More Powerful Li-Ion Batteries Available Soon

I'm somewhat confused here. Power is a measure of energy per unit time, which would increase the horsepower and increase the regen rate. Cruising range is based on the battery's capacity, or total amount of energy that the battery can store. Is the author of this article trying to "connect the dots" and improvise to make his/her story about something he/she does not understand?

"But Panasonic said it was in talks with about 10 automakers to supply the new battery" - this indicates to me that there actually is some type of new battery. But exactly what aspect is better about this new battery is currently unclear.

 

Since panasonic is acquiring sanyo you can assume they are talking to all of their and sanyo's customers. If you are talking about gm, yes I'm sure they are talking to them, but that does not mean gm will buy from them. This is marketing fluff. For the volt gm is using LG chem, and and may use panasonic to negotiate, but its late to change suppliers.

Power and capacity are higher on lithium than Nimh. I have no idea which they are talking about. More power means that they can drive a more powerful motor, and likely recharge faster. Its hard to tell if Panasonic has a breakthrough or is catching up to other lithium battery makers. It is important to remember the volt is only planning to use 50% of the capacity of the batteries to increase the life of the pack. Simply making the batteries charge and discharge deeper with less damage would increase usable capacity. The prius only uses 40% of the Nimh pack for the same reason.

 

did not read it yet but 20 to 30% more then the current nmih or then the current best litiums?

 

They were comparing to the 2.9 Ah Lithium. The new ones are 3.4 Ah and 4.0 Ah cells.

I believe the Prius PHV has 2.5 Ah cells. I calculating backward with the assumption of 6 cells per module (like all generation of Prius HV packs).

Number of modules: 345.6 Volt / 3.6 V = 96 modules
Capacity per module: 5,184 Wh (~5.2kWh) / 96 modules = 54 Wh
Amp Hour per module: 54 Wh / 3.6V = 15 Ah
Amp Hour per cell: 15 Ah / 6 = 2.5 Ah

The Prius PHV is rated for 14.5 EV miles under JC08 cycle. These new cells can bump it up to 20 to 23 miles EV range.

 

Interesting but relatively vague on real details. The most interesting quote to me is:

"One type of the new batteries will go into mass production in the fiscal year ending March 2012, while another kind will go into mass production in the fiscal year ending March 2013."

Interesting to me because you don't go into "Mass Production" unless you already have a mass produced product to put the batteries in. If this is the auto world, which the article seems to suggest, then I'm thinking we aren't too far from a Li-Ion Prius.

I still think Li-Ion is a lot closer than a lot of people think. It will be interesting to see how it changes the whole Hybrid/Electric vehicle landscape. 2-3 years is about right in my opinion.

As far as The Volt goes, I thought (I could be very wrong here, as the rumor surrounding The Volt changes almost all the time) but I thought The Volt was going to have a body molded Li-Ion battery? Or have they abandoned that idea? But I've always heard that The Volt was going to be Li-Ion.

 

This report seems to be an incoherent mix of the new laptop battery already in production, the planned home storage battery for 2011, and the bigger in size Sanyo battery tech they just acquired. 120 mile to 170 mile range in what? km's? To many unconnected statements. Where is the Panasonic press release link MSNBC?

 

They are going into mass production because the cells are used in laptop, netbooks and even electric cars (Tesla). Therefore, there is already a market.

Come to think of it, I remember seeing Prius PHV battery pack with Prismatic cells... not the cylindrical laptop cells.

 

SeaWolf, perhaps my arithmetic is wrong --
I get 17 and 20 miles, for the 3.4 and 4.0 Ah bumps compared to a 2.9 Ah baseline.

 

These cells have higher energy capacity and so the price will be higher. There is nothing magical here, if you want longer range and you have to pay more. Toyota has already made the balance of cost and range.

 

Yes I know they are used in other products but the article is suggesting heavily almost obviously that this mass production is in regards to the automotive world. And not just the very exclusive Tesla.

Time will tell, but I think we are close to a Lith Ion powered Prius. By close, I mean 2-3 years. Its personal speculation...we shall see.

 

BMW and Mercedes already have Lion powered hv. GM is planning to have its volt shipping in 11 months. Ford has announced they will be using lithium in 2012 model year vehicals from a new plant in MI. Toyota has already said they will be shipping a prius phv in 2011 or 2012 to the mass market, so of course there will be a market in 2012. The question is, whether JCI-saft (Ford, mercedes, many others including 3 chinese), LG-chem(GM), Panasonic/Sanyo(toyota, ford, gm, bmw, etc), etc will have the reduction in production costs and reliability that is expected. Toyota will need to use Li technology on their plug in to be competitive. Since Panasonic-ev is the leader in Nimh technology and mainly owned by toyota, it is likely the regular prius will still use this technology until a redesign (likely 2015 model year shipping in 2014).

 

My calculation in prevoius post showed Prius PHV with 15 Ah modules. If a module consists of 6 cells, we are looking at 2.5 Ah per cell.

It is also possible that Toyota is using one huge 15 Ah prismatic cell, 96 of them in parallel.

 

quite possibly they will now use less cells to achieve same capacity at lower price/weight ;-)

 

I have been learning the Li-ion battery development direction.
For EV, the capacity is more important than the instantaneous power.
For HV, the instantaneous power is more important than the capacity.
For PHV, both capacity and instantaneous power are important.

Ken@Japan

 

Nice summary, I would only say energy density rather than capacity.

 

So these laptop batteries are not suitable for PHV application... since laptops drain slowly (takes hours).

 

I agree, so following numbers on specification are important.
energy density(capacity): Wh/L or Wh/kg
instantaneous power: W/kg

Ken@Japan

 

The 18650 cell is just for general purpose.
Tesla uses a bunch of them.
I think it is a good approach in the current situation, but it is not a state of the art approach.

Ken@Japan