EVcast #312: Electric Vehicle Basics and Harebrained Ideas From the Fringe

Very good podcast - very hard to talk for an hour by yourself, the cyclone engine is a multi fuel external combustion engine that you might find interesting.

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Hey, everybody--

Joe lists several aspects of EVs that need to be improved, but he apparently forgot to include what should be the most important-- increasing the energy density of the battery.  Energy density is the measure of how much power a battery can store, and if an EV were capable of storing, say, 400 miles range on a single charge, all of the other factors are of no practical significance.

So-called "air batteries" that are being developed by IBM, St. Andrews of British Columbia, and Arizona State University, among others, have that potential: to increase the energy density of a battery by as much as ten times that of today's lithium ion batteries.  If that goal can be reached, the 250 miles or so that a Tesla EV could drive on a single charge, for instance, could be increased to an astounding 2,500 miles; but practically speaking, if the charge capacity of a battery could be increased that much, we would not be building cars with such absurd ranges between charges, we would increase the range to, say, 300 miles or so, which would dramatically reduce the cost and weight of the battery, which would also reduce the size and expense needed for many of the components of the rest of the car-- the motor, electronics, and suspension; the typical EV would end up being much less expensive than today's ICE car, but with far better performance, and very low cost of operation-- I'd guess a penny or so per mile for electricity.

The air battery concept is such that you can replace the cathode of the battery with the free oxygen in the air.  To do this, a membrane must be developed that is impermeable to atmospheric moisture but permeable to atmospheric oxygen.  It's a thorny problem, but one that is likely attainable with nanotechnology, and if that one goal can be met, not only can we have far better, cheaper, faster and quieter cars than we have today, but such batteries would make electric aircraft practical as well, aircraft that are far quieter, safer, and less expensive.  There would be virtually no need for any engine of any kind-- cars, boats, helicopters, lawn mowers, snowmobile, leaf blowers-- there is nothing I can think of, other than the possible exception of passenger jets, that might have any use for fuel, and even those may be replaced by planes with electric motors too.

if air battery technology can be realized, it appears to be able to be applied to any battery chemistry, including my own favorite and Joe's as well, the Altair NanoSafe battery.  Aside from the fast charging capability that he mentions, the NanoSafe has several other fantastic qualities as well: it is nearly impervious to damage from overcharging, undercharging, exploding, and burning; when crushed or pierced, a NanoSafe battery does not explode as one might expect, it merely shorts out.  NanoSafe batteries have been tested through more than 30,000 charge cycles, meaning that in normal use, they would likely last in excess of 80 years.  In fact, to my knowledge, no NanoSafe battery has ever failed unless it was crushed, pierced or otherwise damaged by other than ordinary use, so we still don't know what their maximum lifespan is-- they may last for more than 100 years, we just don't know yet.  My guess is that, knowing the way the batteries are constructed, they probably will not fail until the battery containers finally rupture, which would not be a catastrophic problem.

For NanoSafes, the real problem is not the safety, toxicity, lifespan, charge capacity or even availability of the materials to make them: the main component is titanium, which, contrary to popular belief, is plentiful.  Titanium is even used in common toothpaste, sandpaper, house paint and drill bits.  The biggest problem with NanoSafe batteries is that they are expensive to make, but they may become affordable due to two factors.

Firstly, if air battery technology can be applied to them, the size of a battery needed for an EV could be much smaller, making them inexpensive enough to use in every car we drive.

Secondly, even if air batteries are more stubborn to design than we realize, the so-called "economies of scale" should eventually drive down the cost of the NanoSafe.  Microwave ovens, computer processor chips, cell phones, PC monitors, hard drives, memory chips and many other things all started out very expensive, but when manufactured in huge quantities, they became much, much cheaper.  The same can be expected of NanoSafe batteries once they are mass produced.

So just one or two battery breakthroughs-- the cost and/ or size/weight of storage batteries-- is all that we need to trigger a New Age of EVs, in which we will be able to drive internal combustion cars into obsolescence, along with their noise, pollution, expense and political issues.

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Billdale,
I love your post. It is spot on. Overtime everything manufactured becomes cheaper. Batteries, as long as there is an electric car market, will come down. I have seen Altairnano batteries work first hand. I read about the test that Aerovironment did on them in England. I look forward to seeing those batteries make inroads in the market. I know that IBM has talked about its coming air batteries. Claims of the super battery are nothing new in EV land, so forgive me when I say, "show me the batteries doing what is claimed." I will take independent testing. Love your post though. Thank you.

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Joe,
   Thanks for your excellent podcast.  It is nice that EVCast has someone that actually knows the details of EVs.

    For me, the most interesting part was the high efficiency axial gap motors from New Generation Motors.

http://www.ngmcorp.com/

I would be interested in reading more about how they improve the efficiency to 98%.  That is an incredible achievement which is even better if it can be packaged with out drivetrain losses.
Thanks
John C. Briggs

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No offense taken, John.

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