Doug Korthof

Ford's EV Partners: Smith Out, Azure In

Saft-JCI sucks, but Smith has an even WORSE prospect. Ford is flopping around, thinking it's going to re-invent the wheel. We all think Smith's on life support, with a stupid battery choice; JCI screwed up Optima, and Saft makes shitty NiMH because it's stuck on old technology.

Ford is putting its head on the chopping block, if it's serious about EVs; probably, it's not serious, all for show.

A123: Hype or Hope?

Tradermark,

You spotted the crucial (deceptive) claim:

"...the number of hybrid electric, plug-in hybrid and electric cars will grow from 19 models in 2009 at an annual production rate of at least 20,000 vehicles to more than 150 models in 2014 and more than 200 models in 2019, A123 said in its IPO filing..."

What they DON'T say is that ALL of the 19 current models selling 20,000 or more have TINY 1 kWh BATTERY PACKS, not large packs. Most of Aone's sales are to power tool makers, not plug-in cars. NONE of the existing small-battery hybrids use Lithium; all of them use lead or NiMH. Sure, that's an opportunity, if the Aone batteries work out; but the reason Li is not being used is that so far, no Lithium HAS worked out.

So what they really should have admitted is that their business plan calls for a radical change in the product mix of "hybrid-electric, plug-in electric and electric car", because NONE of the latter two are included in that 19 models, it's only the "mild" or "parallel" hybrids that can't plug in, their battery is too small. Not much of a market there! Just 1 kWh per car, and so far, NiMH has proven the champ, a 40-pound NiMH Prius battery (including case and fan, 78 lbs) lasts about 200,000 miles for a retail cost of $3000 (mfg. cost $800). So what would you be saving by going to a 35-pound Li battery at $2500 mfg. cost?

That's all the weight you'd be saving, because you can't depth-discharge the Li for safety, and the dumbed-down Li Fe PO3 batteries are not much lighter than NiMH (and the voltage is lower, 3.2 vs. 4.2, meaning more cells).

The conclusion is not that Aone doesn't work, its that if the Oil-Auto companies were serious about putting real EVs on the road, they would use existing lead and NiMH batteries, first, and then upgrade to Lithium if it pans out.

ALL successful EVS (EV1, HondaEV, RAV4-EV, RangerEV, S10-E) were developed using lead-acid batteries, and, later, upgraded to NiMH when it became available. That's the way you develop real cars, you start with what you've actually got, and improve it in a process-engineering series of measured improvements.

A123: Hype or Hope?

John,
Our plug-in cars are charged with OFF-PEAK electric using credits from our excess daytime production of electric from our rooftop solar system. We paid off our solar system in less than 3 years with the money we saved NOT buying gas; it only takes 250 kWh of electric to power an EV for 1000 miles per month, that's about what two old, inefficient beer refrigerators use to cool the brew!

It's an old canard that electric cars would cause a shortage of electric; in reality, we've NEVER had a shortage of electric, the problem has been trying to get people to use more of it. Rememer those "Medallion" homes, trying to get people to use all-electric appliances??

Our daytime production of electric is during the peak, which helps the grid meet daytime peak load and lowers the strain on pole-mounted transformers (which often blow up and cause fires under heat storms); our night-time charging of the EVs also helps the grid, because otherwise they have to ramp down big generators to "warm start", and expensive and dirty process. I asked on DWP guy why they keep the lights on all night long in the downtown complex, he said, "LOAD BALANCING". Because at night, there's too much electric, we actually pump water up to lake castaic to "store" power for the next day (pumps turn into generators).
Look at the curve on caiso.com


On Sep 25 08:50 AM John Galt wrote:

> > > Yeah plugging a car into your garage might use less gas... but when
> that electricity is coming from a coal fired power plant...
>
> Who cares about the details. The devil is in the details. Just be
> green and remember Ignorance is bliss!

What's A123 Actually Worth? It's Anyone's Guess

Ahh, A123! Yet another "miracle battery" that will solve world peace, the common cold, and bad manners!

Yet if you look at the cost of production, it's about $2400/kWh, about 20 times what lead-acid costs, and about 5 to 10 times what the standard, proven EV battery is, NiMH.

That's just taking the revenue plus losses and dividing by total kWh sold -- mostly not for cars; there are about 100 plug-in Prius, running OK so far. But it's an expensive conversion even at a price that is less than the cost of production.

So if the battery on the Toyota RAV4-EV, 30 kWh, were Lithium, it would be $50,000 in mfg. cost, while CARB judged NiMH as too expensive at $9,000 RETAIL.

Lithium is unproven in EVs; so far, NO CAR, except for the excellent but
niche-market Tesla.

NiMH and lead EVs are running every single day; I'm about to drive one right now.

