New battery technology. If or When?

[cyclebuddy]

The Tesla cells (could be a song) have been mentioned a few times.

They look to be a step forward, but from a few posts on here I gathered they are not suitable from a technical point of view for an ebike application

Production at the plant is committed some way ahead of time, so even if a Tesla ebike pack could be made we won't see it for two or three years.

"Eurobike 2017: Six of the best" article here:

http://ebiketips.co.uk/content/news/eurobike-2017-six-of-the-best-e-mtbs-from-pivot-marin-bh-rocky-mountain-ridley-and

"The BH (Atom X) is also one of the first e-bikes to switch to the larger, higher-capacity 21700 cells that are being developed by Tesla, among others. The Atom X has a maximum battery capacity of 720Wh (a 500Wh unit is used on the lower spec models) and uses a 4A charger for faster charging."

Edit: And from BH Bikes own UK website:

"The battery is fully concealed inside the frame's diagonal tube. This is an innovative system patented by BH in which the battery is accessed from the upper tube, using an easy opening/closing lever. The Atom-X's built-in battery comes with the new 21700 cells, which have the highest energy density on the market (5 Ah per cell). This allows 720 Wh to be contained in the diagonal tube with the smallest cross section on the market. And a range of 150 km."

 

[RobF]

"Eurobike 2017: Six of the best" article here:

http://ebiketips.co.uk/content/news/eurobike-2017-six-of-the-best-e-mtbs-from-pivot-marin-bh-rocky-mountain-ridley-and

"The BH (Atom X) is also one of the first e-bikes to switch to the larger, higher-capacity 21700 cells that are being developed by Tesla, among others. The Atom X has a maximum battery capacity of 720Wh (a 500Wh unit is used on the lower spec models) and uses a 4A charger for faster charging."

Edit: And from BH Bikes own UK website:

"The battery is fully concealed inside the frame's diagonal tube. This is an innovative system patented by BH in which the battery is accessed from the upper tube, using an easy opening/closing lever. The Atom-X's built-in battery comes with the new 21700 cells, which have the highest energy density on the market (5 Ah per cell). This allows 720 Wh to be contained in the diagonal tube with the smallest cross section on the market. And a range of 150 km."

It will be interesting to see how well the new cells work in an ebike application.

BH have been a bit hit and miss in the UK market, so that may mean it will take a while before there are many users of a BH bike with the new cells.

 

[Rutland Cycling]

eBike-MTB published this article yesterday, which asks several industry members over in Germany about the future of the batteries we see. It's a nice little insight as to what's to come.

http://ebike-mtb.com/en/e-mtb-battery-revolution/

 

[GLJoe]

eBike-MTB published this article yesterday, which asks several industry members over in Germany about the future of the batteries we see. It's a nice little insight as to what's to come.

http://ebike-mtb.com/en/e-mtb-battery-revolution/

An interesting article. Ta for the link.
I did find it rather hilarious though with one person effectively saying that we'll keep seeing smallish, incremental gains; another one saying we have plateaued, and then the marketing person claiming exponential improvements

 

[Benjahmin]

I did find it rather hilarious though with one person effectively saying that we'll keep seeing smallish, incremental gains; another one saying we have plateaued, and then the marketing person claiming exponential improvements

Well there ya go. In the mean time keep cycling.

 

[RobF]

The Bosch marketing lass wins the 'mention my product often' award.

And being realistic, she's the only one you'd want to take to dinner.

 

[flecc]

The Bosch marketing lass wins the 'mention my product often' award.

Yes, she turned a request for an opinion on battery futures into an advertorial on Bosch.

Obviously missed her true vocation as a politician.
.

 

[Danidl]

An interesting article. Ta for the link.
I did find it rather hilarious though with one person effectively saying that we'll keep seeing smallish, incremental gains; another one saying we have plateaued, and then the marketing person claiming exponential improvements

I can agree with all three ideas, the movement from lead acid to li ion was exponential, the current gains are incremental and even plateaus have slopes.. The fundamental problem about future major advances is that with lithium, one is dealing with one of the lightest elements so unless one comes up with a chemistry which uses two or more valance electrons in the bond, rather than one , the energy density problem in joules per kilogramme won't exponentially improve.

 

[Gubbins]

Could this be not the if but when?
http://www.express.co.uk/life-style/cars/862987/Electric-car-battery-recharge-six-minutes

 

[flecc]

Could this be not the if but when?
http://www.express.co.uk/life-style/cars/862987/Electric-car-battery-recharge-six-minutes

No. Toshiba have been regularly announcing batteries that charge in minutes for over a decade now, none ever coming to anything. One of their first was Lithium polymer which they claimed could charge in under 3 minutes, but of course that went on to become the slow charging type so many of us use today. Yet after all their announcements there are no Toshiba cells being used in todays advanced batteries, they're all Sony, Panasonic, Samsung etc. The only wonderful thing about Toshiba is how on earth they manage to finance all the research they claim to do.

The fact is that any small lithium cell can be fast charged in minutes, but how long it lasts is a very different matter.
.

