Texas to get electric car fast charging networks

The oil state better known for Chevy Suburbans will soon have a network of 70 electric vehicle charging stations installed in the Dallas-Fort Worth metro area and another 50 in the Houston area by the end of next year.

NRG Energy Inc said in a statement Friday that half of the privately funded charging stations should be in place by Labor Day. NRG planned to unveil the first of the charging stations later in the day at a Walgreen's Drug Store in Dallas.

NRG also plans to install stations along the Interstate 45 corridor in Texas next year.

The first "Freedom Station" recharger will have a 480-volt direct current fast charger that can add 30 miles of range to an electric car in as little as 10 minutes, and a 240-volt charger that can add up to 25 miles in an hour, the company said in a statement. Freedom Stations will be available 24 hours a day and include a tower with a camera that gives users access to customer service.

The network also will include "Convenience Stations" that have 240-volt chargers that will be available during the host retail business' operating hours, NRG said.

NRG said it will charge users a flat monthly fee for charging plans. The company's complete plan costs $89 per month and covers the home charger, unlimited access to the charging network for free, and the cost of electricity to charge the car at home during off-peak hours. It also will offer a 240-volt home charger for $49 per month.

"Inaugurating the first Freedom Station in the Dallas-Fort Worth metroplex is a critical first step toward making electric vehicles the smart and convenient choice for Texans who want to reduce their cost of driving while contributing to cleaner air and America's energy independence," NRG President and CEO David Crane said in a statement.

Crane said the company was taking a page from Southwest Airlines when it started 40 years ago linking the major metro areas in Texas. Eventually electric car drivers will be able to use the system to drive through the region with confidence that they won't run out of electricity, the company said.

Princeton, N.J.-based NRG Energy owns and develops power plants to sell electricity in the wholesale market.

Nissan Motor Co. and General Motors Co. recently have rolled out rechargeable battery-powered cars in the U.S., with several other automakers scheduled to bring out models this year. Through the end of March, GM sold 1,210 Chevrolet Volts, while Nissan sold 452 Leaf electric cars.

DBM Lithium Metal Polymer battery undergoing testing @ BAM [video]

We reported last week on results of the Lithium Metal Polymer battery developed by DBM Energy having passed extensive safety and independent range checks performed by the BAM Federal Institute for Materials Research and Dekra.

Technical details are somewhat lost in translation but DBM claim 5000 cycles to end of life with an energy density of 300 Wh/kg having been mentioned for these cells.

The video is narrated in German but English caption can be viewed by clicking on the 'CC' button below the video.

DBM Energy

Lithium Air Batteries Will Give EVs the Same Range as Gas Cars

Li-air batteries are a promising opportunity for electric cars. "If we succeed in developing this technology, we are facing the ultimate break-through for electric cars, because in practice, the energy density of Li-air batteries will be comparable to that of petrol and diesel, if you take into account that a combustion engine only has an efficiency of around 30 per cent," says Tejs Vegge, senior scientist in the Materials Research Division at Risø DTU. If batteries with an energy density this great become a reality, one could easily imagine electrically powered trucks.

The electric car was introduced by Edison as early as 1900. But, as we all know, Henry Ford's vehicle concept with a noisy, smelly combustion engine won the race to become people's most treasured individual means of transport, despite the fact that in principle, the combustion engine is hopeless.

Then, as now, the Achilles' heel of the electric car was the limited energy density of the batteries, which will only sustain short drives. Now -- 110 years later -- the battery technology, combined with the effect electronics and the electric engine, have come so far in performance, size and price that the electric car is again becoming interesting. The electric car does not pollute locally and it can, if used cleverly, be utilised to introduce more renewable energy into the electricity supply.

Electric cars are a good match for a society that has abandoned the use of fossil fuels.
This is why electric cars have been reborn as an important factor in the vision of a society without fossil fuels, and the first electric cars have already hit the roads, albeit in very limited numbers and with very short ranges between recharges.

The advantages of the electric car are first and foremost that it can be integrated into the electricity system and potentially serve as a buffer in the electricity system of tomorrow, where most of our electricity originates from fluctuating renewable energy. Where there is excess electricity from e.g. wind turbines, the electric cars can be charged. When there is a shortage of electricity, some of the power can be returned to the electricity grid. The other major advantage is that, if mass-produced, the electric car could be cheaper to produce than the current cars.

2 tonnes of batteries or 50 litres of gasoline

Today, battery packs are expensive and are only able to store a relatively low amount of energy. Researchers all over the world are working to change that. In the current setting, an electric car is no good if you are taking the family on holiday to Lake Garda in Italy. For electric cars to become the consumers' preferred mode of transport, the battery capacity must be significantly increased. In Risø Energy Report 9, page 58, you can read that the energy density in today's batteries is almost two orders lower than that of fossil fuels. This means that a battery pack containing energy corresponding to 50 litres of petrol, would weigh between 1.5 and 2 tonnes.

Lithium is a soft, silver-white metal -- the lightest of all metals. Lithium is extremely reactive and corrodes quickly in a humid atmosphere. There, lithium is typically stored under kerosene or in a protective atmosphere to avoid contact with oxygen and water.

