Tuesday’s announcement by EnerDel of a market-ready production lithium-ion battery pack for hybrid electric cars (HEV) was missing some important information, the specs.
Mr. Charles Gassenheimer, Ener1’s Vice-Chairman was kind enough to provide us with those all-important details:
1 pack:
600 watt hours
120 volts
$1500 per pack
There you have it.
This entry was posted on Thursday, October 11th, 2007 at 11:40 am and is filed under Battery, PHEV. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.
Oct 11th, 2007 (11:48 am)If I understand the specs correctly, to get enough for Volt 16k watt/hour that would take about 27 packs, which would equal $40K. Not a good price. I may be wrong but feel free to correct if calculated wrong.
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Oct 11th, 2007 (12:25 pm)That’s $2500 /kwh … ouch. If they want to supply batteries for a PHEV or BEV, they’ll need to bring that down to well bellow $1000/kwh. (500 would be affordable, 300 sweet)
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Oct 11th, 2007 (12:28 pm)SteveF: I got the same numbers. And that sounds about right based on what we have been hearing about battery costs.
Makes you wonder what they were basing their distance numbers on at the press conference. That seems a bit misleading in retrospect.
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Oct 11th, 2007 (12:46 pm)One possible caveat in EnerDel’s favor: this may be a power-optimized version of their chemistry, rather than one optimized for energy density. HEVs are a charge-sustaining operation that place an emphasis on very small and light but high power/weight packs, rather than a charge-depleting operation (PHEVs) that can rely on a big battery to provide a large voltage and power.
For example, the batteries in a Ford Escape are very small and hold little energy compared to those in say…a Tesla Roadster. But despite that small size, the pack must provide enough power to get the car moving from a standstill, and to provide acceleration on the highway. The larger pack can more easily rely on the high voltage of its many cells connected in series.
Now, this is speculative of course, and it’s a shame that EnerDel is leaving us guessing. Perhaps they could provide the weight as well as the peak and continuous discharge rates?
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Oct 11th, 2007 (12:48 pm)On the other hand, by my calculations, the Tesla needs to have 43 kwh of storage. That would be about $108,000 just for the batteries! How can that be?
These numbers from Ener1 are very depressing.
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Oct 11th, 2007 (12:58 pm)Another thing to consider is this document I came across:
http://www.ases.org/solar2007/presentations/tuesday/400pm/forums/4-battery/4-ota.pdf
Not much on the document that’s not on their website, but on page 10 and 11 where they compare anode formulations, they do explicitly admit that both their lithium titanate (LTO) and hard carbon (HC) chemistries have lower energy density than conventional graphite-based anodes – such as those used in other “safe” lithium ion chemistries. LTO has especially lower voltage.
Which of these chemistries is the new HEV pack utilizing? And is EnerDel willing to relegate titanate to HEV use, and use the slightly less safe hard carbon chemistry to achieve lighter PHEV packs?
At 86 Wh/kg, their LTO chemistry DID pass the USABC minimum criteria for energy density (80). But just by the skin of their teeth, and future goals will mandate at least 100-200Wh/kg.
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Oct 11th, 2007 (12:58 pm)What percentage of the batteries cost is due to the materials? What percentage is due to manufacturing equipment, labor…etc? Is the relationship between a battery’s size and cost linear?
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Oct 11th, 2007 (1:38 pm)Sems like that 30 mile range is as I suspected “Pooof the magic battery!” Not even as good as Nickle Metal Hydride. Guess Toyota maght have been telling the truth the battery is not rady for prime time.
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Oct 11th, 2007 (2:28 pm)What is Wh/kg and W/kg, difficult to compare without such information …
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Oct 11th, 2007 (2:49 pm)It looks to me that the 600 watt-hour hybrid battery from EnerDel is priced competitively relative to other existing options. Value pricing. Charge what you can get.
Nobody will pay that price for batteries in a PHEV. Lutz has already said the Volt will be priced nicely below $30k, so obviously they won’t put a $40k battery pack in the car.
Ultimately EnerDel and A123Systems will compete with each other for market share or be left behind. And eventually, Panasonic and other suppliers will catch up.
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Oct 11th, 2007 (4:02 pm)[quote comment="10652"]What is Wh/kg and W/kg, difficult to compare without such information …[/quote]
Wh/kg=watt-hours per kilogram. Standard unit(s) of measure for how much ENERGY a battery can hold per given weight.
W/kg=watts per kilogram. Amount of POWER that a battery can deliver per given weight. Typically calculated using the maximum continuous discharge rate of a battery.
[quote comment="10647"]Sems like that 30 mile range is as I suspected “Pooof the magic battery!” Not even as good as Nickle Metal Hydride. Guess Toyota maght have been telling the truth the battery is not rady for prime time.[/quote]
Even with the lowest energy density of all the USABC contractors, EnerDel is still almost twice as dense as the best NiMH cells, and far more cost-effective. Toyota is…and has always been…blowing smoke.
