700 Mile Battery

[Adarondax]

Although it’s difficult to pinpoint exactly what it would take to alleviate electric car “range anxiety,” I’ll go out on a limb and say that for the vast majority of people 732 miles on a charge would more than suffice.

While such a technology doesn’t exist, Japanese researchers at Sumitomo Electric have come up with a breakthrough that could in effect triple the energy capacity of lithium-ion batteries, making it a very real possibility. It’s called Aluminum-Celmet, a 98 percent porous material that, when used in place of a standard aluminum foil anode, allows for electric car batteries to be packed with a lot more lithium.

Read more at...

http://www.smartplanet.com/blog/thin...54?tag=nl.e660

[Driverguy01]

Everytime somebody talks about a new battery breaktrough, they ALWAYS forget about the other end of the line: our house wiring capacity. our wiring is for 110v or 240v, now at 240, for the Volt, takes 4 hours to recharge the battery. that's about 11KW of power for an average of 50 driving miles. the most you could get out of our house wiring as it is right now is probably 12 hours of charging at 12amps wich gives you 150 miles of driving or if you have even bigger wiring for 20 amps and a charger that can handle that would give you about 300 miles of driving with the volt, so recharging a 700 miles capacity battery is probably out of the question today unless you have a way of capturing that amount of electricity in a station installed in your house that charges 24 hours a day to pack about 70KW of reserve that you can then transfer to your car afterwards, then it's feasable. You can make anykind of battery you want, but, you will be limited in the amount of KW/H you can transfer from our existing home wiring.

[Adarondax]

Everytime somebody talks about a new battery breaktrough, they ALWAYS forget about the other end of the line: our house wiring capacity...

You are correct. The bigger the battery, the longer it will take to charge.

[Raymondjram]

Most homes have electrical service rated at 100 Amps or greater, according to the original electrical planning, or an upgrade done later. You can have a 220 VAC 50 amp charger installed, which gives about 10 KW per hour.So for 70 KWH, just have it charged for 7 hours or more.

The only drawback is the J1772 connector which is limited to a maximum of 30 Amps as of now. Future installations and versions will easily cover the 50 Amp service, and newer EV's with the better battery will also have larger cables to handle higher currents:

"The Yazaki plug that was built to the new SAE J1772 plug standard successfully completed certification at UL. It is only certified to 30A although the standard is written to 80A. The standard specification was subsequently voted upon by the SAE committee in July 2009.[6] On January 14, 2010 the SAE J1772 REV 2009 was adopted by the SAE Motor Vehicle Council.[7] The companies participating in or supporting the revised -2009 standard include GM, Chrysler, Ford, Toyota, Honda, Nissan, and Tesla."

So a 700 mile EV is doable. If the J1772 can be used at 80 Amps, that allows over 15 KW per hour. The newer EVs will charge up even faster!

[voltskeptic]

Come on folks, how many people travel 700mi everyday?

Only truckers need to driver 700mi day after day, and I don't think they're going to have an EV semi any time soon. Ostensibly one would charge the battery to 80%, then have to perform supplemental charges for their daily usage which for most people would be somewhere around 2-3 hrs with a 6.6kW charger. Some will need more, some less, but people will not be charging to recover from 700mi trips daily or even weekly, if they are they have a life I wouldn't want to live. I know my body can't handle being in a car for 10hrs a day on a regular basis.

An EV is not for everybody, it is best for those who average 50mi of driving a day. A 700mi range would mean that EV's would work for long trips and that a family (that does long trips) can survive with just an EV and wouldn't need to get a Volt to satisfy the long trip requirement. It will not mean we have to re-wire every house.

[Rusty]

An EV is not for everybody, it is best for those who average 50mi of driving a day. A 700mi range would mean that EV's would work for long trips and that a family (that does long trips) can survive with just an EV and wouldn't need to get a Volt to satisfy the long trip requirement.

I have only one family trip where a 700 mile battery would fill the bill. All the others are much longer.

What a 700 mile battery (in the current form and weight factor) would give you is a real 100 mile battery in 1/4th the size and weight (after accounting the the EPA 73% rule and the charging max 80% suggestion). Which would be were it'd go.

We can debate what the right size max EV-only battery car is. Apparently the Leaf's "100 miles" isn't it. I put that in quotes because the EPA says 73, and that's at a manufacturer recommended against 100% charge. So a real 100 mile battery needs to be more like a 170 mile battery.

Is 100 real miles enough? Dunno. We'll need to watch the market and see how it shakes itself out. Would a 700 mile battery (~400 after deductions) be too much? I'd sure think so!

[Kevin from Canada]

The charging problem really only applies if you travel 700 miles on a daily basis. If I am driving 700 miles for a holiday, chances are I'm staying more than a day or two, and the car could be recharged for the trip back.

I think a car with this range would work for 99.5% of the population. Do I think I'll see it anytime soon? Nope!

I can't even buy a plug in Suv or an electric car with a meager 35 - 75 miles range in Canada yet. (which by the way, I can't wait to do)

[RobertSullivan]

For driving all around town I would think 200 miles of range would give you a comfortable feeling. Even if the weather was cold and it was really only 120 miles. some days i can put 60 miles on the car with work and side trips. So I recharge a lot to stay all electric. If it were always just the commute, which is 30 miles round-trip but there are always side trips it seems.

[scottf200]

For driving all around town I would think 200 miles of range would give you a comfortable feeling. Even if the weather was cold and it was really only 120 miles. some days i can put 60 miles on the car with work and side trips. So I recharge a lot to stay all electric. If it were always just the commute, which is 30 miles round-trip but there are always side trips it seems.

This is part of the point I was going to make as I was reading the thread.

Forget miles and the 700 numbers. Think in terms of "no compromise" that may be holding back some of the general population. Not me...but think of some of the excuse or reason there are out there.
- run heater as hot as I want/need in the Fall/Winter/Spring
- run a/c as cool as I want/need in the Spring/Winter/Fall
- power seats
- 70+ for those on roads/in_traffic that make sense
- etc, etc
- miss a charge at night, no big deal,
- in some case only need to charge once a week (ie. the weekend)

[tangentlin]

The current 40-mi battery weights 400 lbs according to GM. If the future 700-mi battery weighs just as much, may I wishfully think that the battery for 40-mi would be around 70-lb ... cool enough that I could just put them in like AA batteries? ;-) More batteries I put in the car, the longer the range I would get?

So on a typical day I only need short-range driving, I could leave the rest of the batteries sipping electricity from power outlet (or best yet from the Sun), when the day comes that I need to travel longer distance, those batteries would be good and ready.