The most promising electric car batteries are based on the metal lithium (Li). Lithium is a soft, silver-white metal -- the lightest of all metals. Lithium is extremely reactive and corrodes quickly in a humid atmosphere. There, lithium is typically stored under kerosene to avoid contact with oxygen and water. The lightness is one of the strengths of lithium. Traditional car batteries are based on lead (Pb), which is one of the heaviest metals in existence. To reduce the weight of batteries, lithium is the way to go, which is also substantiated by the prominence of rechargeable Li-ion batteries in e.g. mobile phones, cameras and MP3 and MP4 players. These batteries have the highest energy density among rechargeable batteries.

The lithium battery market is going to grow exponentially, and a discussion has already emerged whether there is going to be enough lithium to electrify the entire world's car park. Lithium is naturally occurring with approx. 65 g per tonne in top soil and approx. 0.1 g per tonne of water and can be extracted from soil as well as water, but if the lithium content is small, the extraction is costly.

In addition to the use in batteries, lithium is used in anti-depressants, ceramics, glass, aluminium production, lubricants and synthetic rubber. In the future (after 2050), lithium will probably also be used in fusions reactors for electricity production. The world's lithium reserves are found in countries such as Chile, China, Australia, Russia, Argentina, the USA, Zimbabwe and Bolivia. Lately, large deposits have been found in Afghanistan -- so large that the USA has dubbed the country 'the Saudi Arabia of lithium'. In Bolivia, lithium is found in large quantities under Salar de Uyuni -- the world's largest salt lake. Last year, Bolivia's president Morales announced that the country is going to invest DKK 5 billion in extracting lithium from the dried-out salt lake that covers more than 10,000 square kilometres and contains more than a quarter of the world's total lithium deposits.

The fight over the world's lithium resources will intensify in the future, but the upside is that the lithium part of batteries can be recycled, so when the batteries are worn out, the lithium can be extracted and form part of a new battery.

Li-air batteries could have the same efficient energy density as gasoline

Li-air batteries are a promising opportunity in the long term. "If we succeed in developing this technology, we are facing the ultimate break-through for electric cars, because in practice, the energy density of Li-air batteries will be comparable to that of petrol and diesel, if you take into account that a combustion engine only has an efficiency of around 30 per cent," says Tejs Vegge, senior scientist in the Materials Research Division. If batteries with an energy density this great become a reality, one could easily imagine electrically powered trucks. Li-air batteries are thus a promising research area, but there are many research challenges to overcome before the batteries find their way to the electric cars.

The development of rechargeable batteries has moved slowly since the invention of the traditional lead-acid batteries, which are still used in the majority of e.g. starter batteries for conventional cars. The development of the Li-ion batteries marked a significant leap in the energy density of the rechargeable batteries. The final break-through may belong to the Li-air batteries which, in practice, could have the same efficient energy density as petrol. Source: Lithium -- Air Battery: Promise and Challenges, G. Girishkumar, B. McCloskey, A.C. Luntz, S. Swanson and W. Wilcke, IBM Research, published in J.Phys.Chem.Lett.2010,1,2193-2203.

The Li-air battery is designed with a lithium electrode (the anode), and electrolyte and a porous carbon electrode (the cathode), which attracts the oxygen from the air when the battery is in operation. The battery is therefore, so to speak, open at one end, or it has an oxygen supply of its own. During discharge, oxygen reacts with lithium to form lithium peroxide (Li2O2), and during charging, this process is reversed to release oxygen. Both reactions take place on the surface of the porous carbon electrode.

Battery resembles humans: Gains weight and becomes short of breath

The interaction with air requires the electrode to have a very large surface area. The prototypes being worked on now have a current density of approx. 1 milliamp per square centimetre surface area, and this has to be increased by at least one order before the batteries are ready to be used in real life.

The fact that the battery absorbs oxygen atoms from the air means that the battery gains weight as it being discharged. Theoretically, the battery can more than double its weight.
At the same time, the electrode could become short of breath, so to speak. The oxygen absorbed by the battery reacts with lithium to form lithium peroxide, which may cause clogging of aggregates in the battery's channels, causing them to become blocked and preventing the supply of further oxygen. "In our trials, we use pure oxygen, so we are okay, but the problems accumulate when the oxygen has to be extracted from ordinary air," says Søren Højgaard Jensen from the Fuel Cells and Solid State Chemistry Division. Ordinary air also contains moisture, and it must be taken into consideration that, as mentioned above, lithium and humidity do not make an attractive combination.

Difficult to charge

En extremely high overvoltage is required to recharge the battery again after a discharge. The so-called equilibrium voltage for the Li-air battery is 3 volts. When the battery is discharged, the voltage drops to 2.6-2.7 volts. But when you want to recharge the battery, the voltage must be increased to 4.5 volts. In comparison, a Li-ion battery can be recharged at an overvoltage of only 10 per cent.

"The discharge process is proceeding really well. Our problem is that the reverse process has a very high energy loss," says senior scientist Poul Norby, Materials Research Division. "The high overvoltage for recharging is hard going for the current battery components, which limits the number of times the battery can be recharged," says Poul Norby. The cyclic energy loss in charging/recharging is about 40 per cent in Li-air batteries. The challenge is to reduce this number to 10 per cent, corresponding to Li-ion batteries.

In order to solve this issue, Tejs Vegge performs extensive computer calculations, so-called DFT calculations (Density Functional Theory), on the Li-air batteries. Using this method, it is possible -- at atom level applying an approximation to the famous Schrödinger equation, to calculate how the lithium and oxygen atoms interact. "In this way, we hope to find an explanation of the high overvoltage and a solution to what we can do to reduce it, e.g. by adding an appropriate catalyst," says Tejs Vegge.

