A car running on electricity drawn from the power grid and stored on-board can be fueled at about one-third the cost per mile compared to a gasoline-powered car. We prove this in our recent post Electric Car Cost Per Mile.
There are at least three technologies to store electricity on-board an electric vehicle; hydrogen which is turned into electricity using onbard fuel cells, ultra-capacitors, and batteries. We reject fuel cells for reasons clearly stated in our posts The Hydrogen Hoax, and Fuel Cell Cars Aren’t Ready.
Ultra-capacitors are a wild card - while there probably aren’t nearly insurmountable problems in eventually lowering their manufacturing costs, as there are with fuel cell / hydrogen systems, they have a relatively low energy density. This makes them impractical for vehicle applications. There is some evidence that “nanotube enhanced ultracapacitor” prototypes can now achieve an energy density of 75 watt-hours per kilogram, which lags well behind lithium ion batteries. But the theoretical energy density of ultracapacitors is much higher. Their time may come.
In the race to be the electrical storage mode for the imminent wave of next-generation electric cars, however, the battery continues to show the most promise. The latest lithium ion batteries, used in laptops, display the ability to recharge in minutes instead of hours, and retain 99% of their capacity after 1,000 charge cycles. With a gravimetric energy density approaching 200 watt-hours per kilogram, and a gravimetric output density of over 5 kilowatts per kilogram, these advanced batteries now have solved two of the three inherent problems to-date with batteries; longevity, and ability to produce adequate surges of power.
One of the pioneers in lithium ion batteries is Toshiba, who has already commercialized this advanced battery for use in laptops. Applications for hybrid cars and battery powered cars won’t be far behind, as the laptop battery powered Tesla Roadster will attest.
If battery powered cars have battery packs that can be warrantied for ten+ years, and can be recharged in less than one hour, their third problem of still marginal energy density becomes less significant - particularly since battery energy density has been increasing by 6% per year for decades, with no end in sight.
September 4th, 2006 at 8:39 am
Toshiba has not brought their fast-charge Li-Ion battery to market. In fact, apart from that one press release, they haven’t said a peep about it. The only company having a fast-charge capable lithium battery on market is A123Systems. They power the DeWalt 36V power tools.
April 16th, 2008 at 7:46 pm
There are several steps you can take to help you get maximum performance from your power tool battery: Prevent Memory Effect - Keep the power tool battery healthy by fully charging and then fully discharging it at least once every two to three weeks. Exceptions to the rule are Li-Ion batteries which do not suffer from the memory effect.
April 26th, 2008 at 8:24 pm
Hey, batteries. It’s true that li-ion batteries do not suffer from the memory effect, but they should be fully discharged now and then because the battery’s level indicator suffers from similar effect:
“Although lithium-ion is memory-free in terms of performance deterioration, batteries with fuel gauges exhibit what engineers refer to as “digital memory”. Here is the reason: Short discharges with subsequent recharges do not provide the periodic calibration needed to synchronize the fuel gauge with the battery’s state-of-charge. A deliberate full discharge and recharge every 30 charges corrects this problem. Letting the battery run down to the cut-off point in the equipment will do this. If ignored, the fuel gauge will become increasingly less accurate.”
http://www.batteryuniversity.com/parttwo-34.htm