MIT professor Donald Sadoway (right) has researched lithium-ion batteries since he fell in love with a Ford electric car after a test drive in the 1990s. (Mary Knox Merrill/Staff)
Worldwide race to make better batteries
The US is a late entry, but new domestic projects are revving to go.
By Mark Clayton | Staff Writer for The Christian Science Monitor/ January 22, 2009 edition
Mary Knox Merrill/Staff
MIT researcher David Bradwell works with a battery prototype. He hopes the tests will lead to breakthroughs that allow for cost-effective, large-scale storage for the power gird.
Reporter Mark Clayton discusses a proposed lithium-ion battery plant for the US automobile industry.
Reporter Mark Clayton
Cambridge, Mass.
Down in his basement laboratory at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Donald Sadoway and his students are hunting for the perfect battery. Not for cellphones or laptop computers, but to power a future generation of automobiles or perhaps the electric grid.
To achieve that goal, we will need batteries many times cheaper, safer, more powerful, and more durable than today’s best, professor Sadoway says. They must store enough juice to send a car 250 miles on a charge – and cheap enough to store solar or wind power for use at night and in calm periods, he says.
Risky, over-the-horizon research is vital because, although most Americans and politicians don’t know it yet, the United States is in a global race to build a new generation of batteries based on lithium-ion technology, Sadoway and others say.
With double the “energy density” of today’s standard nickel-metal-hydride batteries, lithium-ion cells have emerged as a viable first-generation battery chemistry to power plug-in hybrid vehicles (PHEVs), major announcements this month reveal.
Such a battery is critical to President Obama’s energy plan, which includes deploying PHEVs that go 40 miles on a charge in order to replace much of the nation’s oil imports with US-generated electricity. As electricity replaces gasoline, the race to develop ever more powerful batteries will determine which nations emerge as winners in transportation, renewable energy, and economic clout, many say.
“We’re entering an exciting new phase for the automotive industry where we increase the electrification of vehicles, reducing consumption of gasoline through advanced batteries,” David Vieau, president A123Systems in Watertown, Mass., said in a statement this month announcing its plan to build the nation’s first lithium-ion battery manufacturing plant.
Yet the US is entering the race late. It must move fast to catch Japan, Korea, and China. Each is pouring billions into lithium research and each already has manufacturing plants.
Still, there are signs the tide may be turning. A123Systems has applied for $1.8 billion in funding from the US Department of Energy to build a lithium battery factory in Detroit big enough to supply a half dozen auto companies and employ 14,000 workers.
Last week, the National Alliance for Advanced Transportation Battery Cell Manufacture, a consortium of more than a dozen US battery developers, announced it was seeking up to $2 billion to fund a major lithium battery manufacturing facility.
“We cannot allow ourselves to become dependent on foreign sources of lithium-ion battery cells as we have become dependent on petroleum from the Middle East,” says James Greenberger, the National Alliance’s director.Now add the Obama administration’s plan to spend $25 billion for new energy programs. All of which is good news to battery researchers like Sadoway, who have long toiled with slender funding as research dollars sluiced to fuel cells, nuclear power, and others with more buzz and backers.
“I applaud the new money going into battery research,” Sadoway says. “We’ve been underspending on something that’s vital to our national security and economic well-being.”
In the near term, however, the US is playing catch-up. For more than a year, General Motors has said it hopes to launch the world’s first mass-produced PHEV, the Chevrolet Volt, in 2010. But until recently, GM executives had been damping expectations, saying a battery with the right performance and cost still didn’t exist.
That changed last week when GM named LG Chem, a Korean company, as the lithium-ion battery cell supplier for the Volt. It is also working with A123Systems, officials say. Not to be outdone, Toyota announced it would sell some PHEVs with lithium batteries late this year.
“When we introduced this [Chevrolet Volt] concept not long ago, it seemed to resonate,” says Robert A. Kruse, GM’s executive director of global vehicle engineering for hybrids, electric vehicles, and batteries. “We said, ‘Hey, we’ve got to figure out how to do this. The battery didn’t exist. We went through a very elaborate search of cell chemistry and construction.” (For the full interview with Mr. Kruse, click here.)
Finding the right battery recipe
The beauty of lithium-ion is there’s not one single chemical, but many variants involved. As a result, the race isn’t over making a Chevy Volt battery designed to run 40 miles on a single charge that could cost as much as $10,000. Instead engineers hope to create a cell that could last perhaps 80 miles per charge and cost half as much, battery experts say.
“There aren’t any showstoppers,” Sadoway says. “We’re not asking for light to travel 10 times faster than it can go. We’re not asking for science fiction. Most remaining problems involve engineering. So I’m optimistic that these problems that remain can be solved.”
