Great. What's the price per Watt-hour?

These batteries actually are a type of lithium ion battery. They can be completely recharged
very quickly and flow very well at low temps and can output current at 4 times the rate of typical li ion batteries. They are environmentally benign and do not heat up when charging or discharging. They have capacities of 1 kWhr per 28 pounds, or about twice that of nickel metal-hydrides, but half that of typical li ion
batteries. This battery will be in Phoenix Motors electric pickup trucks offered this Spring with a range of 150 or
optionally 200 miles.

Nice. If battery technology keeps going in this direction, maybe we can forget about hydrogen fuel cells completely.

I think fuel cells will still make lots of sense, though maybe not in cars.

What are their densities i.e weight per volume.

Finally where can you purchase batteries like these. I really want to make my own portable battery units. I have a very knowledgable friend in this field. And he can do pretty cool stuff.

So I want greener batteries. Longer lasting, less toxins. These seem great.

They're supposed to last longer than the cars they're put in.
This could be the battery breakthrough that we've all been waiting for.
Hydrogen doesn't have a chance. Batteries require no new infrastructure and can be charged at home.

Batteries require no new infrastructure and can be charged at home.

Yeah, but they require hours to charge rather than minutes to fuel.

Still, my money (or my hope) is on nanotube supercapacitors. Same power density as lithium ion, but charges in seconds or minutes, and would have a lifetime even longer than the batteries shown here. My only question with those, besides the fact that they only exist in the lab at this point, is how toxic the nanotubes prove to be, and of course how expensives the nanotube supercaps will be.

Okay, that's two questions.

Still, I agree that given these options the case for hydrogen as a car fuel is ever weaker. It may, however, prove ideal for jet aircraft, where it has already been tested.

Batteries require no new infrastructure and can be charged at home.

Not everyone has the luxury of being able to afford a car which is only used for commuting. If the vehicle has fast recharge, there certainly isn't that kind of built-in infrastructure for recharging at home, nor is home necessarily a catch-all recharging location.

While there is a market for battery powered cars, I don't think they will be mainstream unless they can be charged in minutes, like gassing up.

What's the worry about toxic nanotubes? Normal batteries are toxic too.

Small battery powered cars that you can charge at home are great since few people commute more then 70 miles a day.

There will always be bio diesle for more powerfull cars for long trips etc.

Am very interested in possible purchase. Anyone know the battery sizes (amp-hours capacity) and prices for the different sizes?

Alonso,
These batteries charge in 6 minutes.

Anonymous,
These batteries probably couldn't be charged at home in 6 minutes but they CAN be charged at home at a slower rate.
I would imagine the service station of the future will have the kind of equipment that could charge batteries in six minutes.
I don't understand your comment about the luxury of owning a car used only for commuting.
If you haven't gotten it by now the future will not be like the present in regard to the personal use of the automobile. Start to think about weening yourself off them now.

I don't understand your comment about the luxury of owning a car used only for commuting.

You asserted that no new infrastructure would be needed. If that's so, there goes fast recharging, and there goes any auto journey past the range of the vehicle. So, such a vehicle necessitates another vehicle to get out of town, etc.

If you haven't gotten it by now the future will not be like the present in regard to the personal use of the automobile.

Gee, gosh, that never occurred to me. Thanks for showing me the light.

Start to think about weening yourself off them now.

I broke my addiction to cars long ago. Haven't you done it yet?

Small battery powered cars that you can charge at home are great since few people commute more then 70 miles a day.

If they're so great, how come no one makes them and no one buys them?

--
editor note: Oil was cheap, car companies had vested interests and battery technolgy wasn't good enough yet?

There will always be bio diesle for more powerfull cars for long trips etc.

Right - so we all now need two car payments instead of one. Great idea.

Hmmm, I wonder what their shelf life is?

It's not always just a simple question of how many cycles (and how deep those cycles are) for a question of battery longevity.

Certain battery chemistries are much more dependant on how long since they were manufactured, and what temperatures they've been kept at (Li-Ion's dirty little secret).

Nanotechnology sounds good, but recently there has been concerns about potential health problems with really tiny particles getting into your body.

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2004/04/040407081930.htm
http://www.hazards.org/nanotech/index.htm?CFID=4593254

Well it seems my comment didn't make it though for some reason. But Normal batteries are toxic and can cause health problems, so why the concern about nanotech batteries?

If you haven't gotten it by now the future will not be like the present in regard to the personal use of the automobile. Start to think about weening yourself off them now.

Actually homes will be able to handle quick recharging, because they'll have large, 'cheap' capacitors sitting in a back room. Quick discharge from the caps to your battery, then the caps can recharge at a slow rate.

