Toyota Develops New Electric Car Battery(1000km per charge)

[flacaltenn]

Gee I'd LOVE to invoke govt and corporate conspiracies as the reason why the Volt only has 70 mile range and takes 8 hours to charge. Even with 220V 40A service -- it charges at the equivalent of 10mi/hr. But I'm an engineer/scientist who recognizes that storing electricity in an energy dense container is a hard problem.

It IS disgraceful.. But there is difference between what CAN be done and what can be done with a price tag, safety margin, reliability and customer acceptance in the marketplace. Does no good to announce or hint at breakthrus that require 14 oz of gold/platinum to make or takes 2 days to charge.

The Volt is a wonderful example of engineering. They built an EV with 40 miles of range that feels really, really like a damn regular car. Certainly won't scare anyone off who has ever driven a regular automobile.

Now pitch that bitch in the trash and give me 4 electric motors, one hooked to each wheel, up the voltage available, let me use more of the battery capacity when I need to, shorten the range if you have to but make sure I can burn down the quarter mile in 9 seconds and that baby will FLY off showroom floors.

Saving the world from this peak oil nonsense, or save the world feelings in general, by making a car comfortable to granny ain't where it is at! Roasting Corvettes at stoplights is what my wife wants, saving the world is just secondary in all of this.

Oh so you want the Fisker Dealership (or Tesla) !! But roasting Corvettes doesn't come cheap.. And you gotta worry if getting parts for those in 10 years is gonna be harder than finding DeLorean parts..

 

[uscitizen]

You want jobs? The Level Field Institute and http://www.usmessageboard.com/economy/128477-did-obama-save-gm-3.html#post2607852

The Japanese copied from America, that they are doing well says more about America today than it does about Japan. Americans fluck each other every chance they get, consider the conservatives saying they won't buy GM because they got help. Toyota gets constant help from their government and from other business units.

"In corporate culture, keiretsu refers to a uniquely Japanese form of corporate organization. A keiretsu is a grouping or family of affiliated companies that form a tight-knit alliance to work toward each other's mutual success. The keiretsu system is also based on an intimate partnership between government and businesses. It can best be understood as the intricate web of relationships that links banks, manufacturers, suppliers, and distributors with the Japanese government."

Americans also want cheap and hate the fact union workers make decent money and have benefits. Americans want all other Americans to earn Walmart wages, except themselves, of course. Both our current cars are American, made in America. They are quality cars but more expensive than Toyota whose cars actually killed drivers recently, but that is forgotten in the worship of Japan, Korea, and Germany. This attitude bewilders me.

"These ironclad corporate alliances have caused much debate and have been called "government-sponsored cartels." While some think keiretsu are a menace to trade, others see them as a model for change. Features common to most keiretsu include "main bank," stable shareholding, and seconded directors. Some keiretsu concepts have no American parallel such as "general trading company." The keiretsu system is one of the profound differences between Japanese and US business structures." What is keiretsu? - Definition from Whatis.com

The USA seems to be benifitting the rest of the world more than it is itself for a while now.

 

[Old Rocks]

Here you go, RGR. Prototype only though, damn!

Electric Mini: 0-60 in 4 Seconds: It Has Motors In Its Wheels : TreeHugger

A British engineering firm has put together a high-performance hybrid version of BMW's Mini Cooper. The PML Mini QED has a top speed of 150 mph, a 0-60 mph time of 4.5 seconds. The car uses a small gasoline engine with four 160 horsepower electric motors — one on each wheel. The car has been designed to run for four hours of combined urban/extra urban driving, powered only by a battery and bank of ultra capacitors. The QED supports an all-electric range of 200-250 miles and has a total range of about 932 miles (1,500 km). For longer journeys at higher speeds, a small conventional internal combustion engine (ICE) is used to re-charge the battery. In this hybrid mode, fuel economies of up to 80mpg can be achieved.


Explains Martin Boughtwood, PML’s MD: “Until now, most electric vehicles have been little more than souped-up milk floats, limited by range and speed, with compromised performance. For those with a green conscience who also value an enhanced motoring experience, there is still something missing.

