I own an electric car (on my second one now) that I use for around town. It’s fine for short jaunts, which is the majority of driving. However the limiting factor is of course the battery and the range associated with it. While I can get about 40 miles of city driving, I could probably double that with a lighter, more efficient battery. While I know some people pooh-pooh electric cars, I think mine is rather fun. With gas prices headed toward $5 a gallon, I’ll have even more fun.
My electric car, shown above – a bit like a “smart car”, but slightly larger. My first was little more than a glorified golf cart. This one is full featured.
From the American Chemical Society
New high-performance lithium-ion battery ‘top candidate’ for electric cars
Scientists are reporting development of an advanced lithium-ion battery that is ideal for powering the electric vehicles now making their way into dealer showrooms. The new battery can store large amounts of energy in a small space and has a high rate capacity, meaning it can provide current even in extreme temperatures. A report on this innovation appears in ACS’ Journal of the American Chemical Society.
Bruno Scrosati, Yang-Kook Sun, and colleagues point out that consumers have a great desire for electric vehicles, given the shortage and expense of petroleum. But a typical hybrid car can only go short distances on electricity alone, and they hold less charge in very hot or very cold temperatures. With the government push to have one million electric cars on U.S. roads by 2015, the pressure to solve these problems is high. To make electric vehicles a more realistic alternative to gas-powered automobiles, the researchers realized that an improved battery was needed.
The scientists developed a high-capacity, nanostructured, tin-carbon anode, or positive electrode, and a high-voltage, lithium-ion cathode, the negative electrode. When the two parts are put together, the result is a high-performance battery with a high energy density and rate capacity. “On the basis of the performance demonstrated here, this battery is a top candidate for powering sustainable vehicles,” the researchers say.
The authors acknowledge funding from WCU (World Class University) program through the Korea Science and Engineering Foundation.
ARTICLE FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE “An Advanced Lithium Ion Battery Based on High Performance Electrode Materials”
DOWNLOAD FULL TEXT ARTICLE http://pubs.acs.org/stoken/presspac/presspac/full/10.1021/ja110522x
Grant from Calgary says:
February 23, 2011 at 9:26 am
The biggest deposits of lithium are in Chile and Bolivia. The US will never get to use it’s lithium as the EPA won’t even let us drill for oil or dig for coal, even though those processes are much cleaner then lithium mining.
Suspect that while Panasonic is a Japanese company they have their production facilities for batteries in mainland China. One interesting thing to note about Panasonic is they are a leader in super capacitors. These critters are ideal for storing the energy generated from braking, as the battery has a limited charge rate. So for stop and go you can use the super caps on stopping and starting, thus evening out the battery drain.
I would put this in the category ‘expensive toy’, there is no way that it pays out economically, as Anthony already pointed out, he has a second ‘real’ car.
I don’t know the rules for car insurance in the US, but I guess you need to pay insurance for both (we are a bit priviledged here in the last independent alpine country: you can insure one car, the most expensive one, and put the plates on any of your cars, depending on which one you want to drive), you have to amortise both cars, even if they are not driven, they loose value. There is also the problem of loosing the charge of your ion batteries if you are not driving the car for a few weeks (if you have time to go on holidays, which I hope you do!).
To make it economical would require to get rid of the ‘other real’ car and see if you can only rent one when needed, if it starts to make economic sense.
Bryan A 9:30:
According to their website, Lightning cars have not yet begun production – it’s now scheduled for 2012; originally it should have been 2008. They are still looking for investors, too. Their motors produce a total of 400 horsepower, not 700 and the top speed is expected to be 125mph. The range is only 150 miles. I don’t think this will set the world on fire.
jorgekafkazar says:
February 23, 2011 at 9:28 am
takes me back.
some 33 years ago…. oh those cute MGs and TR7s…. great fun. you can pass a truck underneath the the truck ( never tried it. too much of a chicken ). as they say in india… you can ‘undertake’ the truck, rather than ‘overtake’ it.
Let’s not forget people that live in apartments, condos, townhouses, etc. cannot install these home charger kits. Which of course kills the opportunity for its best use, in cities. So electric cars are great for high income, suburban home owners, who use it only for commuting to work, as long as they live within 20 miles of their destination.
Yes, the public is certainly clamoring for millions of these!
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For example, the Nissan Leaf will take eight hours to charge with a 240-volt charger that will cost customers $2,200 to install. The fully charged car can drive about 100 miles, Nissan says, though it may go fewer depending on air temperature, speed and other factors.
Its a dark and stormy night and snowing heavily the traffic has been grinding along and its going to take at least 4 hours to travel what should have been a 30 minute trip. The heater, lights and wipers are on…. then you see that the battery charge is right down and eventually all goes dark cold and quiet.
