Battery Design For Electric vehicles

You are a little behind the times. Standard flooded lead acid is waaaaayyyyyy to heavy for the amount of storage capacity it provides (lousy MPG). Great leaps have been made in lithium-based battery technology (such as Lithium ion), along with others.

Have a look at the EV Lithium range from Valence, Altairnano and others, along with perhaps the improved Graphite Foam Lead Acid battery from http://www.fireflyenergy.com, Nickel Zinc and Sodium Sulfur technologies (if you like a challenge), and the ever elusive EEstor Barium-Titanate Hybrid battery/ultracapacitor (so many promises, but when do we get a production sample to trial).

Ni-cad have their uses (such as electric dragsters ) but the technology is mature and there really is not much that can be done to make them any better.

http://www.fireflyenergy.com/

This company has developed improved plates for lead acid batteries. They have replaced the lead grids with a plates made of carbon-graphite foam. They plan to start shipping batteries using the new plates starting in early 2008 with full scale production in the second half of 2008. Their primary goal was to improve battery reliability but the new plates will also improve the specific energy and power available from a lead acid battery. The new batteries will have three to four times the energy density of conventional lead acid batteries. This should make them competitive with more exotic battery technologies and at a considerably lower cost.

http://www.fireflyenergy.com/

BAE Systems has developed a hybrid electric system for transit buses that uses lead acid batteries. The system has been a big success with over a thousand buses in service or on order

http://www.baesystems.com/ProductsServices/bae_prod_eis_hybridrive.html

One of the innovations developed for the system was a charge controller that regulated the charging current for each cell in the battery.

Unfortunatly it appears that firefly energy is a little behind schedule. They are not releasing any hard info on specifications. Amp hours, charging issues etc. I hope these guys are not just pie in the sky types. It also appears their direction is towards semi truck batteries?

I'm just a working class guy and the $2000 investment in Lead cells seems alot concidering there limited charging cycles. It would be nice to have cells that could be charged 2000+ times while being able to realease the 400+ amps that are need to power electric vehicles at highway speeds.

Why is it that nobody has developed a better system than the one developed in the 20's? Maybe petrochem still rules?

Well although great leaps and bounds are being made in the area of battery technology, there are still issues that make gasoline far better (and a little environmentally friendly) than battery power (at the moment!). One of which is price, the other is waste battery disposal and recycling. A little more time is required, but we will get there.

"It would be nice to have cells that could be charged 2000+ times while being able to release the 400+ amps that are need to power electric vehicles at highway speeds."

That device is commonly called a super capacitor or ultracapacitor. Problem is it doesn't have nearly as much capacity as a battery does. Development continues on these wonderful storage devices also.

As for the average person, you are better off to wait until the technology has matured before changing from petrol to electric vehicles. I would advise switching to a more efficient gas engine vehicle in the mean time if you want to help the environment.

Thanks for you comment. I have a hard time with the wait and see idea. It appears that the electric car is a viable step in the right direction. It also appears that the technologies will be developed by individuals not corporations again. Remember where PC's and the 1st internal combustion car came from. Waiting for corporations to get there head out of a particular orifice probably won't happen until they can steal a product for a buck.

Now that oil is $100 a barrel and gasoline to follow this equation, we need to look toward something to fill a gap. I don't believe that electric cars with flooded cell technology will be the end product but it will point the auto industry towards working on battery efficiency.

So my point, I build an electric automobile and my neighbor and work colleagues see the viability of it. They ask questions and maybe explore the possibilities. Before you know it, they are doing the same. Wow a market! Us economics at it's finest.

Check out Hymotion and Lithium Technology Corp (GAIA in germany)