Case history

In search of the perfect battery


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tha King

Forgot to mention www.phoenixmotorcars.comWith a range over 100 miles combined with a 10 minute charge time, their use of altairnano's lithium titanate batteries has virtually made electric cars practical. The 60k price tag's a little much, but you figure cd players were almost a grand in the 80s! Come 2020 I'd say there'll be as many EVs on the road as there are cd players in peoples cars today...


Certainly the owners of the battery powered Rav 4 can vouch for the usability of the concept. The NiMH batteries have enough power and range and many of them have gone over 100,000 miles. If Chevron/Mobil (who purchased the technology from GM after the EV1 fiasco) had not sued Panasonic or would have at least licensed the technology, there would be many successful EVs on the road. Lithium batteries may prove to be superior, but NiMH worked and was available except for the fact that C/M wouldn't allow them to be built in large enough packs for vehicles. To my mind, this borders on criminal.

John Messerly

(Correction- The Savings per year per vehicle over gas would be $2486 assuming $4 per gallon as in the previous note. $707 is the cost per year for electric. )

John Messerly

Thanks CathMcT. I went to official sources and discovered a bad number.

If I have not made more errors then this not devastating, but we are talking more like a toll roll road period of time for recovery of investment. The bad number was for number of gasoline vehicles. The new number pushes the amortization out to 8.7 years, assuming that GM can get the Li-Ion batteries down to .625 watts as they have stated they will achieve for the Volt*. 8.7 years is still within the life of a car, so the program would still be revenue neutral.

DOE cites R.L. polk estimate of 181.4 million registed vehicles (residential and non residential) see page 2-6. They base their estimate of US cars on this 1991 figure. Presumably, they regard that as representative of the current fleet numbers. Diesel Industry Forum states that 3% of new vehicle sales are diesel. This puts gasoline vehicles at 175.9 million.


This yields 2.2 gallons per day per vehicle, so the savings over gas per year would be $707 per year. That would require 8.8 years for payoff of a 35Kwh battery (GM's 62 cents per watt Li-Ion rate)

* GM's Posawatz said the Volt's lithium-ion 16Kwh Li-in batteries will cost $10K


John Messerly - I think that one error in your calcs/assumptions is the "each vehicle uses 6 gal/day" ... think of that logically for a minute and that is hard to imagine. Is that really the right number? The total gasoline consumption must include buses, freight, etc. not just passenger cars. That might change the economics...
but your thought process is on target.
Also, loved the King's YouTube video recommendation on the Tango!

John Messerly

I was wondering here- Hasn't the spike in petroleum prices has created a new opportunity here? For those of you also interested in math, I footnote my calculations, so maybe someone can assist me in seeing why this is not a winning proposition .

I start by calculating that the power required by an electric car to deliver the same power utilized from a gallon of gas in a conventional car. I come up with a cost per gallon of gas of approximately 89 cents.*

If each US vehicle uses on average 6.2 gallons of gas per day**, this means that the yearly cost of gasoline per vehicle is $9066. An equivalent electric vehicle would save $7057 in fuel costs. Assuming a 24KwH battery is needed for a 100 mile range in a conventional vehicle with a 30mpg at cruising efficiency, that battery at $1/Watt for Li-Ion would be paid off in 3.4 years.



Ok, so what is wrong with this picture?




Great article! A few missing technologies:AltairNano replaces the graphite anode with titanium dioxide nanoparticles, resulting in 10 times the power density and substantially better stability compared to standard cobalt cells with no loss of energy density. Rated at 50C charge and 100C discharge, these batteries can fully charge in 72 seconds and fully discharge in 36 seconds regardless of their capacity.Stanford's silicon nanowire anode technology was mentioned in passing in this article. It's still several years from production, but this technology offers an order of magnitude increase in energy density. It's amazing what ordinary materials can do with a high enough surface to mass ratio. Nanotechnology appears to be the key to medium-term battery advances. EEStor, sometimes criticized as vaporware, has finally delivered their hybrid electrostatic/electrochemical cell to the US Navy for powering multi-megajoule rail guns. With higher energy density, vastly higher power density, and lower cost than electrochemical cells and lower self-discharge than electrostatic ultracapacitors, this technology is very promising for high-power applications. The only downside is that it requires an additional DC-DC transformer to provide a constant supply voltage.But it's important to take a 10,000-foot view here: while vehicles have been the focus of a lot of attention from environmentalists, conservationists, and energy independence advocates, buildings comprise over 2/3 of our total energy consumption. We should be putting at least as much effort into developing more efficient cooling, heating, ventilation, and lighting for buildings as we do into fuel economy and alternative fuels for transportation.

