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Conundrum

Sun Dec 13 2009, 01:30PM

Registered Member #96 Joined: Thu Feb 09 2006, 05:37PM
Location: CI, Earth
Posts: 4061

very interesting article. Seems that patent misuse (i.e. sitting on a patent rather than using it) is the main reason for EV's being marginalised.

Its interesting to note that lithium is not as useful as it might seem, you might be better off going for large format NiMH cells "recycled" from defunct UPSs or backup generators as a lot of them get scrapped for no good reason even though most of the cells simply need the discharge/recharge treatment and rebalancing.

i did look into the possibility of applying a variant of the desulphation technique to Nixx cells that have lost capacity, as the basic mechanism is very similar (in this case, the cell's structure is intact but the active materials have degraded due to overcharging into an inactive form which could be restored by pulsed current charging)

i

MinorityCarrier

Sun Dec 13 2009, 06:39PM

Registered Member #2123 Joined: Sat May 16 2009, 03:10AM
Location: Bend, Oregon
Posts: 312

Read up on Cobasys and watch the movie "Who killed the Electric Car".

In a nutshell, Li-Ion holds more charge per unit weight of battery, but NiMH is a much more robust long-lived battery.

The Stanford Ovishinsky NiMH battery patents expire 2014, so I hope to see big NiMH batteries start showing up after that.

ShawnLG

Sun Dec 13 2009, 07:05PM

Registered Member #286 Joined: Mon Mar 06 2006, 04:52AM
Location:
Posts: 399

NiMH batteries are not energy efficient. Half of the energy during charging goes into heat.

Renesis

Sun Dec 13 2009, 07:44PM

Registered Member #2028 Joined: Mon Mar 16 2009, 08:13PM
Location: Norway
Posts: 319

Some scientists believe that the future of electric vehicles lies in the new invetion of electron spin batteries:

These batteries are magnetic instead of chemical, and thus should be very efficient and could potentially be charged in seconds. The newly developed battery is about the width of a human hair and cannot even light a LED, but the physicists behind the invention claim that the possibilities are endless.

Its also a step towards creating HDD's without any moving parts, and may also become an important electronic component in the future.

uzzors2k

Sun Dec 13 2009, 09:28PM

Registered Member #95 Joined: Thu Feb 09 2006, 04:57PM
Location: Norway
Posts: 1308

Renesis wrote ...

Some scientists believe that the future of electric vehicles lies in the new invetion of electron spin batteries

Leser Illustrert Vitenskap du ogsÃ¥?

Steve Conner

Sun Dec 13 2009, 09:47PM

Registered Member #30 Joined: Fri Feb 03 2006, 10:52AM
Location: Glasgow, Scotland
Posts: 6706

Stop it you two, I'm just back from a week in an electronics factory in Norway. :P

I watched Who Killed The Electric Car a few years ago, and thought it was rather good. It's available on Bittorrent.

I don't believe that NiMH batteries waste half of the charging energy put into them. The Prius has always used NiMH, and it charges them from regenerative braking. It would hardly be worth doing that if half of the energy got wasted.

Toyota also offer an 8 year warranty on the batteries, but in order to do that, they need to program the car to always keep the battery between 40% and 60% charged. That's probably why there hasn't been an official plug-in Prius.

Proud Mary

Sun Dec 13 2009, 10:36PM

Registered Member #543 Joined: Tue Feb 20 2007, 04:26PM
Location: UK
Posts: 4992

I wonder if sodium-sulphur batteries or other molten metal cells could ever be used, if once their high temperature problems could be sorted out.

Electroholic

Sun Dec 13 2009, 11:50PM

Registered Member #191 Joined: Fri Feb 17 2006, 02:01AM
Location: Esbjerg Denmark
Posts: 720

Proud Mary wrote ...

I wonder if sodium-sulphur batteries or other molten metal cells could ever be used, if once their high temperature problems could be sorted out.

Zebra batteries!

thedatastream

Mon Dec 14 2009, 08:16AM

Registered Member #505 Joined: Sun Nov 19 2006, 06:42PM
Location: Yorkshire!
Posts: 329

Steve McConner wrote ...
...The Prius has always used NiMH...

The Citroen Berlingo Electrique

uses wet NiCd batteries that have to be topped up every so often (5000 miles?). They also have water jackets to keep them cool.

Renesis

Mon Dec 14 2009, 02:46PM

Registered Member #2028 Joined: Mon Mar 16 2009, 08:13PM
Location: Norway
Posts: 319

Uzzors wrote ...
Leser Illustrert Vitenskap du ogsÃ¥?

Seff

How about those who develop pneumatically powered cars, and claim that they are "clean"? Shure, their engines are over 90 % efficient, but have they ever laid their hand on the cylinderblock of a running compressor? About 88 percent of the energy fed to a compressor is lost as heat, due to the gas laws. Good thing these cars have such poor mileage.

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