In addition to the computer calculations, the batteries are examined using X-ray and neutron rays. These techniques allow the scientists to study how ions and electrons move in the electrode-electrolyte interfaces when the battery is charged and discharged. "We focus particularly on solid-state electrolytes because they offer safety and transport advantages. Large lithium batteries with liquid electrolytes could pose a safety risk in the event of accidents," says Tejs Vegge.

Finally, the battery properties are tested in practice. Testing of large lithium batteries takes place in a converted chest freezer in the laboratories of the Fuel Cells and Solid State Chemistry Division. "The batteries have to be able to withstand heavy frost and extreme heat, and we can subject them to that in our converted chest freezer, which is able to cool objects down to -60°C and heat them to around 50°C," says Søren Højgaard Jensen.

Must recharge quickly -- and at least 300 times

Today, metal-air batteries are only used as disposable batteries for special purposes with high energy density requirements, e.g. for military equipment, and zinc-air batteries are used as disposable batteries in e.g. hearing aids.

If the battery is to withstand a car running e.g. 250,000 kilometres during its lifetime, and the battery is able to deliver approx. 800 kilometres from one charge, it must be able to handle full charging and discharging at least 300 times. Li-air battery prototypes can currently handle 50 charges, so the researchers are faced with other scientific challenges.

In addition to the number of charges the battery must be able to withstand, it must also be possible to charge it quickly. "Think about the volume of energy transferred when you put petrol into your car. It takes a couple of minutes, and then you can go another 800-1000 kilometres. This is a true challenge for the Li-air batteries, because they may potentially be able to contain the same amount of energy as petrol, but it takes considerably longer to refuel," says Tejs Vegge

LG claims world's largest electric car battery plant

South Korea's LG Chem on Wednesday completed what it described as the world's largest battery plant for electric cars and vowed to become a major producer by 2015.

The company said its factory in Ochang, south of Seoul, is the world's largest lithium-ion battery plant, with the capacity to produce batteries for around 100,000 electric cars each year.

LG Chem, part of the LG group, said it would spend two trillion won ($1.84 billion) on building one new battery plant in South Korea and another in the United States over the next two years.
The plants, when completed in 2013, will help LG Chem produce batteries for 350,000 vehicles annually.

LG Chem aims to increase its share of the global electric-car battery market to more than 25 percent by 2015.

The company has secured deals to provide batteries for General Motors electric vehicles, including the Chevrolet Volt, as well as Hyundai and eight other automakers.

President Lee Myung-Bak said at a ceremony in Ochang that South Korea's future depended on its performance in environment-friendly technologies.

Lee said green growth was an "unavoidable choice" in the times of climate change.
The battery plant is a key plank of Lee's drive to develop renewable and substitute energy sources as new growth engines for South Korea's economy, the president's office said.

It predicts the global market for electric car batteries is expected to grow rapidly to 16 trillion won in 2015 from the current 1.5 trillion won amid soaring oil prices and tougher environmental rules on emissions.

DBM Audi A2 independently tested by DEKRA confirms 714 km range

KOLIBRI batteries run by DBM Energy, the company behind the Audi A2 electric car that drove 600 km from Munich in southern Germany to Berlin on a single charge, have released details of extensive safety and independent range checks performed on their lithium-polymer based battery technology.

Tests were conducted by the BAM Federal Institute for Materials Research to confirm the battery cells meet all UN test series safety requirements.

Independent range tests were conducted at the DEKRA test center. The A2 being tested had a 62.928 kWh battery pack. The UN ECE R101 Emission of carbon dioxide and fuel consumption test confirmed a distance of 454.82 kilometers. Applied to the battery capacity used during the Munich to Berlin world record of 98.8 kWh from a 115 kWh pack, this represents a range of 714 km (446 miles) on a single charge.

While that is very impressive, if the same 115 kWh battery pack was combined with the recently announced SIM-LEI direct drive wheel motor powered EV which consumes only 77 wh/km (compared to 138 wh/km for the DBM A2) the potential range would be 1283 km or just over 800 miles on a single charge. Now that would be a game changer!

Press Release

Long driving range coming for electric cars: A123

A123 is working on several research and development projects that could drastically improve the driving range for electric vehicles, A123 co-founder and R&D head Bart Riley said Thursday.

The Waltham, Mass.-based firm develops and manufactures lithium-ion batteries for a number of applications, including electric vehicles. Riley, the company’s chief technology officer and vice president of R&D, was the keynote speaker Thursday at the 5th Annual Babson Energy and Environmental Conference, and afterwards spoke with the Business Journal.

Riley said A123 is “sprinting” to cut the cost and improve the mileage range of electric vehicles by making advances in its lithium-ion battery technology. The higher cost and low driving range of electric vehicles are the major challenges for making the vehicles competitive in the market, and advances in batteries are seen as the key to solving both problems.
Riley said the goal is to produce a battery with enough energy density that it could enable a 300-mile driving range. Currently, car makers have announced electric vehicles under development with ranges of less than half of that.

Riley said that because boosting the batteries’ energy density carries many science-related risks, A123 is taking a portfolio approach to the R&D. “We don’t know if (one) particular investment will be a winner or a loser, so we invest in a couple of them,” Riley said during his speech. “We have a few projects out there that are looking at this very significant improvement on energy density.”