In a conventional vehicle a good Samaritan can give you a gallon of gas; or you can walk to a nearby gas station and buy one. With an electric car you will need a tow or a low loader to take you to a power point. This is a problem that must be solved and why the hybrids like the Volt make much more sense.
I’m assuming the flywheel would be mounted horizontally so: every time you came to a hill, the car would turn sharply right or left because of the gyroscope effect.
re. Batteries: Back in the 1970s we had a saying: “There are liars, damn liars and battery chemists.” I’m not in the same industry any more but, as far as I can tell, the saying is still true.
Personally I don’t really care what the power source for my transport is. But I have been puzzled by one thing for a long time on this drive to so called clean electric cars (allowing that in town fumes and particulates have been exported elsewhere).
When we (in Europe) are all driving electric powered cars what will the government tax to replace the fuel revenues lost? Presumably not domestic electricity, as recent world events show even dictators can only push people so far. If we all install home generators (wind, solar, wave, hydro etc.) that will evade taxation as well. Presumably income and purchase taxes will have to rise. In many ways politicians are painting themselves into a corner with this.
While EV’s have their place, I think it will remain a niche market for the foreseeable future. The tech is (barely) suitable for what you said (urban 1-3 people hauler) in reasonably flat terrain (think Kansas/Nebraska), but likely not in the mountain states or cities like Seattle or SF. And until the Tech can be used for commercial trucking (big rigs) it won’t make much of a dent in petroleum usage or that other bugaboo – CO2. Those who wish to participate in this experiment are welcome to do so, but I think I’d rather drive a team of horses and a buggy if push comes to shove.
And one could always put a Peterbilt 388 air horn on it to be heard.
I have owned a Toyota Prius for the past 3 years and driven it for over 45,000 miles with not one problem. I get about 48 miles to the gallon here in Austin, Texas. The car is comfortable with plenty of leg room both in the front and back seats. Behind the second seat is a fair amount of storage. On a trip to Phoenix and back it got 46.2 miles per gallon at about 75 miles per hour with my wife and me in it. It has no problem running at 80 miles per hour. It is a wonderful second car. My other car, a Corvette, is also a great vehicle, but doesn’t get driven much because the Prius is so economical and comfortable.
I wonder if it makes more sense for people to buy the car and rent the battery. Make the battery conform to a design standard that is easy to swap.
If this was done, then it seems to me something similar to a filling station would be possible, but for electric vehicles they swap out your battery and charge you for the difference in measured charge. The station could also send bad batteries to the leasing agent they belong to for replacement.
Anthony, btw you might find some tips here on how to prolong your battery life. http://batteryuniversity.com/
Good article on the EV rebate ripoff.
I smell a (public relations) rat. I’m a materials engineer and every week I see PR pieces come out advertising the latest technology since sliced bread. If even 1% of them came true, the world would be a very different place. Remember that scientific communities other than the climate crowd have to get the word out to defend their own research grants.
That being said, I’m a big believer in battery research. Someday they’ll get there and this could very well be the technology that revolutionizes the industry. But as for me, I’m still a skeptic (a battery denier?) until proven otherwise.
I converted a 1996 saturn SL1 to electric over the last couple years using lithium iron phosphate batteries ordered direct from mainland china (I suspect Anthony’s car is available with them as an option). For various reasons already mentioned, it is possible to manufacture and distribute these excellent batteries in the USA or canada (I am in canada), but it isn’t being done in a way that mortal privateers like myself can gain access. While its true that the manufacture of these batteries has an impact on the environment, so too does the mining of coal or extraction of oil or the casting of aluminum engine blocks used to build high tech common rail injected diesel engines – its a completely moot point.
Compared to lead acid batteries, these are way better than any lead based chemistry and can store twice the energy for a comparable size and weight (Energy density is what limit’s the car’s range). What’s more, you can discharge them down to 20% capacity and still have well over 1000 cycles. If you only go down to 50% DOD, then cycle life will pass 5000 and the chemical shelf life becomes the limiting factor (roughly 10 years). No lead golf car battery can do this! The self discharge rate is also EXTREMELY LOW, and at one point, this battery was in storage for over a year without a loss in capacity that I could measure. Lead batteries need to be topped up every month to prevent them from running down. There is also no liquid to spill, and there are no heavy metals in the battery itself.
Its also a myth that they stop functioning below 32F.
They will lose some performance below that, and they are harder (but not impossible) to recharge, but they will still function. I found that internal resistance of the battery actually causes the cell temperature to rise above freezing allowing the battery to accept charge even in cold weather. When driving, a similar effect generates heat inside the cell (this is in fact true for nearly every type of chemical storage battery), once again maintaining adequate chemical reaction for the battery to run the car.