Anonymous,

Haven't you ever seen those signs on power lines, high voltage. I'm sure it doesn't mean 110 or 220. The voltage needed to recharge these batteries in six minutes is already there. I'm sure that it's limited to 110/220 in homes for safety reasons. Adding fast charge facilities to gas stations is trivial compared, for example, to a hydrogen distribution system.

You say you've broken your addiction to cars yet the notion of getting out of town in a personal automobile is stll a viable concept to you?

The voltage needed to recharge these batteries in six minutes is already there.

That's not what you said. You said no new infrastructure was necessary. If you're talking about fast recharge, at the very minimum, you're going to need higher current outlets than are available in a normal home.

Imagine trying to pump 50 kWh of electricity into a battery pack in 6 minutes. Even if you had 600 volts, that would require at the bare minimum an 833 amp circuit. Things like electric stoves and dryers run on 240 volts, and at that voltage, you're talking about over 2000 amps.

By comparison, my whole house is wired for 310 amps at 120 volts, or 37.2 kW. A 6 minute charge on a 50 kW battery pack is 500 kW, or more than 13 times the maximum wattage of my whole house.

There's definitely an infrastructural upgrade required (several, actually, as I'm sure there's not even close to that much power coming from the pole).

Adding fast charge facilities to gas stations is trivial compared, for example, to a hydrogen distribution system.

So, do you think it's a good idea to have that much power next to that much gasoline?

You say you've broken your addiction to cars yet the notion of getting out of town in a personal automobile is stll a viable concept to you?

Perhaps you don't understand the nature of addiction. Just because someone isn't an addict doesn't mean they abstain. Addiction is a dependency.

I had a talk with a scientist about whether the power from the poles is adequate to charge the batteries in six minutes. He response was that it was. He roughly calculated 3000 amps.
He didn't think the changes required were material enough to be called a change of infrastructure.
If you want to get stuck on semantics, go ahead, get stuck.

regarding your nanosafe battery...sometime ago i read there might be an environmental risk with disposing of nano material...is that a real problem...or not...

jiltedcitizen-- While normal lead acid batteries contain toxic lead and sulphuric acid, some studies have indicated that nano-tubes (I don't know about buckey balls) can cause lung cancer along the same lines as asbestos. I assume that nono-tubes immersed in an acid/water solution wouldn't present any risk though.

Why do you need new infrastructure for gas station capable of charging this batteries in 6 min. when the battery manufacturer can provide you a charging unit that you can be able to plug-in in any gas station, all they need is higher power capacity of their transformer to accommodate more cars to be charge at one time with every individually owned car charger. Battery can be charge while the car is in motion by regenerative braking or installing solar cell on the roof.. you can used hub motor con generator (when you move the car its serve as motor and when you brake act as generator ) x 4 wheels. which is more than enough to charge your battery.

I'm an electrical engineer that has been researching electric vehicles for years. They were viable and massively scalable several years ago. The reasons why they haven't been introduced at a large scale consists of a complex tapestry of ignorant, short-sighted venture capitalists, propaganda and patent suppression by the oil industry, obsolete cultural preferences (gotta hear that V8 roar!), poor management and marketing of electric vehicle startup companies, misunderstandings about weight-shedding opportunities in vehicle manufacturing, poor education of the general public (people are disconnected from the environmental and social consequences of their actions, few people understand thermodynamics and electrical terms), misunderstandings of driving habits (average round trip in the U.S. somewhere between 20-50 miles) and a hopelessly corrupt political system masquerading as a democracy.

Luckily, despite these things, EV companies have made some management and marketing improvements, venture capitalists are starting to understand the investment opportunities. Also the public is waking up a little more--keep in mind, in economic terms, you only need a few percent market penetration of X product for the large X product makers to say, oh sh*t, we're losing out on that part of the market! Then there is potential for tipping points. Soon, more people will see EVs on the road and EV makers will be smart enough to present their products in the context of a long-term financial picture--ie: taking into consideration the lower operating costs of EVs vs the higher capital cost (vice-versa for gas/diesel vehicles). This will help fuel the tipping point--not to mention record-high oil prices.

The main point I wish to convey is that new battery technology is not required to make electric vehicles successful--it's only icing on the cake.

greensolutions:

i think nano-tech in batteries will BE the tipping point. almost every limitation of current battery technology is addressed; heat/explosion, charge/discharge rate, density, lifespan. With the increased density the argument of short range goes away. also the environmental folks won't be able to argue the point of "filling landfills with batteries" since these things could last longer than the vehicle and could be aggressively recycled, and their disposal could be managed to deal with the possibility of health concerns from nano particles.

i am also stoked about the advances that are being made with nano-tech in fuel-cells and solar panels. we're coming into some interesting times, and nearing the edge of a re-invention of our energy economy... if government and big business stays out of the way.