- Reaction score
- 33
- Points
- 560
Most current hybrids use fairly advanced (and expensive) Nickle Metal Hydride or even more expensive Lithium Ion batteries for the electric portion of the powerpack. Nickle Cadmium (Ni Cad) batteries have too limited a life (and are toxic to boot), while Lead Acid batteries are heavy and have a very short service life.
This company may have found a way to repackage the traditional lead acid battery in a new way which reduces weight, extends service life and reduces cost. (Diesel electric submarines would also benefit....)
http://www.technologyreview.com/NanoTech/wtr_16278,303,p1.html
link to read the rest
This company may have found a way to repackage the traditional lead acid battery in a new way which reduces weight, extends service life and reduces cost. (Diesel electric submarines would also benefit....)
http://www.technologyreview.com/NanoTech/wtr_16278,303,p1.html
Batteries that Don't Die
New technologies are transforming an old workhorse, promising all-electric lawnmowers and hybrid military vehicles.
By Kevin Bullis
Inexpensive and rugged lead-acid batteries, as everyone knows, can start a car in the dead of winter. But their excessive weight and their tradeoff between power and life -- the powerful version in your car doesn't last more than a few years -- have kept them out of hybrid vehicles and prevented their widespread use in all-electric vehicles.
Now the humble lead-acid battery has been gutted and redesigned, cutting its weight, extending its lifetime, and putting it in the same performance category as the nickel-metal hydride batteries used in today's hybrid cars, according to Firefly Energy, a Peoria IL company that's developing the new batteries for specific applications.
These new batteries are about one-third to one-quarter as heavy as traditional lead-acid batteries, and can be made about as powerful as nickel-metal hydride batteries without sacrificing longevity, says Mil Ovan, senior vice president and Firefly cofounder.
But the main advantage of the new batteries, he says, is price. Because lead is relatively cheap, and a huge infrastructure already exists to make lead-acid batteries, the company is confident they can produce the batteries at one-fifth the cost of nickel-metal hydrides. What's more, if hybrid cars become more popular, as expected, the cost-gap could widen as demand for nickel rises. "There's probably not enough nickel to put into everybody's car. Lead is more abundant," says I. Francis Cheng of the University of Idaho, who's developing advanced lead-acid batteries for the military.
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