All "Future" battery technology thread

This sounds credible. May be we can get this in vehicles in 3 to 5 years.

http://wheels.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/02/26/envia-claims-breakthrough-in-lithium-ion-battery-cost-and-energy-density/?smid=tw-nytimeswheels&seid=auto" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

Atul Kapadia, chairman and chief executive of Envia, said in a telephone interview. “The cost of cells will be less than half — perhaps 45 percent — of cells today, and the energy density will be almost three times greater than conventional automotive cells.”
Mr. Kapadia continued: “What we have are not demonstrations, not experiments, but actual products. We could be in automotive production in a year and a half.”
...
Envia’s announcement said that its packs would deliver cell energy of 400 watt-hours per kilogram at a cost of $150 per kilowatt-hour. Though it doesn’t disclose a cost breakdown, Tesla Motors rates the energy density of its Roadster’s pack at 121 watt-hours per kilogram. Envia said its energy-density performance was verified in testing of prototype cells at the Naval Service Warfare Center’s Crane evaluation division.

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note the 500 cycle life.. you would need a 200 mile pack to achieve a life of 100k miles.

Herm said:

note the 500 cycle life.. you would need a 200 mile pack to achieve a life of 100k miles.

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We can get a 300 mile pack and that would be like Leaf's current battery size/weight/cost. With that kind of pack we can also expect better than 100k miles - since top & bottom would rarely be used.

battery prices will be tied to gas prices. if gas prices are high and stay that way, battery prices will not come down. i see more efficient packs, more miles, etc (despite what Nissan thinks, 50% more on the current pack is all would cover the masses much better than the current 100 miles)

its all marketing. Intel does not sell processors at $4.99 a dozen (although they could and still make money) because the market will pay more and that will be true for battery packs especially when the alternative is $200-400 a month in gas

Mass production is the key, but if every car manufacturer uses a different chemistry and form factor then no luck.

Some interesting comments by someone from Envia ...

http://blogs.motortrend.com/cost-cutting-the-volt-envia-scores-a-battery-energy-density-breakthrough-21381.html#comment-46497" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

Over 400 cycles @ 80% DOD.

http://enviasystems.com/announcement/" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

5.1 One of the highest energy cells used in consumer applications is the NCR18650A manufactured by Panasonic, which can be used as a comparative asset to the Envia cells. The NCR18650A cell specification claims 3100 mAh capacity, 3.6 V average and weighs 45.5 grams. The calculated energy density of this comparative cell would be approximately 245 Wh/Kg.

5.2 The test results from the prototype cells tested at Crane were in line with the results obtained from the manufacturer. The claims of 400 Wh/Kg were substantiated through the cycling tests performed at Crane. This is a 160% energy density increase over the industry standard indicated in paragraph 5.1.

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Better numbers at greencongress, 1000 cycles at 300wh/kg

http://www.greencarcongress.com/2012/02/envia-20120227.html" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

is it April 1st yet?

I read an article on this last year. They basically replace the spent electrolyte in the battery with a charged one. So it's like filling your small tank (batteries) at a gas station but with battery fluid instead of gasoline.

Is it really a 45Ah cell when it drops to 35Ah after a dozen cycles? That's nearly a 25% loss in capacity. Better to call it a 35Ah battery which is still impressive.

After 400-500 80% cycles it's down to 25Ah - 30% down from 35Ah and only about half of it's fresh capacity. By this point it's only nominally better than today's tech.

If they can get the anode to hold up better it'd be a lot more impressive.

Bassman said:

I read an article on this last year. They basically replace the spent electrolyte in the battery with a charged one. So it's like filling your small tank (batteries) at a gas station but with battery fluid instead of gasoline.

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No it isn't. That is completely different.

drees said:

Is it really a 45Ah cell when it drops to 35Ah after a dozen cycles? That's nearly a 25% loss in capacity. Better to call it a 35Ah battery which is still impressive.

After 400-500 80% cycles it's down to 25Ah - 30% down from 35Ah and only about half of it's fresh capacity. By this point it's only nominally better than today's tech.

If they can get the anode to hold up better it'd be a lot more impressive.

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Yes - thats what I was thinking too. It is much better to call it a 35Ah cell (300 Wh/kg) cell.

This is what the Envision guy wrote in MT. I don't know enough about battery research to say whether his claim (that some more engr work will improve cycle life) is true or not.