tha King

We don't even need the perfect battery. Commuter Cars (.com) use standard lead acid batteries to achieve 80 miles/ charge. Most people, even in Los Angeles, don't drive more than 40 miles/ day, and usually drive alone. Commuter Cars' narrow design also solves the problems of traffic and parking congestion. They've got a great video from Google Tech Talks here:


a road vehicle with regeneration, reliable, light and relatively cheap batteries, wheel motor-generator-slow-down brakes - lightweight to give low unsprung weight - and a fuel cell with hydrogen used for direct recharging as well as for direct drive - storing the hyrogen in replaceable metal adsorbing hydrides using nanotechnology - with no fire nor chrmical risk - and a carbon fibre monocoque structure - with no cooling system (perhaps a fan) no mechanical nor automatic gearbox - no drive shafts and no brake discs (handled by the wheel motors with final stopping by the Siemens electric wedges - surely could be low rolling-resistance tyres be long lasting, very economical, and need little maintainence. Has anyone any views? The challenge is high - but no greater than that facing Henry Ford 1 with his ingenious and lightweight as well as tough solutions - probably the first vehicle use of high-strength vanadium-steel chassis in any vehicle. The Model T failed eventually because Henry 1 would not modernise. Had he modernised and kept the T as a tough all-roads car with changes - Ford may have become the world motor industry or the totally dominant maker. Instead, GM through Alfred Pritchard Sloan out-generalled him with its step-up brands - a success for many years until that concept failed.


the great Thomas Alva Edison spent 10 years of his life trying to improve batteries - dedicated as he was to DC power. All he could come up with as probably the greatest practical inventor of all time - was the nickel-iron battery - long lasting - no boost power for starting - used for emergency lighting even now.
What happened to the fluid-filled Vanadium Redux battery invented at a Sydney (NSW - Australia) university by a female researcher? Control of it appeared to be gained by Canadian mining speculators then nothing was heard of it - for years.
There is little trouble for vehicle use with the motor-generators which can be lightweight - even wheel motors - and waterproof and brushless with little maintenance. Batteries - weight - performance cost - ability to take recharges without overheating (the filling a tank with a small hose effect) life - control of heat. Such problems must be solved for it is not lack of fixed power from steam (nuclear, coal, gas, or thermal) - from waves, ocean or river currents or from wind that is lacking (once the structures are built and they are grid connected) but transport fuels - air, land and sea. Only some trains and perhaps light rail can rely on mains power - but the need for freight door to door and to transport people, patients, and articles by other land means and by air and sea is absolute. Does anyone know anything of the Vanadium Redux battery or anything comparable or better? Vanadium in usual use for high-speed cutting steel is expensive but not unduly so for a good application.


Really interesting article. And at the same time really interesting comments on it. This fact gives me light on the IT Revolution we are really experiencing. I am sure it will be just a question of time to develop the proper way to substitute the current situation. And later on it will be a question of time to develop a better technology, since depending on a product like energy, that can be subjet to inflation pressures, it will be a question of time the development of a low-cost and high efficient technology.I really respect the human mind.


How you missed U.K. based Atraverda's Ebonex technology is puzzling; it's possibly even more revolutionary than Firefly's innovation which incidently can be used with other chemistries. In fact,Firefly may be the first to bust Cobasys's(ECD Ovonics)Nimh patents because of their bipolar technology. Cobasys,a part-Chevron owned company has suppressed the use of large format Nimh batteries for propulsion and have vigorously enforced their patents to do so,even causing the retarded performance of the Prius. This is a matter of public record and it's surprising a newspaper of your caliber has not explored this.

