New battery tech

[Moot]

A new type of semi-solid flow Lithium based battery has been created which is much more efficient than existing types. It exists in a type of slurry, a dark gungey goo. Some of it is negatively charged the other positively, the streams exchange lithium ions and pass over aluminium and copper collectors. It's dubbed the Cambridge Crude.
Looks a bit like oil.

If it was used to replaces the Nissan Leafs battery it would cost £3,667.97, the current cost of the Nissan battery is £19,300.
It would also have double the range of the existing battery.

It's a clever system, in present batteries 2/3 of the volume is taken up by structural supporting material that serves no electrical purpose. It is also these materials that cost more to make than the electrically active components of the batteries .The slurry technique gets rid of a lot of this wastage.
Other benefits are it can be pumped in ready charged at a filling station, a bit like filling up with petrol, it would take a few minutes to refill.
Or alternatively a ready sealed tank of it could be swapped for your used one.
Also the used slurry can be recharged from the mains, just like today's rechargeable batteries.

A prototype car is planned for construction in 2013.


Source paper:
http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/aenm.201100152/abstract

 

[JCE]

This is a good use of research and development. I like it.

 

[SRV2LOW4ME]

19,300 pounds for the Leaf's battery?!?!?!!? Thats absurd! For that price, I'd just use it as target practice and get another one. How is that environmentally friendly?!

 

[Moot]

19,300 pounds for the Leaf's battery?!?!?!!? Thats absurd! For that price, I'd just use it as target practice and get another one. How is that environmentally friendly?!

Leaf battery £19,300
Leaf car complete with battery £31,000. (-£5,000 with temporary grant)
With the grant it would be worthwhile keeping a whole rolling car complete with parts and interior as spares and buy new Leaf.
I wonder if the prices Nissan quotes is on exchange only basis. So in fact it would cost even more than £19,300, if you wanted to keep and salvage the old battery for it's Lithium.

 

[keldabest13]

Electric cars are rip offs! Stupid eco freaks!

 

[CAM]

Electric cars are rip off! Stupid eco freaks!

Dude, if you're going to flame someone's opinion, please use correct grammar. If you disagree with the material in the OP, don't post.

 

[CodeRedR51]

Electric cars are rip off! Stupid eco freaks!

My opinion on this is two sided. I don't mind electric cars as long as they don't take away my sporty gasoline powered cars. It's fine with me if Nissan wants the Leaf to be successful, just as long as they keep the GT-R around and give us a new SE-R Sentra that is true to it's roots.

I don't necessarily hate the Toyota Prius, I just hate the owners.

 

[rocko100]

My opinion on this is two sided. I don't mind electric cars as long as they don't take away my sporty gasoline powered cars. It's fine with me if Nissan wants the Leaf to be successful, just as long as they keep the GT-R around and give us a new SE-R Sentra that is true to it's roots.

I don't necessarily hate the Toyota Prius, I just hate the owners.

This

 

[CAM]

Very nice explanation, R1600 👍.

 

[keldabest13]

Ok maybe I went in a little bit hard there.I was meant to say that the "eco" cars cost so much and they take so long to charge up! If I had £30,000 to spend on a car.I would buy a normal car like VW Polo.

 

[Moot]

Wow, you must really spec your Polo up. Lithium metallic paint option?

 

[homeforsummer]

Leaf battery £19,300
Leaf car complete with battery £31,000. (-£5,000 with temporary grant)
With the grant it would be worthwhile keeping a whole rolling car complete with parts and interior as spares and buy new Leaf.
I wonder if the prices Nissan quotes is on exchange only basis. So in fact it would cost even more than £19,300, if you wanted to keep and salvage the old battery for it's Lithium.

Except you would never actually pay £19,300 for a Leaf battery, since the battery is split into dozens of separate cells, and when (if) the battery goes wrong it would likely be down to a single cell, in which case you're talking a few hundred quid rather than thousands. In fact, there are 48 modules, so according to Nissan the most you'd pay is about £400.

Not only that, but Nissan says the price quoted in the press for a battery is the cost of a single unit multiplied by 48, which is stupid anyway. It's the equivalent of paying 5p per sheet of paper at a photocopy shop or buying a 1000 sheet pack for a couple of quid. The whole is worth less than the sum of its parts.

In other words, in the unlikely event your battery was completely ruined, you'd still not pay £20k for one at a dealership.

 

[Moot]

Do to actual usage all the cells would need replacing, not just some.
Nissan does not say it's any cheaper to buy more than 1,Nissan is not a supermarket offering 3 for 2.
If I went to nissan and purchased 16 valves for my engine, the price is the same as 1 valve multiplied by 16.
Nissan don't do bulk discounts.
The price is £19,300 to replace the Leaf battery when it has worn out from recharging cycles/usage. Perhaps if the cells wear out at slightly different times they will have to be replaced individually. But the expense will be £19,300 within the year.
IF the customer decided to get them done 1 by 1 every few weeks it would cost more as the labour charge would be £xx/hour x 48. If they were done at the same time the labour time would be reduced overall.

 

[homeforsummer]

Do to actual usage all the cells would need replacing, not just some.

Not true.

Nissan does not say it's any cheaper to buy more than 1,Nissan is not a supermarket offering 3 for 2.

Not true. The cells are individual units, all connected together. On the incredibly rare occasion when a whole new pack may be needed, economies of scale come into play.

Had you read the article I linked to, you'd have seen Nissan has said this themselves. But to save you the effort of clicking on a link:

“To make the maintenance of the Leaf as easy as possible, the “battery” is actually 48 batteries in a large box which can be replaced individually to keep costs low. Each is connected to the Leaf’s advanced telematics system so Nissan can monitor the health of each module remotely. The price quoted in the press of [$31,795] for an entire battery is not indicative of the actual cost. It is an extrapolation of the individual price of replacing a single battery multiplied by 48. The cost of a conventional engine and transmission built up from individually sourced parts would be similarly high”

Or is Nissan telling fibs about Nissan's own batteries?

If I went to nissan and purchased 16 valves for my engine, the price is the same as 1 valve multiplied by 16.
Nissan don't do bulk discounts.

If you went and bought every single component of an engine separately from Nissan, it would cost a hell of a lot more than buying a complete, turn-key engine from them. The battery is no different.

The price is £19,300 to replace the Leaf battery when it has worn out from recharging cycles/usage. Perhaps if the cells wear out at slightly different times they will have to be replaced individually. But the expense will be £19,300 within the year.

You're also assuming that in eight to ten years time when the batteries have reached 80% capacity (not even worn out) that a whole pack will cost £20k (and as I've already mentioned, it doesn't even cost £20k today).