Batteries, charging & lies

Many of the misconceptions surrounding electric vehicles involve the batteries. I even hear comments regarding 90 year old electric vehicles that are still running on the original batteries and if they could do it 90 years ago, why not now?

If I were into conspiracy theories I might say it had something to do with oil companies and car manufacturers. But lets look a little closer at the what has happened in the last century.

Firstly, at the turn of the last century, electricity was more expensive than gasoline so it was actually cheaper to refill your car than recharge it. So the original demise of EV's was likely economical and not part of any conspiracy. And not unexpectedly, now the economies are reversed, EV's are experiencing a rebirth.

The second part of the answer involves our desire for comfort, speed and distance. By today’s standards, the motor and batteries in that vehicle would not perform at highway speeds, or carry us any distance with creature comforts like heaters, headlights, GPS and CD players. In fact from about the 1920’s until 1980’s there were great improvements in electric motors becoming smaller, lighter and more efficient but vehicle batteries remained largely unchanged. There was no need for them to improve since all it needed to do was start a gasoline engine!
Battery advancements only really began with the advent of portable electronics driving demand for higher energy density. Smaller laptops and cell phones with longer life gave commercial success initially to Nickel Metal Hydride and later Lithium Ion batteries. It's variations of Lithium batteries that we are now seeing as the prime candidate for electric vehicles in the near term, (lets leave ultra capacitors for another blog entry). These batteries are safe, recyclable and unfortunately expensive to produce, (at the moment). Retailing at over $1000 per kilowatt hour of electricity storage, and with an electric vehicle needing 20 to 30 kilowatt hours of electricity, (for range and creature comforts like headlights)you can see that batteries are the financial hurdle for consumer EV adoption.

Some of the other misconceptions surrounding these batteries are charging characteristics and life. Things we were educated about like “memory effect” don’t exist for these batteries and the life span is longer than most would think. Current Lithium batteries will last up to 10 years in a vehicle, and emerging battery cells are rated for 15 or more years, (20000 cycles).

One final complaint levied at electric vehicle adoption, is how long it takes to recharge them. Well that issue is solved too. Companies such as Aeroinvironment have what you need for blisteringly fast charging. Plug in, buy a coffee and you’re ready to go in only 10 minutes! And building an electric “gas” station comes at a fraction of the price of its petroleum counterpart, with no concerns about fuel spillage or soil remediation.

While battery electric vehicles are not a solution for all requirements, there is no reason they don’t work for urban personal transportation.