So if the Oil-Auto companies were serious about building all those EVs they have promised, they'd use cheaper, proven batteries, ones that already work in EVs that are running today.

Putting all the money on unproven Lithium is setting EVs up for a big failure, when the economics of Lithium become apparent and all those supposed Lithium EVs are lying around in need of expensive battery replacement.

Can Aone meet its sales targets?? Unlikely, imo.

Axion’s Lead Carbon Batteries: Sweet Spot for Micro-Hybrid Vehicles?

NiMH batteries are not constrained by supply of the metals, even the "rare-earth" metals or the special additives (Vanadium, Titanium) needed for longer life: because used NiMH batteries can be profitably "mined" for all the chemicals that are needed for new batteries. The only cost is that of reprocessing the NiMH batteries.

Similarly, Lead-acid can be profitably recycled; all the metals and chemicals needed for new lead-acid batteries are in the old lead-acid batteries.

The differerence is the longevity, NiMH lasts up to 4 times as long.

But as for performance in an EV, good lead-acid batteries powered the 3200-lb. EV1 over 100 miles in range, not much less than bad NiMH (140 miles).

Lead-acid should be explored and exploited for all-electric plug-in EVs; no doubt, innovations such as Pb-C and nano-tech are possible, and lead-acid EV batteries can power an urban fleet of full-sized freeway-capable EVs such as the EV1 or RAV4-EV (or HondaEV) and small trucks like the S10-E or RangerEV.

For our business, we found that a 60-mile-range pickup truck is more than enough; we drove it to the jobsite in the morning, and, if necessary, charged it while working on the job. After all, you don't care how long it takes to charge while it's sitting there, and cars sit idle more than 90% of the time, on average. Especially if you're working on a job, you're not cruising the avenue.

Buy Ford Shares on the Stock Dilution

GM is a disgrace; imagine, arresting its own customers and betraying its own EV1 fan club (which still exists, even without the cars!!).

Lutz is a complete nincompoop, just as the rest of GM top management are complete losers.

You can actually "buy" GM shares for 30 cents, by selling put 2.50 due 2011 at $2.20.

GM management should be prosecuted for destroying a once-great American company with their stupid war against the UAW, and their even stupider stripping the US assets to fund operations in China, Korea, Brazil, Mexico, etc., which, in their hour of need, can't provide ANY return on investment.

Lutz, who refused to buy Nissan, and Wagoner, who handed $2B to Fiat, are now in the contradicted position that both Nissan and Fiat could buy GM for POCKET CHANGE.

Because Lutz and Wagoner killed GM, just as they killed the EV1.

Battery Technology: A Different Set of Rules

Energy storage is a technical topic too deep for most of those who comment on it. Mr. Petersen is a clear thinking non-techie who uses common sense, and qualifies statements about which he's not sure.

The other posters and commentators should pay heed, and not say silly things that make them look dumb. As the Chinese adage goes, "...'tis better to remain silent and be thought the fool, then open one's mouth and remove all doubt...".

There's a big difference in lead-acid batteries; most SLI (commodity batteries that are in a gas IC car) are designed to last little more than 3 years; yet it's possible to make a lead battery that lasts 100 years if only used for "Starting Lights and Ignition".

Energy storage using batteries, unlike SLI apps, takes "deep cycling"; if you use the battery in an EV, it needs also to put out a lot of power (up to 400 Amps -- and if you don't know what that means, you need to study before commenting). High power draw tends to break up battery insides, destroying the electrodes or other components, especially because mostly we hook them up in series to get high voltages. Other concepts you need to know are "internal resistence", "voltage drop", and "discharge curve". A123, for example, has an extremely flat discharge curve which makes it difficult to predict when the voltage drops to dangerous levels. This is part of the reason why GM chose to *buy* 16 kWh of Lithium (from LG, not A123) but only *access* 8 kWh, making it twice as expensive. NiMH and lead don't have that problem; you can run them close to "zero", we have many times, even below "zero".

Lithium gets torn up worse than others, in high power applications; lead acid actually does better, which we've found in actual experience using EVs. For backup power applications such as peak-shaving, this doesn't matter much; but it is a big deal for EVs.

Tesla, following ACP, uses commodity laptop 18-650 Lithium batteries in a parallel-series arrangement that allows monitoring in parallel and discharge in series; various newer Li chemistries have their own chemistries, and their own unsubstatiated (so far!) claims.

Now the other concept lurking behind Mr. Petersen's articles is that of "Life Cycle Costing" (LCC). Some uneducated or naive folks don't distinguish between "safe disposal" and "sale for junk value". Unbeknownst to the public, there's a whole industry involved in junk metals, what is now called "recycling". This has vast implications for LCC comparisons for the three technologies, and also for the issue of "material supply". If your lead is "mined" from junk batteries, you may never need to refine much new lead.

