Skip to main content

New battery design for electric cars would stack up to 1,000-km range

By

One of the big stumbling blocks preventing the wide scale acceptance of electric cars is dreaded range anxiety. With an average range of around 100 mi (161 km) per charge, all-electric vehicles still can't compete with more conventional cars – especially if lights, windscreen wipers, or air con are needed. To level the playing field a bit, Fraunhofer is working on a new battery design that could increase an electric car's range to 1,000 km (621 mi).
Electric cars don't have a single battery, but a collection of battery packs made of hundreds or thousands of individual battery cells that are packed in and wired together. These separate battery cells each require a housing as well as terminals, wiring, cables, and electronic monitors, which all combine to take up 50 percent of the space of a whole battery pack. Additionally, all those electrical connections sap away current through resistance.
In partnership with ThyssenKrupp System Engineering and IAV Automotive Engineering, the Fraunhofer Institute for Ceramic Technologies and Systems IKTS in Dresden is developing EMBATT, a new type of battery that reduces the number of those components in a much simpler design that would free up space that could be used to provide extra electricity storage capacity.
EMBATT takes its cue from another electrical power source, the fuel cell. Fuel cells work by combining oxygen with a gas, like hydrogen or methane, across a permeable membrane, to generate electricity. One key component of such cells is what is called a bipolar plate. This plate covers both sides of the cell and has a number of functions, but its main purpose is to act as the electrodes to collect the electricity produced by the cell with one plate acting as the anode and the other as the cathode.
Fraunhofer's idea is to replace the housings and individual connectors in the battery packs with similar plates. Instead of setting the battery cells next to each other, they would be stacked directly one on top of one other over a large area and covered by plates, which would carry the current across its surface. This would not only simplify the design, but greatly reduce resistance, making more electricity available more quickly.
In the Fraunhofer design, this bipolar plate is in the form of a metallic tape that's coated on both sides with a powdered ceramic mixed with polymers and electrically conductive materials. The ceramic acts as an energy storage medium, with one side of the tape acting as the anode and the other as the cathode depending on the formulation of the coating. Fraunhofer says that this arrangement would allow for easy manufacturing and long service life.
The upshot of all this is that electric cars could carry bigger batteries that don't takes up more space or add weight, giving cars a range of 1,000 km (621 mi) in the medium term.
So far EMBATT has been confined to the laboratory, but the partners are working on scaling up the technology for installation in test vehicles by 2020.
Source: Fraunhofer
Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Nine government sites hit by cyber attacks: NIC

By
The National Informatics Center (NIC) has revealed that as many as nine government websites were defaced by recent cyber attacks. The center further said that the servers, which hosts these government sites, suffer a number of hacking attempts on a daily basis. The websites www.kumbh2010haridwar.gov.in, www.ueppcb.uk.gov.in, www.gov.ua.nic.in/ujn, www.cdodoon.gov.in, www.arunachal.nic.in,www.bee-india.nic.in, www.civilsupplieskerala.gov.in, www.mpcb.gov.in and www.informatics.nic.in were  defaced , prompting authorities to  ramp up  the cyber security safeguards. In an RTI reply, the NIC, which reports to the Ministry of Communications and Information Technology, said that it was impossible for the body to accurately quantify these attacks but they are usually blocked by security controls put in place. The Ministry was asked to provide details of hacking attempts made on the governments websites in the last ten years (2001-11) along with url names of the portal...
1 comment
Read more

Solar car hits U.S. in round-the-world jaunt

By
Last October, the SolarWorld GT solar-powered car set out from Darwin, Australia on a drive around the world. It has since driven 3,001 kilometers (1,865 miles) across Australia, logged 1,947 km (1,210 miles) crossing New Zealand and been shipped across the Pacific Ocean. This Friday, it will embark on the U.S. leg of its journey, as it sets out across America from the University of California, Santa Barbara.   The SolarWorld GT is the result of a collaboration between solar panel manufacturer SolarWorld, and Bochum University of Applied Sciences in Germany. The four-wheeled, two-door, two-seat car gathers solar energy through photovoltaic panels built into its roof, with its solar generator offering a peak performance of 823 watts. Custom hub motors are located in both of the front wheels. The vehicle manages an average speed of 50 km/h (31 mph), with a claimed top speed of 100 km/h (62 mph). In order to demonstrate that solar powered cars needn't be a radical...
Post a Comment
Read more

Google and Stanford early adopters of Honda Fit EV

By
Honda's first all-electric vehicle is hitting the streets a little early. The  Honda Fit EV  debuted at the Los Angeles Auto Show in November 2011, and it's expected to be     available for lease this summer. However,  Honda announced  that Google and Stanford University got a special early delivery of the tiny EV this week.The Honda Fit EV is equipped with a 20kWh lithium ion battery, and has an EPA estimated driving range of 76 miles. Google added the EV to its  car -sharing service for employees, dubbed the G-Fleet, in    Mountain View, Calif. The search giant maintains several electric and plug-in vehicles that it uses for research and to cart Googlers around town and between buildings on campus. Stanford University also is an early adopter of the Fit EV, but will be using it primarily for research. The university's automotive research department will study the difference in psychological and physical reactions of using battery...
Post a Comment
Read more