Still, he worries the US and the rest of the world could become “hooked on lithium” just like oil, since places including China and South America have the richest lithium deposits. So down in his lab, Sadoway’s students are exploring “earth abundant” compounds other than lithium.
The LG Chem lithium-ion cell is reportedly based on manganese. But other flavors of lithium-ion are emerging, too.
A123Systems’ lithium cell, for instance, is an iron-phosphate variety that’s said to be very safe and stable, a key attribute.
“By tinkering with the materials involved, one can address the various challenges. And that’s what we’re seeing now,” says Jim Miller, a senior electrochemical engineer involved in battery research at Argonne National Laboratory, which is providing research support to the National Alliance.
Safety and cost remain top concerns, however. Lithium-ion batteries using cobalt chemistry, popularly used in laptop computers and cellphones, have in the past shown a propensity to overheat, resulting in a few laptops going up in flames.
That must not happen in a car, all agree. So while the search goes on for a powerful but stable and reliable battery chemistry, automakers are developing sophisticated battery management systems to monitor lithium cells for signs of impending failure. GM announced last week it will make its own computer-monitored pack to hold the LG Chem cells.
“There’s many layers of safety built into the Volt, that includes all the way down to the cell level,” Kruse says.
Cost is critical
Kruse won’t say whether the $10,000 price tag for the batteries floating around the media is correct. If so, the 16 kilowatt-hours (kWh) worth of energy in the GM battery pack would put the price at $625 per kwh of capacity. But the cost of the Chevy Volt battery should drop sharply once production ramps up, several experts say.
“Right now the price [for lithium PHEV batteries] is beyond what is required for a sustainable business,” says Ann Marie Sastry, a University of Michigan battery materials expert. “But automotive companies are going to take the risks and assume that [government] policies will help out.”
General Motors has talked about a $40,000 price tag for the Volt. That may be too costly for most Americans. The Obama administration has talked about a $7,500 tax break for PHEV buyers.
Still others say that the cost of new battery power for PHEVs may drop faster and already be lower than what has been widely reported at perhaps $500 per kilowatt-hour or even less, says Suba Arunkumar, analyst for market researcher Frost & Sullivan.
“I do expect the price will come down to perhaps as low as $200 per kilowatt-hour when mass production begins in 2010 and 2011,” she says.
With steady progress on all four fronts of lithium-ion cells – cost, safety, durability, and performance – Matthew Keyser, a battery researcher at the National Renewable Energy Laboratory in Golden, Colo., says attention is flowing to riskier, longer-term battery research of the sort “more likely to one-day produce a kind of Holy Grail battery.”
All batteries degrade with time. Right now, the Volt’s new battery is expected to last five to eight years. But with a typical car’s lifetime now about 17 years, automakers want a “life of the car” battery. With proper research funding, that goal is achievable, Mr. Keyser and Sadoway agree. The next generation of battery materials – perhaps vanadium oxide or nickelates – will lower costs by increasing capacity, they say.
“What we’ve done is to create a situation with a lot of people who smell big money and they’re working very hard,” says John Goodenough, the University of Texas at Austin professor who invented the lithium-ion battery. “I’m optimistic that in a few years, they’re going to lick the problem.”
[Editors note: The original version of this article misstated which regions of the world hold large deposits of lithium. China and South America sit on two of the largest caches.]
( More stories )
Comments
2. crazy@crazy.com | 01.22.09
Oil is a limited resource. Do any of us care who makes the batteries for our laptops?
Why would we care who makes the batteries for electric cars?
As long as they’re cheap and reliable.
3. Pithy Opiner | 01.22.09
Well, on a more enthusiastic and positive note I have this to say. Many of us are prime candidates for an all-electric vehicle. And, that would be those of us who just go back and forth to work and live 5 or 10 minutes from where they work. I admit, the electric car is not for everyone. But, if onlyu 15% of us switched, imagine the impact on imported oil that would have. Imagine the impact on the environement that would have in that much less exhaust spewing out into the atmosphere. If I had to travel a distance, I would just fire up the Lincoln and take off. But, for 90% of my personal driving, the electric car would be just fine.
4. Peter M. Dumais | 01.22.09
I think that the M.I.T. forces are on the right track. We need to get out of oil as soon as possible. The compitition for batteries is great. This Country should be able to compete. We have plenty of out of work factory workers and engineers. Thanks to G. W. B.
5. jerry jiang | 01.22.09
NOT JUST ABOUT BATTERY
The adoption has been slowed due to poor performance characteristics. Today’s LEV, and EV have limited range, long recharge times, poor acceleration, short battery lives, poor hill climbing ability, and high torque output produces heat in the motor windings that must be removed to avoid motor, controller and battery damages.
Certainly Drive-train motor and controller are as important as the energy storage, just that the ESS and BMS technologies are still migrating and facing many changes as the chemistry is improved.
