Comments on: BBC: Car of the future http://climateprogress.org/2007/10/03/bbc-car-of-the-future/ The Latest on Climate Science, Solutions, and Politics Sat, 20 Mar 2010 12:20:26 -0400 http://wordpress.org/?v=2.8.5 hourly 1 By: Klaus D. Beccu, Ph.D. http://climateprogress.org/2007/10/03/bbc-car-of-the-future/#comment-7106 Klaus D. Beccu, Ph.D. Wed, 05 Dec 2007 23:30:04 +0000 http://climateprogress.org/2007/10/03/bbc-car-of-the-future/#comment-7106 Hello Dr. Jo Romm, I read your article on Plug-in hybrid cars in the Swiss Journal (Wealth Management, Nov. 07). I cannot more agree with the concept in your article which, of course, is also defended by certain automotive companies. Toyota will bring out a Plug-in Prius in Japan in the very near future and you mention the 2005 .prototype of Daimler-Benz (former D.-Chysler). As expert of energy & battery technology of Battelle Geneva Research Center (Switzerland) I have a critical viewpoint on this technique. Why ? At Battelle Geneva was invented in 1967 and pioneer-developed for Daimler-Benz (Germany) the revolutionary Nickelmetalhydride (NiMeHx) rechargeable battery system. In the eighties - after patent protection [in my name] and publication of the results many companies "jumped" on this development and further improved the structure & composition of the alloy-metal absorbing /desorbing the electrolytic hydrogen. The most prominent and successful is the US company Energy conversion Devices (ECD/Ovonics) now associated with Chevron producing (label: COBASYS) and licensing this technology worldwide. Most of the present Hybrid cars (Toyota, Honda, GM etc) are equipped with the NiMeHx battery technology l The major problem: is not at all linked to the use of NiMeHx batteries but is essentially common to all (low voltage) electrochemical power sources and to the need of a minimum voltage of approx. 200 volts (in reality up to 500 V) to efficiently power the electric traction motor. This requires to put in series a very large number of cells (Prius: 278 cells) which develop their electrochemical capacity in charge/discharge cycles differently or even can result in cell drop-outs or short-circuits. Unless expensive and complicated cell sensors with cut-out circuits for such a large number of cells are applied the only way to solve the problem currently is to use only a share of the available capacity (Prius: less than 50%) which increases the weight of the battery to the double or reduces the driving range. Therefore, the use of Li-Ion cells does not solve the problem. In contrary: the much higher cost (compared to NiMeHx), the many technical problems, e.g. charge sensitiviy, capacity blind drop etc. do not favor Li-Ion cells against the high performance, high capacity and long life NiMeHx- cells. The solution to this problems consists in an electronic converter approach in order to reduce the number of required cells to a lower number (30 to 50). - Incidentally, also the use of fuel cells will require high performance batteries for the acceleration phase of Elektric cars. Klaus D. Beccu, Dr.-Ing Manager, Electrochemical Powr Sources Dept. Battelle Geneva Research Center (kdb19665@dplanet.ch) Hello Dr. Jo Romm, I read your article on Plug-in hybrid cars in the Swiss Journal (Wealth Management, Nov. 07). I cannot more agree with the concept in your article which, of course, is also defended by certain automotive companies. Toyota will bring out a Plug-in Prius in Japan in the very near future and you mention the 2005 .prototype of Daimler-Benz (former D.-Chysler).

As expert of energy & battery technology of Battelle Geneva Research Center (Switzerland) I have a critical viewpoint on this technique. Why ? At Battelle Geneva was invented in 1967 and pioneer-developed for Daimler-Benz (Germany) the revolutionary Nickelmetalhydride (NiMeHx) rechargeable battery system. In the eighties – after patent protection [in my name] and publication of the results many companies “jumped” on this development and further improved the structure & composition of the alloy-metal absorbing /desorbing the electrolytic hydrogen. The most prominent and successful is the US company Energy conversion Devices (ECD/Ovonics) now associated with Chevron producing (label: COBASYS) and licensing this technology worldwide. Most of the present Hybrid cars (Toyota, Honda, GM etc) are equipped with the NiMeHx battery technology
l
The major problem: is not at all linked to the use of NiMeHx batteries but is essentially common to all (low voltage) electrochemical power sources and to the need of a minimum voltage of approx. 200 volts (in reality up to 500 V) to efficiently power the electric traction motor. This requires to put in series a very large number of cells (Prius: 278 cells) which develop their electrochemical capacity in charge/discharge cycles differently or even can result in cell drop-outs or short-circuits. Unless expensive and complicated cell sensors with cut-out circuits for such a large number of cells are applied the only way to solve the problem currently is to use only a share of the available capacity (Prius: less than 50%) which increases the weight of the battery to the double or reduces the driving range. Therefore, the use of Li-Ion cells does not solve the problem. In contrary: the much higher cost (compared to NiMeHx), the many technical problems, e.g. charge sensitiviy, capacity blind drop etc. do not favor Li-Ion cells against the high performance, high capacity and long life NiMeHx- cells. The solution to this problems consists in an electronic converter approach in order to reduce the number of required cells to a lower number (30 to 50). – Incidentally, also the use of fuel cells will require high performance batteries for the acceleration phase of Elektric cars.

Klaus D. Beccu, Dr.-Ing
Manager, Electrochemical Powr Sources Dept.
Battelle Geneva Research Center
(kdb19665@dplanet.ch)

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