Can electric cars replace gasoline or diesel cars? NO!! and I won’t listen to anyone that believes that. EVs will no sooner replace the piston engine than diesels will replace gasoline engines. Its just another way to get around and there is room on the road for all types.
I hand calculated the cost of running my car a while ago and it comes to about $4/charge So far I can pass 80 miles on one charge if my speed is a constant 55 MPH (0n paper, it should be able to do 100 miles in warmer weather). Here in BC, we get a lot of hyrdo and CNG electricity but I would still have done the conversion even if it was all coming from coal.
Here’s one of my earlier highway tests:
Anthony, are electric cars in your state powered by gas, coal, nuclear or renewables?
I’m driving a 2010 Prius and really can’t understand the EV push when hybrids work so nicely and fit in with our current system. I live in a condo and park underground, so a plugin or EV has no place to plugin. Last year, over the course of the entire year, I averaged 48 MPG in a car that’s fun like a video game every time I drive it, and I could also head cross-country with it if I want.
It’s like the whole debate over skipping colonizing the Moon in order to colonize Mars. I think it’s foolish to skip the Moon, with all of the things we could learn close-to-home, and I think it’s foolish to skip hybrids to go straight to EVs.
***REPLY: If there was a bike path, sure. But I have to ride on four lane streets, which I don’t like. -A***
Absolutely. When I lived in the Detroit burbs, I used a bicycle for local transportation. I (quite illegally) rode it on the sidewalk because no one in Detroit walks anywhere and Midwestern drivers are spectacularly incompetent. You’d have to be raving nuts or suicidal to share the road with them. California (and East Coast) drivers are much better, but still it isn’t a fair fight, and it’s not a fight you’d want to lose. I would also point out that riding a bike in an old lake bed (Detroit) that is flat as a pancake is entirely different from riding a bike in hilly country. The elderly and infirm can’t (or don’t want to) deal with it. Not to mention snow and ice in places like Vermont where I now reside. I still have a bike, but I don’t us it much. Too much elevation change between me and the grocery store.
FWIW, Here’s an article about managing to drive a Tesla Roadster from London to Edinburgh — about the same distance as LA to San Francisco or Boston to Baltimore. The trip took 19 hours due to recharging time. Clearly, Electric cars are in their infancy. http://www.theregister.co.uk/2011/01/18/bbc_tesla_edinburgh_e_car_shenanigans/.
Also, my impression is that the USPS has tested every new electric vehicle for decades and found none of them yet to be suited to their needs.
But I think that electrics/hybrids will constitute a significant part of the fleet in the US by 2030 and probably most of it by 2050. I would guess that hydrocarbon based fuels will be pretty expensive by then.
Note to someone above. The purported problem with LPG is that unlike natural gas, propane or propane/butane mixtures are heavier than air, so the gas vented from a leak can pool in low spots — presenting both an explosion and breathing hazard. That’s why propane is banned from many tunnels and some other structures.
Good to see you having fun with this post, Anthony.
If I may be so bold, we can all use a post like this, occasionally.
I think it is fantastic that you have a non-renewable carbon based vehicle.
Now, where are the 5000 breeder reactors, that the world needs, to power those cars??
I live 1.5 miles from my office. I’d love to have a little car like that. It’d almost make me feel like a kid again, to have such a novel gadget. Maybe driving to work would actually be fun again? And I agree with earlier comments: what will “Big Oil” have to say about this, Anthony? Aren’t you worried they’ll pull the plug on your microphone? Or worse! Pull the plug on your funding? Because, as we all know, it’s impossible to actually have your own opinion without being financially influenced by some big corporation somewhere.
Here’s to all those who refuse the mold!
>>dwright says: February 23, 2011 at 10:54 am
>>I find this interesting: http://automobiles.honda.com/fcx-clarity/
>>(hydrogen fuel cell)
Hydrogen is even worse than battery power. By the time you have created the hydrogen, compressed it, stored it, put it through a fuel cell, and then driven an electric motor – the losses are horrendous.
In my calculations, the average hydrogen fuel cell car, would be less than half as efficient as a standard European diesel – somewhere around 20 mpg.
And for the Yanks on this thread, yes, a large European four-door family diesel saloon can and will do 50 mpg on mixed town and country driving.
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My only problem with people who drive electric cars is that they aren’t paying gas taxes, which to a large degree, pay for the roads they are driving on. They leave that priviledge to the rest of us.
Google “Nevada Lithium” – looks like exploitation of clays (Hectorite) in Nevada is underway to get Lithium. It’s interesting because it’s a different source than the usual salt lakes and pegmatites… looks like miners start looking for Lithium and find it… I expect rising known reserves.