Actually Aerovironment has independently tested the fast recharge capability and run them through many cycles with no drop in performance. (Can't find the link at the moment though.) Obviously testing them through 10,000 cycles will take some time, and some energy. If they can demonstrate only 1,000 cycles with no performance drop that will be plenty.
As far as them lasting 124 years you are assuming there is no degradation over time as well as cycle degradation. Any battery will die after a while even if it's never cycled.

Wrong thread

Actually NO.
A 1,000 cycle test is NOT good enough. That's what a regular battery does. How can we consider this a technological advancement if it's not being proven?

If this company is serious about it's reputation then it will back up it's claim of a 10,000 life cycle test. They can do a 10min fast charge followed by a 2 hour deep discharge. At 10 cycles per day it would take 2 years and 9 months to verify this claim. Actually I'd be happy if they can produce a 3,000 life cycle battery and that would take less then a year to test. So why is it not being done? Hmm?

Call me harsh but I NEVER accept anyone else's word when it comes to techno-advancements. I ALWAYS expect proof. Personally I think this company is lying about it's durability cycle claim.
my 2 cents

What normal automotive battery does 1,000 cycles with no degradation? In any case what I meant was an independent test of 1000 fast charge cycles with no capacity decrease is good enough because I doubt the battery will suddenly have a problem at cycle 1001, or even 1101. Considering that no one will completely discharge their battery 1000 times we know in real world usage with partial discharges the battery will last plenty long enough. If they can show even more cycles then even better.

I believe this is exactly what Aerovironment is doing, and as you said it will take a while.
They've also given a set to Berube, an electric drag racer, to abuse as he wishes in real world racing conditions.

Well they've certainly put themselves way out on a limb with many different companies and the US govt. if they can't deliver on their claims. I'd bet they at least think the batteries will perform. Time will tell.

It is clearly written on their website:
http://www.altairnano.com/markets_amps.html
What's wrong with asking a company to make good on what they claim? I do not think I'm being unrealistic here.

This is NOT a new announcement.
date: November 07, 2006
the Energy Blog
This company had over 1 year to give their battery to a 3rd party to test and "prove" the durability cycle claim. But yet no independent 3rd party wishes to step forward. *suspicious*? I'm only questioning the durability cycle claim here and nothing else.

Here's another way to look at it. Let's say you're Altair and you know what your battery can do. At the moment you are trying to bring the product to market and it's all you can do to keep up with current demand. The full cycle test by a third party is going to be pretty expensive. All your other claims have been proven by third parties and people want your product now. Would you be in a hurry to shell out cash to confirm what you already know and what your current customers aren't requiring proof of? You can be sure the companies aren't just taking their word on this if their shelling out millions for the product. They've seen and are confident in the test data from Altair.

Another record breaking run using NanoSafe batteries:
Record

AES seems to have faith in the capability of the NanoSafe batteries to the tune of $1 million:


Large NanoSafe

Here's my beef against Altair. Without proof of enhanced cycle durability these batteries are NOTHING SPECIAL. It's no different then what somebody else has already invented. I've mentioned before Toshiba has already produced fast charge lithium ions, granted not for cars but for laptop computers. However technologically speaking there is no difference between a small battery and a big one. You can make a large battery simply by bundling smaller ones together.

Furthermore getting a 3rd party to test the cycle durability claim would be dirt cheap NOT expensive. I'm certain lots of organizations would love to do it for FREE, the US military, engineering colleges, an environmental organization, etc.... In fact a 3rd party would have to do it for free to avoid bias. All it would cost Altair is giving away one battery and a charger.

But that's not what's happening is it? That's why I think this is a scam company. JRP3 no disrespect but I honestly do not understand how you can be so supportive of a company that makes "unsupported claims". Notice the news article makes no explicit mention of the cycle durability of the batteries sold to the phoenix car company? It's just regular batteries somebody else has already invented, nothing special.

-----------------
why the rant fest?
A 15,000 durability cycle battery is like saying: "I just built something that can last 10 times as long before breaking down."
Imagine if somebody said: "I just built a gasoline engine that can last 2 million miles!"
wouldn't YOU raise an eyebrow if some company made such a claim?

I guess I'm willing to give them somewhat of a pass, (for now), since I really doubt that the government and other companies would hand over MILLIONS of dollars to them if they didn't really believe the batteries performed as advertised. I mean really, how do you address that fact? Do you actually think these companies are buying the product just because Altairnano says it works? I don't. Simple as that.

I also think the kind of testing that needs to be done is much more demanding on the testers than you are portraying. No one is going to endlessly test 24 hours a day for years for free. Just not going to happen. Also, Altairnano is not claiming, to my knowledge, that the batteries can be continuously cycled time and time again with NO break in between, since that would never happen in the real world. I would expect some down time in between cycles, which means the testing would take even longer, literally years.

