Digital battery

The 63rd International Motor Show in Frankfurt, Germany September 17 of 27 other inmates. Shortly after the global financial crisis, the global economy has not referred the case, the current car exhibitors have introduced ecological features exhibitors highlights of new energy vehicles, most attention is the introduction of different styles of electric vehicles.

The concept of electric vehicles from 20 years there, and people look forward to the arrival of electric vehicles for both as soon as possible, but how, since the electric car to enter the houses of ordinary people at this show Frankfurt Motor still do not see a specific date.

Germany, Volkswagen AG Board of Technical Director Wally Chiha Ken Beige, said in response to the investigation of a journalist should further 20 to 30 years, a large number of electric vehicles can travel on the road during this period, engineers cars need electricity to constantly improve the car. At the auto show today, well-known carmakers such as Mercedes-Benz, BMW, Volkswagen, Citroen, Peugeot and thus launched their own electric car, but it is the model show car, not having been able to mass-produced car stereotyped. Model cars and trucks the biggest difference is that the shape, model cars may not take into account manufacturing costs, or even life, and for shaping a car, the cost and hope to life are the two most important, if the market is simply unacceptable.

Currently affecting the electric car to enter the market or technology, but off the main factors, the most critical is the performance of rechargeable batteries. According to automobile experts, is now mostly rechargeable batteries in the vehicle driving condition high speed, not take a few minutes, the battery is depleted, it is also not competent to travel long distances on road. International best performance of the weight of the rechargeable lithium battery of about 10 kilograms per kilowatt-hour to drive one like QQ mini-car, you need 16-20 hours of kilowatts of electricity, which makes the size corresponding rechargeable batteries and the weight is great, the cars must carry the additional weight of 160-200 kg of lithium batteries, which power expressed in terms of fuel energy represents only 2 gallons of gas! Some manufacturers make their electric cars can travel hundreds of miles on a single charge, in fact, this is only the road at low speed in urban areas, but they must be in electric vehicles, under a ideal working environment such as temperature can not be too high or too low, the vehicle can not be opened air conditioning.

Impeding the development of electric vehicles, another factor is the cost of rechargeable 40Y6797 batteries. Currently, a 20 kilowatt-hours cost of lithium batteries of about 2 million euros, if the production of such a cell can be mass, of course, the cost can be reduced by at least 1 / 3 .These are what the car manufacturers want. The battery must be to further increase the current level of performance, three times the price cut 2 / 3, it was possible to have the competitive market. Japan Toyota Motor Corporation in the development of electric vehicles is probably the most famous, he invented and used the so-called hybrid engine technology, i.e. fuel engines with electric motors, so that the volume of VGP-BPS2B batteries can be smaller. Is one of these hybrid vehicles, when traveling about 20 kilometers, the rechargeable battery will run out of power? At this time-fuel engine will be a prompt start and the road will be part of the energy converted into electrical energy to recharge the batteries. Toyota hybrids sold in the market of nearly 1 million, but strictly speaking it is not one hundred percent electric vehicles.

The history of development of electric vehicles in Europe and the United States and Japan are equivalent, but the actual sale of electric vehicles on the market are also minimal, at least in Germany, many automakers such as Volkswagen, Mercedes-Benz BMW had no formal marketing of electric vehicles. These vehicles each year at Salon International de l’Automobile will launch new models of electric cars, but they are essentially the propaganda image. For example, the Frankfurt auto show, Mercedes-Benz introduced the E series of 392 kilowatts of power electric sports car, Audi R8 has also launched the largest range of electric vehicles. Both cars use the technology to third generation hybrid, the plug-in hybrid-technology, this generation of hybrid technology, the battery have been through an external plug-in, and completely in some way to use electricity led to the depletion of energy post will automatically be converted into motor fuel.

The automaker next step is to develop no motor fuel, the full meaning of the electric vehicle. The key to reaching 100% electric vehicles is to the extent that the rechargeable battery technology, the need to make greater inroads.

1, the weight

    Each one-voltage battery cells of view are the nickel-metal hydride and nickel-cadmium 1.2V, while the lithium battery is in fact only 3.6 V, voltage of the lithium battery is 3 times the other two. And the weight of the same type of lithium battery and nickel-cadmium batteries is almost equal, while heavier than Ni-Ni-MH battery. We can see that the battery itself, the weight of each different, but the top of the lithium battery voltage of 3.6V, as in the case of the output voltage is equal to the number of combinations of a single cell may be reduced after the third is forming the battery weight and size reduction.