Depending upon the success of the R&D programs, the company could be offering the longer-range battery within five to 10 years. Riley said that some of the R&D work for the electric vehicle batteries is being performed at the company’s facility in Waltham, which A123 just moved into last weekend from its previous headquarters and R&D center in Watertown.

Meanwhile, Riley said the industry expects to cut the watt-hour cost of current batteries by 50 percent within three to five years, though A123 believes it may be able to trim the cost even further. “I think that we’re teed up and see a very attractive pathway for us in terms of cost reductions, that make us either competitive or differentiated across the board,” he said in the interview.

The list of customers for A123’s automotive batteries includes BAE, Eaton Corp., Fisker Automotive, Navistar and Shanghai Automotive Industry Corporation.

A123 also recently announced it has has been chosen to produce battery packs for a pure-electric vehicle by a “major” North American automaker, which is expected to hit the market in 2013.

A123 said it will be producing the battery packs at its factory in Livonia, Mich., and the company began delivering engineering battery packs late last year. The North American automaker was not named.

Electrode lets lithium batteries charge in just two minutes

Batteries can't move charge as quickly as some competing devices like supercapacitors, and their performance tends to degrade significantly with time.

That has sent lots of materials science types into the lab, trying to find ways to push back these limits, sometimes with notable success. Over the weekend, there was another report on a technology that enables fast battery charging. The good news is that it uses a completely different approach and technology than the previous effort, and can work with both lithium- and nickel-based batteries.

The previous work was lithium-specific, and focused on one limit to a battery's recharge rate: how quickly the lithium ions could move within the battery material. By providing greater access to the electrodes, the authors allowed more ions to quickly exchange charge, resulting in a battery with a prodigious charging rate. The researchers increased lithium's transport within the battery by changing the structure of the battery's primary material, LiFePO4.

The new work also gets fast charges, but by a rather different route. The authors, from the University of Illinois, don't focus on the speed of the lithium ions in the battery; instead, they attempt to reduce the distance the ions have to travel before reaching an electrode. As they point out, the time involved in lithium diffusion increases with the square of the distance travelled, so cutting that down can have a very dramatic effect. To reduce this distance, they focus on creating a carefully structured cathode.

The process by which they do this is fairly simple, and lends itself to mass production. They started with a collection of spherical polystyrene pellets. By adjusting the size of these pellets (they used 1.8µm and 466nm pellets), they could adjust the spacing of the electrode features. Once the spheres were packed in place, a layer of opal (a form of silica) was formed on top of them, locking the pattern in place with a more robust material. After that, a layer of nickel was electrodeposited on the opal, which was then etched away. The porosity of the nickel layer was then increased using electropolishing.

When the process was done, the porosity—a measure of the empty space in the structure—was about 94 percent, just below the theoretical limit of 96 percent. The authors were left with a nickel wire mesh that was mostly empty space.

Into these voids went the battery material, either nickel-metal hydride (NiMH) or a lithium-treated manganese dioxide. The arrangement provides three major advantages, according to the authors: an electrolyte pore network that enables rapid ion transport, a short diffusion distance for the ions to meet the electrodes, and an electrode with high electron conductivity. All of these make for a battery that acts a lot like a supercapacitor when it comes to charge/discharge rates.

With the NiMH battery material, the electrodes could deliver 75 percent of the normal capacity of the battery in 2.7 seconds; it only took 20 seconds to recharge it to 90 percent of its capacity, and these values were stable for 100 charge/discharge cycles. The lithium material didn't work quite as well, but was still impressive. At high rates of discharge, it could handle 75 percent of its normal capacity, and still stored a third of its regular capacity when discharged at over a thousand times the normal rate.

A full-scale lithium battery made with the electrode could be charged to 75 percent within a minute, and hit 90 percent within two minutes.

There are a few nice features of this work. As the authors noted, the electrodes are created using techniques that can scale to mass production, and the electrodes themselves could work with a variety of battery materials, such as the lithium and nickel used here. It may also be possible to merge them with the LiFePO4 used in the earlier work. A fully integrated system, with materials designed to work specifically with these electrodes, could increase their performance even further.

Of course, that ultimately pushes us up against the issue of supplying sufficient current in the short time frames needed to charge the battery this fast. It might work great for a small battery, like a cell phone, but could create challenges if we're looking to create a fast-charge electric car.

Google Adds Electric Vehicle Charging Station Data To Maps

While we still have a very long way to go before electric vehicles are "the norm," Google is already one step ahead of most.

The company has just added a network of electric vehicle charging stations to Google maps, which will enable those with EVs to more easily find stations to recharge their cars. It's a vital addition to Maps, and it should be a best friend to those who are tired of driving in circles to find charging ports.

To use the new feature, just search for “ev charging station” plus the appropriate area, for example, “ev charging station near mountain view ca.” Google's working hard to make even more data available; as of now, only a portion of all stations are listed, but they'd rather get something out now than wait.

Also, the U.S. Department of Energy’s National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) are working to make more data available. What's nice is that Google is actively reaching out to automakers and charging station builders in hopes of retrieving even more data.

Japan vending machines to charge electric cars

Ten Japanese companies said Monday they plan to install electric vehicle chargers at the sites of beverage vending machines across Japan in a cost-cutting tie-up.

The consortium includes Forking Co., a major vending machine operator, and Panasonic Electric Works which will develop and produce electric vehicle chargers with rivals.

Forking has business ties with companies which own a combined 1.2 million vending machines across Japan, or about a half of the national total, company official Reiko Kobayashi said.