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Oct 11th, 2007 (4:12 pm)[quote comment="10655"]Nobody will pay that price for batteries in a PHEV. Lutz has already said the Volt will be priced nicely below $30k, so obviously they won’t put a $40k battery pack in the car.[/quote]
Does GM have a plan to get batteries at 15% of that cost, or are they going to wait to produce the Volt until the price comes down that much?
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Oct 11th, 2007 (4:33 pm)Volts will almost certainly end up having A123 batteries. I think EnerDel is just there as an option by GM to keep the pressure on A123 to not rest on their laurels. EnerDel may not be applying all that much pressure at the moment.
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Oct 11th, 2007 (4:36 pm)OhmExcited,
Lutz’s comments are based on his hopes and expectations for the future. GM needs someone to make a major breakthrough in battery cost to hit Bob’s stated targets.
Apparently even the $1,500 price is Enerdel’s expectation for 2009/2010.
See http://www.news.com/8301-10784_3-9780680-7.html
What a PR circus this has become.
If anyone wants to see what happens to a company that makes promises they cannot keep, check out the EDrive web site:
http://www.edrivesystems.com/news.html
The product is 1.5 years late (based on the spring 2006 target in their FAQ) and counting. There has been over a year without an update on their news section of their web site. The last update shows that their revised target of “beginning 2007″ has been missed. Sad.
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Oct 11th, 2007 (4:39 pm)Jim,
GM’s plan appears to be to make wild PR claims to distract you from their current disastrous situation in regards to hybrids.
The hope is that there will be a pricing breakthrough. However that is why they are careful to add Safe Harbor statements to put the blame on the companies responsible for the batteries.
In some ways it is smart… especially if their gamble works. In other ways they could really end up looking stupid.
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Oct 11th, 2007 (4:53 pm)So Delphi’s battery blows up in its face! A123 and Altairnano beat the price/performance on Enderdel by at least 30%, Device Conduit beats it by at least 40 to 50%.
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Oct 11th, 2007 (5:10 pm)GXT-
Pricing breakthroughs for advanced li-ion are a function of SCALE, not technology! If anything, the more advanced technologies should be even cheaper per watt-hour than conventional 18650’s, given the nature of the materials involved.
Please keep your criticisms on-target.
By the way, considering how critical TOYota is of GM for showing pie-in-the-sky hybrids, they aren’t too afraid to do the exact same things themselves :
http://www.greencarcongress.com/2007/10/toyota-to-show-.html
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Oct 11th, 2007 (5:36 pm)Who has the crazy idea that EnerDel is competing for the VOLT? They are not. EnerDel has no connection with GM or the VOLT project.
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Oct 11th, 2007 (6:37 pm)“EnerDel has no connection with GM”
EnerDel got a $6.5 million contract from the US Advanced Battery Consortium. GM is a member of that consortium. Sorry, but there is definitely a connection.
Whether they are competing with the Volt or not, it’s easy to make that assumption when the Vice Chair of EnerDel is bothering to give personal interviews to gm-volt.com.
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Oct 11th, 2007 (8:05 pm)Don’t think of taking the 600 watt/hours and trying to scale it up for the Volt. It’s a completely different type of battery.
Here is a snippet from Denise Gray (GM’s battery Guru) from her recent testimony before the U.S. government.
There are really two types of batteries that we require. The one most people are familiar with is called “charge depletion.” Think of this as a flashlight battery that depletes it energy with use, and then is either disposed of or recharged. It is the rechargeable version of this battery that we are interested in for plug-in hybrids. This is a new area of focus for USABC.
In addition to charge depletion, there is another type of battery known as “charge sustaining.” These batteries are designed to accept and delivery power while maintaining a constant state of charge – they never deplete. These charge sustaining batteries are in use in hybrid vehicles on the road today, such as our Chevy Malibu and Saturn Aura hybrids. They store up the high power energy captured during braking and reapply that energy to help the vehicle accelerate.
Full testimony here:
http://democrats.science.house.gov/Media/File/Commdocs/hearings/2007/energy/03oct/gray_testimony.pdf
The EnerDel battery being discussed here is the charge sustaining type for HEVs. These batteries are constantly charging / discharging, so the chemistry trades less storage (watt hours) in favor of more charge/discharge cycles.
All charge sustaining batteries to date have been NiMH. The fact that EnerDel is releasing a cost competitive Li/Ion battery of this type is very significant.
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Oct 11th, 2007 (8:43 pm)That’s very interesting Dave G.
