MIT Electric Car May Outperform Rival Gas Models 457
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by
timothy
from the begin-the-test-of-batteries-or-vice-versa dept.
from the begin-the-test-of-batteries-or-vice-versa dept.
alphadogg writes "Inside a plain-looking garage on the Massachusetts Institute of Technology's campus, undergraduate Radu Gogoana and his team of fellow students are working on a project that could rival what major automobile manufacturers are doing. The team's goal is to build an all-electric car with similar performance capabilities of gasoline-only counterparts, which includes a top speed of about 161 kph, a family sedan capacity, a range of about 320 kilometers and the ability to recharge in about 10 minutes. They hope to complete the project, which they chronicle on their blog, by the third quarter of 2010. Each member of MIT's Electric Vehicle Team works almost 100 hours a week on the project they call elEVen. 'Right now the thing that differentiates us is that we're exploring rapid recharge,' Gogoana said during an interview. He said that many of today's electric vehicles take between two to 12 hours to recharge and he doesn't know of any commercially available, rapidly recharging vehicles."
Good bridge solution (Score:5, Informative)
Their idea is to give you two options: (1) rapid recharge in 10 minutes at a suitable power plant, or (2) overnight recharge at home.
This is a great idea because consumers can buy it and use option #2 while more and more electric-vehicle charging stations are built as the tech becomes more mainstream. A good bridge solution.
Good luck team.
Re:but... (Score:3, Informative)
from TFA the batteries alone are 80k and require 1000A at 356 volts for the 'rapid charge'. That is 356 kW.
Re:I didn't graduate from MIT; however (Score:3, Informative)
Its one thing to build a prototype. Its a much bigger challange to produce it. And its a much much bigger challange to produce it while conforming to a myriad of safety regulations (6 airbags, pedestrian safe, etc) get people to buy it without lawyers taking what little profit may be left when it breaks. But yeah, kudos if they get the fast recharge working. Selling out to carmakers would be a better plan than "rivaling" them.
Re:Physics? (Score:5, Informative)
TFA says it is a 356 volt system that charges at 1000 amps.
a 500mcm aluminum conductor should move 1000A just fine.
Re:Outperform? (Score:3, Informative)
No not really. A 5-seat Lupo 3L gets 88mpg on the highway. The new VW 2-seater arriving after Christmas gets 250mpg on the highway.
Show me an electric car that can exceed that? It doesn't exist. In fact the best EV ever made (GM EV1) is no better than a Prius (~50mpg) according to greenercars.org and falls short of an Insight (66mpg).
Re:Battery Issues (Score:3, Informative)
No. In fact the biggest improvement of this car appears to be the nanophosphate battery. It doesn't use the chemicals inside traditional li-ions that become heated when overcharged (lithium particles start leaking across to the anode).
Re:Outperform? (Score:3, Informative)
A nice wish list, but most of it has nothing to do with the problem they're trying to solve: making electric vehicles as practical as gas-burning ones are today.
#1-3 could be solved by cars that drive themselves. #4 would involve a shift toward car-sharing or public transportation.
#5 and #6 are valid requirements that amount to the same thing: it should be cheap enough to win in the market. But I think it's reasonable to make it work, first, then worry about making it cheaper.
#7 is really not their problem. If you want to bike to work, that's great, but otherwise the only way your vehicle is going to help you stay in shape is to be large enough to contain a mobile gym. Which seems pretty silly.
Re:What I want to know is... (Score:5, Informative)
The batteries in your cell phone and Blackberry are lithium polymer, based on lithium cobalt chemistry. These have the highest energy density of common commercially available batteries, but their safe charging rate is limited to somewhere around 1C -- that is, 1 amp per amp-hour of capacity.
The MIT batteries are lithium iron phosphate. These unfortunately have much lower energy density than lithium cobalt polymer cells (not in the least because there's no polymer version available; the cell are in a metal casing). But they have a high power density and they can take charge rates around 4-5C (for the regular cells; they don't have the specs on the automotive cells on their website). That translates to much shorter charge times.
Re:Physics? (Score:5, Informative)
Watch the video. He explains that they are hooked up straight to the MIT power plant, and are thus able to dump huge amounts of power ("20 homes" worth) into the thing. They're pushing the envelope on the rapid recharge stuff.
Re:It's impossible. (Score:4, Informative)
Re:Outperform? (Score:5, Informative)
Dear Anonymous coward #1 and #2:
It's not a division by zero error, because electric cars are not perpetual motion machines. When the EPA or similar organizations compare EVs to regular cars, the electricity used by the car during the efficiency test is converted to the equivalent gallons of gasoline burned, and the EV is given an "MPG" rating. Therefore no #DIV0 error.
Bottom Line: ACEEE.org found the GM EV1 is no better than a ~50mpg Prius or Civic.
Re:Physics? (Score:3, Informative)
Mcm is an abbreviation for 1000 circular mils (How the fuck they came up with that abbreviation, I have no idea), and a circular mil is the area of a circle 1/1000th of an inch (a mil) in diameter.