The firms plan to install some 10,000 electric vehicle chargers at the sites of the vending machines in the first year of the project, which is due to start at the end of March, she added.

Charging machines "will be installed where beverage vending machines already exist or together with new ones. There are various options," she said.

SoftBank Telecom and SoftBank Mobile are due to provide telecom services to connect the charging systems, the group said in a press release.

A123 Scientist creating new battery

The Masdar Institute could become a large-scale laboratory for a scientist developing a car battery he says will last longer than any other, for a fraction of the cost.

Professor Yet-Ming Chiang, who recently discussed his work at Masdar's Distinguished Lecture Series, is making an energy storage device using an electrode material that is part liquid and part solid.

The finished product, combining the benefits of fuel cells and rechargeable flow batteries, could store large amounts of energy without requiring as much bulk as other batteries.

This could cut costs by as much as 85 per cent, he says.

Prof Chiang, who specialises in materials science and engineering, is affiliated with the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, the Masdar Institute's research partner.

Prof Chiang is no newcomer to energy engineering. Last year, the Massachusetts-based company he founded, A123 Systems, built what he considers the world's highest-powered lithium ion battery, for use in Formula One race cars.

The Kinetic Energy Recovery System (Kers), which makes use of the common mineral olivine, gave Lewis Hamilton wings at the opening race in Australia, putting McLaren-Mercedes in the top four after starting in 18th position. Kers recovers energy from the vehicle's brakes, storing it until the driver releases it back into the engine by pressing a button on the steering wheel.

Now, as Prof Chiang designs a battery that he says could eventually help electric vehicles and hybrids dominate the roads, he sees a potential opportunity to test his product at the Masdar Institute's campus.

The institute is currently running a pilot test of a pod-based personal rapid transit system, but plans to expand that system for what will eventually become Masdar City have recently been scrapped because it was too costly.

Officials said they were looking at other options for battery-powered transport.

"We have been talking about developing a new system to be integrated into Masdar's platform, and that includes looking at new ways of improving battery life and energy storage," said Alan Frost, the director of Masdar City.

"I am always looking at where I can try out new technology, which is not small-scale and requires a large lab," Prof Chiang said.

Current prototypes of Masdar's electric transit pods are equipped with lithium phosphate batteries, according to the Dutch firm 2getthere that was commissioned for the project.

The semisolid material used in Prof Chiang's new battery is pumped through a power-generating stack similar to the type used in fuel cells.

That reduces the need for additional mechanisms found inside a conventional battery, such as those used to support thin solid films of the same type of electrode materials.

Fuel cells cannot be recharged without fuel and an oxidiser, and flow batteries are not practical for cars because they require complex packaging with pumps and sensors.

"In a conventional battery, as much as 50 per cent is taken up by materials that do not store energy," he said.

"Those inactive components increase the cost of the battery. There is so much room for improvements to be made to increase the amount of electrode that stores energy and decrease manufacturing costs."

His proposed batteries would also be safer, he said, because the material that stores the energy is not very exposed to oxygen, reducing the chances of a rapid and violent reaction that would produce large amounts of hot gas. That reduces the risk of overheating and explosion.

It will take time before his batteries can be tested, and Prof Chiang expects it to be years before they go on sale.

In the meantime, he will be interested to see how else Masdar could benefit his research.

"We will see what is happening, to see if there are other areas to collaborate on energy storage," he said.

"Just looking at everything that Abu Dhabi is doing in terms of renewable energy will make it interesting to see how it contributes to rapid advancements in electric transportation."

Toyota to equip Prius V Wagon with lithium-ion battery

The Prius minivan hybrid due later this year will be the first standard hybrid from Toyota Motor Corp. equipped with a lithium-ion battery.

But the advanced, lightweight power pack will appear only in the Japanese version of the car, a person familiar with the plan said Friday. The U.S. version will stick with the heavier nickel-metal hydride batteries used in the current Prius hatchback and Toyota's other gasoline-electric vehicles.

Toyota is using lithium in the Japan-spec Prius minivan to open up more interior room and allow for three rows of seats, as preferred by Japanese customers, the source said. The Prius V minivan shown at this year's Detroit auto show had only two rows of seats, while the Prius + variant shown this week in Geneva has three rows.

Using a bulkier nickel-metal battery requires the battery to consume space in a console between the driver's and passenger's seat.

"We are doing it only for cabin configuration considerations," the source said.

Toyota spokesman Paul Nolasco said the company couldn't comment on future product plans.

Japan's Nikkei business daily reported separately that the minivan version of the Prius would go on sale in Japan next month and start at 3 million yen ($36,590), when equipped with a lithium ion battery. A lower-grade version with a nickel-metal hydride battery will also be offered, starting at 2.35 million yen ($28,660).

Better Place and Renault release EV subscription plan pricing

Better Place opened, together with its partner Renault, Europe’s first Better Place center. Visitors can place an order for a Renault Fluence Z.E. with the Renault staff and sign up with the Better Place team for a subscription of mobility services.

On the Fluence Z.E. “Prime Time” launched in Denmark from 205,000 DKK (€27,496, US$38,300), including VAT, Better Place will offer consumers a choice of five, fixed-price, packages based on kilometers driven. For drivers who drive more than 40,000 kilometers (24,855 miles) per year, Better Place offers a fixed-price package of ‘all you can drive’ kilometers for 2,995 DKK (€399, US$560) per month.

