Electric cars - What's the latest news for battery innovation?

[clayton72]

Over the years I've seen many articles about major breakthroughs in battery technology that will make electric cars greener and more competitive with gasoline powered cars. What ever happened with those companies and their bold claims? When will there be electric cars that go more than 400 miles on a charge and take less than 15 mins to charge?

[Selatius]

1. We're not too far away from that, actually.

It's an extreme example, but the Tesla Roadster can go about 244 miles on a single charge using modern lithium-ion battery technology. Older electric vehicles like the EV-1 never had access to lithium-ion technology; it didn't exist back then. While it takes roughly 3 hours for a Tesla to fully recharge, in practice we're most likely talking about recharging a battery system that is still partially full, so it likely won't take the full 3 hours unless you run it completely down.

As far as using electric vehicles for interstate travel, the time to charge issue will likely be a problem with us for a while to come. It's difficult to imagine recharging a full bank of batteries entirely in 15 minutes, not without expensive investments in charging stations and the invention of new technologies to facilitate such speed.

[GaYellowDawg]

8. We don't need fast charging.

We need banks of batteries that are easy to remove and replace. You go to the equivalent of a filling station, where they have a bunch of fully charged batteries. You pay them $20 to replace your spent batteries with fully charged ones. Batteries out, batteries in, and you're on your way. Your old batteries go to someone else when they're through charging.

[ProgressiveProfessor]

2. Incremental on practical ones with toxins remaining an issue

The gee whiz stuff seems to come and go between the hype cycles.

[rDigital]

3. GE's nickel sodium batteries. : ) nt

[PoliticAverse]

4. "What ever happened with those companies and their bold claims?"

A123 went bankrupt: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A123_Systems

[Warpy]

5. It will be interesting to see what happens

as carbon nanotube battery technology is perfected and put into production. So far, it promises lighter and more efficient batteries with a shorter turnaround on recharging. We'll see.

[Kablooie]

6. Soon we may all be driving lemons.

Lemons are used to make batteries in science class.

... Uh, remember?...

Ummm......




Never mind.

[PoliticAverse]

9. Well the car's computer might be lemon powered...

[2on2u]

7. Perhaps this one day soon..... I hope.

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