Modular Battery Research
Everyone is doing this backwards except for the ideas advanced at this site. Bravo! Mr. Agassi, you have started us down the right path. The plan for a practical electric car MUST start with easily replacable battery packs, available world-wide and standardized to a size and shape and power capacity. You open up the car, pick out all the batteries showing red & yellow LEDs, bring them in to the convenience mart, and grab the replacements off the shelf, pay for the new ones, and go refill your car. Behind this 'normal' batter swap refill, would be the home charging station for over-night and a removable generator booster for extended range trips, burning whatever fuel is least poluting.
For about 15 years, I have been suggesting a Half Gallon (typical American milk carton size) battery cells, which are placed in a battery 'box' and connected through clips on the top of each cell, like the way a breaker switch clips into a typical home circuit box. Here in Milwaukee we have a company which is already in partnership with some of the major manufacturers producing batteries for the hybrid cars like the Toyota Prius. I should go over to them, see what they are doing now, and put in my suggestion to advance a standardized rechargeable design, complete with the self-test LED (activates only when the battery is 'unclipped' in advanced models - charger leaves the LED showing through a cutout on the clip where the LED is activated.
Besides RANGE and REGHARGING TIME, the American market in the northern states and provinces of Canada face another interesting range robbing issue: HEATING the cabin during winter. Gasoline powered cars use a lot of the wasted energy of the combustion to heat the vehicle interior. But an electric car does not give off much heat and electric radiant heat will drain the batteries really fast. The Answer of course is to use more batteries in winter! DING!
I think that I have eloquently stated my case for designing modularity into the battery side of the equipment. Chat more about modular vehicle structure, like a car-truck removable bed and other concepts! But here in this blog, let's stick to who has the best design for a battery! Of course my idea puts a lot of strain on the Body designers, 'cause I want to just about peel off the body panels and slide out the battery trays with minimal effort. mostly I want to open the trunk or front hood to get at 80% or the batteries.
I am sure others will have counter-comments and suggestions, so let's get cracking!
Sincerely,
Pete Aguilu... purveor of the obvious...
hmm. Well you can't either
hmm. Well you can't either go for one big battery or lots of smaller ones. If you go down the route of lots of smaller batteries so they can be changed by hand I think it would end up being rather inconvenient. People don't want to wait around swapping batteries by hand.
I much prefer PBP solution which is to have one large battery that gets swapped out using robotics through a station which looks much like a car wash. You wouldn't even need to bother getting out of your car and the whole process would take a couple of minutes. Payment could be deducted automatically using something like number plate recognition.
I think its important that if electric cars are to succeed then you need to improve on how we do things currently with gas fueled cars. PBP battery exchange station sounds a lot less hassle and a lot quicker than going to fill up your car today. Personally I can't wait.
You are the administrator & moderator - so!
Dear Hailstorm;
So, I thought you were smarter than this! First, keep your comments to moderating the discussion, for example keeping it on track and keeping real crackpots from promising 'miracle solutions', etc. Second, I think you have forgotten the design problem created by trying to make the car manufacturers build cars that can use a battery easily accessable by a robot, for all those designs. Next you have forgotten the employees of the convenience marts.
I just sent a private note to another member, but I thought an exerpt here would be appropriate, as it further explains my spin on the concept:
[We can best leverage the existing infrastructure by] using a standard size single cell, used in various applications (different car designs) in varying numbers, configurations, and replacement methods, including my favorite, the car operator being able to change at least 80% of the batteries on demand. This makes the 'convenience mart' refill model the best way to create infrastructure with minimum disruption of the existing distribution system for transportation fuels. 40 years ago no convenience marts sold 2 litre sodas. 50 years ago no convenience marts sold gasoline. You get my point, I am sure!
So to rebut your issue with my idea, I suggest that the car manufacturers start by designing a car that can use BOTH. You slide out the battery TRAY and it has a box containing the modular batteries. This box is the same size and configuration of the single battery unit, with the terminals in exactly the same place, and the internal wiring of the box is used to put the modular cells in electrical parallel and make secure connections. The box can be opened by the operator, and the cells removed. A single unit sealed battery would also be available for convenience to operators who have access to charging facilities and drive routes which would have your wash bay style replacement stations.
Here are the problems caused by starting with only the single battery design: (1) Each car must have a huge door, built in generally the same location with relation to the wheels (in a car wash the wheels are used to 'locate' the car for the purpose of washing it). (2) Robotics are electronics and are sensitive to moisture and very expensive. Existing wash bays (already a source of considerable revenue) could not be converted to do BOTH functions, without extremely expensive sealed equipment for the robotic system. People can't wait for the infrastructure to be built. The problem needs a solution now. (3) You have completely forgotten about the liability involved in placing a personal vehicle in the hands of a machine operated by the company providing the service. The cost to recharge will be much higher than the power used at a plug-in (4) The jobs created by the new "service stations" will not be much different than the low paying jobs available now at oil change shops and convenience marts (except for the robot maintenance crews and software designers for the robotic systems) (5) You will see big lines waiting for the bays to put each car through. (6) Humans are awesome robots, that can handle inconsistencies and situations in the blink of an eye, and making the battery changing another robotic experience, will exacerbate the already serious problem of obesity in this country.
Pete Aguilu - Green Fanatic!