GM Says 100 to 200 mi on Electric Only in 2-4Yrs

Most of the listed alternative fuel stations (except perhaps electric) are only accessible by government vehicles. Virtually none of the EV chargers are Chaedemo or 440V DC.

 

Those are the public stations. It is quite true most cng and hydrogen are private either university, government, or corporate. That is how we have over a hundred thousand cng vehicles but only 500 public cng stations.

It is also true that the bulk of EV chargers are L2, there are only a handfull of them are L3. With 3 standards, SAE frankenplug, Tesla, and Chademo, its not surprising very few L3 chargers have been built. I would expect many more will be in place a year from now, when issues are resolved, and more L3 capable cars are on the road. Even then, I expect the bulk of charging to be done at home and at work, on private chargers.

 

The next-generation "extended range electric" GM vehicles should do much better in the pure electric range department - especially if they pack more batteries.

 

GM is saying 100-200 miles in 2-4 years . . . . but aren't they just stating what most folk already believe? ... that the 100-200 mile traction packs will sell for less money? I mean realistically, EV's already do 100-200 miles right now. Drive 'em harder/easier and you get worse/better range. It begs the question why is GM stating the obvious. Same thing is true for solar / wind and lots of other 'energy' products ... that production in mass, reduces costs? But the cost of energy for btu's keeps going up. Sure, we're fracking natural gas and that's knocking down some btu costs, but it aint replacing the large amount of legacy / high quality / easy to get at oil pools that continue to spiral down in availability. We are finding zero sources of cheep energy. Now days, if producers don't get $50+ per barrel, they loose money. And if producers don't get a LOT more money than that per barrel, producers don't go out looking for the hard to get at energy. It's gona continue to be a bumpy ride if we don't see that writing on the wall. If we can't keep up with world demand for cheep energy, then business slows, energy costs (even for traction pack production) go up, and then the 100-200 miles packs go up in cost too - w/out cheep energy. GM's production costs turn on LOTS of continued cheep energy. I'd like to know what their source is for that belief.

 

It may seem obvious to you, but many people don't think a car like the leaf (73mpge epa) is going to advance fast with battery technology. The 2-4 years is faster than the 7% per year improvements we are seeing, and the real world improvements are much faster than the perception that BEVs won't improve fast.

Cost of btus of natural gas and solar have been going down rapidly recently. My utilities cost of new wind is actually going up with material cost rising. Wind for charging cars though is very cheap, if we apportion smart chargers to do it at night when the wind is practly free on the grid.

Average cost in the US is just under $30/bbl, at these oil prices producers make money. Oil sands cost more like $65/bbl, which is still highly profitable at today's oil prices, but supply is constrained by lack of infrastructure. As the OPEC cuts back on the $9/bbl production stuff we are going to need to use much more of the more expensive stuff, and the next step up is $110/bbl for some of the harder to get oil sands. Absolutely right on the bumpy ride, but thought you'd want some better real world production costs.

The largest production energies for north american produced cars are natural gas, coal, and electricity. Natural gas prices are down, coal up but not significantly, and electricity where gm builds cars has been going up. Europe is a different story where gm, ford, and many others are losing money.

The reason the bigger packs will go down in price is less of the expensive raw materials will be used to build them. The news item was about a battery technology that if viable will only weigh 60% as much as the batteries in a tesla. Not all of that weight reduction is the expensive raw materials but much of it is. If this battery tech works, I would expect it to help all bevs and phevs, not just general motors. Its a good thing, but there are technical hurdles and competeing technology.

 

like you can do with an apple iPhone

 

lol. I agree I don't think these car manufacturers want to open up battery tech for easy swaps.

We can look at american driving habits. According to RITA - the us agency that does statistics for driving - only 3.3 Million americans have daily drives to work of 50+ miles. If we exclude them, then commutes for much more than 90% of americants is 100 miles or less. Let's add in 20 miles for other driving in the day, and over 90% could happily drive with range limitations of 120 miles. Now there is range anxiety, decreased life of the battery over time, and instructions to charge to less than 100%, so lets add in a 35% fudge factor - 120/65% = 185 miles epa range on a full charge on a new pack. This would give over 90% of Americans plenty of range for everything but long trips. Many are happy with the 75 aer that is given by the leaf, focus, imev, fit evs. Its not a one size fits all, many drive fewer miles or can recharge at work. With 185 aer and public chargers many long trips are even available. We don't need a quick swap solution or fast recharging for the grand majority, but we do need less expensive batteries.

