My opinion was based off of seeing the Prius packs. I'm not super technical or an engineer but I would bet that if they came out with one for the TCH you'd lose 25 to 50% of the existing trunk space.

 

Oh, I thought you actually read the article, lol!
Here is a quote from it...

"Lithium-ion batteries, now common in laptops, produce more power and are smaller than nickel-metal hydride batteries used in hybrids now."

 

Yea if they could create a pack with lithium batteries then it could be significantly different.

 

I did read it but they aren't currently using lithium batteries right now in the Prius conversion packs. That's where my opinion was based.

 

The major problem with the current lithium batteries is that the anode develops cracks as it absorbs and releases the lithium ions. Basically, the anode expands and contracts with each charge/discharge cycle. Over the course of a few hundred or so cycles, it forms enough cracks to lose most of its capacity. In a cellphone, a few hundred cycles takes about a year, and then you spend $20 to get a new battery. In a car, the battery needs to be several hundred times bigger. I wouldn't want to have to replace it every year or so.

The second problem with the current lithium batteries is that they make a lot of heat. If you pack a lot of them close together, they have an annoying tendency to catch fire. The heat can be managed by careful package design, but it is a deadly serious issue.

There have been several breakthroughs in new battery technology within the last couple years. One of them is a new type of anode for lithium batteries made of a kind of nanoscale fiber that can absorb and release lithium ions without cracking. One or more of those new battery types will eventually power the cars. But it takes several years, at least, to move a new technology from the laboratory bench to mass production. After the product is designed, you have to develop and validate the manufacturing machinery, and then build the full-scale manufacturing plant.

So I wouldn't count on any breakthrough electric-car products next year. Maybe prototypes, but not significant production volume. I would expect real, reliable, production-volume products in about 3 to 5 years. With the fuel prices we have now, there is lots of financial incentive to hurry the process, so the management will speed things along as much as they can. But engineering and development really does take time.

 

And I know there's new advances/interest in shifting to high-capacity ("ultra") capacitors as the "batteries" for storing electric charge, too...

http://nextbigfuture.com/2008/01/lit...and-ultra.html
http://www.treehugger.com/files/2008...-nanowires.php

 

A good rule of thumb is LI cells are 1/2 the volume and weight of a NiMH cell of the same capacity. It is far more complex than this, but this is good for simple estimates. That means, to get double the capacity with LI over the current NiMH, the same trunk space would be needed. If you want plug-in useful capacity, then you will need at least 5x the capacity (10 miles on EV vs 2 miles on EV, roughly speaking). That will require over twice the trunk volume for batteries.

-- Alan

 

The 2010 TCH should come out in the first quarter of 2009. Did anybody mention the lithium batteries are half the weight of the nimh we now use.

The capacitor idea sounds interesting, but I though they only worked with ac voltage. That might eliminate and dc to ac conversion by the inverter. The AC would then be easier to step up to the 600+ voltage.

 

Couple of comments...

The Prias can be upgraded for about $30K to LI batteries. In the pictures I have seen, the batteries are the older round type (lower energy density), with lots of air between them to handle the required cooling. The Prias is a much smaller car, and therefore requires less energy (battery) to push it the same distance as the TCH. I bought the TCH because I wanted a midsize car.

Capacitors can provide a high amount of power (not energy) instantaneously when mounted at the electronics. They hold an incredibly small amount of energy compared to a battery of the same size (of any technology). Under instant high loads, they provide the current to run the engine so that losses in the cable and contacts between the electronics and the battery do not dissipate as much (a small energy loss mechanism), take a look a the size of the cables leaving the electronics package, under the hood, on the TCH - these help a lot in reducing this loss.

Plug in hybrids... The THC is more efficient at converting crude oil into energy to drive the wheels than the power company is. This is due in large part to the losses in transmission lines and generation of electricity. The cost is a different story. Some sources of electricity are less expensive to generate than those derived from crude oil (geothermal, hydroelectric, nuclear are examples). Others are much more expensive, photovoltaic (during the first 15 years of payback life), wind (debatable given the life and maintenance of the gear... time will tell), biofuels (the gallon of crude equivalent energy required to farm and extract the energy from corn results in the equivalent of 1.2 gallons of crude you get at the end of the process - note that ethanol has about half the energy per gallon compared to gasoline). I am not sure where natural gas fits in here. Bottom line is that gasoline at $5/gallon is a lot cheaper way to power your vehicle than electricity from the grid.

Of note.. today it takes about 18 months for photovoltaic panels to generate the energy that was required to fabricate them (for a typical installation). The payback period should be far, far, less than the 15 years it is today (this is due to profit and installation costs). When this happens, we should all be charging our plug-ins from our roof top photovoltaic systems. Until then, plug-ins are environmentally unsound. For references on most of this stuff, do a search at Scientific American and other science publications (Science Week etc...).

 

I am interested to see what the plug-in model sells for and the other specifics. I'm sure the first model year will be the litmus test but i would wait for at least 2 model years before getting one myself. Otherwise, if they don't spend allot of time on development the people that but them first will be part of the test and development stage. I'm not into that part of the senario.