I suppose it'll be a matter of time. By the sounds of things, Altair are shifting all the batteries, and also raw materials (to be sold to other manufacturers) that they can produce.

As it is, Altair have presented their own test data at industry conferences several times. This includes full test data on several cells exposed to 18k cycles at 100% 6 min charge/6 min discharge. These limited tests confirm what they have been claiming - Better than 85% capacity retention after 18k cycles for all the batteries tested.

Although the cycle life hasn't be indepentenlty tested, the charge/discharge rate has been, and has proven to be accurate.

It's worth pointing out that the toshiba batteries seem to be in a far earlier state of development than the altair ones - additionally, toshiba have provided no clues as to what their technology is. At least altair have explained what their technology is, nano-particles of lithium titanate - a compound that considerable independent research has recognised as an extraordinarily stable battery material - for which immense cycle life would be expected. The altair innovation is not the use of the titanate material (as it's potential has been recognised for quite some time) but the development of a process to upgrade its charge speed capability through nano-sizing it.

In all fairness I'll give Altair credit for finding paying customers. That's got to count something. Anyways there's no point in getting all worked up right now. This is still a start up company and in today's world of hostile corporate takeovers and bankruptcies who knows if this company will be around 3 years from now. time will tell.....

If you are uncertain of something just don't say anything at ALL. I hate it when people make up things.

Toshiba first made an announcement of their fast charge batteries way back in Tuesday, 29 March 2005 however it was still in test stage.
http://www.dpreview.com/news/0503/05032 ... inbatt.asp

*google search SCiB battery*
11 December, 2007 announcement
These batteries will be on sale March 2008
http://www.toshiba.co.jp/about/press/2007_12/pr1101.htm
Commercial availability for industrial uses. full technical specs

It depends on what context you're referring to. For instance, some on this forum seem to consider not being able to purchase stuff from nanosolar in anything except for bulk unreasonable. But from the co's POV, selling piecemeal may be pointless since they are trying to grow. Waiting for all N panels from M batches to sell privately could put them at a significant competitive advantage. The same may go for paying/waiting for independent testing, and Altairnano may feel like it isn't worthwhile to pursue because of information they have in house. Perhaps there is more info available upon request by a serious potential buyer? In any event, it's only fair or unfair depending on what an individual believes. And, regardless of whether an individual thinks it's fair or unfair, the batteries will perform according to Altairnano's description or not.

I'm not making anything up.

I'm well aware of what Toshiba have said, and have followed their announcements closely since they issued their press release in 2005.

However:
Altair announced that they were developing a revolutionary rapid-charging Li ion battery in 2001.
In 2004, prototypes were publicly demonstrated. Also in 2004, an independent group from Rutgers university assessed the charge-discharge performance, and verified cycle life of in excess of 9000 cycles.
In 2007, production started and the quantity of batteries shipped can be measured in tons. Additionally, the battery material had been licensed to several 3rd parties, and the raw materials have been shipping in quantities of over 1 ton. At least 1 3rd party has demonstrated their own batteries using the altair material.

By contrast:
Toshiba announced that they were working on a battery in 2005.
In 2007, they announced that they would start producing it in March 2008. But there is no mention of quantities - it's common practice when introducing radical products, to test the market for 3-12 months, so that OEMs have something to work with and can develop their own products (chargers, management systems, etc.) to go with them.
There is no mention of what technology they are using (* see below).
The batteries have not been publicly demonstrated; independent test results are not available; Even internal test results have not been published, except in the 'full data sheet' which is rather short on actual data. Take a look at the cycle life diagram in the data sheet - do you really think that the battery capacity tails off in a perfectly straight line? Or do you reckon that a lot of data has been left out to make the graph look easy to understand.


* - Although Toshiba don't say what technology they are using, they do say that it is a new anode material. There are relatively few choices for lithium anode materials, and there is only two which considerable research has been published and is capable are very fast charge rates - lithium nano-titanate spinel (Altair's technology) and lithium iron nano-phosphate (used by Valence). This is confirmed by the characteristic voltage of lithium nano-titanate spinel which is 2.3 - 2.4 V. In other words, the toshiba battery almost certainly uses the same technology as the altair battery.

Quite how the IP is sorted, I don't know. Although the material may fundamentally be the same - there may be subtle differences in the way it is nano-processed. Have Toshiba actually developed their own process? Or might they have licensed it from someone else, or even from altair? I haven't the faintest idea.

Is this the same 'government' that believed we would be welcomed with flowers in Iraq, or that there were WMD to be found there?

Belief by the government is certainly NOT something that increases my confidence.