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I'm not one
to fight for all things electric but let me clarify a few things. It isn't a
"charge station". Its a battery charger we fit on board the vehicles. Each is
about the size of a shoe box. With the right computer systems to control them
they are very precise in putting charge into the batteries which means the
batteries last longer and give more power. To charge the vehicles faster we fit
more chargers. A 40 kWh battery pack would have two or four of these. The thing
limiting charge time here in the UK is more the availability of large amounts of
power rather than the chargers or the batteries ability to handle the power. Of
course many vehicles only charge at night when the grid is not running at full
load so they use power that otherwise wouldn't be used....
I have worked with batteries with energy density 4 times what we have now
but they are to expensive to put to market. They are out there and when the
costs come down they will be in use. Think of your mobile phone 10 years ago and
what it did. now look at your BB or iphone and what it can handle while being
smaller lighter thinner. That's whats happening in the industry.
Depending on your definition of "mainstream" even 10% EV would be a huge
difference in congestion and pollution.
Power supply overall is a problem here in the UK. The government says
(without considering EV at ALL) that the UK will have rolling power outages by
2016 because the coal plants are old and worn out and the new nuclear isn't even
being built yet and will take 20 years to build (and nobody has the money to pay
for them). that's about the time I move back home to Florida......
Regards
Britt
In a message dated 22/05/2010 14:32:33 GMT Daylight Time,
themightytoe [at] gmail.com writes:
OK
>The analogy is a bit silly if you don't mind me saying. Do you not
think the battery failed in your computer because the charger was >probably
not the best?
Silly? Maybe it was poor charge cycling?
But no one can argue that the endless battery doesn't yet exist. They
all fail eventually. But the point was when it did fail, finding a
matching new one is a problem. And that's for a 10 ounce pack...
Eventually the stuff will standardize but I don't want to be the guy with the
beta VCR when it does.
It sounds like fantastic stuff on the horizon no
question. But a 5 grand swiss charge station doesn't sound like its
going to be mainstream anytime soon? Is this an install at your home or
at your place of business? How many Tesla's or LEAF's can you charge on
that 5 grand station at one time 1/2 or 1/4 of a car? How long to fully
charge a LEAF that is completely discharged? half a charge? Sorry
if this is still under NDA :)
I agree its going to eventually happen,
but unless battery tech makes significant strides its going to trade in on
current problems and pose as large or a larger problems than our current
mainstream solution of gasoline. The energy density of even today's best
commercially available batteries isn't even in the ballpark close to Diesel or
Gasoline, this looks dated to me, I think Li+ is actually about 2x better
today than this chart shows, but its still miles away from what OPEC
provides:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Energy_density.svg
This
means that if 50% of drivers go electric, we burn that much more coal (and its
not 2x, more like 10x) (or nuclear fuel if you are in France) and the mild
brownouts seen even in the United states become much less mild. Also
even if you manage to double the useful life of those batteries, they will
still end up in a dump somewhere, does it matter if its 10 years or 30 years
away? Li+ always wants to be Li2 eventually. And you really
shouldn't drink that stuff, nor should your great grandchildren.
What I
don't like most however is the utter shortsightedness of adding batteries to
cars and kicking them out the door for a quick profit. A 5000 charge
station looks bad but is likely cheap compared to the infrastructure redesign
that governments would need to undertake to properly run induction lines
through roads, and let the cars minimize the on board energy storage.
This would improve efficiency across the board as the vehicles become much
lighter, the need to recharge goes away, and so on... We could still
learn a lot from Nikolai Tesla, that guy had to be an alien or
time-traveler...
BR,
Mike
Britt2Asa [at] aol.com wrote:
Guys,
Its nice to be back! If you don't mind me saying since I work in the
industry and don't just read stuff off the internet, Apple pie is Apple pie
but there are a lot of different receipts. Tesla's application is specific
to Tesla. Other manufacturers do it differently. You know up in Sunderland
at the Nissan plant they will be producing 50,000 LEAFs a year in another 12
months. (Next years production is from Japan). You say it will never take
off? Well not on the level of taxes and policies the US has but over here
with a London Low emissions zone, CO2 charging and fuel tax it is quickly
shifting towards electric cars in the right application.
The analogy is a bit silly if you don't mind me saying. Do you not
think the battery failed in your computer because the charger was probably
not the best? When you can buy a computer charger/phone charger for a few
dollars of EBAY, don't be surprised when your Li-ion battery only lasts a
year or two. The chargers we use cost 5000.00 EACH (that's pounds, not
dollars). Come from Brusa in Switzerland. We use 2 or 4 on each vehicle.
They look at charging on a cell level, that is each individual cell in each
li-ion module is looked at and the charge is individually controlled.
This as you can imagine is very very expensive to design and build but adds
greatly to the battery life. (estimated 10 plus years in excess of the
vehicle life) Don't assume the batteries in the car you eventually buy
have much in common with you computer other than they are both called
Li-ion.