Lead acid batteries are almost all recycled; there will never be a shortage of lead at current prices because it's almost all reused and most of our lead supply comes from melted junk lead. "Dissipatory" applications, such as the former use of lead in paint or tetraethyl lead, where it can't be recycled, are no longer extant.

NiMH uses Nickel metal and some rare metals such as Vanadium, Titanium, and rare-earth misch metals. An industry can be made in reusing old Nickel batteries; most Ni comes from junk metal anyway, and most is used in Stainless Steel, Monel propellor shafts, surgical and corrosive environments, etc.

Lithium almost all comes from virgin Lithium, not because of the high temperatures, but because of the chemical properties of Lithium, which, like Na and K, reacts violently with water or humid air. Refining Lithium from ore does require processing of Lithium Carbonate, a stable form, but to purify the metal requires special attention to the explosion and fire danger. Hence, Lithium currently has no junk value; it's true that Toxco does recycle it, but I suspect mostly for the additives, Cd and Co; pure Lithium batteries have no junk value, they are "safely discarded into the trash" unless they have toxic Cd or Co.

Now LCC is composed of three elements:
Initial cost;
Logistic (support) cost;
Sunset (disposal) cost or credit.

With an article such as batteries, we amortize the LCC over the number of years or product cycles to compare the three.

Lead: low initial cost, low support cost, high junk value; 50K miles
Nickel: modest initial, low support, high junk; 200K miles
Lithium: very high initial cost, high support, no junk value; 50K miles.

Obviously, if you do the numbers, Lithium is (so far) way off the scale, much too expensive for EV application. Now you can argue about the numbers, but they are best we can do and from actual real-world applications. There are other factors: Lithium lasts longer in small cars, where it doesn't have to push so much weight, and all three have unique temperature and BMS requirements.

Lead: Less than $6000 over 50K miles for 12 cents per mile;
NiMH: No more than $11,000 over 200K miles for 5.5 cents per mile;
Li: Total cost of about $25,000 over 50K miles for 50 cents per mile.

Now this doesn't mean that Lithium is impossible; just that so far, it's not economical. In all the hype about Lithium cars, there is

NO LITHIUM EV WHICH HAS GONE MORE THAN 50,000 MILES WITHOUT SIGNIFICANT BATTERY DEGRADATION.

If you know of an EV that did so, I want to hear from you: call me at 562-430-2495. But so far, no car.

This irreduceable fact must be dealt with: but it takes some thinking to understand that Lithium might work well in a low-power-draw applicaton such as a cell phone or laptop, but not be as economical in a high-power-draw application such as an EV. Actually, in a cell phone, we use Lithium because of its sterling Wh/kg ratio, because it's the only one that meets the usage parameters, the cost doesn't matter.

Now as for peak-shaving, the advantage goes to Lead!!!

No one would think of using anything else for battery backup or storage, just looking at the LCC. For example, I have 7 year old $1500 total-cost top-of-the-line lead batteries for my battery backup, holding 13 kWh and still function at top rank. The same thing in Lithium might last as long (maybe not; there's a shelf-life issue with Lithium) but the cost would be outrageous, about 10 times the best lead-acid battery made.

Testing Plug-In Hybrids: What the Results Mean

There's a VAST difference in type of battery.
Hymotion is using Lithium, which so far has not been economical in plug-in cars.

The best and most economical battery for plug-ins is NiMH, which can be improved to last for more than 100,000 miles (perhaps more than 200,000 miles) and can be ENTIRELY recycled.

Not a fantasy: the Toyota RAV4-EV, as well as the 1999 EV1, RangerEV and HondaEV, all use NiMH, as well as the Prius, Insight, etc., no one expects Lithium to actually work in plug-in cars.

Ask youirself, why aren't auto makers using more economical, longer-lasting, proven technology, NiMH??

The answer may surprise you, it has nothing to do with weight (Lithium batteries weighing 400 lbs. in the so-called VOLT only yield 8 kWh; whereas lead or NiMH of the same weight would yield up to 12 kWh, enough to go up to 72 miles on a charge).

WHY NOT USE NIMH?? Even lead-acid would be fine for the VOLT, or other "extended range EVs", the 1997 and 1999 EV1 wtih PSB lead acid had over 100 miles range, the bateries are fully recyclable, and the cost is almost as low as NiMH for the life of the batteries.

