http://www.designnews.com/author.asp?section_id=1366&doc_id=278680&cid=nl.dn14.20150917&dfpPParams=ind_184,industry_auto,bid_318,aid_278680&dfpLayout=blog
Leaders at The Battery Show Call for a Lead-Acid Renaissance in EVs
Charles Murray, Senior Technical Editor, Electronics & Test
Battery industry leaders made a case yesterday for automakers to
consider lead-acid chemistries as the car industry moves toward
increased electrification.
Two keynote speakers at The Battery Show outside Detroit said that new
versions of the nearly 150-year-old lead-acid battery technology might
be better suited than lithium-ion for near-term applications in hybrid
cars, mild hybrids, and micro-hybrid vehicles. The speakers said they
see lead-acid as an alternative to lithium-ion in certain applications
and not as a replacement for it in fully battery-powered vehicles.
”There is no silver bullet when it comes to battery technology,” noted
Subhash Dhar, CEO of Energy Power Systems, at The Battery Show’s
"Leaders Debate" forum. “Whether we talk about lead-acid,
nickel-cadmium, nickel-metal hydride, or lithium-ion, every chemistry
has a value proposition for its given application.”
In particular, Dhar cited start-stop vehicles, which need long cycle
life and low cost in their batteries, as candidates for lead-acid
chemistries. He also said that lead-acid makes more sense than
lithium-ion in mild hybrids and full hybrids, which typically use
relatively small battery capacities of just 1 kWh or 1.5 kWh. “While
lithium-ion is a high-performance battery, it does have high costs
associated with it,” he said. “We need to come up with a low-cost
solution that’s acceptable to the user community.”
Dhar was one of two speakers at the Leaders Debate who supported
lead-acid. Robert Flicker, chief operating officer of East Penn
Manufacturing, also argued that automakers need to consider lead-acid
beyond the traditional SLI (starting, lighting, and ignition)
applications. East Penn is conducting its own field tests on hybridized,
lead-acid versions of the Honda Insight, Honda Civic, Volkswagen Passat,
and Ford Focus, he said. It is also working on lead-acid-based vehicles
with 42 V electrical architectures.
Also at the show, the Advanced Lead-Acid Battery Consortium displayed a
Dodge Ram truck that combines lead-carbon batteries with a
natural-gas-powered engine. The truck uses the lead-acid batteries as
part of a start-stop system that helps reduce emissions and fuel costs.
_______________________________________________
UNSUBSCRIBE: http://www.evdl.org/help/index.html#usub
http://lists.evdl.org/listinfo.cgi/ev-evdl.org
For EV drag racing discussion, please use NEDRA
(http://groups.yahoo.com/group/NEDRA)
