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Showing results for tags 'lithium ion'.
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EV Battery War Heats UP, Asia Versus America! Seems America, Tesla and the department of energy have created the next war. This is the Battery war, Lithium Ion versus Solid State batteries and Japan is behind. As such according to the story in the Nikkei, the Japanese government is funding research by leading Japanese manufacturers to develop what they believe will power the EVs of the future. This group brings together the Japanese Consortium for Lithium Ion Battery Technology and Evaluation Center (Libtec) with Toyota Motor, Nissan Motor, Honda Motor, Panasonic and battery maker GS Yuasa to develop rapid charging solid-state batteries that are easier to manufacture, safer, denser energy and costs less. The story goes on to say that Toyota's Solid State battery technology is considered to be the most advanced in the world, but is not commercialized yet. This new consortium is meant to make this happen by being funded by the Japanese government. This should help Japan beat China, Korea and the US in having the fastest charging, safest and densest battery packs in the world. Current market numbers are that global battery market shows Japan had 70% in 2013 but shrunk to 41% today, China and Korea combine for 26% today from 3% in 2013 The consortium is quoted as bringing the smaller but denser 400km Toyota solid state battery pack to market in the next 18 months in current EVs and have the size grow of the solid state batteries grow very little while having 550km batteries by 2025 and 800km batteries by 2030. For those that are a bit rusty on their metric, this equates to 249, 342, and 497 miles of range in a small dense battery pack. Japan industry ministry is eager for the country to reclaim its global dominance by setting the standard for solid-state batteries. Nikkei Story -
G. David Felt Alternative Fuels & Propulsion writer www.CheersandGears.com Tesla Roadster 3.0 and 400 mile range reality? Tesla gave a late Xmas present to electric advocates on December 26th 2014. Roadster 3.0 was posted covering the following top 3 topics: 1. Batteries, 2. Aerodynamics and 3. Rolling Resistance. Tesla talks about the how their battery from 2008 was revolutionary in the auto industry and while it was good then and up till now for their current S sedan, lithium ion battery advances have pushed them to get 31% more energy from the same size battery pack. This new cell now gives approximately 70k Wh in the original battery package. Tesla then moves on to talk about their drag coefficient of .36 on current Roadster and how with a new Retrofit aero kit they can drop it to .31 a 15% improvement. The final bit of technology info is how Tesla talks about rolling resistance on the current Roadster which has a 11.0 kg/ton. An upgrade will give a 20% improvement by allowing the Roadster 3.0 to have a Crr of approximately 8.9 kg/ton. With this improvement come additional improvements for residual brake drag and wheel bearing to reduce drag. This last part is particularly noticeable as anyone who has driven a Chevy Suburban and then gotten into a Cadillac Escalade ESV will notice how much better the Cadillac glides showing that the quality of Bearings, brakes, seals, etc. all can help to reduce drag. Tesla's summary of these improvements is that Roadster 3.0 can achieve an estimates 40-50% improvement on Range over the original Roadster. Tesla goes on to say that they expect to prove this in the early weeks of 2015 with a drive from San Francisco to Los Angeles that is to be non-stop. Tesla finishes up by stating that they will open up for appointments to be made starting Spring of 2015 for existing Roadsters to be upgraded with these 3 major focus points once the battery pack finishes safety validation. They go on to say this will not be the last of the upgrades for existing and new Roadster owners. As of this writing there were 45 comments posted. As expected they are all positive, and yet many also are giving suggestions for powertrain upgrades for performance rather than battery life, reduced weight for better handling or a combination of them. Seems many want their cake and eat it too. This brings up an interesting question, if Tesla is getting ready to release a battery pack that can go 400 miles on a charge, what will Volt 2.0 be for GM or Toyota have for the Prius family of autos? Could we see a change over from gas to electric faster than people have expected?