For drivers who drive less than 20,000 kilometers (12,427 miles) per year, the fixed monthly price offer ranges from 1,495 DKK (€199, US$279) to 1,895 DKK (€249, US$354).

That price range equates to approx $1.00 - $1.50 per kWh which is 10-15x the average US utility rate of $0.10 per kWh and 20-30x the $0.05 kWh cost of off-peak PG&E EV plans.

Each subscription includes a one-time fee of 9,995 DKK (€1,341, US$1,868) for the installation of a private charge spot so that drivers can safely plug in at home. Initial delivery of the Renault Fluence Z.E. with Better Place mobility services will occur in the fourth quarter of this year.

The Renault Fluence Z.E. “Prime Time” will include, as standard features, climate control, navigation and energy management services via the in-car software system, radio-CD, alloy wheels, electric mirrors, 4 electric windows, central locking, and lithium-ion switchable battery pack.

The car will offer Danish drivers a range of up to 185 kilometers (115 miles), measured on the New European Driving Cycle (NEDC) with a fully charged battery. Switching batteries takes less than five minutes.

Every subscription includes unlimited access to the Better Place network of public charge spots and battery switch stations, electricity usage, personalized energy management and navigation services via in-car and network software, an inventory of batteries with a guaranteed service level agreement, 24-hour access to customer service and support, and a private charge spot.

Source: Businesswire

Lithium ion battery market to quadruple by 2020

Greater demand for lithium ion batteries means the market is set to quadruple between now and 2020, a new report suggests.

According to MarketResearch.com, consumer electronics have been the predominant users of lithium ion batteries since they were commercially developed in the 1990s.

However, their applications are now diversifying and they are increasingly being used in electric and plug-in hybrid vehicles.

As a result, MarketResearch.com expects demand to soar over the next 20 years as the need to create cleaner cars intensifies.

In 2010, the lithium ion battery market was worth $11 billion (£6.8 billion), but the report suggests that this will reach $43 billion (£26.7 billion) by 2020.

SK Innovation to Supply Batteries to Mercedes SLS AMG E-Cell supercar

SK Innovation Co., parent of South Korea’s biggest oil refiner, said it will supply lithium-ion batteries for Daimler AG’s Mercedes-Benz SLS AMG E-Cell supercar.

Shipment schedules and volumes haven’t been fixed, according to a regulatory filing today.

SK Innovation is competing with chemical maker LG Chem Ltd. for a share of the car-battery market and has won orders from Hyundai Motor Co., Kia Motors Corp. and Daimler’s Japanese unit, Mitsubishi Fuso Truck & Bus Corp.

The South Korean company, previously known as SK Energy Co., is focusing on overseas energy exploration and new businesses such as electric-car batteries after completing the spin-off of its petroleum and petrochemical operations on Jan. 1.

World Record DBM Electric Car will return [video]

DBM Energy - Electric Car World Record (German Trailer) from Imageworx on Vimeo.

Shortly before Christmas, a world record-setting electric car developed by small German start-up DBM Energy caught fire and burned. Authorities are investigating and conspiracy theorists have since accused established car-making giants, which were embarrassed by the record, as responsible for the fire.

The story started in October, when Mirko Hannemann, the 27-year-old founder of DBM Energy, drove his yellow and purple all-electric Audi A2 from Munich to Berlin, a trip of some 375 miles taking seven hours, without recharging the car's battery.

As we discussed last week, there seems to be nothing remarkable about a claim that an EV with a 115 kWh battery pack has covered 600 kms on a single charge.

The record-setting trip was a media phenomenon. Hannemann steered the car directly into the German government district, where Economy Minister Rainer Bruederle jumped in for a quick drive in the courtyard of his ministry.

Bruederle, who had helped fund the project with $380,000, called the car's battery -- based on what DBM Energy calls the KOLIBRI AlphaPolymer Technology -- a "technological quantum leap." He urged the German car industry to consider using it in their future electric cars.

Observers say the German automobile giants weren't amused. The likes of Volkswagen and Daimler have invested billions of dollars in lithium-ion-based battery systems but are behind French and Asian competitors in rolling out an electric car. And then a small start-up shows them all up.

Soon after the trip, however, accusations surfaced that DBM Energy might have cheated. Why didn't DBM Energy agree to have its battery checked out? Also, for a few minutes toward the end of the drive, the car had been out of sight, so maybe there was an illicit battery recharge? Was the trip just a big scam to lure investors?

Hannemann vehemently denied the accusations, saying that he couldn't simply open the lid on all details of his technology.

In a bid to defuse further speculation, he provided a German government agency with KOLIBRI battery packs that are being tested for safety.

On its Web site, the company reacted to allegations of fraud when setting the record. It provides what it says is a Global Positioning System protocol of the trip and notes that "manipulation on the car or the battery, for example an unobserved recharge, can be absolutely ruled out with this protocol." Moreover, more than 30 witnesses joined the trip.

The German government, in a reply to questions submitted by the opposition Green Party, backs DBM Energy's account, saying it had no reason to believe that the vehicle's record wasn't valid.

Then, at the height of the controversy shortly before Christmas, the record-setting car, parked in a warehouse rented by local utility Gasag, burned. Authorities have been investigating on suspicion of arson.

"We are allowed to say only this: Neither the car nor DBM Energy is responsible for this fire," Hannemann told the Wirtschaftswoche weekly.

