New Battery Tech Could Cut Electric Car Battery Pack Costs by 85%

Source: Daily Tech

Company plans to have new battery on the market in five years


There is much promise in the evolving world of battery technologies for many of the devices that we use every day. Better battery tech means notebooks that can operate longer per charge, cell phones we can talk on for longer, and electric cars that can travel longer distances. With all of the aspects of technology that the battery touches, a breakthrough here can have very far reaching effects.

Yet-Ming Chiang, a researcher and founder of A123 Systems, has developed a new battery design that he claims could make electric vehicles much cheaper. Chiang has started a new company to commercialize the battery technology called 24M. The researcher says that the new battery he has designed could cut costs of the battery packs for electric vehicles, such as the Chevrolet Volt, by as much as 85%.

That cut in price on the battery pack, which can cost as much as $10,000, has the potential to significantly affect the price of electric vehicles and make them more cost competitive with traditional gasoline vehicles. A24 has raised $10 million in venture capital and an additional $6 million from Advanced Research Projects Agency-Energy or ARPA-E. The money will be used to fund collaboration between A24, MIT, and Rutgers University.

Chiang is offering no details on the battery technology and only gives cryptic details on the battery he has developed. What information he will offer is that the battery is a semisolid energy storage device and that it uses tech that combines the best attributes of conventional batteries, fuel cells, and flow batteries.

Chiang said, "In a typical rechargeable battery, only half of it is actual energy-storing materials. The rest is supporting materials. That's a problem I've been thinking about for years--how do you improve the efficiency of the design?"

Chiang says that a fuel cell doesn’t have to deal with that problem, but the hydrogen isn't easy to come by today for a fuel cell. Like a fuel cell, Chiang says that his battery can store large amounts of energy, but it doesn't need huge amounts of supporting materials like a typical flow battery. The design is also said to work with a wide range of chemicals. A proof-of-concept battery has been produced and works, which was used to secure the funding granted by ARPA-E.

The goal is to have the new battery in the field within the next five years.

http://www.dailytech.com/New+Battery+Tech+Could+Cut+Electric+Car+Battery+Pack+Costs+by+85/article19353.htm