D Cells

[The Maestro]

On the contrary, that's exactly what I was comparing batteries to, and what they should be judged against, if e-vehicles are going to replace petrol driven ones.

Let me put it another way. At the moment I can go to a wide variety of vendors (Shell, Esso, BP etc) and buy their 'energy'. This 'energy' will 'fit' into a wide variety of vehicles, from the very new to the very old, with few compatibility issues. In other words the fuel is 'vehicle agnostic'.

I did understand, and I agree. I was just illustrating the reason why its perhaps harder to standardise on a particular type of battery (size, shape) for every single ebike, than it is to standardise on petrol or another liquid.

Infact from a bike design point of view the battery is more like a fuel tank (the carrier) than it is like petrol. Imagine how restrictive car design would be if each one had to use exactly the same fuel tank.

The only way to solve it would be to make batteries last a lot longer and have the exact same charging mechanisms. Either that or come up with a completely different way of storing electrical energy. For example using ammonia fuel cells which constantly charge a much smaller battery which could be standardised.

 

[flecc]

In fact the battery might yet be a dead end for vehicles, all of them perhaps using fuel cells eventually. Size isn't a problem, since Toshiba have developed ones that can replace laptop batteries.

We'd need to standardise those then.
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[John Fleet]

Thanks John, I'd meant to type under £1000.

No chance of a discount with that quick sell out, doesn't surprise me though and tends to make my point.
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well what do you know! it seems that 50cycles are getting in on the Street Scoota act:50cycles Electric Bikes UK - Ego Electric Street Scoota street legal electric motorscooter

 

[flecc]

Yes I saw that, they obviously know a winner when one comes along.
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[The Maestro]

Yep that Ego is some package and will sell by the bucket load. If you think about it its not all that good though. 105kg, you could make an ebike that did 30 mph and 40 mile range for less than 1000 quid that did 30mph and weighed maybe 25 kg.

 

[JohnInStockie]

I must admit tht I struggle withthe conceptual difference between a fuel cell and a battery. A battery is a store of chemical energy that is released as electrical energy. A fuel cell .....?

For me the concept of a standard 'Cell' is the most annoying part of the whole problem. If every electric car manufacturer was to agree on a standard connector type, a standard charger type (from the mains), and a standard width for their 'swappable' bateries, then within weeks we could have 'refueling points' for every electric car in the whole of the UK.

Imagine, when pulling into a garage, you need to either recharge, or swap, and every type of electric battery/cell fits the connector and the width of the 'cell trap'.

I understand that all of these companies want to be the only one and solve the fuel issue, but if you could travel the length of the UK swapping multiple combinations of batteries along the way so that no stop was longer than a few minutes, surely that would sove the issue.

I wish they would work together to standardize.

John

 

[flecc]

I must admit tht I struggle withthe conceptual difference between a fuel cell and a battery. A battery is a store of chemical energy that is released as electrical energy. A fuel cell .....?

NiMh illustrates the difference well John, since that is a recycling fuel cell. In those a charge is put in (recharging the battery) to generate the hydrogen that's used to produce the electricity. In a hydrogen fuel cell, fresh hydrogen is put in instead of the electricity of the charging. Therefore it's not a battery since it uses external fuel instead of the electricity the bike needs, and so doesn't store current, just generates it.

if you could travel the length of the UK swapping multiple combinations of batteries along the way so that no stop was longer than a few minutes, surely that would sove the issue.

I wish they would work together to standardize.

John

I think that could come when batteries last a very long time with a stable performance. With present batteries the costs of monitoring all the stock for battery deterioration plus replacement would be prohibitively high.
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[Tiberius]

I understand that all of these companies want to be the only one and solve the .... issue,

I wish they would work together to standardize.

John

Hi John,

Part of my day job is working on technical regulations and standardisation. There has been an awful of work over the last 15 years changing over from individual national to common European regs, and both manufacturers and consumers are reaping the benefits. I've dealt with both mature and emerging technologies.

What you describe is absolutely standard for an emerging technology. Each party involved says "the solution is absolutely obvious, everyone must adopt our way of doing it". Getting past this attitude is one of the hurdles on the way to something the consumer will accept.

By contrast, if its a more mature technology, the players all try to block each other's progress by bleating on about installed customer base and backward compatibility.

Nick

 

[halfmedley]

I did understand, and I agree. I was just illustrating the reason why its perhaps harder to standardise on a particular type of battery (size, shape) for every single ebike, than it is to standardise on petrol or another liquid.

Infact from a bike design point of view the battery is more like a fuel tank (the carrier) than it is like petrol. Imagine how restrictive car design would be if each one had to use exactly the same fuel tank.

I didn't want to suggest that you hadn't understood, Maestro! Sorry if that's how it came across. I was just trying to reiterate my point. You're exactly right in saying that the battery (or at least the case) is more like a fuel tank. What I'm suggesting is wouldn't it be nice to be able to open said fuel tank easily and swap dead cells for new ones that you could buy at any supermarket. Wishful thinking on my part no doubt, but a good marketing point for any ebike manufacturer I'd say.

The problem with the D cell where lithium is concerned is that it wastes space. Unlike many other types, lithium cells can be any shape and therefore utilise all of the internal space of a case for capacity as in the eZee battery with it's ten rectangular cells.

I take your point Flecc about the relative bulkiness of D Cells and the advantages of Lithium Cells from a design point of view. Perhaps D Cells were a bad example, but they're a very well established form factor that everyone understands. One could argue that Form should follow Function, rather than the other way round and that it's up to designers to come up with 'imaginative solutions' within the limits they're set (in this case the D Cell), rather than making a custom battery every time they want to sell a new bike. After all, the motors between bikes don't vary much.

In fact the battery might yet be a dead end for vehicles, all of them perhaps using fuel cells eventually.

I'm hoping that Ultracapacitors might be involved - just think, almost unlimited lifespan and rapid recharging times!

What you describe is absolutely standard for an emerging technology. Each party involved says "the solution is absolutely obvious, everyone must adopt our way of doing it". Getting past this attitude is one of the hurdles on the way to something the consumer will accept.

Using an analogy (HD DVD vs Blu-Ray) perhaps its time for some of the bigger ebike sellers (Kalkhoff, Giant, Ezee etc) to join up and force a battery standard onto the market, give it a catchy name that the public can remember and ask for when buying a bike, and then watch the competition whither away.

Thanks by the way to all those contributing to this thread.