This shouldn't be the end for DBM Energy. The record-setting car is now junk but the battery pack had apparently been taken out the vehicle before the fire. A non-inflammable battery was in the car, Hannemann said, countering speculation that the battery might have caused the fire. Either way, the KOLIBRI battery can be reproduced and is currently built into a new car, Hannemann said.

The engineer in the Wirtschaftswoche interview said he was taken aback by the attacks in the media and the rumors that have since surfaced. Everyone deplored that German car companies lag behind their competitors when it comes to battery technology, Hannemann said.

"And then comes a 27-year-old inventor, shows how it could be done, and gets a beating for it," he said. "We have done nothing wrong. This has nothing to do with fair play."

Source: UPI

More Electric than fossil powered cars by 2020: Better Place

Electric car pioneer Shai Agassi is a man with a startling prediction: Before 2020, he says, more people everywhere will be buying electric cars than those powered by gasoline.

"It doesn't mean that oil is not necessary, but we're starting the way out," said Agassi, a former top executive for information giant SAP AG who launched his Better Place venture several years ago.

Existing electric cars have a limited range, after which owners have to stop and wait for hours while their car's battery recharges. Owners of Agassi's cars would be able to remove the used battery and replace it with a fully charged one, allowing them to get back on the road almost immediately.

The first country slated to go live with a network of "battery-switching" stations run by Better Place is his native Israel, where he plans a launch — with 56 stations and an expected 5,000 cars — before the end of 2011. In 2012, Denmark and Australia are expected to join, along with trials in Hawaii and in the San Francisco Bay area.

Brimming with infectious optimism, Agassi has been a regular at the World Economic Forum, where he was interviewed by The Associated Press.

Agassi said he has raised about $700 billion and spent about a third of it, mostly on setting up the stations. That leaves enough cash to absorb losses while he builds up to break-even, which Agassi asserts will not take long.

"In Israel, in 2016, plus or minus a year, more electric cars will be sold than gasoline cars. When that happens in Country One, within two years you will see it in every country," he said.

That claim may seem preposterous for the car-crazy United States — but not for Israel. The country's electric company also expects electric cars to achieve a significant market share in the near future and is preparing its grid to meet the demand, according to the Haaretz newspaper.

Former U.S. President Bill Clinton has emerged a believer as well.

"Israel will become the first country in the world to put 100,000 all-electric cars on the road," he said Thursday. "Not the US. Not China. Not countries much bigger — Israel!"

Agassi has found a niche created by a widespread sense that the world is not doing half enough to deal with the eventual end of oil — a prospect hastened by the explosive recent growth in the developing world.

"From 2000 to 2010, China added 120 million cars on the road (and) next year, 25 to 30 million," Agassi said. "It's no longer the U.S. that sets the price (of oil). Now it's a question of how many cars were added in China, how many were added in Brazil, how many were added in India."

He admits that the market for gas is somewhat inelastic, meaning that despite rising costs at the pump, people grumble and drive on. But they save elsewhere, he says, harming the economy in cascading ways.

Agassi plans to sell cars being developed by Renault SA and equipped with removable batteries — which are currently quite heavy and have a range of 100 miles (160 kilometers). Drivers would be promised four battery swapping stations along any route the length of the range.

Although prices have not yet been set, Agassi said the idea would be that the consumer would not pay more to drive a given distance than its current cost using oil.

Like any venture that could threaten a mammoth industry, Better Place has generated its share of critics.

Some charge the company is trying to establish a new type of monopoly, while environmental groups objected to the laying of new power cables. It is also not clear that Israel's electricity grid can sustain the heightened demand posed by the electric cars.

Some say battery-swapping is impractical and customers will prefer a fixed-battery car. In Davos, Nissan Motor Co. was demonstrating its new Leaf, a fixed-battery electric car that you can charge at home.

Agassi is not worried. He says over time, batteries will grow smaller and their ranges will grow longer, making the swap less odious.

He is most animated as he refutes criticism that the electricity needed to charge the battery has its own carbon footprint and the net result might be worse for the environment than the internal combustion engine.

The electricity could come from coal but also from natural gas or wind or other sources, he said, adding that the Israeli government has approved a 600-megawatt solar project in the country's southern desert that can power a half-million cars a year.

Is the main thing idealism or profit? Agassi's message combines the two.

"The end of the oil era will not come because we ran out of oil — it will come become we don't want to use oil any more to drive," he said. "I can guarantee you that we will finish the need for oil as an energy source for cars before we run out of oil in the ground."

GM Invest $7M in start-up to double Li-ion battery energy density

General Motors Ventures LLC invested $7 million in Envia Systems to provide GM’s battery engineering team with access to advanced lithium-ion cathode technology that delivers higher cell energy density and lower cost. In a separate agreement, GM has secured the right to use Envia’s advanced cathode material for future GM electrically driven vehicles.

"Skeptics have suggested it would probably be many years before lithium-ion batteries with significantly lower cost and higher capability are available, potentially limiting sales of electric vehicles for the foreseeable future," said Jon Lauckner, President of GM Ventures. "In fact, our announcement today demonstrates that major improvements are already on the horizon."

Other participating investors in Envia are Asahi Kasei and Asahi Glass; as well as current investors Bay Partners, Redpoint and Panagea Ventures. The funding of the investor group totaled $17 million.

