Toyota Pushing Move To lithium-Ion Batteries

Here is the wikipedia from the ovonics lawsuit
Cobasys - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

As you can see we are long past the second half of 2010, PEVE now is majority owned by toyota, and if the ovonics tech was better than lithium toyota would surely be trumpeting why they are using it in a plug in. The prius phv did not exist until the patents expirestion date. Also from wikipedia, that bosch-samsung joint venture that now owns the rights is SB LiMotive and toyota could easily buy batteries from them if they thought they were better than lithium. If they were better and toyota didn't want them why wouldn't bmw, ford, tesla, anyone else be buying these ovonics cells. I'm sure you agree, its because lithium is better.

You know you have been reading press release copy when you say perfected But yes panasonic (along with the Sanyo patents they bought), toyota, and Primearth EV have surrounded nimh batteries with patents, so they are the only game in town, a monopoly controlled by 3 interconnected companies. These are better for hybrids than the ovonics batteries.

Those were toyota's words when they bought the additional chunk of panasonic EV and changed the name to primearth EV.

Don't get all confused like spwolf.

PEVE has a lot invested in fixed costs for building Nimh. That should still give them a cost advantage when building the same batteries they have been building since 2003.

Its Panasonic that is more tied up in lithium chemistries. But Toyota is adding more lithium investment. At some time in the near future lithium should be less expensive for toyota than nimh.

 

When Chevron sold Cobasys to SB LiMotive, they did not transfer all the patents. Some remain with Chevron. This can be confirmed by looking at the USPTO's patent assignation database.

 

Is there something you are insinuating? Today in 2013 there is absolutely no patatent encumbrance for SB LiMotive to produce nimh batteries for plug-ins. Lithium simply is a superior technology today.

Burrying those patents did slow development of plug ins in the past, but that is the past. There should be no doubt that the lithium battery in the RAV4 EV today is superior to the nimh that operates in the ancient ones that are still chugging along.

 

Hardly obvious, unless your specify the performance characteristics you are talking about.

E.g., how confident are you that battery longevity is superior in the Li-x RAVs ?

 

We should have darrel D add to the discussion since he bought a $42K gen 1 Rav4 ev. Adjusted for inflation the new one is less expensive despite being over twice as fast 0-60, and based on a bigger heavier vehicle.

The new RAV4 at least according to the EPA goes further on the same electricity from the plug, it also has a higher capacity higher power battery that weighs less and takes up less space. The new rav 4 has a longer range than the old one, and charges faster.

Toyota also seems to have more confidence in the new batteries versus the old. The nimh were warranted for 6 years, while the LION have a 8year warranty.

The old batteries did well compared to expectations but over half are no longer on the road today. Why would you assume the newer better lithium with better charge management and longer warranty would fail prematurely. Darrel D's pack lasted 11 years and almost 100,000 miles, before he needed to replace it. It has done much better than average. Toyota seems to expect that the new average will be better, and Tesla expects future costs to drop.

Context for ovonics/rav4 battery dependability and cost might include this.
Green Car Congress: Used Toyota RAV4-EV Sells for $67,300 on eBay

some batteries did indeed die young, especially if you pushed them.

 

do you remember only 12 last hrs or what? I was talking about Ford buying all that stuff before from Toyota, Denso, Aisin, for their nimh hybrids, as well as Toyota buying out most of Panasonic share of PEV and renaming it. They now own 80.5% of Primearth EV.


What is more interesting to me that bickering with you is what are they going to use those 200k/yr for? Maybe new RXh? New NXh? 200k/yr might be a lot for other makers, but for Toyota, it is less than 1/3 of their Prius Liftback production, so it is not going there... even for Lexus, it is 40% of their overall production, so they wont be switching all of their hybrids to Lion, at least not soon.

Maybe this 200k/yr is to addition of some capacity they already have so maybe that way they will convert most of the Lexus to lion within 12 months or so?

Certainly not going to go to PHEV as PHEV sales are really low anyway, they dont need extra 200k/yr in supply.

p.s. Of course Aisin supplies Toyota with PSD. As Toyota company, every transmission in Toyota vehicle (at least by far most of them) are made by Aisin.

 

While I can admire Toyota's cautiousness, it's good to see that they're finally moving into second gear on this technology.

