Ultracapacitors: the future of electric cars or the 'cold fusion' of autovation?

Christian Science Monitor ^ | April 16, 2008 | Mark Clayton

[Dane]

If true it would revolutionize the industry and culture and we can tell OPEC to go pound sand.

[skinkinthegrass]

Kewl! :)

[Eric in the Ozarks]

No kiddin. Remove all the short runs and it could be worth 10-20 percent of our gasoline consumption.
Just looking at some of the numbers, an overall reduction in gasline may be happening right now...

[sinanju]

Don’t forget the time travel possibilities...

[Alter Kaker]

If true it would revolutionize the industry and culture and we can tell OPEC to go pound sand.

"If true" being the operative words. If true, this would be great. Unfortunately, my skepticism is pretty healthy on this one.

[stylin19a]

looks like were only a couple of generations away from the fluxcapacitor

[Prophet in the wilderness]

" Having no batteries, the new "cityZENN" model will use a breakthrough version of a common electrical storage device called an ultracapacitor to store power from a wall socket, the company says. Fuel costs to operate it would be about one-tenth of today's gas-powered vehicle. "
Since they will have more room ( without the huge batteries ) does this mean we can have our cake and eat it to ? does this mean no more tiny electric cars were a 16 wheeler can crush in a jiffy ? and can have some styling to ?

[skinkinthegrass]

According to EEStor's patent application, the breakthrough is based on a technically arduous process of purifying and fabricating units with barium titanate, a material known to retain vast amounts of power....thats' very interesting....a ceramic battery.

[Balding_Eagle]

250 miles on a single five-minute charge

Unless you live next to the power station, that's just a stupid statement a third grade science student could disprove in a NY minute.

[spokeshave]

Yeah...and all that capacity would drive a cool rail gun.....better than a gas powered spud gun.

[Prophet in the wilderness]

If and when they put these cars into production, and put big warning labels on the side or were the capacitors are ( WARNING !! DON'T TOUCH THE CAPACITORS - CAN BE LETHAL ) they mean it.

[Bryan24]

If true.....

A capaciter needs as many amps IN to charge it up as it discharges OUT.

You have pesky little things like current in-rush to deal with. It may charge in 5 minutes.....but you would need a 100 amp service to supply power to it for charging.

There is no free ride. Power Out must equal Power In.

[wrench]

Goes 250 miles and recharges in 5 minutes?

Just considering it takes 20 hores power to push an econobox down the road at sustained 50 mph, and figure this power level is needed for 5 hours.

I have been away from these kind of calculations for a long time, but the amount of energy transfer that would happen in those 5 minutes would likely overload most home elect. service capacity.

This is just another fishing expedition. Someone fishing for “financial backing” to make his pipe dream come true.

[JRandomFreeper]

and can have some styling to ?

Enviros won't let us have anything stylish. We're not supposed to enjoy ourselves, remember?

But the tech is cool, and if workable, I may adapt it to an old 240Z I happen to have sitting out under the shed. It's about time that materials technology increased the watt/cm3 of storage devices a couple of orders of magnitude.

/johnny

[Prophet in the wilderness]

Isn’t the US Navy working on a cool rail gun ? I remember seeing something like that on the cable TV show ( Future Weapons ) or some show like that.

[appeal2]

Probably a combination of ultra capacitors and batteries will do the trick. See http://www.afstrinity.com/. Their car actually exists. It appeared at the Detroit Auto Show. Gets the equivalent of 170mpg and can retrofit a Saturn Vue. Payback based on 3.50 gasoline and 20,000 miles per year is three years. Its a plugin hybrid kit, actually produced by two real companies, unlike this one. The ultra capacitors are much too expensive to use exclusively. By combining them with a lithium ion battery, you can get fabulous acceleration and performance.

[SpaceBar]

...would likely overload most home elect. service capacity...

I tend to agree. Like firing up a dozen arc welders.

[martin_fierro]

I suppose you think the Gub’mint should buy you one.

[JRandomFreeper]

all that capacity would drive a cool rail gun

I would NEVER have had that thought. Really. No, really, really.

/johnny

[ThePythonicCow]

Why would you have to live next to a power station?

How about having two of these capacitors? You could have at home, charging constantly at 5 or 10 amps, whatever is convenient, and the other in the car, charged quickly from the home one, when needed.

The one at home could also be used to smooth out the power demands over the day and night, which would be a great boon to power companies. They wouldn't have to run their overload coal or gas fired plants during the heat of the day, to supplement their nuclear or hydro plants that really prefer to run at a constant load all the time.