Electric Cars Closer Than We Think - 120 Mile, 10 Minute Recharge Electric Car Battery Successfully Tested by AeroVironment
by Lance
Lithium-Ion gets an upgrade. Electric vehicles are quickly becoming more accessible and affordable.
Altairnano is a developer of nanomaterials for alternative energy and has developed a nano titanate battery system called “nanotitanate” which overcomes many disadvantages to the conventional lithium-ion batteries in ways of efficiency, battery life, charge time, and safety.
Typical lithium-ion batteries (laptop, cellphone battery) are currently being used by the Tesla Roadster. The same technology is also being tested for hybrids and plug-in hybrids. Hybrids are still sporting NiMH (Nickel Metal Hydride) battery cells.
Conventional Lithium-Ion Batteries
· Cannot charge at temperatures below 0°C and charges slower at lower temps
· Are at risk of thermal runaway at temps above 130°C causing battery to explode
· Shorter battery life of 500-1000 cycles of charge on average
· Slower charge - 2 - 4 hours
NanoSafe Battery
· Extremely wide operating temperature range from -50°C/-60°F to +75°C/165°F
· Long Battery life in excess of 20,000 cycles - estimated 500,000+ miles
· Very fast charge - rechargeable in minutes
· Inherent safety – no risk of thermal runaway
A 35kWh battery pack travels around 120 miles and a 70kWh battery pack travels 250 miles, both recharging in minutes. AltairNano CEO Alan Gotcher said during an interview by AutoBlogGreen that quote “The Altair technology will be roughly half the size and half the weight of any nickel metal hydride battery pack used today.”
Currently the battery is used in Phoenix Motorcar Sports Utility Trucks. Phoenix Motorcars develops zero emission electric freeway speed vehicles. Altair had received an order from Phoenix Motorcars in mid 2006. This year we should see on the road an electric truck and SUV priced around $45,000 that travel around 120 miles. Later this year and 2008 Phoenix Motorcars will introduce the 250 mile range battery pack in its vehicles at an unspecified price.
This week AeroVironment demonstrated to California Air Resources Board (CARB) that the Altair Nanotechnologies 35kWh battery pack, with a grid-connected AV advanced battery charger , recharges in 10 minutes and gave the vehicle enough juice for a 2 hour 60 mph trip. With a certification the commercial doors are wide open.
Phoenix Motorcars SUV show at SEMA - PopularMechanics
I am jealous. Seriously, this is great work AutoblogGreen.
AutoblogGreen drives the all-electric Phoenix SUT
Sources:
The Energy Blog
AutoBlogGreen
News Blaze
Green Car Congress
June 5th, 2007 at 11:45 pm
Cool beans. Can’t wait to see that. Love your new blog look… it looks very crisp and green.. I also added a link from my blog to yours. I hope you like it. Check out today’s post. You are on it.
June 8th, 2007 at 11:36 am
Much closer even than most people watching the EV trend realize.
Altairnano’s technology goes beyond even a123 because it can be charged so fast and appears to be able to last through 15,000+ cycles.
But all I see written by people on the blogs and EV sites are things like, “uh, well, there ain’t enough lithium!” or “It’ll cost more than lead acid!” or, “aw, I ain’t got 500-amp breakers on the garage outlets,” or my favorite, “the car companies, or George Bush’ll buy up the company to stop it!” (Why isn’t Bin Laden ever in on these conspiracies? He has the most to lose from an EV-driving future.)
I call this RBTPS: Residual Battery Technology Pessimism Syndrome.
That said, the 120 mi. battery pack (sans ZEV subsidies) currently costs somewhere near $70,000 to manufacture, so obviously there is still work to do. BUT, the basic, 150-year-old technical drawbacks of chemical battery electricity storage have now been solved. That was the hump - and we are over it and moving toward cheaper mass production.
We should take a moment to celebrate this milestone — before firing up a brain cell or two to puzzle out why we would ever need to charge our vehicles in 10 minutes at home when they sit in our garages overnight….