Do you know that an industry is being built up here in the UK in the
USA and Japan to "second life" all these batteries when they are no longer
suitable to work in a vehicle but still can hold energy? You can pile them
up on a truck and get one gigawatt of power as a portable power supply. Use
them to store wind energy generated at night when the grid demand is low,
use them as back up power storage for data centres, hospitals, office
buildings. Even seen designs to put them in sailing yachts as ballast and
energy for a supplemental electric motor. I'm not involved in that side of
the business but talk to people who are every week. The point of this is
having a higher value on the used batteries means a lower whole life cost on
the vehicle which makes them more affordable as the capital cost on electric
vehicles is very high currently.
Enough on the lesson. The nameless company I work for is design some
stuff that will be out in the next year or two that is pretty amazing and
cutting edge stuff. Oh and most of the engineering team are serious gear
heads. Our engineering director spent his last two years at Mclaren working
on the new little super car. (MP whatever it is called) He also did most of
the architecture on the SLR. An electric car wouldn't work for me, I drive
400 miles most day. Diesel BMW is the only way to afford the fuel and
emissions taxes and go that distance but for most people commuting only
10-20 miles a day an EV would work very well even if just a second
car.
I am not giving up the Italian car thing but trust me if you are a car
buff you need to keep your eyes open cause there is some really interesting
stuff in the EV world and more coming out. Over here in the next 2 years we
have Nissan, Merc, Mitsubishi, Audi, Citroen, Fiat, Peugeot, Vauxhall, and
possibly Ford (not confirmed yet but the market rumours are there) all
introducing electric cars to the mainstream market. I bet the Lotus Evora is
an EV pretty soon (Lotus and Jag/Land Rover are constantly running
recruitment ads here for engineers in the electric car industry)
One last little point, I don't know anybody working in the
manufacturing/engineering side of the electric vehicle business who is doing
it to save the world or make the world greener. They are doing it because it
is cutting edge technology and it is fascinating. If you like cars and
mechanics and engineering keep your eyes open on what is coming out because
you will find it as fascinating as I do!
Britt
BR in the
UK
1986 328GTS (LHD 89,940km) Died August 19, 2006 Shrewsbury UK
1980
400i (RHD 74,000 miles)
Searching for the right 512TR
1985 Bertone
X1/9
2003 BMW 530d
1991 Alfa Spider S4 LHD
1993 Alfa Spider S4
LHD
2010 BMW 320d
On
Fri, May 21, 2010 at 11:00 AM, Hans E. Hansen <FList [at] hanshansen.org> wrote:
Uh, well, not really.
Spend a bit of time on the Tesla website. The battery pack is
MUCH more than just
batteries. It contains a full cooling/heating system, as well
as highly complex
proprietary electronics. The individual cells are not
replaceable. It would require
a complete new battery system, which would have to be sourced from
Tesla,
unless they choose to license the technology involved to
others.
Hans.
On Fri, May 21, 2010 at 10:03 AM, Michael James
<cavallino_rapante [at] yahoo.com>
wrote:
|
Batteries is Batteries - Duracell, Energizer, Optima,
Interstate, etc. will all want to get-into that BIG market and
sell you batteries for your car - every future WalMart,
Autozone, Pep Boys, Tire Rack, Batteris Plus, and Target
will have them in-stock, 24/7. How many different sizes
for Camera and Watch batteries are there? About a dozen or
two? Did variety kill the market? Nope. Silly
argument. Real Capitalists are excited by the
prospects.
M
From:
Mike Fleischer <themightytoe [at] gmail.com>
Subject:
Re: [Ferrari] Have your cake and eat it too!
To: "Michael"
<Cavallino_Rapante [at] yahoo.com>
Cc:
"The FerrariList" <ferrari [at] ferrarilist.com>
Date:
Thursday, May 20, 2010, 5:38 PM
Yeah but one of life's lessons... I had a trip out
to Silicon Valley last March. In the middle of a week of
presenting for a customer, my mac book's battery died.
Stopped holding a charge, and pretty much was next to useless
unless plugged into the AC adapter/wall... Now
fortunately, there were some Apple stores in the Valley and
they for some odd reason were well stocked, so $115 later and
I am good to go... Now if I am driving out to Road
America and my Tesla's batteries stop holding a charge while I
am sleeping at the Osthoff? I imagine I am entirely
F'ed. This is why Electric cars won't take off, not only
are they expensive and less efficient than gasoline vehicles,
but the lack of standardization out of the gate will turn it
into another unholy Beta vs. VHS fight. Wait for all the
Prius owners to start footing the bill to replace the hybrid
battery packs... Not to mention if it becomes
mainstream, dealing with the heavy metals in spent
batteries... China would probably be happy to make
children's toys out of it but shipping it over there
might cost more than its worth. Honestly I really like
the Hydrogen fuel cell technology the best out of all the
"alternative" sources. Sorry for the rant, wanted to go
flying today and didn't get a chance... And hey man,
stop with all the bicycles already. LtWacko wrote:
I get tired of hearing "I'll
take the old vs. new" or "new vs. old". Mike, we're on
the Ferrari list. Take 'em both! LOL. Oh
wait, my house is proof of that and I have room for
nothing!
Rodney
Certainly having all your torque at 0 RPM is amazing,
and having played
with RC cars for many years, its
about time someone made a full size
version :)
All it will take is an incremental improvement in
battery
technology to push these into the mainstream,
but I would not trade it
for the WOT scream of a V-8,
10 or 12 on any given sunny afternoon :).
BR,
Mike
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