“The problem is, though, that they are made to discharge all at once. If there was a way to regulate the discharge to a set amount over time... it might be more feasible that trying to figure out a better battery.
“
Ah a little correction is needed here. Capacitors are not DESIGNED to discharge all at once. They can if desired or can be discharged over time if desired.
It is known as an RC time constant T=RC where T=Time in seconds, R= Resistance in ohms, and C= Capacitance in Farads. While in the olden days a one Farad capacitor would have been huge that is no longer the case but you still need many, many Farads to power an electric vehicle. A one Farad capacitor, connected to a resistor of 100 ohms to discharge to approx 60% of its full charge in 100 seconds. See the problem? The resistance in an electric vehicle will be very low to get enough current into the motor therefor you will need copious Farads of capacitors for any appreciable drive time.
As far as batteries, if people are really interested spend a few hours researching the Edison Battery used in the first electric cars. Lighter than Lead Acid, they are an Alkyine battery and the fluid does NOT destroy the electrodes so the life expectancy can be up to 100 years and no that is not a misprint. Jay Leno has a Baker electric car with the original Edison Battery and it still works.
The Edison battery can be fully discharged without damage (try that with some batteries) and can be over charged and the only thing which needs to be done is topping off the lost water with distilled water. It is also much less toxic than Lead Acid batteries.
These batteries do lose about 1% of their charge per month if not trickle charged but for an electric vehicle that is not much of an issue.
Why are we not using them? Well for one Exide purchased the rights for the current methods of manufacturing in the mid 70s and proceeded to halt production. On the surface it would seem they did not want a 100 year battery on the market.
They are being used as backup supplies for solar or windmill system and of course mainly manufactured in China.
One of the posters on this thread did touch on a real issue even if there is a PERFECT battery it has to be charged from some source.
Can you imagine millions of cars all plugged into the grid everyday while at the same time we have a POS of a president who is doing his best to reduce our ability to produce energy.
ZI’m sure the Exide people deliberately suppress the 100 year battery for short-term profit;such behavior is typical business. Buy out the competition and then shut down the product has happened many times.
It is why a real patent reform that would void any patent simply held or hoarded and patenents and copyrights would expire after the limited time of as originmally set up,that is, within a decade or two of the grant.
ZI’m sure the Exide people deliberately suppress the 100 year battery for short-term profit;such behavior is typical business. Buy out the competition and then shut down the product has happened many times.
It is why a real patent reform that would void any patent simply held or hoarded and patenents and copyrights would expire after the limited time of as originmally set up,that is, within a decade or two of the grant.
You completely missed my point.
The main flaw in batteries is not the number of charges the batteries can take... it’s how long it takes to charge the battery in the first place (not saying that the number of charges isn’t another problem, but it’s less of a problem than the 8-16 hour charge time).
Capacitors have charge times less than the standard time it takes to fill up a tank of gasoline. Thus the main problem of electric cars and their batteries are eliminated.
There are problems with capacitors, like I said, but considering how long batteries have been around... and their slow rate of progress, we might want to consider just how far we could go with capacitors instead.
A friend of mine has some original Edison batteries in working condition, so I can attest to their longevity. However, the problem of energy density remains. They are still far too large, too heavy and too expensive to be a practical alternative to gasoline in cars. Those batteries still require time to recharge.
BTW, have you even heard a large capacitor blow up? A car capacitor explosion would be most impressive. I’ll pass on those.