Lithium-ion Batteries: 9 Years of Price Stagnation

John, It's a pleasure to hear from someone who is willing to argue this rationally. I don't think Tantalum is the problem so much as Chevron owning control of the NiMH patents (purchased Oct. 10, 2000) and their subsequent lawsuit against Toyota, winning $30 million and, in Dec., 2002, Toyota announcing that it would only use NiMH for hybrids that can't plug in. Rare earth supply constraints would seem to apply more to Lithium, which, as you point out, has a much higher life-cycle cost (and no recycle value, as Nickel and lead).


On Apr 06 04:32 AM John Petersen wrote:

> Doug, the only good explanation I've ever heard for preferring Li-ion
> over NiMH came from Jack Lifton who explained that NiMH batteries
> require tantalum and Toyota has done a good job of effectively cornering
> the market on that strategic metal. Since Toyota is talking about
> using Li-ion in the future despite their dominance of NiMH, I get
> the sense that tantalum supplies may be more constrained than Toyota
> would like, but NiMH is far superior to Li-ion on a raw price-performance
> basis.

Banks Playing Hardball with Chrysler

Not much sympathy for Cerberus and/or Chrysler; if we just want to keep the UAW workers working, there is no need to fund Cerberus, sell the plants to a company that makes better cars.

Chrysler has been on life support for decades; not much of value there, perhaps Jeep and some pickup trucks. No cars, no technology, not much value.

Imagine a stupid car company that would call its cars the "nitro", "crossfire", "neon". Clearly, they don't have any idea how to market cars, nor any inclination to do so.

Toyota’s Plug-in Prius Heads for France

Since Toyota already HAS an all-electric vehicle, the Toyota RAV4-EV, why do they need to "test" them??

The Toyota RAV4-EV, last sold in Nov., 2002, is running fine on the original pre-2002 NiMH battery packs, hundreds of them charging up from rooftop solar power.

It only takes 250 kWh of electric to drive 1000 miles per month, about a quarter of the electric used by the average sprawled home. It only takes a 1.3 kW solar system to produce that much electric; easily paid for by the money you save NOT buying gasoline.

Auto Industry Recovery Once Again Postponed

We already have Nickel Metal Hydride, the onl y battery proven to last longer than the life of the car; but lead-acid works too. Lithium has not been proven to work in an Electric car, no Lithium EV has so far gone more than 50,000 miles without significant battery degradation.

Yet we are still driving 2002 Toyota RAV4-EV with NiMH batteries, the same battery packs, but we can't buy replacement NiMH because Toyota stopped making them after Chevron funded a lawsuit that collected $30 million. Chevron bought control of the worldwide patent licensing rights from GM, and renamed GM-Ovonics to Chevron-Ovonics BAttery SYStems (cobasys).

So why not NiMH??

The fact that no supposed EV maker is using the batteries that work tells you that they are not serious and don't intend to make an EV that works.

Lithium: higher cost, lower life, no junk value;
NiMH: Chevron (an oil company) controls the patent licensing rights, none offered.

Auto Industry Recovery Once Again Postponed

Plug-in Electric cars and solar rooftop power are the ONLY full solution to reducing oil and oil-based pollution.

GM and the other Auto Alliance members just this year killed the Zero Emission Vehicle Mandate (California and 13 other states) all over again; clearly, without some strength of character in the government, the auto makers won't make a plug-in car.

The oil industry has too much control over car makers, because oil is where the big money is.

Too Big to Fail, or Too Metastatized?

The real question is, can GM be saved WITH CURRENT MANAGEMENT??

Just throwing more money at execs who have proven to be failures makes little sense. If an exec is worth the million $ salary, they won't make mistakes like betting on gas-guzzlers (and crushing the EV1) despite harbingers of the upcoming oil price spike.

It's no mystery that GM screwed up; the big issue is whether the screw-ups aren't still running the operation.

Cashing In on the Electric Transport Boom

You are so WRONG. The EV1 was originally released on lead-acid batteries, not NiMH; and there were 650 in the original "1997" format. There were problems with failure-prone GM-Delco lead batteries, once they were upgraded to lead-acid PSB EV-EC 1260 batteries, they had a range of over 100 miles and never failed. In 1997, Toyota and Honda released NiMH EVs that were superior to the original GM EV1 and cost less.

It was 2000 (starting in Dec., 1999) before GM was forced, by CARB, to start releasing some of the 465 NiMH EV1.

Even though these had inferior GM-Ovonics NiMH batteries, they had an EPA certified range of 140 miles on a charge. With superior Toyota NiMH, such as are still running in the Toyota RAV4-EV (last sold in Nov., 2002), the EV1 would have had over 200 miles range.

Add them up: Lead-acid, not NiMH, over 100 miles range, the batteries were NOT the problem!!

And 650+465=1115, not "800". At least you don't repeat the GM lie that "nobody wanted them, they didn't sell".

Perhaps you should study more, then I'll read the rest of this puerile article.