Announcements of technological breakthroughs that are going to save the planet are a dime a dozen. The true test is commercial success on the free market. By "free market" I mean no tax money to support its continued existence, and by "save the planet" I mean something that does not feed the planet to our cars. We are going to see a commercial application of this new technology in just a few months. You can find more details here.
I promised on my last post to look into plug-in electric car design from an engineer's perspective. City government's promising to use our tax dollars to buy plug-in electric cars as an incentive to mass produce them would be pointless if the technology needed to produce a viable car did not exist.
I will summarize my findings by showing what new battery technology would do to the General Motors EV-1, the subject of the documentary Who Killed the Electric Car?
By the way, regardless of what the documentary says, no one killed that car. It was stillborn from a lack of viable technology. Mass-producing the EV-1 would not have worked -- you need consumers to do that, and few would have bought such a dog at any price.
Although it weighed the same as a 2006 Honda Civic hybrid, all you got for that weight was a two-seat, 100-mile range lead sled. (It used 26 huge batteries weighing a total of 1,200 lbs.) Then there was the small problem of taking all night to charge the batteries, and the cost of replacing them every few years.
Now, what if you replaced those lead acid batteries used in the EV-1 with a new kind that weighed 80% less, for a total of 240 pounds? I don't know, so let me answer a slightly different question. If you use only half of those new batteries (120 pounds), you could build a five-passenger, four-door Honda Civic hybrid that could easily go fifty miles on battery power alone. Curb weight of a four-door civic = 2804 pounds. 2804 + 120 = 2924, which is only 47 pounds heavier than a 2006 Civic hybrid. That would truly be a viable plug-in electric hybrid.
Four questions you should be asking: Where are these batteries? How long does it take to charge them? How many times can they be recharged? What will they cost?
They are in this year's line of Dewalt 36-volt power tools. Their Japanese competitor, Makita (the brand I use), beat them to the punch with an 18 volt version using a less advanced battery.
There are two facts that make this so hopeful. These batteries (unlike the ones found in laptops) were designed for high power applications, and mass marketed versions of them are already half the cost per amp hour of the NiMH batteries I purchased for my power tools last year. The fact that they can be charged up far faster and ten times more often than any previous battery is just icing on the cake.
My conclusion is that the technology has arrived and mass production really is all we need at this point to bring the costs down. Until this battery actually appeared in a competitive free-market application, you could not make that claim.
I gave up long ago all hope that the planet's ecosystems would be spared by anything resembling rational thought. Hopefully, these batteries will defeat biofuels in a toe-to-toe competition on the free market, sparing our planet's biodiversity as a side effect.
Comments
View as Threaded
jdhlax Posted 4:40 pm
05 Feb 2006
Jeff Hoffman
Permalink
Biodiversivist Posted 1:02 am
06 Feb 2006
In the UK, you pay about $5.5 per gallon for gasoline. Over half the cost is from taxation, which is the opposite of subsidization. It is an urban legend that gas would cost $10-$15 a gallon without shadowy government subsidies to the evil oil empire.
And, nuclear power is a perfect example of what happens when you allow government to subsidize (favor) a given energy scheme.
Government funding for research is one thing, pork barrel politics that create unlevel playing fields is another.
In the end, it all comes down to biodiversity. Help acquire and protect ecological hotspots, give to a conservation organization: http://www.saveourbiodiversity.com
Permalink
jdhlax Posted 7:10 am
06 Feb 2006
More importantly, no one taxes gasoline to pay for undoing the environmental and ecological harms caused by roads and driving, to the extent that's possible. These harms include ecosystem destruction from prospecting and drilling for oil, and for refining oil, air and water pollution created by oil refinieries, transportation of oil from extraction to the pump after refining, air pollution caused by burning gasoline, and roads that destroy natural areas and fragment wildlife habitat.
Jeff Hoffman
Permalink
amazingdrx Posted 2:40 pm
06 Feb 2006
It comes down to this. If the power tool battery lasts for 22 minutes at 1 kw output power (maximum output is 1.5 kw).
Then a 280 pound battery, composed of about 127 of these single batteries would power an economy sized hybrid car, like the Prius, for a range of
about 200 miles between recharge.
And with the recharge taking minutes, that means any internal combustion engine, transmission, and all the systems that come along with them will save maybe 500 pounds off the vehicle weight.
Replaced with 280 pounds of batteries that leaves 230 pounds for the electric motor and controller and charger. And the vehicle would weigh the same as before the electric conversion.
Making the mileage calculation all work out fine.
And if a longer trip is required between charging for a few applications, a 140 pound microturbine that operates on kerosene, diesel, or biodiesel can temporarily replace half the batteries.
The plugin range would still be 100 miles, and the turbine would operate at very high efficiency in an auxillary capacity. Maybe 10% of total miles driven by a typical cross section of these vehicles would be powered by the auxillary turbine.
Reducing fuel consumption by 90%.
Now to get test data on these new power tools to verify these estimates.
http://amazngdrx.blogharbor.com/blog
Permalink
Biodiversivist Posted 2:58 pm
06 Feb 2006
In the end, it all comes down to biodiversity. Help acquire and protect ecological hotspots, give to a conservation organization: http://www.saveourbiodiversity.com
Permalink
amazingdrx Posted 3:05 pm
06 Feb 2006
http://www.uqm.com/products/specsheet.html
Looks like 87 + 35 pounds for this 67 hp motor and controller.. 122 pounds. Leaving 108 pounds for the charger and other stuff.
http://www.uqm.com/products/specsheets/MPM50.pdf
Call a venture capitalist! Now!
The power of an electric notor at 67 hp acts more like a gasoline motor over 100 hp in terms of acceleration, that is the rumor I have heard. This should give good performance.
These are the motors used in the hybrid humvee.
http://www.evworld.com/archives/conferences/evs14/humvee.html
http://amazngdrx.blogharbor.com/blog
Permalink