Interesting stuff. Production electric vehicles using what may be a good or better replacement for the Ovonic NiMH?
http://66.218.37.153/news.htm
http://www.popularmechanics.com/automot ... 01003.html
http://www.altairnano.com/index.html

My question is when is one of the big car companies going to bite the bullet and start making ev ?

About two years after Toyota and Honda acquire complete dominance in the market. Then the big three will whine about Americans not buying American made products again.

The interesting thing is that the first person into the market needs to do it in such a big way they become the standard. If they do their decisions become the lead for everyone else. The problem is that EV's have much lower ongoing costs unless you do bad engineering. Services happen less frequently than tyre changes etc. So Whoever makes the jump is hoping to steal enough of the market to make up for the long term loss of ongoing earnings.

These things can not be done secretly you can't set up a massive construction capacity and if you try the other majors jump in and drag you back down. The volume of cash needed for a fast switch is simply too massive and the risks too high for corporate capitalism to deal with. So instead there will be a requirement for massive government intervention and that won't happen in the US. I am sure China would love to do it but they do not have enough raw power available.

Mass hybrids will probably be the first step and that won't happen until various patents lapse. Any magic new technology that pokes it's head up at the moment, has to contend with it's own development costs etc, to get it ready, at about the same time as an existing technology jumps back into the fray. The Hybrids are best of both worlds for the car industry. They force people to stay part of the existing on cost chain while being so complex they effectively shut down small independant mechanical shops and force people to dealers. They can also use the existing infrastructure a lot better than pure EV's

I am sure the strategic departments of companies are looking at this right now. What is needed to stir things up is an establishment of common standards in a market large enough and rich enough to deal with the changeover. I think the best bet is europe. EU standards for EV's could be put in place, It would be less of a culture shock, Small cars are more common, more public transport, etc. They can also establish procurement policies etc that would spur demand. Once the standards exist, and government pressure starts you will have a rush of manufacturers not wanting to be left behind.

I wouldn't be surprised to see some cities eventually declare themselves to be no-ICE zones.

ozkrenske,

I understand what your saying to a point, but take a company like GM with something like 3 billion in loses this year, and it's only going to get worse for them, so what really do they have to lose? also if something like a ford gm team happen and they were to mass produce a few styles of ev's and control the market then other companies would'nt be able to get into ev's because all gmford would have to do is flood the market with more ev's and drop their prices to put any competitor out of business right ? I think we will see more hybrids but the future has to be ev's unless there is fuel cell technology out there that some one of some company is sitting on just for the right time to bring to the market, but I think this is doubtful. So I think most cars companies are either going to merge with others to off set the lower profit margins of a ev car industury or they will just die off.
An the sooner it happens the better for everyone, because I fell this will lead to a electric economy world wide with a different type of living for all, there will still be poor, middle and rich classes but just a different style is all.

150 or 250 mile range, at freeway speeds, is automatically impressive. Recharge time of ten minutes is fantastic.

I suppose it's good they're starting in the SUV market since after all we need to wean SUV owners off their gas-guzzling habits.

Personally, those vehicles are impractical for my application; I need a small minivan. Give me something that's one row of seats shorter than my present Dodge Caravan and has decent range at 60 mph, and that'll do the trick.

Re. the Altairnano batteries: Toecutter is the one who could comment on this with the most solidly engineering-based assessment. A quick read of the stuff on their website suggests this may be a serious breakthrough. Now let's hope they don't just sell the patents to Chevron. Someone needs to get them hooked up with Panasonic and Toyota instead.

Altairnano is just one of many companies who have brought enhanced 'nanotech' 'nano-titanate' Li-ion batteries to market.

A123 has a similar product on the market and shipping (You can buy them from Home depot - they're used in Makita 36V cordless power tools).

Toshiba has also announced such a battery - but I don't think it's shipping yet.

These batteries are all expected to have similar characteristics - the same weight as conventional Li-ion, slightly increased cost, higher charge/discharge efficiency, very rapid charge/discharge (minutes) so ideal for powering high power/high torque motors, virtually no risk of thermal runaway/fire when abused/damaged and very long life time (virtually no capacity loss after 5000 deep cycles - compared to normal Li-ion where usable life is 250-500 deep cycles).

There's a slightly different technology, based on nanotech 'nanophosphate' materials. Saphion has been shipping this type of battery for a couple of years.

Performance is similar, but not as good as the more recent ones.

Are any of these other companies producing large, (car, EV), size batteries?

5000 deep cycles... wow. Imagine what that could do for laptop batteries. This is a serious improvement in battery technology.

Does it scale in manufacturing I wonder.

It looks as if Altairnano is providing some battery manufacturers with it's NanoSafe battery technology.
Advanced Battery Technologies (ABAT)


Obviously this is old news so I'd imagine they are in production by now.

Altairnano also mentions Electro Energy Inc. as a partner
http://www.electroenergyinc.com/products.html

Good point.

Reminds me of VHS, Intel 8088's, Harley V-twins, & Windows.

Inferior, but standardized enough to win the marketplace.

More info:
http://www.greencarcongress.com/2006/11 ... otech.html

Phoenix and Altairnano moving forward:

Linky



I still haven't found any info on the cost of the Nanosafe battery.

I did find out that the SUV that Phoenix is using is the Ssangyong Actyon:
Actyon

Some new info on the cost of the Nanosafe batteries. The 35KW pack they are selling to Phoenix costs $75,000.00 per vehicle!!!
No wonder Phoenix is counting on the $200,000 California ZEV credit.
Hopefully increased production gets this price down, a lot!

I've been told that the company, (Altairnano), said that the $750,000.00 order for 10 packs included one time costs. Hopefully much of the 750K price tag....