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Hybrid Vehicles Electric Vehicles Lithium Ion Battery Packs For Electric Vehicles
34 messages, Last post on Nov 12, 2008 at 5:47 PM
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Replying to: gagrice (Apr 13, 2008 4:44 pm) These batteries that are being used in the Volt are different type and chemistry than the ones used in your laptop. These are Nano-phosphate lithium ions that are industrial strength. They are far superior than the ones used in current commercial applications such as your phones and laptops. If the testing goes well, I just might get one of these wheels. Actually Toyota is going with Lithium Ions starting 2010 for their Prius. The Tesla has 6800 of the same piece of crap cells that are in my defunct Dell Laptop. I hope they get videos of George Clooney stuck by the road with his broke down Tesla after a couple months of use. LOL, I like George he's a good spokes person but you need someone who understands the technology before he can back it up. Yea, I hope he has triple AAA.
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Replying to: galvang (Apr 14, 2008 10:10 pm) And these battery packs will not be useless once they can no longer hold 80% of their original charge. Utility companies have already stated an interest in buying them to use for back-up power storage.
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Replying to: tpe (Apr 15, 2008 9:46 am) If they are only planning to charge to 80% that will require a 20% bigger battery to get the desired mileage, right?
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Replying to: gagrice (Apr 16, 2008 6:47 am) The Volt will come with a 16 kWh battery pack. This would be enough to go approximately 80 miles if you went from 100% state of charge (SOC) to full depletion. This car will only use 50% of that at first. Going from 80% SOC to 30% before the ICE generator kicks in to start recharging. As the battery starts losing it's ability to hold a full charge that will come off the top, the 80-100% that wasn't previously being used. So you will still have the 40 miles of all electric range that you had when the battery pack was new. This scheme defininitely requires a bigger battery pack than would be needed if you could always charge to 100% and not have to concern yourself with battery degradation. I personally don't care about the battery lasting 10 years as long as the replacement is affordable. My tires only last about 4 years and cost around $1,000 to replace. A battery pack should be viewed in the same way, as something that wears out. If a battery pack lasted 5 years and cost $2,000 to replace I could live with that since I'll be saving more than that in gas. Unfortunately at the present time the cost to replace a battery pack of this size would be quite a bit more than $2,000. IMO, that represents the biggest obstacle to EVs, getting the battery price down. Actually I'd rather have a cheaper battery pack that lasted 5 years as opposed to a more expensive one that lasted 10 years. For one thing I have never kept a car for 10 years. More importantly battery technology continues to evolve and in all likelihood there will be something considerably better well before this 10 years is up that I would want to upgrade to anyway.
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Replying to: tpe (Apr 16, 2008 9:02 am) I think you better add another "0" to that number. You cannot get the little NiMH OEM battery for the Prius that cheap. I know the battery in my laptop went up 32% over the last year. The Plugin option for the Prius is $12,000 to go 10 miles with Li-Ion. I would bet that over half that $48k GM is talking about for cost is the battery pack.
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Replying to: gagrice (Apr 16, 2008 9:34 pm) I don't think so. Everything that I've read indicates the cost will be between $6,000 and $8,000 for the battery pack. When GM solicited proposals from potential battery supplies this was one of their criteria. volt battery pack |
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Replying to: tpe (Apr 17, 2008 5:03 am) That makes more sense. Considering that gm wants a half decent market share with the volt. Your article was excellent. GM is considering leasing the Volt's battery. Why not just lease the entire vehicle and the battery together as you do with other vehicles. Sounds like another scheme to collect additional funds for the volts fuel savings. |
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Replying to: tpe (Apr 16, 2008 9:02 am) Just curious what is the MPG for the ICE (Internal Combustion Engine) for the volt?I presume with the ICE and its sole purpose is to charge the Li-Ion batteries and without any type of mechanical loads such as a transmission, differential, together with the wheels, what will be the MPG?? I personally don't care about the battery lasting 10 years as long as the replacement is affordable. My tires only last about 4 years and cost around $1,000 to replace. A battery pack should be viewed in the same way, as something that wears out. If a battery pack lasted 5 years and cost $2,000 to replace I could live with that since I'll be saving more than that in gas. Unfortunately at the present time the cost to replace a battery pack of this size would be quite a bit more than $2,000. Unfortunetly, the technical requirements was a tall order for GM. They wanted a battery with higher capacity, reliability, safety, and at the same time be cost effective. It seems that A123 Li-ions meets those requirements. When I was involved in the A123 Lithium Ion presentations they never mentioned the cost premium over the standard lithium ions. It be nice to know what truly their price premiums are. Having a lithium battery that is safe for the auto probably was their achilles heel. Unfortunetly, it was needed and it drove up the costs. In terms of gas costs, I probably spend about $5k-6K a year (and going higher with oil at $115) in gasoline alone. Now do your math $5-6K a year would pay off the battery in less than a couple years. Is it bargain? Depends on your perspective.
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Replying to: tpe (Apr 17, 2008 5:03 am)
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Replying to: galvang (Apr 17, 2008 7:43 pm) GM claims that once the battery pack has been depleted and the ICE needs to kick in the Volt will still be getting 50 mpg. That figure doesn't seem unrealistic given that this car will be extremely aerodynamic, take advantage of regenerative braking and only have a 1.0L, 3 cylinder engine. So even if you never plugged this car in you would still be getting exceptional mileage. Some people might think that in these situations the performance would suffer, afterall, how fast can a vehicle with a 1.0L engine be? That's the beauty of a serial hybrid configuration. It's not being driven by the engine. The engine just needs to be able to generate power that's equal to your average consumption, not your instantaneous consumption. You might run into a problem if you wanted to drive 80+ mph for an extended period or go up a long grade. That's why the ICE on the Volt will start recharging the battery pack when it reaches a 30% state of charge. This will provide a buffer for situations where the ICE can't recharge the batteries as fast as they are being depleted. |
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