 

Another advantage Li Ion has over NiMH is that the charging efficiency is better. At best, NiMH charge/discharge efficiency is 66% while Li Ion is 80-90%. So you would have more battery energy after a given braking stint, that would translate to more MPG right?

And that is a big reason why you wouldn't want NiMH batteries for a full electric either, since right off the bat, you would have to spend 1.5kwh to get 1kwh into the battery, not to mention charger efficiency.

 

My reading suggests it is still evolving. I remember reading a technical article ("GreenCarCongress"?) that at least one chemistry forms non-reactive compounds over the charge/discharge cycle that erodes capacity. But a lot of new work continues to be published and the specific energy density is definitely better.

As for NiMH, rehydration appears to be an important aspect. I've taken old, low capacity NiMH modules and returned them to full capacity after adding water and conducting charge/discharge "conditioning" cycles:


There is a small amount of electrolysis with every NiMH charge/discharge cycle. Sealed, the battery will recombine it into water. But hydrogen gas pretty much leaks through every everything.

The charge/discharge efficiency is a little more complex than a single number. There has been some recent work on combined lead-acid batteries and ultracaps that looks very promising. In effect, the caps store the excess energy until the battery chemistry can 'catch up.'

Regardless of which battery chemistry, a lot of interesting work is going on and we're seeing new approaches announced fairly often. I don't think we are at a battery plateau, yet, where we can declare one or the other 'the winner.'

Bob Wilson

 

i hope they continue to receive funding, it's the only way we'll make any progress.

 

IEEE Xplore -
Energy efficiency of a Ni-MH battery used in hybrid electric vehicles

That puts nimh above 80% (90%x90%) charge discharge efficiency when used inside the prius SOC envelope. Higher currents and full charging greatly drops nimh charge discharge efficiency, though, the higher they are charged above 70% the less efficient charging becomes.

Lithium batteries also require more complex (i.e. expensive) charging and monitoring electronics. The cost of these electronics has been dropping rapidly. As time goes on and costs drop, the past cost disadvantage of lithium to nimh should be reversed and lithium should get cost advantages, as raw materials are less expensive.

Yes one of the reasons, is you would have a smaller usable SOC range if the battery is to remain efficient. Power density and energy density for both weight and volume are also better, as is self discharge rate. These factors make it no contest in a plug in. In a hybrid lithium only has small advantages.

 

I don't know how you figure this. NiMH and Li-Ion battery packs both have to have current, voltage, and temperature monitoring for each cell, in addition to cell-balancing circuitry. The voltage of lithium-ion cells is roughly twice that of NiMH, so half as many cells in series are required to achieve a given voltage. That means less cost and complexity to build the same voltage battery pack.

 

Which has nothing to do with the charging.

Lithium-ion battery - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

 

Lithium packs for things like cell phones, lap tops, etc. have an overcharge protection circuit. They don't have to have it. I believe RC cars, helicopters and such have packs without the circuit. You can search YouTube for videos of such packs exploding and catching fire. A car is going to have such circuits built in inorder to maximize the batteries life for that of the car, no matter the chemistry.

Having the circuit on the pack means that the device could make use of larger ones, or ones with newer, better chemistries, if made available.Such an upgrade on a hybrid will require software and maybe a firmware upgrade.

 

sorry if I am a little off topic but I am not able to start a new thread.

Has anyone made an attempt to replace the prius NiMh pack with one of the new lithium packs. I am sure that the hybrid computer would need to be reprogram. but very curious if anyone has made an attempt. thanks.

 

From memory: the plug-in P's have had Li-ion for some time, at least in some markets. Until recently, NiMH were Toyota's choice because Li-ion lacked in some important for Toyota categories. Looks like Li-ion is coming of age and can be invited for a posh tea party, in Toyota's eyes.

 

indeed. looks like as of 2015 toyota started switching to Li-ion with some of the higher end prius and it is more common today. I believe the price of the battery is the main limiting factor since they have been able to fix most of the common previous problems, eg fire hazard, etc. but I think a lot of has to do with hybrid computer getting smarter and no necessary the li-ion battery evolving....

 

2016

 

pip had li=on from the get go, 2012

 

no. there was a company that claimed to be working on it a few years back, but i haven't read anything since.

it would be a lot more computer work than it's worth.