After Gutenberg

Climate Progress Earl Killian recently recommended large-format, lithium iron phosphate batteries to replace the dead ones in my electric car. Earl must be accustomed to federal grants rather than a fixed income. Nevertheless, it is worth another look given the recent development from Motive Power Industry. They are combining cheaper lead acid batteries with advanced lithium ion batteries.

One of the brands that I am willing to consider is EnerDel because of their previously claim that the batteries they plan to sell by 2009 will be affordable. I get much of my information about Ener1 progress from Green Car Congress. Mike Millikin now informs that Argonne National Laboratory is testing EnerDel Li-Ion pack in a Prius. While presumably other than EnerDel’s chemistry of choice for PHEVs, evidence of testing is still is positive sign, This is particularly true given Toyota’s delay introducing lithium ion chemistry in the Prius.

Toyota displayed at a recent electric drive conference in Brussels, the concept of how a plug-in hybrid combines the advantages of BEV and HEV. A plug-in hybrid shares the advantage of a Battery-powered all-Electric Vehicles in that it has a more efficient, electric drive and, as a grid-able vehicle, it can use an infrastructure that exists throughout all developed countries, and increasing the power comes from renewable resources. But, it also is a hybrid vehicle. For greater range, like a Hybrid Electric Vehicle, a PHEV (Plug-in Hybrid Electric Vehicle) makes use of an internal combustion engine.

Toyota’s delay introducing lithium ion chemistry in the Prius probably also means a delay in commercial availability of a Toyota plug-in. Notes Millikin:

Previously, Idaho National Labs had confirmed in cell testing that an EnerDel system could produce approximately twice as much usable energy (90 kW) as the Prius’ NiMH battery pack. As a result, the EnerDel battery can be reduced to about half the size and half the weight of a NiMH battery with the same power performance. Moreover, EnerDel expects its pack to cost significantly less than a NiMH battery with similar performance characteristics.

Testing of EnerDel’s 1.1 kWh lithium-ion pack for hybrid electric vehicles (HEV) (earlier post) by the Center for Transportation Research of Illinois-based Argonne National Laboratory corroborated the company’s earlier claims of energy; power and efficiency; and thermal performance, according to the company.

EnerDel integrated its battery system into a Toyota Prius, with no material modifications made to the Prius other than the integration of the battery system. EnerDel’s choice of active materials for its HEV cell is LiMn₂O₄ – spinel (LMO) for the cathode and Li₄Ti₅O₁₂ (LTO, lithium titanate) for the anode.

Argonne ran HEV tests on the EnerDel pack, comparing it to the NiMH OEM pack, as well as a standard Plug-In Hybrid Electric Vehicle (PHEV) test designed to explore the capabilities of the EnerDel pack’s wider state of charge (SOC) window—approximately 10% to 90%, compared to approximately 40% – 80% on the OEM NiMH pack.

GCC commentator skeptic noted that they are testing a 1kWh size battery is other than well-suited for traction application. In the post, Millikin noted that Ener1 is more likely to use “Hard Carbon chemistry, as being applied in the TH!NK City battery electric vehicle. The Argonne testing of the LMO/LTO pack in PHEV configuration was designed to establish a performance baseline.”

The front runner still would seem to be A123 large format, lithium iron phosphate batteries. Bill Dube has been drag racing with them in a motorcycle and related to Killian that he is impressed with their qualify, safety, and performance. On the other hand, Project Better Place chose high energy density lithium iron phosphate (LiFePO4) cells made by LTC (Lithium Technology Corporation).