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It's the Batteries, Stupid!

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From an Aptera email newsletter:
[FONT=Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif][FONT=Century Gothic, ITC Avant Garde, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif]Tech talk: [FONT=Century Gothic, ITC Avant Garde, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif]A peek inside the 2e battery pack[/FONT][/FONT][/FONT] [FONT=Century Gothic, ITC Avant Garde, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif] [/FONT]
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[FONT=Century Gothic, ITC Avant Garde, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif][FONT=Century Gothic, ITC Avant Garde, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif] [/FONT][/FONT][FONT=Century Gothic, ITC Avant Garde, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif][FONT=Century Gothic, ITC Avant Garde, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif] [FONT=Century Gothic, ITC Avant Garde, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif] [FONT=Century Gothic, ITC Avant Garde, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif][FONT=Century Gothic, ITC Avant Garde, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif][FONT=Century Gothic, ITC Avant Garde, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif]After a great deal of testing and research, Aptera has finally settled on its production battery solution. In fact, the "battery gauntlet," developed by Aptera co-founder Steve Fambro, turned away more than a dozen different suppliers and chemistries before the team arrived at the final solution. [/FONT][/FONT][/FONT]

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[FONT=Century Gothic, ITC Avant Garde, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif][FONT=Century Gothic, ITC Avant Garde, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif]Today, the production battery used in the Aptera 2e consists of more than 300 individual, prismatic pouch-type, high-power lithium ion cells, which are based on phosphate chemistry and configured into several modules. Each module contains cells carefully connected to provide an optimal operating voltage. The complete battery pack, as shown above, provides the 2e with an excess of 200 volts for the traction system. This particular production intent battery pack will make its world premier in our Xprize competition vehicle.
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[FONT=Century Gothic, ITC Avant Garde, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif][FONT=Century Gothic, ITC Avant Garde, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif]The unique design of the production batteries allows them to have an extraordinarily long cycle life. Most competing lithium ion battery technologies advertise good performance and operation of up to 1,000 to 2,000 recharge cycles. Test data demonstrates that the Aptera batteries should deliver at least 1 and ½ times as many recharge cycles, even when exposed to abusive conditions. Our selected battery technology can also deliver aggressive depths of discharge, so you don't have to worry about damaging the battery pack.[/FONT][/FONT]​
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[FONT=Century Gothic, ITC Avant Garde, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif][FONT=Century Gothic, ITC Avant Garde, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif]Lastly, our Aptera battery pack does not use a complicated cooling systems. By avoiding such systems, Aptera is able to prevent considerable expense as well as the wasted energy associated with operating them. This factor was critical in our selection of this battery technology and reinforced our goal to assure we are putting as much of the vehicles energy toward driving use as possible.
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Battery Power Magazine

The current issue of Battery Power Magazine can be found here (pdf format):

http://www.batterypoweronline.com/images/BatterPowerMarchApril2010.pdf

Inside you'll find, among other things, articles about battery management systems, super-capacitors to extend the life of lithium batteries, lithium battery technologies for plug-in vehicles and safety requirements, plus an advert featuring the Tesla.
 
Interesting, but as with almost all of these comparisons, it ignores the amount of energy in petroleum that is actually realized in a vehicle, as well as the amount of energy required to get it there. It's an important omission since simply comparing energy density is only part of the story. Because EV's are so much more efficient than ICE's batteries don't need to have anywhere near the same density.
 

So, I can conclude from this that it simply isn't practical (based on energy storage, not cost) to build a battery-powered electric vehicle, because it can't possibly have sufficient range. Time to give up and go home. I think I'll drive the Roadster. :smile:

Seriously, though, in addition to missing the point that electrical systems are several times more efficient than combustion-based ones, and so need less energy for the same amount of travel, they're also ignoring the difference in mass of the system needed to convert combustion into motion (engine, injection, exhaust, cooling, multi-gear transmission vs. PEM, motor, one-speed transmission). Maybe their argument makes more sense in a truck, which (maybe) has a much higher fuel-to-powertrain mass ratio.
 
Did you notice this comment in the 'about the author' sidebar of that article?
It also says that he studies carbon capture, which obviously depends on the continual use of fossil fuels.

The theoretical max for Li-ion at 3MJ/kg is actually 7x better than the Roadster at 0.424 MJ/kg (53kWh = 190.8MJ / 450kg battery).

It translates to a Roadster battery of 64kg or 142lbs.

Looking at a typical compact ICE car:
aluminum I4 = 300lbs
auto trans = 200lbs
exhaust = 50 lb
total = 550lbs

Roadster powertrain (motor+differential+transmission) is about 160lbs, so you save about 390lbs.

6.25lbs/gal gas. Typically less than 20 gal tank so 125lbs of fuel in a typical car. So you can carry about 4x the normal fuel weight in an EV of the same weight. Couple that with about 4x the efficiency of a typical ICE and you get a 16x factor for the EV, bringing the 6% of crude oil to 96%, which is pretty close to parity.
 
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