The “electric Drive-train system (EDS)” is the heart of any EV/LEV. All of the EV/LEV applications are potential buyers of the EDS. In addition to battery technologies, most efficient motor and best controller are certainly make great difference.
6. jerry jiang | 01.22.09
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Abstract: Non-gasoline engines almost always require a combination of batteries, hydrogen fuels and electric drives. A special patented design of a motor and a specific application-tuned controller developed by a Canadian company gives a very high power-to-weight ratio, supporting the transition to electronic drives in vehicles. The company is looking for partners interested in development and manufacturing of (light) electric vehicles.
Description: This Canadian company is in the field of electric drive trains and charger/battery applications for industrial and leisure applications. Electric drives have been their main focus and the know-how has evolved into a reliable, economical and proven system. The company has installed electric go-kart systems in Europe, Asia and America, with ongoing projects from floor-cleaning machines to electric sailplanes and boats.
The combination of motor and controller (with battery and charger, hydrogen fuel cell, etc.) is ideal for conversion of any kind of vehicle from gasoline to electronic drives. The company has the knowhow to replace existing engines with EDS.
7. P. Arrington | 01.22.09
This is great news for the United States! Nothing is more important than getting out front re electric battery innovation and technology. Our country is held hostage to enemy nations who sell us our chains and lock them on. It’s been more than 30 years overdue, but now we are moving forward into the 20th century, perhaps by yearend we will advance toward the 21st.
The Internal Combustion Engine wastes 70% of the fuel it inhales. We are smarter and better than that.
8. Matt | 01.22.09
Re: the #1 comment about, well, everything. It is a bit harsh to label the article brainless. If we want to continue to use a form of transportation that is not human-powered, we will need an energy source for it. Batteries are a form of increasing our dependence on electricity created by whatever means the local powerplant uses, but relatively few of those are oil-fired, thus reducing dependence on oil. I’m not sure how we got down to the “jerks” term so quickly, these people are trying to develop products to get the US weaned off foreign oil. They are filling a need. This is how things get done. This is a requirement for change. Griping about the fact that things are not quite the status quo and are not immediately creating a perfect world doesn’t help anything.
Re: the #4 comment about out of work factory workers and engineers caused by GWB. While many things can be blamed on ‘ol Dubya, you can hardly pin that one on him. The job losses and downturn in the auto industry were primarily caused because the auto execs and marketing people for years chose to use the majority of gains in technology and efficiency to boost power output rather than fuel efficiency…..because that is what the consumers wanted. The President does not dictate what the auto industry develops. Congress could pass laws mandating higher fuel economy, but chose not to until far too late, and it’s still far too low. You are absolutely correct that this country can compete in battery development though, we’ve got the education system and brainpower to do it, it’s only the willpower that’s in question.
9. LEE JENKINSON | 01.22.09
This article begs the question: “why is the US behind everyone else?” I was under the impression that The USA was THE place for pure and applied research, and can only conclude that the powers who determine and fund the course of that research are just as isolated and out of touch as the CEO’s of Big Business are. It seems that vision and foresight have disappeared from America’s lexicon and all we can do is shuffle a bit faster to try to catch up. Is it any wonder then that we can witness America’s decline in real time as events seem to be converging to create a “perfect storm” of economic, environmental and social crises? I am disgusted but not surprised that the corporate “elite” are no better at their jobs than I would be in that position, which begs the question: “why then do we need to pay them vast amounts of cash and stock options “to attract the best and the brightest” when all we get is out of touch mediocrity?
If they are the best and the brightest, we are truly doomed.
10. Jim Maloney | 01.22.09
Battery cars would be fine for urban commuters, but out west we need to travel greater distances. We need to develop a small diesel-electric system just like is used on locomotives. A small (two or three cylinder) diesel motor turning a generator which supplies juice to electric motors on each wheel. Simple and effective, and could run all day on biofuels.
11. CJ Reed | 01.22.09
I wouldn’t be too worried about supply, Talison Minerals’ Greenbushes Mine is the longest continually operated mine in Western Australia (over 100yrs). It is the world’s largest spodumene (source of lithium) mine and has huge reserves.
12. bitguru | 01.23.09
I’m curious about the “The Obama administration has talked about a $7,500 tax break for PHEV buyers” comment. A $7500 PHEV tax credit is a done deal. It was signed into law in October as part of the rescue/bailout. See http://bitguru.wordpress.com/2008/10/04/us-tax-credit-for-plug-in-vehicles-signed-into-law/
13. Alexander Berger | 01.23.09
Where did you go to school Kerry Bradshaw? Stanford? You seem biased against our MIT boys. “Oil and batteries have zero characteristics in common, both in their production and use.” Are you kidding? Did you even read the article? Oil Drives cars - Batteries drive cars. Is that a similarity or am I missing something. Sorry if that sounds like a personal attack. I just get pissed of when I see other people with strong opinions on topics they don’t know enough about. Believe me, the student at MIT are not “morons” just you try getting a 31 on ACT and then get back with me.