 

[Danidl]

Could this be not the if but when?
http://www.express.co.uk/life-style/cars/862987/Electric-car-battery-recharge-six-minutes

Were it to be true and scalable it would be significant for electric cars but not as useful in ebikes where capacity and weight are more important. However there are even constraints there. were a 30kwhr battery to be recharged in 10 minutes it would be a load of 200kw. No domestic supply could supply that and utilities would blanch at such intermittent loads on light industrial nerworks such as small service stations. Plenty of work for our electricians

 

[Woosh]

No domestic supply could supply that and utilities would blanch at such intermittent loads on light industrial nerworks such as small service stations.

they would charge a reserve battery at slower rate then transfer the charge from the reserve battery to the car battery at high speed.

 

[cyclebuddy]

A programme on Radio 4 yesterday:

The Bottom Line - Batteries
http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b096jb29

Covers how Lithium Ion - now 26 years old - will likely be superseded by much lighter Lithium Sulphate technology. LS uses Lithium metal as an anode with sulphate giving 5 times the energy density of Ion. In current electric buses, the Ion-Phosphate battery weighs 4 tons; an equivalent Lithium Sulphate battery would weigh just 2 tons.

Also includes discussion on how Lithium batteries are already being used to create reservoir storage (eg: old/expired Nissan Leaf batteries with 70% capacity remaining are being re-purposed with solar to help power data centres).

Worth a listen if you're interested in the subject.

 

[Woosh]

Covers how Lithium Ion - now 26 years old - will likely be superseded by much lighter Lithium Sulphate technology. LS uses Lithium metal as an anode with sulphate giving 5 times the energy density of Ion

Lithium Sulphur is not going to replace Lithium Ion anytime soon.There are fundamental reasons why some technologies like Li-S can't become mainstream, its low conductivity is one of them.

 

[cyclebuddy]

Lithium Sulphur is not going to replace Lithium Ion anytime soon.There are fundamental reasons why some technologies like Li-S can't become mainstream, its low conductivity is one of them.

Well, apparently, Li-S for e-bikes has already been developed (even if not quite yet in the market):

"The first Li-S battery was developed for electric bikes. It is a 360 Wh system weighing only 2kg... OXIS has entered the electric scooter segment and target to introduce Li-S batteries into the Chinese market in the autumn of 2017. In cooperation with our BMS partner Lithium Balance, we have already built, and tested on an e-scooter, the first prototype 1.2 kWh Li-S battery system using Long Life 10 Ah cells.... The next stage is to build a second prototype using an improved Long Life chemistry (up to 20Ah cell) which will increase battery capacity at a reduced weight and, crucially, boost the range of the electric scooters."

See https://oxisenergy.com/applications/ then choose "Electric Vehicles".

The CEO of Oxis Energy is one of the contributors in the Radio 4 programme on batteries above.

 

[Woosh]

OXIS has entered the electric scooter segment and target to introduce Li-S batteries into the Chinese market in the autumn of 2017.

good luck to them but IMHO, pigs may fly before the Chinese would buy their batteries. There are lots of technical hurdles to making a good battery. I spent 3 years in a lab where the guys who worked next to me spent an awful lot of our department's money trying to develop a better battery, we bought an IBM mainframe specifically for that project.

 

[cyclebuddy]

...pigs may fly before the Chinese would buy their batteries...

Lol. Whether the Chinese buy them or not isn't altogether relevant: Varta are part of the existing Alise consortium for making the Li-S cells, and Seat for using them in their electric cars.

"...to develop 400Wh/kg and 500Wh/kg cells... with a stated battery cost target of $250/kWh"? Potentially, that could be a 1000Wh e-bike battery weighing just 2kg for £200! I for one hope they get it into mainstream market before the EU research subsidies run out!

 

[Deleted member 4366]

No. Toshiba have been regularly announcing batteries that charge in minutes for over a decade now, none ever coming to anything.
.

That's not quite true, flecc. I have a couple of their lithium titanate batteries that can be charges in minutes. The charge terminals are bigger than the discharge ones. The charge goes directly to the cells, bypassing the BMS. I'm not sure how that works. The downside is low specific capacity, though you get effectively infinite life out of the battery as long as the BMS doesn't go to sleep.

 

[Gubbins]

Whilst I have a basic understanding of how a battery works the actual chemistry of it escapes me, but because I have an interest in it and I also use Google Now, I get fed news snippets on topics I have shown an interest in..
And this one has just popped up..
http://oilprice.com/Alternative-Energy/Renewable-Energy/Is-This-The-Missing-Link-In-Lithium-Batteries.html

 

[Danidl]

they would charge a reserve battery at slower rate then transfer the charge from the reserve battery to the car battery at high speed.

I had thought of that or more likely a mechanical flywheel arrangement with generator would be possibly be a more economical store. Electro Chemical storage is expensive in any event and say 100kwr of flywheel energy would work... Particularly if it were housed in the underground cisterns that petrol stations currently use. .. safety concerns