For those with one car that do long trips though the phev is the fast refuel solution. Looking at RITA statistics again the average day driving is around 40 miles, but this is skewed up because of long trips. I can't find the chart, but IIRC about 20 mile range gives 45% ev miles, 40 miles about 63%, 80 miles about 80%. There is diminishing returns. A PHEV with between 20 and 80 mile range can seriously move gasoline miles to electric miles. That BEV won't be chosen for the very long trips, and most can deal with that limitation.

 

For me range anxiety is more basic:

• Will I get paid before this tank is gone?

If I only have one fill-up per paycheck, I have no anxiety. More than one fill-up per paycheck and I get anxious.

Bob Wilson

 

Bob,
That's what plastic is for.

But seriously, most people are fine plugging in their cars once a day. You get the bill about once a month. The question really is range anxiety, and approximately 75 miles is fine for many people, but gives many others anxiety. We have hundreds of L2 charges throughout the city to see if that makes the range alright. It may just take time, or the number may be off. For me that 185 number is about right, I can drive back and forth to San Antonio, and the pack can decrease. IMHO that is about right for the majority of Americans and happens to be available early next year in the 60kwh Tesla S. Technically its not only feasible but at $60K after tax credits its about the same price as the bmw 5 series and mercedes E which are its competitors..

Cutting the price and weight of the battery pack in half will let it BEVs compete in lower priced/higher volume offerings. The leaf doesn't sell well now, and part of it could be they don't know how to sell it. I have to believe that par is also the anxiety, and a gen II leaf may get a little more range and a lower price at the same time.

 

(I'm going to go out on a limb and make general statements about lithium-ion batteries when I know that there are specific chemistries that may have conflicting specs... cover me, I'm going in anyway.)

There is a vast difference between an EV manufacturer's "100 mile" lithium-ion battery and an EV owner/driver's daily experience.

Never mind charging times, there are physical/chemical considerations that strongly suggest that the manufacturer's "100 miles" is for the EV owner/driver an every day 60 to 75 miles if he/she is concerned about maintaining battery capcity, useable daily mileage, over time.

It has to do with the lithium-ion chemistry and cathode/anode materials and structure... and battery internal temps whether resulting from environmental conditions -- think LEAFs in Arizona -- or heat generated in discharging the battery. IIRC, there are 4 or 5 different lithium-ion battery chemistries.

There are diffferent electrolyte chemistries, and for the most part it is difficult to determine what they are. It may not matter much though because once there is elecrolyte breakdown, due to "overheating" which can occur at ~120 degF, the battery is ruined. The electrolyte is a jell contained in the thin plastic separator film.

The different lithium-ion battery chemistries typically refer to the anode material. In all cases the anode and cathode are not made from the same material. As I understand it, of the two the anode is the more critical.
The issue is getting electrons onto/into and off/out of the anode quickly and with minimum heat generated.

Carbon/graphite anodes are way old school and greatly out of favor. But they graphically ;-) illustrate the essential problem. Under high discharge and charge rates electrons are forced into the spaces between the layers of the graphite. In a short time, the graphite is irreversably deformed, it swells in size and pieces fall off or cells short out .
(I still find this hard to believe given that the diameter of an electron is,
d = 5.635880578916 x 10^ -15 m.)

Leading edge "advanced" anodes are porus, sort of like a sponge, but they are actually made of compressed rods; lots of area surface area -- IIRC, about 20X+ -- and lots of openings for the electrons to get deep into the material without causing physical damage.

Well, enough about anodes, electrons, and anodes, Oh my!

While the EV manufacturers don't say it clearly, if you dig really deeply, slowly you come to the understanding that researchers and folks who use lithium-ion batteries a whole lot say that you should stay away from charging to 100% capacity and discharging below 20% capacity on a frequent basis if long-term battery capacity is a concern. If it is, 80 charge to 20% discharge is better and can be done repeatedly.

These folks go further. It would be best to keep SOC around 50%, charging above that number and discarging below it equally as needed for your next days mileage needs. In this scenario, frequent small chargings are necessary. Enter the desirability, if not need, for many conveniently placed public L2 chargers.

EV manufacturers don't always tell you what your SOC meter measures. Is it full range, from actual 0-100%, or some reduced range with buffers at top and bottom? (The Prius allows driver discretionary use only between ~40-80% actual battery capacity.)

Just what is GM, or any EV maker is saying exactly? A "200 mile"range using full battery battery is no big deal. You can get that today. A "driver usable 200 mile range" everyday with an eye towards long term battery capacity, daily mileage is quite a different thing; a battery that the manufacturer would rate at 333 mile range. At this point, physical weight and size become become very real design challenges with current technology. As does charging time.

