Mike, If you check out the website, the cost differential listed by the manufacturer is just over $8,000 for the whole system. The batteries are not selling for $20,000. True, it would cost about that for a traction pack suitable for an all electric EV. But prices are coming down. There is a guy by the name of Zack Radding who is building a kit lamborghini who lists the cost of 23 kWh worth of thundersky lithium phosphate batteries at $15,000. A rep that I talked to at GAIA was telling me that their pricing goal is $0.75 per Wh by the end of this year. Also, most manufacturers are advertising cycle lives between 1500 and 2000, even 20,000!? for altair nano. Advertised cycle life even for good lead acid cells is only 400. Maybe the batteries in the computers don't last long, but that is no longer a fair comparison. The batteries now marketed for traction packs are different animals. Even so, how many cycles did you put the computer batteries through during those two years? I'm not trying to light you up or anything, I just have to respectfully disagree that lithium batteries are a problem. The only problem is the up-front costs. In the long run, even if they fall short of published specs to the same degree as lead acid batteries can, they are still cost effective. On the subject of the hybrid at hand, Cool! I think George and I were talking briefly at the last meeting about the subject of using ultracaps in an EV drivetrain. My thought was to simply wire them in parallel with the battery pack and use them to compensate for voltage sag on acceleration and soak up current during regeneration. This would spare the batteries wear and tear and reduce peukert related losses. He was talking about using the ultracaps as a separately controlled power source. This would be more complicated, but would spare the batteries more effectively in the same way and extend range more than my idea. AFIK, they will be putting a cap pack into the Jetta we tore apart yesterday. I also mentioned the possibility of using my EV as a test mule for development as it runs higher voltage and regenerates. It will be interesting to see how all of this turns out. I guess that's my $0.02 worth. I'd love to hear more discussion on these subjects. Matt Kramp [EMAIL PROTECTED] (mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED])
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