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Zenn highway car powered by EEstor

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#21
WarpedOne said:
You people forgot Project Better Place?

Looks like they've solved the quick battery replacement problem and are building battery swap stations in Israel and Danmark at least.

I wasn't keen on this approach but some big money is being thrown into this solution so it might just work. No expensive on-site quickcharging equipment, just a simple robot and battery warehouse. At 500cycles per battery lifetime and some 20.000$ per battery pack that means at least 40$ per battery swap. Hmmm that might just work where the gasoline is really expensive, like Israel or Europe.
Click to expand...

There are no immediate plans to build any swap stations anywhere and IMHO there never will be. Too expensive to set-up, too prone to break down, too expensive to maintain, and too difficult to adapt one system for many manufacturers.
 
#22
 
#23
WarpedOne said:
You people forgot Project Better Place?

Looks like they've solved the quick battery replacement problem and are building battery swap stations in Israel and Danmark at least.

I wasn't keen on this approach but some big money is being thrown into this solution so it might just work.
Click to expand...
Throwing lots of money at a problem doesn't guarantee success. Just look at Hydrogen, or Iraq...

-Ryan
 
#24
I've read all those articles and I've known about Denmark since last year. The plans for Denmark only mention charging places and the charging station plans for Israel in the Greentech article are speculative. The first cars won't even arrive for another two years.

I don't know for sure, but IMHO swapping stations won't happen.
 
#25
Since the initial launch of this project has only one car manufacturer onboard and the the whole battery as a service idea means they controle the battery, and hence they can build battery swap stations. I'd say in Israel you will see a few if nothing else to show they can build them. The big idea though is saturating parking lots EVERYWHERE with normal outlets for slow charging and removing the cost of the battery (and the risk of the battery). That is the real genius of this plan.

Cobos
 
#27
Cobos said:
Since the initial launch of this project has only one car manufacturer onboard and the the whole battery as a service idea means they controle the battery, and hence they can build battery swap stations. I'd say in Israel you will see a few if nothing else to show they can build them. The big idea though is saturating parking lots EVERYWHERE with normal outlets for slow charging and removing the cost of the battery (and the risk of the battery). That is the real genius of this plan.

Cobos
Click to expand...

I completely agree. If every parking slot in the US had a charging slot, the vast majority of us could drive electrics for our daily driving, regardless of range. Agassi has attacked the infrastructure from two fronts, the long range and short range issues both. And another thing is the governments are supporting the plan...that hasn't happened in the US, which is a reason why EVs have not succeeded. Government throws enough dollars at it, eventually it is going to stick. Don't get me wrong, I'd prefer the feds stay out of it. But don't think for a second I wouldn't vote for Iraq dollars being pumped into EV infrastructure.
 
#29
vfx said:
Official Press release about the EStore:

This may be the first "not too punishing" Electric Car to hit the market.

http://www.zenncars.com/media/press_rel/03_08/ZMCAnnouncesPlans.pdf

Hope it does well on all fronts.
Click to expand...
There's that line again; "the cityZENN will be rechargeable in less than 5 minutes". It's an older press release, but the first time I've read it in an official statement from them.

I do believe that the EEStor (if it exists) will be capable of taking a charge in five minutes. But I find it difficult to understand why ZENN continues to imply that we'll be able to charge the car that quickly without causing brown-outs and setting my garage on fire.

Okay, I did read somewhere about a plan to trickle charge one EEStore during the day and dump the energy into the car's EEStor when I plug it in. But what would be the point in a five minute full charge after I brought my car home? And if the plan is to do it at a filling station, where's the infrastructure?

I hate marketing spin.
 
#30
mt2 said:
There's that line again; "the cityZENN will be rechargeable in less than 5 minutes". It's an older press release, but the first time I've read it in an official statement from them.

I do believe that the EEStor (if it exists) will be capable of taking a charge in five minutes. But I find it difficult to understand why ZENN continues to imply that we'll be able to charge the car that quickly without causing brown-outs and setting my garage on fire.

Okay, I did read somewhere about a plan to trickle charge one EEStore during the day and dump the energy into the car's EEStor when I plug it in. But what would be the point in a five minute full charge after I brought my car home? And if the plan is to do it at a filling station, where's the infrastructure?

I hate marketing spin.
Click to expand...

I'm no engineer, but isn't that the point of ultracaps? To store large amounts of energy in one place for quick release?--or maybe that's their ability? Point is, why can't you have an ultracap in the garage for "filling up" the battery in your vehicle? It could charge overnight or all day... or is that just dead wrong?
 
#31
DDB: Using ultracaps in your garage and then dumping the entire power from the caps into the car ultracaps should technically work fine. As you said that's one of the advantages of ultracaps over normal batteries, much faster recharge and usage time. But that avoids the whole cost issue. Batteries regardless of wether they are some variant of Li-ion, ultracaps, Rareium or whatever are expensive. That's usually a significant cost of the EV itself. So when you are home anyway you usually stay home for some time and thus you don't NEED quickcharge.
In many ways buying a cheap SECOND car like the Think often makes just as much sense as buying an extra battery.

This of course completely ignores the security risks associated with transfering this much electric power this fast.

Cobos
 
#34
Cost is the killer on this one.

Why pay good money for ultracaps or high discharge rate batteries and spend all night trickle charging them while the car sits in the garage with them just so that you can play Victor Frankenstein with the circuit-breaker next morning ("Give my Car life! LIFE! Mwwah! Ha! Ha! Ha!")

Alternatively why trickle charge them all day so you can do the same thing when you come home in the evening. Unless your planning to go straight out again for another 100 mile journey, there's no need. Most people need a couple of hours to turn around before they go out in the evening anyway. Plenty of time for a normal slow recharge sufficient for typical evening mileage.

And if it's a setup for a fast charging station, maybe at a hotel, you'll have to pay more for the same electricity delivered at a faster rate. Most people will think "screw this - let's check into the hotel and charge up at the slower, cheaper rate". It is in the hotel's interest to only offer slow recharging.

Equally, Fast recharge stations would much rather that you stopped for longer, had a meal, did some shopping etc and so they would also encourage slower recharging.

Could offer a Fast rate and a cheaper Slow rate

But Slow rate gives far fewer safety/litigation headaches for them to worry about.
 
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#35
Actually it seems as though there might be a use for having a battery backup system (utilizing ultracaps) at home. When capturing excess energy generated via solar panels, that energy could be stored in this backup system. This excess energy would be useable by either the home, should there be a power failure, or could be used to recharge a vehicle. Since you would receive a lot less for energy sold to a utility than they would charge you for the same amount of energy, if the price of the ultracaps were not too excessive, there might be a reasonable ROI.
 
#36
Oh absolutely. I have no problem with domestic electricity storage from renewables, it's the costly and dangerous high power capability for ultra fast charging EVs which strikes me as unecessary.

I admit that I even find Tesla's 3.5-4.5 hr fast charge a bit silly, since the car has to consume an extra 17kWh just to keep the battery cool.
 
#38
From the article:
This all sounds very exciting, but lets face it, it all depends on EEStor actually delivering a product. What is your confidence level that you are going to have a commercial grade EEStor product by the end of 2008?
Were expecting it by the end of the year and I cant state by what date specifically. Our level of confidence is extremely high based on what we are exposed to and certainly the involvement of others in this technology. The involvement of Kleiner Perkins is significant, the involvement of Lockheed Martin is significant. So we have a very very high level of confidence.
Click to expand...
The EEStor stuff still has the hallmarks of snake oil, but Lockheed and KP certainly lend some gravitas. I would love it if they can deliver as advertised.
 
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