14. Ron Kirkpatrick | 01.23.09
We must look to the long term for energy efficient transportation. The constant myoptic vascillation based on short term ‘economic realities’ is why we are in this mess. GM was on the right track with the EV-1 but the battery technology was not then available–neither was the current level of computer technology to effectively control and ‘fine-tune’ a modern multimode vehicle. It could not be manufactured and sold at a profit, and the short term pressures of our financial system dictated its demise. It appears that GM did save their ‘lessons learned.’
Our current issues are not the result of any one administration. US-based ‘big 3′ automakers and saddled by unrealistic and uncompetitive labor costs with a large historical component. Offshore companies have built factories in the US and built high quality vehicles with American labor [but not American Labor]. Look at what is different. Another
15. Steve Burke | 01.23.09
The key to making the EV proposition work is in the business model not just the technology or where it is made. There will be room for US battery manufacturers if the commercial proposition to the customer does not mean that the full value of the battery needs to be recovered immediately. Shai Agassi’s Better Place business model is more compeling than simply making expensive battery powerd cars and passing on all of the cost to the consumer in the purchase price.
16. Caponer | 01.23.09
Those who doubt the ability of the USA to make batteries that compete with those made in China etc. are undoubtedly correct. Our costs of production, including labor costs, are so out of balance with those of almost all foreign countries there is no way we can produce batteries more cheaply than those others. If anyone thinks the American worker is going to lower his income to that of the Chinese, or Korean, is out of his mind. And if all production in the USA is done mechanically, with no workers, cannot the plant in China or Korea do the same? The fact is, the American worker has priced himself out of a job, permanently.
17. lee howden | 01.23.09
I just bought some LiFePo4 batteries for an electric assisted bicycle. The lithium came from Canada the other raw materials came from Germany and they were put together in China. I bought them from a distributer in Australia.
How could it not be cost effective to manufacture them in the U.S.
Also, the cells a recyclable and can be used again just like the lead in lead acid batteries. If you burn a gallon of gas it’s gone.
Cheers
18. Rasputin | 01.23.09
The U.S. is blessed with many natural resources, abundant expertise and a very productive labor force. Let’s put our citizens to work, and spend a lot of those billions going overseas now, to rebuild our internal manufacturing capability. We need the jobs, we need the technology, we need the security of manufacturing in our own country. Playing only to “the bottom line” has been a disaster for us for many years.
19. Nathan | 01.23.09
The only way we’ll be competitive is making them cheaper. This means less humans and more automation, especially where Detroit is concerned. This isn’t a dig, it’s the facts. I can buy a conversion kit for less than 10k for each my cars, why would I spend 40k, and still have the same battery issues? I should be able to go to the drug store and get AA Li batteries for the same price as alkaline. Figure that out and you’ll have a winner. We’re already late getting into the game with the three countries noted several years ahead of us. The same goes for solar and wind energy. Nobody has paid attention to all the technical mag.s out there so we’ve missed the boat, but it doesn’t mean we can’t catch the next one. Government incentives to “purchase” these items only drive the prices up. It happened in the early 80’s with solar and it’ll happen again if we’re not careful.
20. zapman | 01.23.09
We do not have a source of lithium here in the USA. However we do have lots of lead and lead carbon technology may overcome lithium batteries in the near future for motive transportation. An over dependance on lithium for batteries could lead to a new OPEC in the future.
21. L Hayes | 01.23.09
There IS a compromise here, one that A123, Valence, and others are already
pursuing, namely US battery tech companies outsourcing the actually cell production to Asia (China in this case) BUT NOT THE PACK AND BMS ASSEMBLY, which can be done here. Like one other poster here, I have firsthand experience with advanced lithium battery packs in an e-bike application and I’ll tell you this: the Chinese may be able to copy the basic lithium cell chemistry from others via reverse engineering and such, but the packs I’ve ridden have fallen badly short on longevity due at least in part to poor BMS systems (and probably poor QC as well in the production of the cells).
Clearly the best solution globally is a cooperative effort where the most advanced companies set the standards and contract trustworthy producers to produce the cells. The new battery consortium being set up in the US proposes to do much of that standard-setting and quality control assurance.
So while the cells may be best made in China (but strictly built to our specs), the packs themselves may well be assembled back here in the States–this is exactly the path GM has chosen to pursue, as they view the BMS and pack construction as both critical and proprietary. IOW let the Asians sell us the building blocks; and then let each major automaker decide how best to put the cells together for each application. This appears to be the path already being taken by many corporate alliances in the HEV battery pack field, e.g. Saft/Johnson, A123/Continental, and now GM/LGChem.