2, the memory effect

    Nickel-metal hydride batteries and nickel-cadmium batteries have the same memory effect. Therefore, the direction of the regular discharge is necessary. This regular discharge management are at the fuzzy edge was treated, or even some knowledge of improper conduct discharge (discharge or use a number of times each time after discharge were the result of the company vary) This landfill management cumbersome use nickel-hydride VGP-BPS2B batteries, metal can not be avoided. In terms of lithium battery, because of no memory effect, it’s very practical and easy to use. It is completely without regard to the residual voltage is how much can be charged directly, charging time can be shortened by nature.

3, self-discharge rate

    Nickel-cadmium batteries discharge 15 ~ 30% (month). Ni-MH battery for 25 ~ 35% (month), a rechargeable Lithium is 2 ~ 5% (month). Than nickel-metal hydride batteries self-discharge rate is highest, while the lithium satelite battery expertise with the other two types of rates of discharge of the battery compared to very low.

4 Price

    Nickel-metal hydride batteries and lithium batteries can not be insensible to overload. Therefore, nickel-hydride batteries, metal mode constant current load control PICK CUT when the charging voltage is higher, to stop the load as the best means of support. The lithium batteries using a constant current, constant voltage mode, the best, if nickel cadmium battery charger DV-controlled manner, while pairs of nickel-metal hydride batteries and rechargeable lithium batteries.

      Don’t care about lithium supplies demanded to make the batteries for all those hybrids and electric vehicles on the way. There are dozens of the stuff–at least for the next decade. On the far side that, though, opinions differ.

      The supply of lithium has been a topic of debate since automakers beginning adjust their sights on lithium ion batteries. Those batteries are seen as the key to making a practical electric car because they are lighter and more powerful than the nickel-metal hydride batteries used in today’s hybrids.

      They’re still costly. And because the lithium ion batteries remain an emerging technology, questions linger about their life span, durability, and safety. But for now, lithium ion batteries remain the most likely energy source for electric vehicles.

Locating lithium

Shares of global lithium supply by country

Source: Meridian International Research, 2005 levels

Watching supply, price

      General Motors Co., Toyota Motor Corp., Mitsubishi Motors Corp., Nissan Motor Co. and Daimler AG are among the automakers that plan to launch electric or plug-in hybrid vehicles by 2011. All plan to use lithium ion batteries. All, therefore, closely monitor the supply and price of lithium.

      As demand for lithium ion batteries for laptops, cell phones, and now vehicles soared, prices of lithium carbonate, a raw material used to produce lithium, raised to $5,500 a ton in 2008 from $2,000 in 2004, says Roskill Information Services, a metals and minerals research consulting firm. The jump came despite rising global output.

      As prices climbed, analysts began studying the outlook for lithium. The question: Much as today’s drivers are hostage to scarce, increasingly costly oil, will tomorrow’s drivers be reliant on scarce, increasingly costly lithium?

      Some of those studies, along with executives at battery companies, say worries about scarcity are overblown. They say the world has plenty of lithium to power electric and plug-in hybrid vehicles, in addition to consumer electronics.

      Gerson Lehrman Group, a New York consulting firm, estimates that even if 500,000 cars powered by lithium ion batteries were produced in 2015, they would use less than 10 percent of last year’s global lithium output.

      The calculation was based on a report that Nissan’s upcoming Leaf electric vehicle uses about 8.8 pounds of lithium in its battery pack. At the 2008 price cited above, the small amount of lithium needed for each car would come to $24–just a fraction of the total cost of an electric vehicle’s VGP-BPS2C battery, which can run as high as $10,000.

      Gerson Lehrman says: “Oversupply might be a more pressing question than lithium availability.”

“Abundant”

      Chris Richter, an auto analyst with CLSA Asia-Pacific Markets in Tokyo, puts it another way. “Lithium is one of the more abundant elements in the Earth’s crust,” he says. “Of all the various problems with this technology, running out of lithium is not one of them.”

      Neil Maguire, vice president of business development at Imara Corp., a lithium ion  Latitude battery startup in Menlo Park, Calif., says supply is sufficient to meet near-term demand.       

