Please take a look at this video:

http://www.valence.com/SafetyVideo.asp

Given the right electrode material, you can shoot, pierce, flame, crush and overcharge Lithium-ion with no ill effects whatsoever.

Whos to say thats a real lith battery and they did not switch them?? It happens all the time manufacturers dont always tell the truth when pushing thier products. They start thinking about the almighty dollar and the judgment gets cloudy...

LOL Venturi Fetish? Ohhh thats a car I want!! So jw what do you drive? I drive a Fetish, you drive a what? thats sick.. No fetish is a EV car..

I just thought that would be a hard conversation to have in mixed company.

04' # 5, W/leather & JBL omitted.
"Prius, Just ask the person that drives one"
04' Tundra, 18mpg city & 22mpg hwy.
04' Prius, 60mpg city & 53mpg hwy.

Kenstyle NHW20 AERO Kit

It has been raised that EVs burng the same amount of fuel as direct gasoline consumption to provide the same amount of energy, though that is not exactly true for a number of reasons. One is that generators in large power plants are much more efficient as they must only run at a steady speed, compared to car engines which must handle throttling, they also can recapture waste heat using steam turbines in many cases. In addition, charging would happen at night, when many plants are simply sitting fairly idle anyway, so the marginal cost to charge overnight would be very low compared to gasoline fuel.

The main limitation for EV is range given the occasions it's necessary to drive on an away trip, or for a long trip. What I believe would be a good thing to do is have a good EV car with a built-in backup generator (those trailer things are too tacky... sure it would add some weight, but not too much) so if you're running low, you can refill on gas to extend range. That would be excellent as a commuter car.

Another idea would be to do a true hybrid (gasoline also directly powering wheels rather than just a generator) where the engine just supplied the necessary cruising power, with plug-in (or engine-charged on long trip) electric handling the rest. You could also force all EV mode for short trips, and have a 60mpg car (assuming no grid charge) or so for long trips.

Too bad all that EV innovation was killed off (and crushed) by the auto companies via legal wrangling.

I'm looking forward to Mitsubishi's EV models coming to the market if they can keep themselves in the automotive market. We would have bought an EV instead of our Prius if they were available in 2001 here since we have an abundance of hydroelectric power that we tend to export... it just makes too much sense. Unfortunately with no EV (still) available to buy, we consumers are left with precious little choice... We are forced to choose gasoline or diesel even though the technology and engineering has already made EVs a reality for some satisfied customers.

2001 Prius Photos       2005 Prius Photos
'97 Prius Simulation Prius inner workings

I don't think that's accurate.


Point 1: Recharge rate.

My computer runs for 2.5 hours on batteries and only takes 1.5 hours to recharge. My cell phone, likewise, has a 3.0 hour talk time and a 2.0 hour recharge. My iPod runs for 7 hours and recharges in 3. My PDA runs for 8 hours and recharges in 6. So... What I have observed from my lithium ion applications is that the recharge time is only 2/3 of the discharge rate.


Point 2: Battery Safety

You can eliminate the thermal runaway problem by implementing a large array of small batteries instead of a small array of large batteries. Sure, that would drive the manufacturing cost up a *little*, but you'd have a stable power source for the car.

Your computer uses 100 watt hours in 2.5 hours, then requires 200 watt hours ( maybe more) to recharge in 1.5 hours. Since the wall-plug converter can be sized to any size, the time can be reduced. Same thing with your cell phone, etc. You are using 2x the power to "charge" as you use during "discharge".

In Hybrid cars, the motor size is also the generator size.
It's nice to be able to take 25,000 watts out for 1 minute, then put 25,000 watts back, in 1 minute.

NiMH has a 1:1 ratio ( or very close )
LiI has a 2:1 ratio ( or very close )
PbA has a 5:1 ratio ( or very close )

Lead Acid is great for those "stand by" conditions, where you can trickle charge all day long.

LiI is great for when you need a lot of power in a hurry, for short periods, then have a longer time to recharge.

NiMH is great for hybrids, when you desire to give and take, charge and discharge in real time.

Cost was not the #1 factor in choosing battery type. Suitability is.
Turns out, while a bit on the heavy side, NiMH is very well suited for Hybrids, and also have ( I've heard ) lower environmental impact... since we're going to be making these things by the millions.

-Good Luck!
-John

GPSMAN1: Hmmm... So, if Li-ion has more power, but a long recharge cycle, and NiMH has less power, but a faster recharge rate, then I wonder if there might be a way to optimize the efficiency of a hybrid by implementing a certain amount of *both* kinds of batteries.

Also, do you know how well (if at all) the Lithiun Polymer batteries might function in the context of EV and hybrid applications?

I have 2 friends in the Model R/C business.

The LiPoly batteries are great on a small scale, and light enough for model airplanes and helicopters to fly via battery instead of gas.

I asked about chaining 30 ( or 90 ) of them in series for FULL SCALE car use, ie. FEH.

He said they would explode or catch on fire the first time I used them.

Also... a big downer is... you have to charge each cell one at a time.
You cannot charge in series... only parallel...

I guess, if one or more cells in a series is a 'slightly' different voltage, it really screws things up... like the lowest cell sucks all the juice, doesn't pass any on to the other cells, and in the process, probably overheats and explodes.

The R/C cars that take 3 cells actually have separate wires for each cell.

The AC Propulsion t-zero mentioned above has a few hundred li-ion batteries in its traction pack and it doesn't seem to explode very often

Im not defending here. LOL

I asked about chaining 30 ( or 90 ) of them in series for FULL SCALE car use, ie. FEH.

He said they would explode or catch on fire the first time I used them.

Im not defending EV's here, but maybe this comapany has found a way to wire them into a series.

How big of a battery pack is that? 'a few hundred'

I also don't think any company would tell a potential customer anything bad about thier products negitive testing results (bad for business)..

04' # 5, W/leather & JBL omitted.
"Prius, Just ask the person that drives one"
04' Tundra, 18mpg city & 22mpg hwy.
04' Prius, 60mpg city & 53mpg hwy.

Kenstyle NHW20 AERO Kit

The problem with current gen Lithiums is the need for each cell (or couple cells) to have a safety chip that ensures proper charge/discharge and monitors the temp. That makes the systems rather expensive, BUT all sorts of fresh technology is being rolled out, mostly the nano-scale stuff that totally eliminates the thermal runaway and venting with flame (exploding) issues. New chemistry for the electrodes also offers greater capacity and longevity, so within a couple years I think there will be mass-market ready Lithium packs.

Toyota is using a Lithium pack in the Japanese Yaris with start/stop, so to me that means they are doing shake-down tests on them to see if they are suitable, so I fully expect to see some Lithium EV/hybrid in North America in a few years.

Cost is a big factor as well... Maybe the new Lead-Acid-Foam battery will break Lithium by offering NiMH capacity at half the price?

Keep an eye on http://www.greencarcongress.com/ for all the latest industry news.

2001 Prius Photos       2005 Prius Photos
'97 Prius Simulation Prius inner workings