Hello, Chevy Volt! Yep, this is GM's offering to eco cadres of the world: a plug-in electric car with a three-cylinder gasoline engine that's not really an engine -- it's a generator to power the electric motor when it runs out of wall-socket juice. Kind of ironic since GM was accused of killing the electric car in the first place, but hey, it's a step in the right direction.
So it's not the most aesthetically pleasing car in the world. Some have suggested that they made it look mean so it wouldn't be associated with cutesy-wutesy bunny loving environmentalists. The fact is this car is just a prototype and won't be on the road for at least three years. The reason? The lithium-ion batteries around today just aren't good enough.
But is that really so? When I interviewed Eco Auto owner Ron Gompertz (see Smart Car article below), he tipped me off to EEStor, a company that patented a battery that's strong enough to power an SUV and can be charged in minutes rather than hours.
The company is contracted with a Canadian electric car company called Feel Good Cars (or Zenn Cars, at zenncars.com), which makes the golf-cart-like Zenn car (I drove one for the article; it's slow and tiny and if you turn on the heat the battery drains). But supposedly much grander things are in the works.
I tried doing a little research, but it wasn't easy because EEStor keeps a very low profile; they don't even have a website. But I did find out a few things.
From Business Week Online:
According to a May, 2004 edition of Utility Federal Technology Opportunities, an obscure trade newsletter, EEStor claims to make a battery at half the cost per kilowatt-hour and one-tenth the weight of lead-acid batteries. Specifically, the product weighs 400 pounds and delivers 52 kilowatt-hours. (For battery geeks: "The technology is basically a parallel plate capacitor with barium titanate as the dielectric," UFTO says.) No hazardous or dangerous materials are used in manufacturing the ceramic-based unit, which means it qualifies as what Silicon Valley types call "cleantech.
From Clean Break:
On top of this release, a reliable source familiar with EEStor had this to say about the company's technology:
* The batteries fully charge in minutes as opposed to hours.
* Whereas with lead acid batteries you might get lucky to have 500 to 700 recharge cycles, the EEStor technology has been tested up to a million cycles with no material degradation.
* EEStor's technology could be used in more than low-speed electric vehicles. The company envisions using it for full-speed pure electric vehicles, hybrid-electrics (including plug-ins), military applications, backup power and even large-scale utility storage for intermittent renewable power sources such as wind and solar.
* Because it's a solid state battery rather than a chemical battery, such being the case for lithium ion technology, there would be no overheating and thus safety concerns with using it in a vehicle.
* Finally, with volume manufacturing it's expected to be cost-competitive with lead-acid technology.
"It's the holy grail of battery technology," said my source. "It means you could do a highway-capable electric city car that would recharge in three or four minutes and drive you from Toronto to Montreal. Consumers wouldn't notice the difference from driving an electric car versus a gas-powered car."
Too good to be true? Who knows? I keep wanting GM to hook up with these folks and go, "Look! Look! There really is a battery good enough!"
If you know anyone who works for GM, please let them know.
14 comments:
Lithium batteries aren't good enough for what? They appear good enough for the Tesla, the Tzero from AC Propulsion with a 300-mile range and many of the new plug-in Prius conversions . . . Besides, for a plug-in hybrid quick charging just isn't critical at all. However, cost and life are still issues, granted.
Nevertheless I am waiting for this EEStor ultracapacitor to be released and am beginning to lose faith in it - the company doesn't even have a website. I know they got some funding but you got to see fruit pretty soon. Seems like they are behind schedule.
BTW, Feel Good Cars has an exclusive with EEStor for cars under a certain weight, something around 2300 lbs ( I don't recall the exact weight).
EEStor has all the trappings of a company which will never produce a product. Their secrecy is a good sign that their capacitor battery doesn't work. This has been going on for well over a year and a half. I have no confidence whatsoever that they will ever produce anything that's commercially viable.
I spoke with Ian Clifford, C.E.O. of ZENN on August 3, 2007. I asked him if EESTOR was on schedule. He said YES. I said delivery is expected in Fall 2007. He said this too will happen. I asked Ian and several other people at ZENN if they planned on building a highway legal electric vehicle like the GM Volt. They all said keep watching the ZENN website it is coming very soon. ZENN has some form of exclusive right to the EESTOR battery for electric vehicles so GM would have to wait until the agreement between ZENN and EESTOR expires. ZENN purchased the rights to the battery by investing $2.5M into EESTOR. I asked Ian if GM or Chevron have attempted to buy EESTOR then put the technology out of businesses the same way they did this to Stan Ovshinsky's ECD Ovonics company. Stan developed a very advanced battery technology years ago. GM purchased controlling stock in Stan's company then stopped the sale of Stan's advanced battery technology. GM sold control of Stan's company to Chevron who continues the same path. GM also had a hand in the demise of the San Francisco trolley by bribing government employees to end the electric trolley program. GM is not a bad company though they have had their share of bad leaders. Ian said there is no way EESTOR would sell out the way Stan did. He said the technology is worth much more than GM, Chevron, and all of the auto and oil companies combined. GOOD, I want to see Foreign oil dependency stopped.
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