Bush is an ASSHOLE!

[Mangle]

Did you know they had electric cars in 1899-1900? I wonder why that technology was abandoned till now.

[Leviathan]

Yeah I do actually

There hasn't been a major breakthrough in battery technology really for over a hundred years. Now with Lithium Polymer batteries we are finally starting to see decent energy storage density. The reason electric cars never took off was because it takes 8 + hours to charge them. Electric cars still haven't taken off and won't take off because of that issue.

Originally Posted by Mangle

Did you know they had electric cars in 1899-1900? I wonder why that technology was abandoned till now.

[stephen_c]

Originally Posted by Leviathan

Yeah I do actually

There hasn't been a major breakthrough in battery technology really for over a hundred years. Now with Lithium Polymer batteries we are finally starting to see decent energy storage density. The reason electric cars never took off was because it takes 8 + hours to charge them. Electric cars still haven't taken off and won't take off because of that issue.

no, it only takes 40 mins to 2 hrs to charge an electric car
from 220/240 volts chargers.

http://home.earthlink.net/~bdewey/EV_charging.html

the problem w/ electric cars are range, public infrastructure,
expensive batteries and environmental issues related to disposin old batteries.

[Leviathan]

Energy storage density = range

That article doesn't give any real information, so I did a quick check on the Ev1 electric vehicle and they use lead acid batteries with the option to get a nickel metal hydrides.

http://www.automotive-technology.com/projects/gmev1/

The 220/ 240V charger just allows them to dump more current into the battery and get less I^2*R losses in the lines. The more current you dump into the battery at any given point is going to generate more heat due to internal resistance and coulombic efficiency.

Without an actual battery capacity size stated, 40mins - 2 hours means nothing. I can charge my 60Ah car battery at 240Amps and get them charged in 15 mins but it wouldn't moved the car very far and would be detrimental to the battery without proper cooling. EDIT HERE: I was suggesting that a 60Ah battery wouldn't get an electric car very far, I wasn't suggesting that a normal car runs off the battery :)

Actually it looks like the EV1 electric car only gets 55 to 95 miles right now so the battery must be relatively small. I was suggesting that a car that could go a decent range would take 4 - 8 hours. This type of thing can be seen in any warehouse that has battery operated forklifts.

I can also tell you that fast charging systems for PbA batteries tend to shorten their life drastically. The nickel metal hydride batteries are a whole different ball game all together as they are a pain in the ass to calculate the state of charge on. Not only is the SOC hard to calculate but if you over charge them, they go into thermal runaway and accept more charge until they vent, so its not ideal to try and fast charge them like Lead Acid technology.

Needless to say I have quite a bit of experience in energy storage systems as I've spent 4.5 years evaluating fuel cell applications and the last 1.5y working on hybrid system and energy storage system design. :)

Originally Posted by stephen_c

no, it only takes 40 mins to 2 hrs to charge an electric car
from 220/240 volts chargers.

http://home.earthlink.net/~bdewey/EV_charging.html

the problem w/ electric cars are range, public infrastructure,
expensive batteries and environmental issues related to disposin old batteries.

[Cdn_Brdr]

Totally sidetracking here but I love it when someone who actually knows what they're talking about comes into a thread and owns the know-it-alls who are speaking out of their rear ends :)

[esoter1c]

I saw some GM commercial sayin they got like a million cars in the us runnin on 80% ethanol now....the slogan was go yellow or some shit.

[stephen_c]

Originally Posted by Leviathan

Energy storage density = range

That article doesn't give any real information, so I did a quick check on the Ev1 electric vehicle and they use lead acid batteries with the option to get a nickel metal hydrides.

http://www.automotive-technology.com/projects/gmev1/

The 220/ 240V charger just allows them to dump more current into the battery and get less I^2*R losses in the lines. The more current you dump into the battery at any given point is going to generate more heat due to internal resistance and coulombic efficiency.

Without an actual battery capacity size stated, 40mins - 2 hours means nothing. I can charge my 60Ah car battery at 240Amps and get them charged in 15 mins but it wouldn't moved the car very far and would be detrimental to the battery without proper cooling. EDIT HERE: I was suggesting that a 60Ah battery wouldn't get an electric car very far, I wasn't suggesting that a normal car runs off the battery :)

Actually it looks like the EV1 electric car only gets 55 to 95 miles right now so the battery must be relatively small. I was suggesting that a car that could go a decent range would take 4 - 8 hours. This type of thing can be seen in any warehouse that has battery operated forklifts.

I can also tell you that fast charging systems for PbA batteries tend to shorten their life drastically. The nickel metal hydride batteries are a whole different ball game all together as they are a pain in the ass to calculate the state of charge on. Not only is the SOC hard to calculate but if you over charge them, they go into thermal runaway and accept more charge until they vent, so its not ideal to try and fast charge them like Lead Acid technology.

