Lamborghini Supercapacitor-based EV

[deonb]

Lamborghini has stepped up to the plate and proved it can create Powerpoints with the best of them:

The Lamborghini Terzo Millennio concept is a lightning strike from the future

 

[BluestarE3]

Lamborghini has stepped up to the plate and proved it can create Powerpoints with the best of them:

The Lamborghini Terzo Millennio concept is a lightning strike from the future

It'll be interesting to see if those supercapacitors work out better for them than they did for Fisker.

 

[Krash]

Advanced (super or ultra) capacitors are a heavy and expensive energy storage mechanism, but are otherwise better in the ways that matter: speed to charge, speed to release energy and lifetime of charging cycles.

Lithium Ion batteries are improving in weight and cost at something like 5% a year. Advanced capacitors are improving at a much faster rate.

I have read that our S/X battery packs have a specific energy of 156 Wh/kg and the Powerpack 2 of 130 Wh/kg, commercialized. Experiments in Many university labs are getting around 50 Wh/kg using graphene. But they are experiments. And there is talk of experiments that are more than 300 Wh/kg. I think the switch will happen in less than ten years. I found this video interesting.

It may be that the Tesla would implement a hybrid system that would allow for more immediate boost current even before it becomes cost effective for the high end cars to be 100% capacitors. Although it may be too much to hope for that they would put capacitors in my empty two battery modules. (75 uses 14 of 16 spaces).

You can bet that Elon Musk's brightest employees watch the capacitor developments based on his comments here.

 

[Cirrus MS100D]

I just don’t understand the point of “unveiling” a car “with” technology that may never exist.

It’s like unveiling a teleportation box that has 6 sides and a door and painted blue with carbon fiber. They just need to figure out the teleportation part, but otherwise it’s ready to go!

This thing is nothing more than a “design study” IMO.

 

[Krash]

Intel does this to new technology announcements: "Oh yeah, we'll be doing that too in a few years." In Intel's case it stalls the sales of competitors whose potential customers would prefer to buy from a more established company and has the added advantage of making it cheaper for Intel to buy that technology company on a multiple of sales basis. Not that Lamborghini could ever buy Tesla in this analogy.

 

[arnis]

SuperCapacitors have a place in the near term future. They are not "premium" nor "special high-end yada yada" nor expensive.
Their mission on any vehicle is to add flexibility and reduce fluctuations caused by various factors.
There are two main advantages supercap bank gives:
a) extreme regen acceptance with unlimited cycle count and no degradation - especially useful for heavy duty hybrid transportation (relatively small li-ion pack is unable to accept that much energy while slowing down heavy vehicle)
b) extreme power output - again, works well for heavy transportation that needs short-term boosts during acceleration, but also sport-cars. Either electric or hybrid vehicles will give excellent results with supercap bank. Li-ion battery pack that can handle half a megawatt of output power weight a lot (100kWh pack). But a supercap - 30-40kg - light as feather. Though it takes some space, supercars care little. It's not a problem to reduce rear seats from "midget" down to "Barbie doll".

And some secondary advantages - readiness in extreme environment - very cold, very hot. Regen when battery full. Regen when battery cold. Raise vehicle efficiency (more efficient regen and acceleration). Different battery (less output power, more capacity) possible.

There will be no supercapacitor only EV in near future - downside of capacitors, ironically, is capacity. 1kWh of energy weighs 150kg as of right now (6x worse than lead acid). Unlikely it will ever catch up with chemical battery, as these also get better.