materials to the battery terminals, eliminating impedements to fast recharge cycles. You can recharge a 50 kWh Nanosafe battery pack in as little as 10 minutes, given adequate charging capacity. This potentially eliminates another barrier to electric car development - inconvenience. If you can eventually recharge your battery in the same, or a bit more, time as it takes to refuel your gas tank, you’re more likely to consider buying an all-electric car - which one of the things I believe that ‘Who Killed The Electric Car’ got totally wrong.
In both cases, nanotech has been used to make lithium batteries more powerful, cheaper to manufacture, and charge faster. But what about the venerable old lead acid battery? Is it becoming the Edsel of the battery world? Not according to Firefly, who has developed a way to make lead-acid batteries that compete with lithium, performance wise, at a fifth of the cost. They did so by replacing the lead with a carbon-graphite foam. This dropped the weight substantially and increased the surface area to enhance material utilization. The result is a battery that is superior to its lead based counterpart in every way - and can slip directly into the existing automotive and high performance battery distribution network.
And then there’s EESTOR, the darkhorse that promises a totally new technology that makes batteries obsolete. They claim proprietary improvements in materials have made possible a super-powerful, super-cheap ultracapacitor. They are being extremely secretive, evoking shouts of ‘VAPOR!’ from the masses, but if they are for real they’ve got a disruptive innovation that will change the way we think about electric vehicles.
Assuming EESTOR doesn’t swoop in to save the day, there are two main challenges with all-electric cars. The first is initial cost. In a purely electric car, the battery is the most expensive single component (unless Firefly carbon foam batteries come about, but they aren’t as energy dense as modern lithium batteries so they take up more room). As you saw from the response to my earlier post, the Phoenix from Altairnano will clock in at $70K, while the Telsa Roadster is now up to $98K. To increase vehicle range you have to add battery capacity, which raises cost - there will be no cost effective way, in the short term, to market an electric vehicle with a 300 mile range. And the only way to take advantage of that range would be to exploit the fast-recharge capabilities of the newer batteries - bringing us to the next challenge…
The issue with fast-recharge batteries is finding a means to exploit their capabilities in a practical manner. To recharge a 25 kWh battery in 10 minutes requires a 150 kW power source. This means your local gas station will have to invest in recharge stations. While you’re waiting on them, you’ll have to settle for a much slower home-based recharge at 240 volts - a 30 amp circuit will recharge a 25 kWh battery in about 3.5 hours. That means effective range will be limited to daily commuting - a need met with a mere 40-50 mile electric range, or about 12 kWh. For longer trips you’ll need to keep that gas minivan.
This means the easier path for early widespread adoption of electric vehicles is via plug-in hybrids (PHEVs). The current series hybrid power plants being designed for the VentureOne and the Chevy Volt use a battery for daily use and a diesel generator for longer trips. The series PHEV satisfies all driving needs, and costs less due to the smaller battery requirement.
Since a whopping 75% of all driving is ‘local’ in nature (work, shopping, school, etc), the impact of shifting that mileage from gasoline to the electric grid would be nothing short of staggering. And because most recharging would be done during off-peak overnight hours we don’t have to worry about power company ‘brown outs’ during peak air conditioning season.
Would biofuels like cellulose ethanol have a place in this? Sure - in the short term, if we had a nation of PHEVs dropping the majority of our gasoline needs, the remaining requirement could be met with ethanol and/or biodiesel. And as batteries get less expensive and high-power recharging stations appear, we can move towards all-electric vehicles with bigger batteries. And one day, if hydrogen or other kinds of fuel cells become practical, you can do away with batteries altogether.
But the first step is the PHEV.
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2 Responses to “Why We Need Electric Cars, Part II”
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Sorry, I cannot find your actual name anywhere on the blog (other then “lead-dog” or “Innovation-Catalyst”). So, I’ll just start with “Hello!”
Frankly speaking, I was waiting for your Part II hoping you would develop the promissing statement you made in Part I: “…we have a problem because ICEs ARE DAMNED INEFFICIENT”.
Today’s dilemma is similar to the one we had 20 years ago, when computers were manufactured by a few large companies, like IBM, Toshiba, Yamaha and a few others. Then, the major breakthrough happened - open PC architecture - that defined open rules for thousands of innovative companies to participate by doing better hard drives, memory chips, cooling systems, cases, wires, power systems, sound and wireless cards, and so on.
Can you imagine a large corporate meeting, where the desicion about the future computer model cooking? It’s sounds redicilous today! We make this decisions for ourselves - I have 5 computers at home and my Media Center is drastically different from my “Kitchenputer” (Touchscreen on a wall).
Nevertheless, this is exactly how auto manufactures are still working today. They sketch the new model, do market research, then go to suppliers - so inefficient! (and costly to us - customers).
When I open the hood of my Pathfinder (sorry, I need 3 rows of seats
- there are so many wires, tubes, connectors - that it becomes obvious that only a large company like NISSAN can actually make something like that.
But think about the electric car for a minute. That is as simple as a PC: motors are located inside wheels (PML Flightlink), wires from the wheels go to a central computer/power management (AC Propulsion) and connected to baterries (lot’s of options). Shell can be done from carbon and come in different configurations in a box. And the whole car can be easily assembled by a small auto shop - like computers are done today directly by small shops.
This will result in the largest revolution in manufacturing - custom built vehicles, with tens of thousands of competitors who will innovate on every aspect of the car - from engines to mirrors!
The result - cheap, efficient and great looking cars. Now, we are talking about innovation!
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