Battery developments

Have you noticed the recent advances in battery development. The
lithium-ion and new designs for Ni-Cad are very impressive.We are on
the way to quickly ramp up the hybrid and full electric vehicles. Look
out gasoline price jabbers!

Robert Price
An old engineer
http://MyHybridCarGuide.com

 

I heard something about a 'nano-anode' recently. Something about a
manufacturing
technique that makes the surface area on the anode multiply, leading to
potentially
huge increases in capacity in the future. But after the first blurb, I
haven't seen
any followups.

 

Unfortunately, the best battery designs are tired up in patents and
the patent-holder is partly owned by Chevron, and has refused to
sell many batteries.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cobasys

"...The terms did not allow Matushita, Toyota, and PEVE to sell certain NiMH
batteries for transportation applications in North America until the second
half of 2007, and commercial quantities of certain NiMH batteries in North
America until the second half of 2010..."

"...However, other actions by Cobasys suggest that the company remains
unwilling to make NiMH battery technology economically feasible for the
development of automobiles that rely on electric motor technology more than
currently available hybrid cars. In October 2007, International Acquisitions
Services, Inc., Innovative Transportation Systems AG and Neville Chamberlain
filed suit against Cobasys and its parents for refusing to fill a large,
previously agreed-upon order for large-format NiMH batteries to be used in
the electric Innovan..."

You won't see these batteries become cheap commodity items
until at least another decade, when most of these patents expire.

And one last problem is General Motor's plethora of patents
that were generated during the development of the EV-1. It
is speculated that the reason Toyota went hybrid, instead of
100% electric, is to dodge many of these patents.

The fact of the matter is that patent stumbling blocks are one
of the hurdles to bringing a new technologically proven design
to market. And the larger the demand for it, the more the
patent filers and other interested parties will fight about it,
and the longer the delay to market.

Ted

 

Sounds like you need a book on full electric vehicles.