Please note that the cells have cycled 400 times in our labs and are still cycling. Cells have also been sent to NSWC for cycle tests. The important thing is to first reach the energy density and then continue to improve cycle life. If cycle life was less then 20 cycles, one could make an argument that there is a science issue. At this point, having cycled over 400 times and still cycling – engineering work will be needed to increase cycle life.

Also note, number of cycles as cited in USABC manual for electric cars is a 1000 cycles. For a 300 mile car, if you cycle all the way 1000 times, you get 300 * 1000 = 300,000 miles.

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Read more: http://blogs.motortrend.com/cost-cutting-the-volt-envia-scores-a-battery-energy-density-breakthrough-21381.html#ixzz1nboBBen0" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

I think even a 500 cycle, 80 kWh battery @300Wh/kg that comes in at $15k, 500 pounds of cells (close to Leaf battery) in 2015 will be very compelling to a large % of population. That will give about 250 miles of range when new. It will be 3 times better than the Leaf battery in terms of density.

Ofcourse, the cost isn't proven yet. But the cost is probably good because they aren't using expensive materials like Cobalt. Some Chinese manufacturers already offer cells in the $200/kWh range.

Very interesting article... and mentions the leaf as well for comparison...

http://www.greencarreports.com/news/1073442_new-battery-promises-to-bring-300-mile-electric-cars-to-the-masses" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

New Battery Promises To Bring 300-Mile Electric Cars To The Masses
BY NIKKI GORDON-BLOOMFIELD

It may be that this same cell derated to 300Wh/kg and 80% SOC becomes a 1000 cycle cell.. and that is pretty darned good. Very practical for everyday 40 mile driving if your pack can do 200 miles all out.

Envia, the future battery may be here.
http://www.scientificamerican.com/article" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;.
cfm?id=new-energy-dense-battery-could-enable-long-distance-electric-cars

"Looking for signs that the automotive landscape may be changing sooner than most people realize? Here's one. Envia Systems, a start-up battery company that counts General Motors as a significant investor, has announced it has produced a cell with an energy density of 400 watt-hours per kilogram (Wh/kg). It also claims they will be priced somewhere in the $125 per kilowatt-hour neighborhood."

evnow said:

Bassman said:

I read an article on this last year. They basically replace the spent electrolyte in the battery with a charged one. So it's like filling your small tank (batteries) at a gas station but with battery fluid instead of gasoline.

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No it isn't. That is completely different.

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I was talking about the MIT article. So it was the same battery I was talking about!

It's interesting when something becomes "news". Envia uses the NMC technology developed by Argonne Labs. GM and LG Chem have also licensed this technology and an early form of that chemistry is already in the Volt battery. In addition, Nissan announced over two years ago that its next generation battery would double the specific energy using NMC technology.

That said, 400 wh/kg is impressive. That number has always been said to represent the point at which EVs can seriously compete with ICE vehicles. I wouldn't worry overly much about the 400 cycles. That's a decent number of cycles and cycle life can always be improved. However, expecting these on the road in a year or two is a big stretch. More like four or five years would be a better guess.

In a couple of years this thread will have grown to a couple hundred pages and cover about 20 different battery news releases.. what fun!

drees said:

Is it really a 45Ah cell when it drops to 35Ah after a dozen cycles? That's nearly a 25% loss in capacity. Better to call it a 35Ah battery which is still impressive.

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This is what the Envion guy is writing in GCR. The "drop" in capacity is because after 3 cycles they are just charging to 80% DOD. Definitely that graph presenatation needs to be improved.

The capacity drops off in the first three cycles because the first 3 cycles were done at 100% DoD (C/20, C/10 and C/3 rates respectively). Cycles 4-400 were conducted at 80% DoD at C/3 which are typical charge/discharge profiles in automotive EV applications. By definition you'd get 80% of the original capacity. Hope this helps.

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SanDust said:

It's interesting when something becomes "news". Envia uses the NMC technology developed by Argonne Labs. GM and LG Chem have also licensed this technology and an early form of that chemistry is already in the Volt battery. In addition, Nissan announced over two years ago that its next generation battery would double the specific energy using NMC technology.

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This is not NMC. They are using Si-C anode and High Density Manganese Rich cathod. They get good price by not using Cobalt which is expensive.

evnow said:

This is what the Envion guy is writing in GCR. The "drop" in capacity is because after 3 cycles they are just charging to 80% DOD. Definitely that graph presenatation needs to be improved.

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That makes a lot more sense and cycle life looks halfway decent, then. Still have some work to do on cycle life - good lithium cells will do close to 100% DoD and last 400-500 cycles before losing 20% capacity.

I wonder how calendar life affects it?