      Beyond that, if the volume of electric vehicles soars so much that lithium supplies become an issue, older lithium ion batteries can be recycled for the raw materials in them, he says.

     “We don’t worry about lithium availability,” Maguire says.

      Mining companies are racing to boost lithium output and find new sources.

      Global lithium production reached 22,800 tons in 2008, up from 13,000 tons in 2000, according to Roskill Information Services.

      Adding capacity in China or tapping lithium reserves in new countries could add 10,000 tons of output by the early 2010s, Gerson Lehrman forecasts.

Trouble with lithium

      But a 2008 report titled “The Trouble with Lithium 2,” by Meridian International Research, a renewable-energy think tank in France, concluded that the world faces a shortage when vehicle demand is added to considerable consumer electronics demand.

      “Realistic lithium production increases have no prospect of also meeting the demands of the entire product and propulsion revolution in the global automotive industry in the next decade,” the report said.

      Estimates of global reserves vary. Meridian puts it at 4 million tons, far below the 20 million tons cited by some sources. The trick is finding deposits of high-quality lithium that are economically viable to extract.

      Car batteries require about 100 times the amount of lithium used in a laptop computer battery, putting a strain on global deposits, says William Tahil, author of the Meridian report.

      He concedes that increased lithium production can keep pace with electric-vehicle production in the low millions of units a year. But looking further into the future, Tahil says, there is not enough for a wholesale conversion of the entire world’s auto industry from internal-combustion engines to battery-powered electric motors.

      “There’s enough for a niche market,” Tahil says, “but nothing close to enough for the mass market.”

Researchers at the Uppsala University in Sweden have developed a new thin-film battery made from salt and cellulose. This salt and paper battery uses a thin-film which makes it an attractive feature for many portable devices that draw a low current. It can be used in many low-power devices, such as wireless sensors, smart cards, medical implants and RFID tags.

The cellulose is derived from a polluting alga found in lakes and seas. The alga’s walls contain cellulose that has a different nanostructure, which gives it 100 times the surface area. The lightweight, rechargeable battery is made by coating the paper, made from this cellulose, with a conducting polymer, and inserting a salt-solution-soaked filter paper between the paper electrodes.

In comparison with a lithium battery that would take 20 minutes to recharge, this new battery can be recharged in tens of seconds because the ions flow through the thin electrode quickly. The salt and paper battery will be made available to distributors in about three years. For the moment it is still in the early stages of development.

A digital camera battery is probably the most important digital camera accessory. Some digital cameras can consume power at an incredible rate, providing only a few hours of continuous shooting time before the battery is exhausted. Other cameras are famous for the long life of their digital camera battery which allows users to snap away with barely a thought to power consumption. It is important to know how you plan to use your camera and what kind of battery it needs.

There are two types of Digital Camera Battery. The most widely available digital camera battery is a standard AA-size battery. The other type is a rechargeable battery that is made by the manufacturer, otherwise known as a proprietary battery.

A proprietary digital camera battery offers the advantage of being lighter and more compact, but they are often more expensive, making the prospect of buying one or two backup sets much less appealing.

The alkaline AA-size digital camera battery usually has a very short life - less than an hour in extreme cases - when used in a digital camera. This type of battery makes an acceptable emergency backup, especially if you are travelling with your camera. However, the Nickel Metal Hydride (NiMH) digital camera battery can be used instead of the alkaline ones with a Charger and this rechargeable digital camera battery has a substantially longer life at an affordable price.

Another type of AA-size battery is the non-rechargeable Lithium A1045 batteries and rechargeable Nickel Cadmium (NiCD) batteries. The lithium digital camera battery has a superior life to alkaline AA’s and offers good cold-weather performance but their price and non-rechargeable feature make them less useful than rechargeable NiMH batteries. It is also important to ensure that your camera can take a lithium digital camera battery. On the other hand, the NiCD digital camera battery offers the advantage of retaining their charge while unused, unlike NiMH cells, but have shorter lives and need to be discharged completely before recharging which could be very inconvenient.

The LCD screen of a digital camera is responsible for consuming the most power, so it is worth only using the LCD when necessary to help save the battery life. Always try to carry at least one backup set of batteries, especially if you plan on being away from power outlets for an extended period of time. The current alkaline AA-size battery can make a convenient emergency backup if your original digital camera battery fails.