Posted on 06/12/2014 11:16:36 AM PDT by thackney
Two companies have developed a new type of electric vehicle battery said to offer a 1,000 mile range, with prices and whole-life costs comparable to a conventional petrol or diesel engine. The joint project between metals specialist Alcoa and green technology company Phinergy has produced a demonstrator featuring an aluminium-air battery, designed as a range extender for the lithium-ion units used in most electric vehicles.
Already used in military applications, the battery uses a reaction with air and water over 50 aluminium plates, each of which can drive a car for up to 20 miles. The unit is designed so that drivers can exhaust the lithium-ion battery and continue using the energy in these cartridges but, as aluminium-air batteries are not rechargeable, the cartridges would have to be replaced afterwards.
Once depleted, the aluminium cartridges can be recycled to produce new ones. Alcoa and Phinergy hope to have the technology commercialised within the next year or two, boosting the range of electric vehicles by up to 1,000 miles without the weight or cost disadvantage of a larger lithium-ion unit.
Martin Briere, President of Alcoa Canada, said: ‘Automakers want technologies that enable zero-emission electric cars to travel distances that compete with gasoline-powered cars. The aluminum-air battery has the potential to meet that challenge using fully recyclable material with no CO2 emissions.’
Aviv Tzidon, CEO of Phinergy, added: ‘Electric vehicle adoption has been slowed by the limited range of regular batteries, causing what is commonly known as range anxiety. With Phinergy’s technology, and Alcoa’s industrial leadership across both the aluminum value chain and the automotive market, we see an exciting opportunity to help move electric vehicles into the mainstream.’
“This battery would have to be recycled for less than $115 “
I did some reading and it appears that it may be less than $115 per cycle. I haven’t found exact evaluation numbers but the design target is to make it less than the gasoline used by a hybrid engine.
Oh. Okay. So they people who actually drive them are making it all up? SMDH.
Of course. Many people who buy a new gadget exaggerate its performance. They will regale you with the one day, when the batteries were new, when they drove down hill in a tail wind, with the A/C off, drafting a Wal-Mart truck, how great the range was. They "forget" the extenuating circumstances.
I bought that malarkey once, too. I built an all electric house with a geothermal heat pump for heat. It had a "smart meter" to sell me this great low cost electricity at night. It was a complete disaster. I quickly found out that my family (and most people) use electricity when they WANT to use electricity, not when the power company wants to sell it to them.
The energy density of batteries, in both mass and volume, will have to get an order of magnitude better (that's TEN TIMES BETTER), before electric cars will become feasible for most people.
A friend had a Lotus. That describes it perfectly.
Exactly. They put it off another year...
Got to hand it to Musk though. He’s a visionary enough promoter to have his PR people posting on places like FR.
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