Oh yeah, if you lease an EV, I guess you can charge/discharge any way you want. Long term capacity/mileage be damned. I for one would never consider buying an off-lease EV.

 

Yet you might buy an ICE off lease that may have been driven without engine oil for a 100 miles from a little old lady that only drove it on Sundays to church and back.

Back to the batteries, I think when GM says 200 miles they mean 200 miles with proper battery management, like they seem to be doing in the Volt.

 

My understanding is that Tesla has the 20-ish% high/low un-accessible buffer too. Thus, if you buy a 200 mile traction pack for your model C, you're buying a REALLY larger pack.

 

What will be interesting is how much effort/resource will be needed to recycle the various battery technologies. If someone develops a 100,000 cycle battery chemistry that can be recycled into a new battery for some fraction of virgin costs, maybe 10%, they would have a winner.

 

Cost of recycling is mainly determined by how valuable the materials are. Lead acid has expensive and easy to bet to lead, which is toxic. All of them are recycled. Lithium recycling will be done to reduce waste, it will not save much money.

 

I'm not a chemist or a battery expert but I've read a fair number of research papers on lithium-ion batteries so the following is my limited understanding.

Most typically quoted battery chemistries refer to the cathode material. The anodes of commercial batteries are typically a form of carbon such as graphite. The cathodes vary in their use of some combination of cobalt, nickel, manganese, iron and/or aluminum. A few batteries use a lithium titanate anode but this uncommon. Newer batteries may trend towards including silicon in the anode. Major improvements will require changes in both cathode and anode chemistries.

Graphite anodes may be old school but they still used in the commercial "state of the art" EV batteries in typical cars like the Tesla Roadster, Chevy Volt and Nissan LEAF. The doohickies squeezing into the holes in the anode are lithium ions, not electrons. According to Wikipedia, the "classical electron" is around 10^-15m but this simplistically calculated and unrealistically large. The quantum mechanical upper limit for the radius of an electron is 10^-22m. A lithium atom or positive ion radius is around 10^-10m or about a trillion times larger than an electron.

The physical damage from swelling is one of the major challenges facing silicon anodes. This is not nearly as much of a problem for graphite or lithium titanate. It's only very recently that commercially viable silicon anode designs are overcoming the swelling issue.

 

We do have lots of details on this specific chemistry, they have working batteries, they just aren't commercialized yet
Envia Claims 'Breakthrough' in Lithium-Ion Battery Cost and Energy Density - NYTimes.com

Say you want a 60kwh pack that would cost $9000 and weigh 330lbs (150kg) for the cells. There are other costs of the battery pack and cooling system, but this tech definitely would make battery packs lighter and more affordable. We have lots of details of the chemistry also. The tesla S cells are reportedly 240wh/kg, which would drop the weight of just the cells in the 60kwh pack by 220 lbs. Other materials in the battery pack and cooling system would also drop in weight. The roadster older chemistry would weigh 760 lbs more.

Envia Systems claims energy density record for lithium-ion batteries

Exciting stuff, not your old nimh battery. But there are challenges in commercialization and competing technologies.

 

Well there isn't much detail in that article but I suspect there is more at the company website although haven't had time to check it out yet. My vague and possibly wrong impression was that they licensed ANL's layered-layered lithium ideas, combined them with an improved (silicon-based?) anode and then beat on it until it worked. [A quick check at their website seems to confirm that]

My impression was that the ANL layered-layered technology had issues with power density but perhaps they have figured out how to fix that problem.

I guess Panasonic makes an NCR18650A cell that claims that much energy density (according to a page at Envia that references it). We don't know that Tesla is using that cell as far as I know.

 

The trick seems to be ANL manufacturing technology. The Cathode appears to be the key part. It uses layers of Li2MnO3 Lithium Manganese Oxide along with Nickel, Cobalt, and manganese. The trick is manufacturing the layers and the proper ratio. From the name High Capacity Manganese Rich (HCMR), I am assuing they use a higher ratio of manganese than other battery recipes. The large cost reduction has to do with using less of the expensive materials per kwh.

The anode is silicon carbon as you say. It may be a little bettery, but the important improvement is in the cathode.

 

I think the ANL cathode alone is only good for 220-240Wh per kg with a conventional carbon anode. You need a fancy silicon anode and new higher voltage electrolyte to get the 400+Wh that Envia is claiming. They are the first to bring all 3 of those components together into a single cell design.

 

Yes it is silicon carbon anode, but those have been fairly common in the lab.