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Gms own words about the battery
January 17th, 2007 | Posted in: Battery
on GM’s blog we hear Bob Lutz make the following statement:
“I really believe that, once lithium ion batteries become truly viable, vehicles like Volt with our E-Flex technology will be the future.”
Key word here is “viable“. Does he mean technically or financially, we seem to believe its the latter.
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Posted by: Lyle
One Response to “Gms own words about the battery”
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January 23rd, 2007 at 9:07 am
He means both. The price has to come down, and also the cycle life needs to be increased dramatically. The battery pack in the volt can power it for 40 miles, and today’s li-ion cells are good for 500 cycles, so that means it’s due for replacement after only 20,000 electric-only miles. It could cost $16,000 to replace at today li-ion prices, so that’s obviously not economically viable.
There are several companies researching batterys and other storage technology (supercapacitors or battery-capacitor hybrids) that could deliver greatly improved cycle lifespans. These breathroughs don’t happen on a schedule, they come whenever they come. I’m guardedly optimistic for the next few years anyhow.
The reason a Tesla Roadster can be built today is because, firstly it’s not cheap. Secondly, the huge battery capacity means it will rarely be fully discharged on a daily drive. 250 miles range times 500 discharge cycles works out to a 125,000 mile lifespan for the battery pack.