A Yu

Regarding Petersmagnusson's comment - I don't think the article or the user comments have glossed over the fact that batteries are currently too expensive (I thought that was definitely a key point of the article).Regarding the electricity production being too CO2 intensive - that's definitely true. The (arguable) advantage of electric cars is that it gives us flexibility in the future. It is much easier to manage the CO2 footprint of a few centralized power plants than the CO2 footprint of millions of cars...


Both the article and the user comments thus far gloss over the key problems: batteries are too expensive and current electricity production is too CO2-intensive. Over its lifetime, a car emits less than 100 tons of CO2. At under $20 per ton in external cost, that's under $2000 worth of "damage" over its lifetime. Taking interest rate into account, electric cars need to be less than $1000 more expensive than ICE (internal combustion engine), even assuming ZERO emissions from the electricity production, to warrant a shift. Conversely, setting aside the cost, in the US with the current mix of electricity production, electric vehicles "emit" about the same amount of CO2 per mile as a hybrid. So from either perspective (cost or emission), electric vehicles don't make sense (yet). These are the perspectives I had hoped your article would illuminate. (See for more details on the above numbers.)

A Yu

A bridge solution to a real electric car may be to isolate the power generation component from the design of an electric vehicle proper. If electric cars can be standardized to tow a power component that provide electric power, for example, car manufacturers can be freed to design the electric car, leaving various companies to compete for the trailer design. Some may offer a trailer that include a gas, diesel, natural gas, or biofuel generator. Alternatively, others may offer a trailer that includes any of various sorts of battery designs. Tax credits can be further given to incentivize consumers to upgrade the "trailer" every few years as technology improves... So initially people may start with a hybrid (generator trailer) and later go to a full electric (battery trailer). A trailer idea may also make battery swapping more feasible...A quick comment about hydrogen v. battery, one should note that the "charging/discharging" efficiency of electrolysis is about 40% () while the charging/discharging efficiency of batteries is about 90%.


We operate Solar Systems, and of the key components is the battery (the people used it from 4 to 6 hours per day). We are currently using sealed lead acid 12V 7Ah, but the only operate 2-3 years. Is there any one that can give us some advice about this matter?


Firefly Energy ( is a Peoria, Illinois-based company which has developed a next generation lead acid battery technology that has the opportunity to address major portions of the $30 billion worldwide battery marketplace. Firefly's graphite foam-based battery technology can deliver a unique combination of high performance, extremely low weight, low cost and, all in a battery which utilizes the best aspects of lead acid chemistry while overcoming the corrosive drawbacks of this same chemistry. This product technology delivers to battery markets a performance associated with advanced battery chemistries (Nickel Metal Hydride & Lithium), but for one-fifth the cost, and can be both manufactured as well as recycled within the existing lead acid battery industry's vast infrastructure.

R Boulton

The problem is not as simple as developing a battery, the future of the car market could alternativly be powered by hydrogen. There is also a similar problems in development and with the stable storage of hydrogen. However, if those problem are cracked it is percievable that it could be a more practicle solution. It could also be possible for different types of engine for different vehicles types. The future is still very much undecided, and until it becomes more clear about which technologies will be the most advantageous for the performance of the car, the environment it will run in and the effectiveness of processes of manufacture the car companies will not overly commit to Lithium Batteries.


I wonder whether these chemical batteries could make any difference on the issue of global warming. After all the very energy we charge into our batteries are from the power plants, which also emitt green house gases --and I wonder whether they could have an efficiency greater than a typical oil-consuming car.


The focus is on the wrong place, electric cars can already travel 200 km, a network of re-charging/battery switching stations makes more sense than to endlessly invest in improving the battery. Once there is a viable re-charging network in place, electric cars will take off. Then battery development will accelerate as the exit potential is much more clear.



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