In much the same way that automaking in general has become a global enterprise with many international partnerships (Fiat/Chrysler being the latest example but there are many many others), PHEVs will almost surely follow suit, and one of the beauties of the lithium battery cell is that it appears amenable to all sorts of chemical “tweaking” so that no one company will hold a patent monopoly here as Cobasys and Chevron shamefully did with large cell NIMH.
22. todd | 01.23.09
not trying to say this isnt a good direction to go in, but a nice low hanging fruit is using bikes and walking (never mind the personal health benefits). i cant tell you how many times i see people drive to run errands that are less than a mile from their home. the other concern i have is the environmental costs associated with mining (e.g. waste generation and water usage, including for battery production). If the water usage is anything like microchip production it will be very water density intensive. i guess the bottom line is things are changing whether we like it or not. it will be an interesting decade.
23. Bartery | 01.23.09
Has anybody thought about what to do with all these dead batteries (hazardous waste) when they’re all spent in like 10 years? Also, hopefully someone is calculating how much extra oil we’re going to be burning in our powerplants to keep up with the juice demand to recharge millions of these car batteries every night…
I definitely agree that more efficient batteries are essential to our energy future (esp for wind & solar), but it’s going to bring alot of collateral damage along with it that has to be considered too…
24. SteveK | 01.23.09
For those who say ‘why should we make them ourselves’, we are finding out now that the model of having everything made in China, while they lend us the money to buy the products, isn’t working out real well. Unless you think a viable economy consists of changing each other’s bedpans. As Manufacturing goes, Scientific research will go as well. Granted It takes a long time, but this idea that a modern nation can thrive without manufacturing is bogus.
25. kelly | 01.23.09
Sony commercialized the Li-Ion battery in 1992, EV cells in 1995. Australian* students started racing Li-Ion cars ten years ago. GM
noticed the EV threatening ICE in 1998 and began sueing CARB and
and crushing customer GM EV-1s.
The 2008 PHEV BYD F3DM($22k) gets 60 mi/charge while the bankrupt
GM Volt promises a 40 mi/charge ($40k) in two years. There’s a
saying about backing a dead horse.
26. James Short | 01.23.09
If Donald Sadoway (or another)is sucessful, the electric battery car will be successful. If he is not, the electric car is an expensive golf cart.
27. Lorin Vant-Hull | 01.23.09
All the above is very nice, but it completly misses the point that the battery is like a gas tank. They both simply store the energy supply the car will use, neither actually propels the car (that is the engines job, be it a combustion engine, or an electric motor). The energy supply is the gas or chemical energy stored in the “tank”. The gas comes from oil from overseas and its importation is helping bankrupt the US, the electricity to charge the batteries comes off the grid, and currently is mostly supplied by coal fired plants, which are the primary source of CO2 which is due to suffocate or drown us.
But electric vehicles are still great, as the electric supply CAN be produced by renewable resources, such as wind, or concentrating solar thermal power plants. Photovoltaics can help, but they are still very expensive and generally not very efficient. The beauty of the plug in electic vehicles (be they hybrid or shorter range electric only) is that they can be recharged when the grid has excess power, and with a smart grid, can be used as a back up supply during peak electric demand hours.
So, what we need is not only development of batteries and plug-ins, but support for the installation of the renewable energy sources needed to make the whole thing work. If renewables got a significant fraction of the subsidies that coal or oil have been getting, and if coal were properly charged at the source for all the polution it causes (ground water poisoning, stream poisoning, heavy metals sent into the air, CO2, etc., not to mention the danger/damage from releases from ash pits and settleing ponds such as seen recently in the Appalachians), even PV would seem to be reasonably priced, wind would be a real bargain, and CSP plants would be springing up all over the west.
By the way, most CSP plants have the capability of storing a part of the heat they generate in large tanks for use during peaking hours when it is most needed and most valuable, or to satisfy the jokers who insist renewables must meet base load when electicity is very cheap. In fact, one utility, when negotiating the prices they would pay for electricity quoted a NEGATIVE number for base load power because they would have to build a larger dump to allow their coal and nuclear plant to remain on line at their lowest operating level rather than shutting them down each night, which they were not designed to accomodate. When renewables are supplying a majority of our power, this will be an issue, but at that time develpment and experience will have reduced the cost of the renewable systems enough that storage methods we know of now will be economically practical. Most of thesee are a LOT more understood and reliable than the sequestering of CO2 the coal plants are counting on for their future.
28. tacorama | 01.23.09
Has anyone ever considered using ultra capacitors instead of batteries. They are extremely light wieght, have a huge power density, have no moving dangerous chemicals and can charge in less than a minute. I suspect the main issue is their cost. Is anyone even looking into this??
29. George Curtis | 01.23.09
The statement in the article about “replacing foreign oil with US electricity” sets an inept tone for the rest of it.
