New Lithium-Ion Batteries Promise Lower Cost, Higher Range EVs

I hope this is legit, and not just another little company tooting its own horn to raise capital based on vaporware, like EEStor. I'll take them seriously when there's an independent test of their batteries, and I'll believe it when it's on the market.

Developing a new technology is more complicated than coming up with a theory about what should work, and producing a factory capable of economical mass-production is a lot harder still. Some technologies turn out to be more expensive in reality than they are in theory, and in this field we've been subject to a lot of empty claims.

But I do hope it's real.

 

Well, the capacity drops sharply after a "few" cycles. From the graph, it looks like a 10 Ah (~22%) drop.

400 Wh/kg suddenly become 311 Wh/kg. Still higher than Panasonic cell but not really a breakthrough as hyped. Life cycle of less than 500 won't cut the automotive grade.



The voltage doesn't stay flat but rather it drops gradually. That'll give inconsistent performance when it is fully charged vs. nearly drained. A flat curve is desirable.



Source

 

Another EEStor, sad.
After 10 cycle, capacity already drop to 80%.

 

U just need to redefine capacity. One of these technologies will get productized and commercialized and battery progress will continue. Key is setting a reasonable usable SOC then counting cycle life using this. Toyota's nimh is 40%, say this can do 70%, that would be a usable 280wh/kg. We are just in POC stage for this start up, and they have proved the concept. Timetable for a real volume commercial product is 2015, not June. The main tech is from the national labs, and if its good this start up may do or, or LG Chem which also licensed the tech may do it, or some other chemistry will move us forward.

 

You got snipped by a day. Maybe get out more regularly:

http://priuschat.com/forums/prius-h...building-better-electric-vehicle-battery.html

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Desirable? Compared to what, an expense, unreliable lower capacity battery with a flat curve?

In reality, a flat curve has to be way down on the priorities of desirable characteristics. Electrical Conversion Technologies can handle virtually any discharge curve seamlessly. Now if the curve is tied to lifetime degradation or reliability variations, then it is a factor. But the shape, just by itself, is a very easily compensated characteristic.

 

Unfortunately the industry standard for battery life is 80% of original capacity,
if you look at the graph from usb, assuming starting capacity is 35Ah instead of 48Ah, 80% of 35Ah is 28Ah, from the graph it is at 300 cycle.
Meaning the battery last 300 cycle.

 

Capacity drops sharply because they started cycling it at 80% DoD instead of 100% DoD. Graph is misleading.

Voltage doesn't tell the whole story - and in real life a gradually dropping voltage makes determining the SoC easier than a battery which has very flat voltage across DoD.

Any inverter designer worth their salt can make the car perform consistently irregardless of the voltage of the pack. Typically performance is limited electronically rather than by maximum battery current, anyway to either extend battery life or prevent overloading of battery, inverter, motor, etc.

 

+1

Yes, bedrock that problem really is pretty meaningless. That big drop is just conditioning the battery then using a different DOD. Does anyone know at all what the prius battery would look like on that cycle? My guess is pretty bad. We really don't know how this will do once its tested and productized. Those preliminary numbers look promising to me. Aging and vibration definitely need to be tested. My guess is this battery would be typically be charged to 90% then allowed to discharge to 20% before all the discharge protection kicks in. Maybe allow the driver to charge to 100% sometimes, but not recomended all the time.

I would say industry standard for nimh car batteries is to charge to 80% and discharge to 40%, and who really knows how much capacity would be lost if put on the cycle given other than panasonic, pev, and toyota.

 

I wonder "if" this technology can be ramp up to OEM automotive capacity. The current and past year or so have been hard on advance technology energy storage aka advanced battery mfg. For example the "firefly" group out Perioa IL went bankrupt with federal government backing. Additionally the "Tesla" group is having "energy storage" issues too with federal government funding