From what you posted, I gather that the Volt may have two separate battery packs. The larger of the two would be the one that would charge overnight, and then be discharged slowly as the vehicle is in motion. The smaller would be used as a sort of “buffer”, quickly charging and discharging as the regenerative braking adds energy back to the system. This would remove a lot of SOC strain from the main pack. I assume that an ultracap would be better suited for this function, but maybe for now a specially designed Li-ion pack is acceptable.
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Oct 11th, 2007 (9:13 pm)[quote comment="10696"]That’s very interesting Dave G.
From what you posted, I gather that the Volt may have two separate battery packs. The larger of the two would be the one that would charge overnight, and then be discharged slowly as the vehicle is in motion. The smaller would be used as a sort of “buffer”, quickly charging and discharging as the regenerative braking adds energy back to the system.[/quote]
That would be both unnecessary and unwise. Battery cells that are optimized for high energy can still deliver a LOT of power if there is enough of them connected together. A single battery type should be more than sufficient for the Volt. Packaging and managing two packs would just add to the complexity of the system.
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Oct 11th, 2007 (11:25 pm)Is it not a typo error of 1600 instead of 600 Wh, last article was mentioning 500 USD/kWh, something wrong with data
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Oct 12th, 2007 (1:04 am)AES,
My point was that the big pack would not be repeatedly cycled, thereby extending its life. If a huge expensive battery pack can be made to last twice as long (or whatever), I think that is worth the added complexity.
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Oct 12th, 2007 (7:11 am)GM has not named EnerDel as a candidate to make the Volt (or any other vehicle’s pack)at this point, but as has been rightly pointed out, they have some indirect money from GM.
There is not typo, 600 watt-hours is what Mr. Gassenheimer wrote to me in an email.
I agree there is only need for one pack in the car.
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Oct 12th, 2007 (10:44 am)Dave G,
The Prius has a 1.3 kWh NiMh battery pack. Even for plain ole charge sustaining HEV this is sparse power, less than half of the Prius’s.
Lyle, could you write back to ask Mr. Gassenheimer if he didn’t make a typo?
That would be one unimpressive battery pack.
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Oct 12th, 2007 (12:20 pm)600Wh is probably more than sufficient for a hybrid task, given the high power density of lithium ion, and the extremely long life of the battery even under brutal discharge. The Prius’ pack is larger and has many more cells mostly because NiMH has poorer power density, and it needs to discharge each cell much more shallowly.
The disappointing aspect is more the cost/kWh ratio, which I too am surprised by.
Lyle- any chance you could find out what the maximum power output of this pack is?
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Oct 12th, 2007 (1:29 pm)More importantly, could you find out what the WEIGHT is??
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Oct 12th, 2007 (1:45 pm)I am sure that number is right, I am not sure about finding out weight. Most of the battery people I’ve spoken to seem to guard their w-h/kg data as competitive, including A123.
I’ll shoot him another email.
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Oct 12th, 2007 (1:46 pm)AES:
I took a look at greencarcongress. 420kg? CFRP body/frame? It may be pie in the sky today, but it is the future.
Speaking as an old road racer, I will be the first to tell you that getting rid of weight is just as good as adding battery capacity. And probably cheaper and simpler as well.
That’s why I have to sort of echo “meh” about the Vue. 4000 pounds plus does not get it when the object is to save fuel. 3000 pounds plus in the Volt is bad enough.
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Oct 12th, 2007 (2:04 pm)If you look to Altair data their 17 kg LTO/LiMn2O4 pack is quote at 72 Wh/kg which is far from bad for such powerful battery …
Thanks a lot if you can have more information especially relative to first Enerdel/Ener1 interview where VP is quotes for 500 USD/kWh with long-term goal of 250 USD, but 2500 USD is far two way expensive, safe powerful Li-Ion is less than 800 USD/kWh and will continue to decrease with volume.
If Li-Ion could be at such price no reason for Enerdel to be at 2500 USD, Manganese is the cheapest cathode material and LTO is probably not much more expensive than high quality graphite … even higher manufacturing cost in US vs Asia do not explain such huge increament.
Anyway, exciting time for large batteries.
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Oct 12th, 2007 (3:38 pm)On the matter of EnerDel’s weight: They have a diagram on their site that shows the size of an EnerDel HEV pack compared to a NiMH one, and they explicitly say 23kg as the weight:
http://www.enerdel.com/content/view/104/87/#size
Is the recently-released EnerDel pack the same as this cartoon of one? If so, 23kg and 600watt-hours would give a Wh/kg of 26, which is barely that of lead-acid!! Something has got to be off, here.