“Working in partnership with our customer, Synergy Innovations, we set out to demonstrate what our electric wheel technology is capable of. We simply took a standard BMW Mini One, discarded the engine, the disc brakes, the wheels, and the gearbox. These components were replaced by four of our electric wheels, a lithium polymer battery, a large ultra capacitor, a very small ICE with generator (so small it almost fits alongside the spare wheel), an energy management system and a sexy in-car display module.”

 

[2twsted4colorTV]

You bring the cost of the batteries down, and have a 600 mile range per charge, people are going to very much want to buy the cars. Particularly as the price of solar is coming down at the same time.

I totally agree! Long as I don't have to drive 600 miles with my knees up under my chin. I'd like to test drive one first. Anything to make OPEC drink their oil works for me.

 

[chikenwing]

How many miles to the pound of coal does it get,thats what needs to be reviled. HP requirements don't change from one fuel to the next.

 

[Old Rocks]

How many miles to the pound of coal does it get,thats what needs to be reviled. HP requirements don't change from one fuel to the next.

I am assuming that you meant revealed. I guess that would depend on whether your electricity came from coal, hydro, or nuclear. Or here in the West, and even in the mid-West, from wind.

Perhaps you really should consider knowing a bit about what you are stating. Horsepower is torque at rpm. DC motors have max torque at low rpms, so even homebuilt electrics can often seriously embarrass the owners of ICE hotrods.

[ame=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zLjnRj2Dhwk&feature=related]White Zombie 1/4 Mile Speed Record PIR 9.10.2010 - YouTube[/ame]

 

[RGR]

Oh so you want the Fisker Dealership (or Tesla) !! But roasting Corvettes doesn't come cheap.. And you gotta worry if getting parts for those in 10 years is gonna be harder than finding DeLorean parts..

Tesla might work. And cheap is a relative concept, look at the people even around here who confuse gasoline at some nominal price they are happy with a right of some sort. Don't want to pay as much for gasoline? Drive a diesel. Don't want to pay for diesel? Drive electric. Bicycle. Walk. Take the bus. But for Gods sake stop the whining about what is "cheap" as though it is carved into the Constitution somewhere.

 

[Mr. H.]

This is neat:

Liquid battery could charge green energy - Yahoo! News

 

[ScienceRocks]

Envia Claims ‘Breakthrough’ in Lithium-Ion Battery Cost and Energy Density

By JIM MOTAVALLI
Envia Claims 'Breakthrough' in Lithium-Ion Battery Cost and Energy Density - NYTimes.com

Envia Systems, a battery maker based in California, announced on Monday what it called a “major breakthrough” in lithium-ion cell technology that would result in a significant increase in the energy density — and a sharp reduction in the cost — of lithium-ion battery packs. Envia is financed by the Energy Department and G.M. Ventures, the venture-capital arm of General Motors, as well as other investors.

Envia SystemsMr. Kapadia.

“We will be able to make smaller automotive packs that are also less heavy and much cheaper,” Atul Kapadia, chairman and chief executive of Envia, said in a telephone interview. “The cost of cells will be less than half — perhaps 45 percent — of cells today, and the energy density will be almost three times greater than conventional automotive cells.”

Mr. Kapadia continued: “What we have are not demonstrations, not experiments, but actual products. We could be in automotive production in a year and a half.”

Envia, which was founded in 2007 and has licensed some technology from Argonne National Laboratory, was awarded $4 million in late 2009 by the Energy Department’s ARPA-E program, which finances advanced energy research. As a founding principle, the program was designed “to develop lithium-ion batteries with the highest energy density in the world.”

 

[Douger]

All well and good but until people want to buy the things...

Fuck the car, I want a bank of batteries for my wind setup !

 

[Old Rocks]

All well and good but until people want to buy the things...

Fuck the car, I want a bank of batteries for my wind setup !

Douger, consider a pickup or large van. Huge area for batteries, and you can drive your home storage setup.

Once the storage for a standard size vehicle exceeds 100 kwh at a reasonable price, people will realize that they can power their home and vehicle with solar, and have an emergency backup at the same time.