Nissan and NEC To Make Lithium-Ion Batteries For Hybrids
by Justin Thomas, Virginia on 04.13.07
Nissan and NEC announced today that they will form a joint venture to produce lithium-ion batteries to be used in hybrid and other electric cars. Lithium-ion batteries were once considered too unsafe for use in cars, but are now viewed as a key ingredient making hybrid and electric truly competitive with gasoline-powered cars. Lithium-ion batteries are both lighter and smaller than nickel-metal hydride batteries, which are used in almost all hybrid cars today. Nissan is losing its market share to Toyota and Honda, in the important U.S. market. If Nissan were to produce an breakthrough in lithium-ion battery technology, it could become competitive as a "green" vehicle maker. Still, the venture will have stiff competition from companies like A123Systems and EEStor. :: See also: Nissan to Develop Own Hybrid Technology and EEStor Ultra Capacitors: The Science Explained :: Via ZDNET and Inside Green Tech
FINALLY!!!
Lithium Polymer should be next right. .... right??
"Lithium-ion batteries were once considered too unsafe for use in cars..."
Small Li ion batteries have been fine for a long time in cell phones, but recently larger ones have had quite some trouble in laptops computers. What makes even bigger Li-ion batteries safe all of a sudden for cars?
Li-Ions are great in terms of power / size ratio, but they do get really hot. And that car has them right inside the crumple zone of the car's safety cage--bad place to put something toxic!!!
Alex: Maybe an active coolant would reduce the risk of fire? Yes, that uses electricity, but Lion probably has more benefits anyway.
While we're at the idea of car's charging at night time, why not install Folding@Home on the car's computer? Hybrids need to have somewhat complicated computers to operate, and as it sits indoors charging, the processor probably needs to do very little. If the charger connector added an ethernet line that could be used to download service updates (Do a recall at home!), it could transfer work units to and from the car. Plus, the consumer could also look at detailed status reports from the car, looking up data not visable on the dash, but still very important, such as oil levels, and so on. The car could even email the user if it needs something fixed! Much better than the check engine light.
Seeing the consistent and focused attacks on electric vehicles could lead a person to thinking that there were paid detractors on the internet.
LIthium Ion batteries are currently MUCH safer than first-generation cells used in laptops. A video posted here shows a newer type of battery being shot repeatedly and not going exothermic (burning). http://www.valence.com/battsafe.asp
Also check en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lithium_iron_phosphate_battery.
Just to be clear. Electric vehicles get better economy from the energy used, are cheaper to maintain, quieter, and the batteries are fully recylclable. Those are proven facts.
Your missing the point!
Gasoline driven cars already have the ability to explode and some have in the past. A few people may be burnt buy hot materials or injured by the toxic effects. But thats the trade off for transportation thats faster then walking. When we went from walking to horses the danger level in creased, when we went from horses to trains it increased further and so on and so on. If you were to make a graph of transportation advances and fatalities combined with the additional data like number of people using said transportation and the number of transportation devices (cars, planes, etc) you would see an initial increase of fatalities then a sharp decrease over the last 3 decades. The fact is though you will never reach the zero point unless you stay home and never venture forth.
As a socity we decided to not use nuclear power at a certian point and the down side is that we continue to dump billions of tone of polution into the
atmospher and severly effect our quality of life and our dependencu on forien oil. The french produce over 80% of their power through nuclear generation and have the cleanest air in the industrialised world!
We are bevond the nuclear option now, thanks to a uniformend public that can be swayed by rederic. Now we are standing on the edge of new technology that will help save the planet where we live and in many of the bloggs that I read I find the same old bull crap and I think here we go again! So do not knock the advaces and look for the dangers because they will always be there, waiting to be exploited by a few who will harm it for the rest of us.Think green live green and have some common sence at the same time. The world is a dangerous place, get use to it!
if these electric cars went over 30mph people might actually buy them but until then onward gasoline powered cars and some trucks and or diesel
Verizon is about the only place you can get the authentic RIM product and matching door. Most other sites are out of stock and even when they are in stock they have the black battery door which looks like crap. http://www.batteryfast.com
:)