And they only get better when you go into nanolithium.
http://greyfalcon.net/quickcharge3.png

If thats not stable enough, I don't know what is.

Last I heard, they are more expensive now than in the 90s' due to a shortage of nickel. I suspect they are about to be eclipsed by the newer nanotechnology batteries. I've used NiCads and NiMH in power tools for many years. These nano phospates are incredible.

In the end, it all comes down to biodiversity. Poison Darts--Protecting the biodiversity of our world

Thats because NiMH is actually quite stable.

Thats why Toyota uses it in their Prius's, and has been reluctant to move to lithium.
http://www.greencarcongress.com/2007/06/report_toyota_w.h ...

The catch being I thought it was Chevron which held a copyright on the ability to make large-format NiMH batteries. (And hence why Toyota was forced to close down their EV-Rav-4 division)
http://www.ev1.org/msg/19.htm

That said, I doubt Nickel is in short supply.

If anything Lithium is probably in shorter supply.
Especially considering there's a lot of competing applications for lithium which might be able to pay a higher price for it.

_

If we were allowed to use NiMH for electric car development legit, then that would lower the cost of the batteries down to only a third the cost.

i.e. It would near instantly make electric cars cost effective.

Here's an article on Nanowires:

New article on nanowires:

http://www.popularmechanics.com/science/research/4237756. ...

According to Moore's Law, the speed of computer chips grows at an exponential rate. Sadly, there is no such rule regarding battery capacity. So while computer chips trip over themselves getting faster, the batteries that power them--in laptops, cell phones and other chip-driven devices--lag behind, constrained by chemistry. However, thanks to a breakthrough by Stanford researcher Yi Cui, the lithium-ion batteries that power most of these devices may soon be able to hold 10 times as much power as the ones powering today's gadgets. </blockquoute>

My Log

One of the downsides of the Internet is the rapid spread of rumors. Parsing them out can be a real pain.

The catch being I thought it was Chevron which held a copyright on the ability to make large-format NiMH batteries. (And hence why Toyota was forced to close down their EV-Rav-4 division)

Toyota says they gave it up because few people would buy them:

"...we only sold about 300 vehicles a year. In addition to overall customer acceptance, technical issues tied to electric vehicles remain a major hurdle." --things like short range, cost, and recharge times. http://www.toyota.com/html/shop/vehicles/ravev/rav4ev_0_h ...

That is part of the EV1 conspiracy theory lore. Chevron has since sold back its 20% share to Cobasys.

Thats because NiMH is actually quite stable. Thats why Toyota uses it in their Prius's, and has been reluctant to move to lithium.

According to that article Toyota was looking into using the same kind of batteries used in laptops that are thermally unstable. Everybody else is looking at A123 (the ones I use) which are totally stable. I know first hand because I have shorted out a few while working with them on my bench. I have not heard of anyone having one light on fire like the laptop ones do if you damage them.

That said, I doubt Nickel is in short supply.

An electric bike site that sells NiMH battery packs, responding to complaints about price increases, claims that the price of the packs have gone up a lot in the past year. They figured it was from the cost of nickel which is hitting record highs because of demand:

http://www.northernlife.ca/News/Columns/Archive/Sudol/01- ...

I have also heard that solar panels are also not dropping in price thanks to shortages.

If anything Lithium is probably in shorter supply. Especially considering there's a lot of competing applications for lithium which might be able to pay a higher price for it.

Not according to this guy:

http://tyler.blogware.com/blog/_archives/2007/1/29/269273 ...

This means that we can build in excess of 1.5 Billion PHEV20 (more than 2 X all the world's current vehicles) & use only 5,799,918 tonnes of Li2CO3. The USGS tells us in a 2000 study that we have 12,000,000 tonnes of Li2CO3 .... HOWEVER, Lithium can be & is being recycled from Li-Ion batteries. See TOXCO @:

http://www.toxco.com/processes.html  

As can be seen, lithium is quite recyclable so, in reality we won't even begin to approach using up half the world's reserves by the time we have gotten around to building 1.5 billion PHEV vehicles; if we EVER make that many. It is estimated that the whole world only has 0.6 billion vehicles today.

Wayne Brown --- http://privatenrg.com

In the end, it all comes down to biodiversity. Poison Darts--Protecting the biodiversity of our world

That is part of the EV1 conspiracy theory lore. Chevron has since sold back its 20% share to Cobasys.

And Chevron owns Cobasys
http://www.cobasys.com/company/partners.shtml

But good to know that I was wrong about a Lithium scarcity.

Protecting patent rights is legal, as Toyota is doing with its hybrid transmission. Obstruction of trade is illegal.

If they really were trying to keep them off the market instead of trying to keep competitors out of the market, then their plan is about to backfire thanks to the new batteries which, due to the high price of NIMh, may soon be cost comptetitve.

In the end, it all comes down to biodiversity. Poison Darts--Protecting the biodiversity of our world