Where does he think the US electricity comes from? We are low on nuclear, limited on hydro, (only so much is available) and have been limited on oil and gas for years.
Solar and wind can supply some of the electricity for EV’s, or just displace some oil for electrical generation — it makes little difference.
We will just have foreign oil and Chinese cheap labor imports as long as the public and politicians tolerate it.
George Curtis, Univ. of Hawaii
30. George Curtis | 01.23.09
You cannot replace foreign oil with American electricity. How do you think the US electricity is generated?
George Curtis Univ. of Hawaii
31. noel wright | 01.24.09
We humans are caught-up in tradition. Three thousand pound autos transporting two hundred pound people is an insult to our mother earth. Maybe, thinking outside the box could be helpful. My mailbox stands in the sun every sunny day collecting heat. The car is often parked in the sun all day, collecting heat. Perhaps an answer to many of our problems is to convert this heat into energy. A total and complete design change in how we approach these tasks, is what I think is needed in order to solve these world problems. I test drove a new bicycle today. What a marval in engineering. Now if the powers at be, can catch up to the engineering of these new bikes, we will all be ahead. Noel Wright
32. jonbo in AR | 01.24.09
re: 29, 30.
Dear George:
“You cannot replace foreign oil with American electricity. How do you think the US electricity is generated?”
By US coal plants, US natural gas plants, US nuclear plants, US solar plants, US wind farms, US algae-lipid biodiesel farms, etc. etc. Some of these solutions are fairly “green”, I think. Some, of course, aren’t. Without being an expert I can see that together they can all help us get off of our dependency on foreign oil. Eventually the more carbon-neutral ones such as algae and solar can help us to reduce our carbon footprint.
By reducing our direct dependency on foreign oil, hybrid-electric cars can be a big step in the right direction.
Think future, George.
33. Sandy | 01.25.09
Did anyone see “Who Killed the Electric Car”? Does anyone remember that the auto industry started with electric cars, which were preferred over the ensuing gasoline types? Money (read that greed!) has always ruled this country’s industrial roost. It’s not about mass-producing electric cars the public can afford–it’s about generating enough profits to satisfy the gullets of the ceo’s and shareholders. Since the beginning and, later, the original Mazda engine, American technology, through American talent and ingenuity, has been readily available–only to be scrapped and shredded and thereby denied for the rest of us.
34. PilotAce | 01.25.09
Well, forget all this battery talk. We can move the latest aircraft carriers and power satellites with nuclear power, a car shouldn’t be so difficult. Battery technology looks like the dog is chasing his tail.
35. LEE JENKINSON | 01.26.09
We are over thinking this whole problem: I just read an article about a car that runs on compressed air with a range of 200 miles and a Japanese company is working on a car than runs on water. Let’s keep the KISS principle in mind as we think up eco-friendly ways to commute.
36. N8 | 01.26.09
You are all missing the point.
We need to stop breeding like maggots; then it won’t much matter what our cars are powered by.
How about some $ towards ZERO POPULATION GROWTH ?
37. Jean-Claude | 01.26.09
To Tacorama: check Bollore Blue Car which will use Bollore capacitors (they are a large manufacturer from France) and Pininfarina assembly lines.
38. Tim Hoffman | 01.27.09
If we all adopted a low emission mentality and started looking at vehicle use such as the simple bicycle as a re-awakening, we might start to realize where we went wrong. I can cycle 120 miles in a day on a bicycle when doing an endurance ride. I cycle to work 16miles a day, which i have done since 1994. I burn FAT not OIL. And my batteries are a bit of tasty lunch and breakfast that i burn off while cycling.
I like the idea of electric vehicles and I fly 160miles per hour electric aircraft powered by the latest generation LIPO batteries led by the Radio control industry.
I love the idea of the electric car and seeing the revolution the LIPO and LION battery has created i think it is a great horizon ahead for such development.
But ithink as said we can also simplify the weight of our machines used and look at electric bikes/scooters and new light composite vehicles.
Regards tim
39. Jim Essig | 01.28.09
It is nice to see that the United State Government, in general, realizes that a profound and far reaching technology needs to be addressed for our national and economic security and that it is openly talked about rather then being of the often classified nature of revolutionary technology programs. Some such programs with a great degree of classification are the DOE/Naval Reactor projects which have and continue to produce excellent nuclear powered submarines for the U.S. Navy, the development of the Advanced Tactical Fighter plane, the B2 Stealth Bomber, and others.
However, the desired high mass specific energy storage density batteries commensurate with running cars for 250 miles between charges, may, if coupled industrially with solar and wind powered electrical energy generating stations, end up being just as important for our national security if not more so, then the major military R&D efforts such as the one I mentioned above.