Needless to say I have quite a bit of experience in energy storage systems as I've spent 4.5 years evaluating fuel cell applications and the last 1.5y working on hybrid system and energy storage system design. :)

look i am not questioning ur knowledge on batteries.
i am sure u know much more than me on that subject.
but ur initial estimation was off.
in ur first post, u said
"it takes 8 + hours to charge them"
that number was as much as halfed in ur reply where u said
"go a decent range would take 4 - 8 hours"
in the link i posted
http://home.earthlink.net/~bdewey/EV_charging.html
the figures are
"I can get up to an 80% charge in 40 minutes"
is 80% charge in 40 minutes decent to u?

if u read my post #28 again, last sentence,
we're pretty much on the same page when it cames to batteries and range.

[Leviathan]

What I'm getting at is its easy to get to 80% SOC in 40 minutes with the small batteries in that particular car. If you want to go a decent rage your going to be using batteries that are much bigger and will not allow you to charge that quick ie in the 4 - 8 hour range depending on how dead the battery is.

Originally Posted by stephen_c

look i am not questioning ur knowledge on batteries.
i am sure u know much more than me on that subject.
but ur initial estimation was off.
in ur first post, u said
"it takes 8 + hours to charge them"
that number was as much as halfed in ur reply where u said
"go a decent range would take 4 - 8 hours"
in the link i posted
http://home.earthlink.net/~bdewey/EV_charging.html
the figures are
"I can get up to an 80% charge in 40 minutes"
is 80% charge in 40 minutes decent to u?

if u read my post #28 again, last sentence,
we're pretty much on the same page when it cames to batteries and range.

[stephen_c]

Originally Posted by Leviathan

What I'm getting at is its easy to get to 80% SOC in 40 minutes with the small batteries in that particular car. If you want to go a decent rage your going to be using batteries that are much bigger and will not allow you to charge that quick ie in the 4 - 8 hour range depending on how dead the battery is.

understood.

btw, gm discontinued the ev1 5 years ago
that article is 8 yrs old.

there is an electric commuter car from washington
http://commutercars.com/intro.html
according to them:

"Its 80-mile range is nearly 4 times the distance the average commuter travels per day. With high-tech batteries, range could exceed 150 miles per charge.

To minimize any day-time inconvenience, the Tango can charge to 80% in just 10 minutes from a 200 amp charging station. This gives approximately 50 additional miles of range per quick-charge. Typically one would just plug in each night to a dryer outlet and get a complete charge in less than 3 hours and be ready for work the next morning."

so that's 80% charge in 10 minutes good for 50 miles.
not great range,
but the fun part is big torque from the electric motor:

"As far as performance goes, the Tango is no slouch. Since electric cars--especially small ones--are generally thought to be slow and weak performers we set out to blow some minds by designing the Tango to accelerate through the standing 1/4 mile in 12 seconds at over 120 mph and travel from 0 to 60 mph in 4 seconds"

[Leviathan]

Yeah I could tell that article was old based on the fact they were using Lead acid batteries, anything newer would be using NiMH or possibley LiPoly.There are some really interesting things happening right now. The Prius is going to be moving over to Lithium Polymer batteries which have way better energy storage and are super light. The biggest breakthrough in battery technology is most likely going to be with Super Caps which have been around for decades.

There is a company down south called eestor that are saying that they can build a super cap in the 500Ah range that is much smaller and lighter than the equivelant battery and costs half as much. It can be charged within 15 minutes and has a much batter life time because it is a capacitor and not a battery. The only thing is they refuse to release any info on it.

We'll see what happens I'm heading to an advanced automotive battery conference next month in baltimore that honda and toyota sponsor so it will be interesting to see what they have to say.

[stephen_c]

ok one sec.
i re-read the specs for the tango.
is that 0% to 80% in 10 mins
and 0% to 100% in less than 3 hrs
OR
they assume u should never drain the batteries below 25%
cuz that'll kill the cycle life of the batteries.
on the specs page it says:

"Tango were driven to 80% DOD (depth of discharge) or more (approximately 64 to 80 miles regularly between charges), the pack will only yield 250 cycles. This works out to approximately 16 cents per mile with current Optima Yellow Top prices of $100. However, if discharged to 25% DOD (20 to 24 miles between charges), the chart shows 4,000 cycles can be achieved yielding 80,000 miles with a cost of only 3.1 cents per mile."

so maybe they mean 25% to 80% charge in 10 mins
and 25% to 100% charge in less than 3 hrs

[stephen_c]

oh shit no,
that's 25% DOD
so that's 75% to 80% in 10 mins good for 50 miles?
that can't be it?

[stephen_c]

Originally Posted by Leviathan

We'll see what happens I'm heading to an advanced automotive battery conference next month in baltimore that honda and toyota sponsor so it will be interesting to see what they have to say.

u work @ballard?