"With our high-capacity manganese rich cathode material, Envia is addressing two key issues in the next-generation battery cells – higher capability and lower cost," said Atul Kapadia, founding investor, chairman and CEO of Envia Systems. "The investments announced today from GM and the two new strategic investors, demonstrate the excitement around our technology, as well as the importance of the challenge.

"We believe our battery materials have taken the technology lead that will help lower price points and unlock the market potential for our customers," Kapadia said. "With our technology and products, we believe that Envia is best-positioned to win a significant portion of this very large battery materials market."

Envia’s advanced cathode technology uses inexpensive materials that store more energy per unit of mass than current cathode materials. Since the cathode is a key driver for the overall battery cost, the more energy the cathode delivers, the lower the battery cost because fewer cells are needed.

"Our test results on small-format cells show that Envia’s high-capacity composite cathode material can increase the energy density of lithium-ion cells by up to one-third, at an equivalent level of reliability, safety and durability," said Micky Bly, GM Executive Director for Electrical and Battery Systems. "We estimate this improvement in cell energy density and less expensive material will drive a substantial reduction in cell cost, leading to lower cost battery packs like the one in the Chevy Volt." Envia’s cathode technology also will offer benefits for other devices and applications where low-cost, high-energy density storage solutions are needed."

Currently, Sinkula says, Envia's best lab results are showing over 300 watt-hours per kilogram. Ultimately Envia's goal is to build a battery that has a capacity of 400 watt-hours per kilogram

Hitach establish lithium-ion battery JV with Ube Industries

The Nikkei reports that Hitachi Ltd. and Ube Industries Ltd. will establish a joint venture to manufacture separators for lithium-ion batteries bound for use in the automotive industry.

Apparently, both firms are looking to bolster their position in the battery market and hope to do so by joining forces and achieving economies of scale.

The joint venture between Hitachi subsidiary Hitachi Maxwell Ltd. and Ube Industries will focus solely on battery separators, handling all aspects, including development, production and sales. Ube Industries will continue to manufacture electrolyte materials for li-ion batteries without assistance from Hitachi. However, Hitachi Maxwell will provide Ube Industries with its microscopic integrated processing technology, which the firm will utilize to produce li-ion separators.

Hitachi announced in July 2009 that they will invest US$207-310 million to increase production capacity for lithium-ion batteries for hybrid vehicles 70 fold by 2015.

Mitsubishi Motors to use Toshiba battery in EV

Mitsubishi Motors Corp will use Toshiba Corp's lithium-ion batteries in a small electric vehicle for business use which is set to go on sale in the autumn, the Nikkei business daily said on Friday.

The carmaker, which worked with GS Yuasa Corp to produce lithium-ion batteries for its i-MiEV electric passenger car, chose the Toshiba battery for the new Minicab MiEV, based on lifespan and cost, the paper said.

Neither Mitsubishi Motors nor Toshiba had any immediate comment on the report, though Toshiba had said in July it was developing batteries for the carmaker.

Shares in GS Yuasa were down 4 percent at 580 yen in late trade.

Mitsubishi Motors President Osamu Masuko had indicated the automaker would likely need a second battery supplier to complement its battery venture with GS Yuasa, saying a Japanese manufacturer would be its preferred choice.

Japanese and South Korean battery makers are fighting for share of the nascent market for low and zero-emission vehicles.

Mitsubishi Motors aims to offer the Minicab MiEV for less than 2 million yen ($24,450), initially relying on subsidies from the government. Japan has yet to decide whether or how much in subsidies it might earmark for the purchase of electric cars beyond the fiscal year ending in March.

Mitsubishi Motors became the first major carmaker to begin selling all-electric cars to individuals last year.

The commercial-use EV is set to have a range of 100 km (62 miles) on a full charge, compared with the i-MiEV's 160 km (100 miles), in a bid to keep costs low.

Toyota Studies Magnesium Battery as Lithium Alternate

Toyota Motor Corp., the world’s largest seller of hybrid autos, said it’s developing a magnesium battery that holds twice the energy of lithium-ion cells as automakers seeks better ways to power electric cars.

The company’s technical center in Ann Arbor, Michigan, is working on the magnesium-sulfur battery, complementing development of other future electric-power chemistries at Toyota labs in Japan, Jeffrey Makarewicz, the engineer managing the U.S. project, said in an interview at the North American International Auto Show in Detroit.

“Going from nickel-metal hydride to lithium ion, you essentially double the energy capacity,” he said. “Lithium ion theoretically, under ideal conditions, has a capacity of about 2,000 w/kg. That’s still not enough to really make a very competitive battery that’s necessary for future plug-in, electric and hybrid-electric vehicles.”

Vehicles with magnesium batteries or alternative materials may be ready by about 2020, Makarewicz said. Toyota is working on such technologies as Nissan Motor Co. and General Motors Co. in the past month have released rechargeable models with lithium-ion packs that let drivers go extended distances on battery power alone.

Nissan wants its Leaf to be the world’s top-selling all- electric car, aiming for annual global sales of at least 500,000 battery-powered cars including Leaf and models from affiliate Renault SA within the next few years.

Toyota expects “much more modest” U.S. demand for battery-only vehicles during that period because of power-pack limitations, Bob Carter, the Toyota City, Japan-based company’s U.S. group vice president, said in an interview today in Detroit.

The automaker’s U.S. unit, based in Torrance, California, is also looking at aluminum and calcium as potential battery materials, Makarewicz said. In Japan, company engineers are researching “lithium air and metal air” batteries, he said, without elaborating.