It is interesting to consider just how far we could go in storing electrochemical energy within the paradigms of 20th/Early 21st century physics. Take for instance the hydrogen atom which has a lower mass than all of the other elements, and the element Flourine, which is the most electronegative of elements. If some sort of stable batterg technology could be developed using these two elements, a hard challenge since ordinarilly, if liquid hydrogen and liquid flourine combine, the result is a more exothermic reaction than the combustion of liquid oxygen and liquid hydrogen, then perhaps battery packs could be designed to permit as much as a few thousand miles on a single charge according to some researchers in this field as of a couple of decades ago. Obviously, this never came to fruition. However, such energy storage density would permit electric helicopters, electric propeller driven aircraft, electric tractor trailors, electric buses; and for the military, electric powered gunships, long duration electromagnetic rail gun tanks, etc., thus revolutionizing to an unprecedented degree our wheeled vehicles and airtravel industry.
Applications of such long endurance batteries would be excellent for cell phones, laptop and note book computers, household emergency energy capacity incase the utility grid gets wacked by warfare, terrorism, or by natural causes, and perhaps among the most fun of all for a person like me who a few years ago bought a 10 million candle power hand held spot light, long endurance very powerful hand held spotlights and flashlights.
Could we go even further beyond this seemingly Hydrogen Flourine upper limit to electrochemical energy storage density in the form of any future type of galvanic batteries? Who knows! Some exotic yet to be developed chemistry might permit the above 3,000 miles per charge to be bested by a factor of a few. One possibility is that some breakthrough in electrical energy charged capacitors might work for this purpose although the best currently available charged capacitors, I believe, have a significantly lower mass specific energy density than even a typical Duracell brand D size battery sold in department stores.
I think the battery physicists and engineers are going to have a lot of fun in the rush to build ever higher mass specific energy storage density batteries. Eventhough I am far from an expert on batteries, the whole endeavor sounds like enough fun to the extent that I might be tempted to jump in.
40. Mike H. | 01.28.09
Something alot of people are overlooking in the above- NOAA has published a report saying we’ve pumped so much CO2 into the atmosphere that it is unlikely to naturally abate for the next 1000 years. That is a governmental report by the premiere atmospheric research group we have.
So, for the next 1000 years, our children and descendents will have to suffer from our gluttony and lack of foresight. Even to this very moment in time, most of the above posts revolve around *economic* concerns. ECONOMIC!
What are the *economic* concerns of the people who are going to get flooded out of their homes in the coastal areas? Or the islanders around the world who’re going to feel the effects of diminishing land mass?? Any concerns for them? “Maybe. Is there any CASH in it?”
Growth economy is DEAD. Growth economy is the cancer that is killing the modern world. Capitalism is NOT dependent on growth-growth-growth, and if you don’t believe it go back and read some textbooks.
Two imperative concerns:
1. No more greenhouse gas emissions other than cow flatulation. Period.
2. Rebuild the world economic market into a *stable* economy.
Both problems seem almost insurmountable, yet that is what governments around the world are realizing is the necessity of our current human condition.
I do have to chime in however that we need to unilaterally agree as a species to curb our population growth until we get Mars habitable. Our species has seriously overtaxed our planet’s ability to sustain us. If we keep this up, we’ll have to seed the oceans with plankton, re-forest our landmasses and live on very large artificial islands in another 100 years 
Mike H.
41. Tim Sanders | 01.28.09
To 23 and 30: less than 1.5% of U.S. electricity production is fueled by oil. So even if every drop of oil used to produce electricity were saved, it would be one drop in a 50 gallon barrel. Natural gas is plentiful in the U.S. and Canada has ten times as much as we do and Mexico has even more. If we would start building bridges instead of walls, loose our egos and use our brains this energy problem could be HALVED in THREE YEARS!!! Example: The west has enough geothermal capability to produce enough electricity to supply one half of the U.S. needs NOW. The west also has enough solar capability to supply 30 per cent of the current U.S. electrical needs NOW. But the infrastucture THROUGHOUT the U.S. is not there to allow transportation to areas that need the electricity. First things first; build the infrastructure of ALL things that need to be developed. Wind is the least productive of the alternative energies (30% efficiency max.), uses up 75% of the development money available as tax credits to large corporations and has the most heavily funded lobbyists group (AWEA) in D.C. The squeeky wheel get the oil (money). Each and every home in America could be retrofitted with solar panels at government expense (really, taxpayer money), save more electricity and do it more efficiently than all these government sponsored programs (taxpayer money spent) put together. We need to do what we CAN do NOW and simultaneously work on getting the REAL oil guzzler, automobiles, on a new fuel utilization program. Once again, loose your egos, work together, build bridges not walls, stop being GREEDY and let’s all of us live within our means and decency. As bad as we have it, most of the rest of the world is just trying to survive.