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Oct 12th, 2007 (4:02 pm)From Enerdel website you should deduce 45 Wh/kg (NiMH) * 36 / 23 which correspond to a pack of 70.4 kWh compliant with LTO/Mn technology. From Wh/l it provide a 86 Wh/l (NiMH from Cobasys pack data) * 36 / 15 = 206 Wh/l, this does not compliant at all with data from Altair and Enerdel considering their Ah for a given package …
Interesting technology but very confusing data from their website and interview …
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Oct 12th, 2007 (4:02 pm)Not to beat this subject to death, but EnerDel has previously stated that their cells met the USABC criteria for energy density, which is 80Wh/kg minimum, 100 preferred. So if this really is a 600Wh/pack, it SHOULD weight at least 7.5kg.
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Oct 12th, 2007 (4:19 pm)Right their website refers to size and volume for same amount of kWh but as their technology is much more powerful (around 5 kW/kg) they can achieve equivalent performances with only 600 Wh instead of 1.6 kWh for NiMH prius pack, battery operates in charge sustaining mode so power density is more important than energy density (1 kW/kg for NiMH). In this sense they can provide a cost-competitive solution relatively to NiMH.
But at 800 USD and less for powerful Li-Ion you can achieve an even much more cost-competitive solution ….
If Enerdel is able to produce at 500 USD/kg as quote in interview that’s a huge advance but at 2500 USD/kg due to progress of Li-Ion that’s vaporware.
Forget 100 Wh/kg for LTO/Mn battery but 70+ Wh/kg due to very long life is already great … if price is competitive.
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Oct 12th, 2007 (4:48 pm)Ah! The Fog of War! The number are all to miss lead the enenmy, baffel the public and hype the products. When I can take one for a 40 mile test drive with the AC running and look at the window sticker and hear how much the Stealer want for it then and only then will we really know. In the mean time I’ll keep driving my Hybrid and looking for a new technology Diesel.
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Oct 12th, 2007 (6:57 pm)Folks
EnerDel told me today they plan on releasing the full specs on Monday.
We’ll have it here as soon as it breaks.
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Oct 12th, 2007 (7:04 pm)Great work Lyle! Participatory journalism at its best!
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Oct 12th, 2007 (7:32 pm)AES,
I know that power density is different than energy density but even so, is their Li ion that much more dense? It seems a stretch to my admittedly ignorant eye that a 600 Wh Li ion battery can give the kick of a 1300 Wh NiMh one.
I am open to being educated.
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Oct 12th, 2007 (8:04 pm)Don-
It’s all a matter of how fast the battery can discharge the energy it holds – regardless of how much is actually in there. To use a hydraulic analogy, a big NiMH is like a large jug of water with a leaky, drippy spout. A high power lithium ion “jug” of the same size is going have its tap fully open. An ultracapacitor is going to be like tipping the whole jug over!
If you want some numbers, the Prius’ pack can produce about 375 Watts per kilogram. NiMH chemistry has a theoretical maximum of about 1000W/kg. The A123 power tool cells produce well over 3000W/kg! As for EnerDel, we’ll just have to wait and find out.
So the more powerful the cell, the less of them you have to have to produce the desired amount of power assist.
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Oct 13th, 2007 (12:07 pm)Cool wait for more news on monday
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Oct 18th, 2007 (3:51 pm)What we really want to see is the “C”
rating.
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Oct 18th, 2007 (7:55 pm)We can get an approximate guess at the weight by figuring out the cubic millimeters of the pack (pack dimentions are on thier web site) and multiplying that by some known wieght of existing lipo batteries.
Obviously this is a guess but better than nothing. I have also requested this info in an email. Let’s see how they respond
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Oct 19th, 2007 (10:26 am)Most of the lithium technolgies available today have similar charge/density numbers. A123 is lower than most because it has a heavy metal can form factor. The reason is heat management and physical strength against punctures, crushing, etc. Enerdel’s design is high density with excellent heat management. Their cell is the only one I know of that will meet the high current discharge and survive puncture/crush tests without turning into a blowtorch.
Having alot of experience with lithium technolgy and r/c, I would not want a car with a huge firebomb under the back seat.
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Oct 25th, 2007 (10:55 pm)Lyle,
What happened to them releasing those specs. It got buried in thre Th!nk release methinks.
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Jun 18th, 2008 (12:04 am)from http://www.autobloggreen.com/2008/06/09/enerdel-puts-a-lithium-ion-pack-in-a-th-nk-city-ev/
“indicates that EnerDel is on schedule to meet the year-end timetable for volume production under its supply agreement with Think Global.” It seems like the battery pack is a 27 kWh pack, just like the three EnerDel sent to Think Global earlier this year.”
So it is 27 kWh not 600 Wh, and nanotechnology does not catch fire like other lithium batteries in case of accident, research this if you doubt new technology superiority.
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Aug 17th, 2009 (7:01 pm)Я совершенно случайно зашел на этот блог, но задержался тут надолго. Задержался, потому что все очень интересно. Обязательно скажу о вас всем своим приятелям.
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