Doug Korthof

The Electric Car Battery Battle

Hanglider dude, there is NO PLACE for Hydrogen as a motive power for cars; if it made sense to use a compressed gas, CNG is much more energy-dense at lower psi, is proven, doesn't need a fuel cell stack, and there's already a delivery system of charging stations. Also, it's a clean fuel, you get the same sticker as an EV.

Hydrogen is a HOAX.

You can run H2 cars, at a cost of $10/mile, just for show; but if anyone tries to SELL a fuel cell car for $50,000, buy it, you can dismantle it and sell the parts to easily double your money! Sure, it works, in space, where cost doesn't matter and they carry technical-grade O2 as well as technical-grade H2; but YOU CAIN'T DO THAT on the roads here!! NONE of the FCX carry their own technical-grade Oxygen, which is why they only last 3 years.

As for EEStor, we all hope for the best, but there's no reason to believe anything they say, to this point. The term "vaporware" springs to mind. Similar to GM's lies about resuming EV production, or last night's beer-bust conversation, EEStore's promises seem to evaporate in the light of day.

The Electric Car Battery Battle

J.S., you are ignoring diesel-electric locomotives, the standard; they are essentially serial-hybrid Electric vehicles.

The supposed VOLT uses the same basic configuration; it works and has been proven successful, with or without batteries. Large earthmoving machinery, also, is serial-hybrid.

The problem is, GM has no intention of honestly making the VOLT, they are planning to sabotage it, just as they sabotaged the EV1.

(PS, diesel-electric locomotives use electric braking, but since diesel has been so cheap, they don't yet store the recaptured energy of motion in a battery; they dissipate it via heat exchangers. Electrified rail is great, but diesel-electrics with batteries work too. The thing is, it's always more efficient to generate the electric in a central plant, not on the fly! You're right about that)

The Electric Car Battery Battle

EEStor is questionable: they have no reality to this point. An EV needs three things:

1. Superior power (at least 50,000W, or 50 kW, 68 hp to take off from a stop). Many batteries, for example ZnO, can't supply this; and for Lithium, it seems to degrade them.

2. Deep cycle, at least 25 kWh for 100 miles range. Non-volatile Lithium has a problem with this: for example the VOLT has to BUY 16 kWh to use 8 of them.

3. Long cycle-life, at least 1,000, preferrably 2,000, for a life of 100K to 200K miles for the pack.

ONLY NIMH HAS BEEN PROVEN TO DO ALL THREE.

So obviously, Toyota (and Honda) are sticking with what works. If Lithium ever works in an EV (for example, if the Tesla battery pack goes over 100K miles), then they will use it; but to rely on it before it's proven is not prudent.

The Electric Car Battery Battle

Compressed-air cars are a hoax: you can go 25 miles per hour for 25 miles, but you have to compress the air! It's easier, faster and cheaper to run a Neighborhood EV, which does the same thing, costs less, and lasts longer, using cheap lead-acid golf-cart batteries. LOL to the air car!!

The Electric Car Battery Battle

Ghosn is an idiot about batteries; Nissan's failed Lithium Altera was crushed and not mourned.

GM's slimy claim that Lithium is needed for the VOLT ignores the only proven EV batteries, NiMH and lead-acid. NiMH is the longest-lasting and the most reliable at a low life-cycle cost, and lead-acid is the very lowest life-cycle cost but doesn't last quite as long.

So why go to Lithium? So far, no Lithium EV has gone more than 50K miles without significant battery degradation.

And stupid GM, their 16 kWh of Lithium from A123, costing perhaps $32,000, only yields 8 kWh of energy for 400 lbs. of battery.

400 lbs. of NiMH contains 12 kWh of accessible energy at a cost of perhaps $5,000 (even in small quantities). So NiMH is superior in lighter weight, longer life, lower cost and higher reliability.

But stupid GM talks about Lithium, like it talks about fuel cells -- all hogwash.

The reality is, we are still driving Toyota RAV4-EV, over 100 miles range on a charge, last sold in Nov., 2002, on the same battery pack -- Chevron won't sell us replacement batteries, they bought control of GM-Ovonics, which controls the patents, and sued Toyota, which now is afraid to supply replacement batteries.

The Electric Car Battery Battle

The Bike is a known liar. We are driving 100-mile-range Toyota RAV4-EV, last sold in Nov., 2002.

They drive GREAT.

But there's never been a Lithium car that drove over 100,000 miles on the same battery.

The Electric Car Battery Battle

Nissan is a hoax, so far as Electric cars go. Nissan knows SQUAT about the batteries; its failed Altera and Hype-rmini all had to be destroyed presumably because Nissan, like GM, was ashamed of their own failure.

Toyota, on the other hand, willingly sold the last 300 RAV4-EV, using NiMH, and they are almost all on the road still, added to hundreds of fleet-run RAV4-EV.

Ghosn is a jokester and a hypester.