5
42. John | 01.29.09
A corollary of such a drop in battery prices for cars is that distributed generation becomes more viable. The intended size of the Chevy Volt battery is a good fraction of a house’s daily electricity load, and is an amount of energy you might be able to gather on a good day, with a 3kW rooftop PV array. We are studying the potential of such a system using open-source software at:
44. John Case | 02.03.09
#1 - Oil and Batteries are identical as applied to transportation. Stored Energy. Period.
#4 - Don’t forget to thank Bill for mandating sub-prime lending.
#16 - Location of labor rates for battery plant are inconsequential. Production is almost completely mechanized. US Location good for national security reasons.
#20 Lithium is everywhere. Just easier to collect from brines; Bolivia has a huge reserve.
#23 Dead Lithium Ions are not hazardous and can be recycled.
Analysis done of the effects of over-night charging indicate the current grid can handle the influx of EVs. In fact, it would benefit the Electrics by balancing the loads. Even more when Vehicle to Grid (V2G) is realized.
#25 Maybe the billion GM spent on expensive, inefficient, impractical hydrogen cell car application could have been put to better use.
#29 Propelling a vehicle with electricity uses less total energy, expels less CO2 and cost the consumer less money, mile-per-mile even using coal generation. Plus we can curb the exportation of dollars for crude.
#34 Yes, but we can have electric transportation TODAY.
#39 The first two steps in that process are:
1) create liquid hydrogen efficiently. Electrolysis (inefficient) and reformation (massive CO2 creation) are not feasible.
2) create a cost effective fuel cell. 1 million bucks of platinum per vehicle is a bit pricey.
45. Paul Appleton | 02.06.09
Go to better place.com….learn about agassi plan and inform your legislators…NaS batteries are part of a solution, not mentioned….for poplulation dense east coast, deepwater wind can replace foreign oil truly within 5 years if DOE were to take of the gloves and challenge industry….
46. Mark | 02.07.09
Today it costs around $0.01/mile for electricity vs $0.13/mile for gas on the same vehicle. Anybody who doesn’t think we, as Americans, should throw everything in including kitchen sink at this to try to do well at this industry is a fool. America can certainly do well at this. If MIT needs help, we can always ask UofM(ichigan) to pitch in.
47. mister-e | 02.08.09
I totally agree, we’re not investing enough in battery technologies, but we shouldn’t invest in them because it’s “the right thing to do for the environment” that’s debatable, on many levels and utter nonsense when you want your economy to grow. Little interest was on batteries since gasoline is incredible in it’s energy 44MJ per kg compared do most batteries which are somewhere in the KJ per kg that’s current LI-ion, so 9 gallons of gas = 1000Kg of LI-ion in reactants. However, there are reactions out there and possibilities that could close this gap and let us take advantage of lighter electric engines and let our cars go really really fast, we just haven’t researched the field enough. Write your congressman.
48. John Case | 02.17.09
Density is not the whole story.
Even with current , commercially available technology, Li-ion battery packs can deliver 0.7 MJ/kg, but electric propulsion is 80% efficient whereas an Internal Combustion Engine is only 20%.
To travel 200 miles ICE requires 44 lbs of gas, 400 lbs of engine and 300 lbs of power transmission and support systems.
The same 200 miles in a all-electric vehicle requires 900 lbs of battery and 250 lbs of electronics and motors.
For hauling an extra 400 lbs, I would opt for the electric vehicle emitting a fraction of the CO2 (coal) and costing a fraction of the cost per mile.
Now consider Stanford’s Nano Silicon battery, expected to be viable for production in 2013, has a density of 2.6 MJ/kg. This source would require less than 300 lbs for 200 miles, 150 lbs less than a current gas car.
The sooner our country moves forward, the sooner we stop exporting our wealth for oil.
Yes. Write your congressmen.
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1. kerry bradshaw | 01.22.09
Apparently MIT professors don’t need to understand the reality of the marketplace. One of the arguments those who are angling to extract research dollars from the Feds argue is that “the US is in a race to develop batteries,” implying that it’s critical for our well-being. Nothing could possibly be more brainless than that stupid claim. Then the morons talk of swapping an oil depdendency for a battery depdendency. Oil and batteries have zero characteristics in common, both in their production and use. We are depdendent for foreign countries for prcticallyeverything - so why do these jerks think that large format battery depdendencies mean ANYTHING?
There are three countries neck and neck in battery development :Kprea (which just won the Chevy Volt contract) , Japan, and China (whose BYD is producing a Volt before the Volt, at half the price). I see a million reasons (membersof the UAW) why the US cannot compete in making ANY auto parts. Batteries are simply another one. Even if we developed a battery as good as anyone else, it would have to be manufacturerd elsewhere in order to compete. This article has zero logic. Just another scam to rape the US consumers, this time using patriotism as a motive.