Toyota Invents 600 Mile Battery For Less - ETA 2020
The Nikkei [sub] claims that Toyota has done the groundwork for a new battery that could “potentially more than double the driving range of electric vehicles,” possibly up to 1,000 km (620 miles). And it’s even cheaper.
Toyota’s new battery uses a sodium-based chemical compound as the positive electrode in a sodium ion battery. The battery produces a voltage that is 30 percent higher than that of lithium-ion batteries. Once commercialized, prices of the battery will likely be lower than those of conventional lithium-ion batteries, says the report.
Further testing is needed before the new technology is ready for prime time. “We may be able to extend EV mileage considerably,” the Nikkei cites a Toyota official. “We may also be able to achieve a driving range of between 500km and 1,000km.”
Sodium is the sixth most abundant element in the Earth’s crust, Wikipedia says. Half of the world’s salt consists of sodium. Toyota thinks that the new sodium battery could be commercially available by 2020, if all goes well.
Just a few months ago, Toyota’s vice chairman and R&D chief Takeshi Uchiyamada was outspokenly skeptic about the viability of EVs:
“The current capabilities of electric vehicles do not meet society’s needs, whether it may be the distance the cars can run, or the costs, or how it takes a long time to charge.”
If the new battery lives up to its promise, two out of three would not be bad.
It is midnight in Tokyo. We’ll try tomorrow to get more.
Bertel Schmitt comes back to journalism after taking a 35 year break in advertising and marketing. He ran and owned advertising agencies in Duesseldorf, Germany, and New York City. Volkswagen A.G. was Bertel's most important corporate account. Schmitt's advertising and marketing career touched many corners of the industry with a special focus on automotive products and services. Since 2004, he lives in Japan and China with his wife <a href="http://www.tomokoandbertel.com"> Tomoko </a>. Bertel Schmitt is a founding board member of the <a href="http://www.offshoresuperseries.com"> Offshore Super Series </a>, an American offshore powerboat racing organization. He is co-owner of the racing team Typhoon.
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A group at MIT or Cal invented a liquid electrolite or something that could hold a charge, not nearly as much as a tesla battery back, but would solve alot of problems, pull into station, pump sucks out used, pumps in new, haven't ever heard about it again (of course it was also 5-10 years before practicallity could be achieved)
Sodium ion batteries are nothing new; they were first blazed across the media in the 1960's and while they're efficient and have high capacity, the big problem remains. Sodium is a metal, and to function in these batteries it must be molten. That takes place at much higher than ambient temperature, even for the more current "low temperature" sodium batteries; they trade capacity for the ability to operate at lower temperatures. When you subtract the energy required to keep the batteries at operating temperature, their net capacity isn't any better than a NiMH cell. Look at the picture; see how that thing is glowing red hot? Imagine a whole box of red-hot molten sodium in your car. Talk about an environmental hazard...
It's 1800, and Alessandro Volta (1745-1827) is showing a bemused group his new "Pile" battery -- "But what is it *useful* for?" chuckled a whale-oil lamp salesman...
If you can't make it run on water, try saltwater.....