Converting that to metric, that gives us wire 18mm in diameter, which would be a bit smaller than 8/0 AWG.
10 min charge is BS? (Score:1, Informative)
I don't believe the 10 min charge. TFA says it uses 8000 A123 cells. You charge an A123 at (lets round off to) 3V and lets assume a 2AH rating. Unless the laws of thermodynamics have been violated, it takes at least 2AH in for 2AH out, so lets assume a perfect battery and say we're somehow able to charge these suckers at 6 X 2A. So, 8000 X 3 X 12 = 288KVA, which is fairly preposterous amount of power. I could be off by a factor or 2 or 3 on my assumption for the AH capacity of the A123 though.
If we downsize the charging current to 1/10C or 0.2A. OK, 8000*3*0.2 is 4800 VA. Basically a jumbo dryer outlet, which is easy in a new house.
I think the 10 min charging claim means, "enough charge to make it down the street to the next electrical outlet."
Re:but... (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Outperform? (Score:3, Informative)
As a post-script. I'll buy that a typical automobile gets only 30% efficiency in burning gasoline, and that a typical range of a standard automobile is around 400 miles, so you can cut down on a really efficient electric automobile to roughly 100 kilowatt-hours of energy (there still is rolling and air resistance in electric vehicles). That cuts down the power circuit to a much more manageable 600 kilowatt connection. I've dealt with power on that level, and it isn't something you want to casually be shoving into a socket on your car.
I worked on outdoor electric signs found in sports stadiums, where they really did use about 600 kilowatts of power (one sign I worked on consumed 1.2 megawatts.... fun to play with and cause instant black-outs in the surrounding neighborhoods). Every time we plugged the signs in... just for testing the equipment in the factory.... we needed a licensed electrician to make the connection. The installations in stadiums didn't need an electrician to turn them on, but then again they didn't have to be plugged in each time either as this is a permanent installation.
These guys are genuinely clueless about how much energy is required here, and buying the BS from several battery companies that are scam artists of the worst kind.
Re:Cost to Recharge? (Score:2, Informative)
According to the article, in order to charge the car in 10 minutes, you need 356 volts at 1000 amps. This gives a total energy of about 60kWh. Assuming 10 cents per kWh, the total refill would cost 6$. With a range of about 320 km, that would be about 53 km/$, or 33 miles per dollar.
According to this site, [msn.com] the Toyota Prius gets just 15 miles per dollar.
Re:Outperform? (Score:3, Informative)
If an EV-1 uses 33.6 kWh of energy, that is equivalent to an internal combustion engine using 100% of the chemical energy in a gallon of gas in the same instance.
Re:Physics? (Score:5, Informative)
It's not a mispronunciation. The "jiga-" pronunciation was the one formally promoted in the US from the late 50s to the 80s. It is still, in fact, a correct but unusual pronunciation in English.
It comes from the Greek "gigas" (not bothering with unicode here), and if you've ever heard a gamma spoken in native Greek, both "jiga" and "giga" are off, but "jiga-" is a little closer. Think of ordering a gyro.
Re:but... (Score:3, Informative)
Obviously, it is hard to compare electric cars "mpg" because the cost of electricity and gasoline are different everywhere.
Re:10 min charge is BS? (Score:3, Informative)
What's preposterous about 288KVA of load in a commercial/industrial setting like the equivalent of an electric gas station?
(and yes I do work for an electric utility in their Distribution Engineering Dept.). We have MUCH larger individual customer loads than that (in the tens of Megawatts). This is not unusual.
I have seen this straw man thrown out again and again, that existing infrastructure can't possibly support the widespread use of electric cars, but you never hear that from anyone in the electrical utility industry. Any reliable system in this country is designed to handle the maximum anticipated peak load that customers require on the worst day (think maximum AC load on the hottest day, maximum heating load on the coldest day) on top of the normal industrial load. Even this peak only occurs for a few hours, a few days of the year, and normal electrical load rises to a peak during business hours and falls off sharply after that. The rest of the time the capacity if the system is grossly underutilized.
The average person using an electric car will drive during the day and slow charge it at night (at home, because this will be cheaper than a commercial charging station. The extra household load is minimal, even if everyone on the block does this. If you wanted to go the extra mile you could use a timer to delay the start of charging until Off-Peak hours ar add a small device that allows the Utility to turn on the charger during off-peak times in exchange for a lower electric rate ( this isn't new many industrial/agricultural customers have been doing this for years).
Trust me, the power company would love to even out the day/night load swing and get more return on their underutilized investment.
So go ahead and gripe about the capability of the cars, but don't say the grid can't handle it.
Re:Outperform? (Score:1, Informative)
If you read TFA, you will notice that they did indeed connect directly to a power plant to charge it. They also mention that the power requirements to charge the vehicle in 10 minutes would overload the circuits in over 20 standard homes. They are aware that this is a problem.
Re:Outperform? (Score:4, Informative)
Not much, only about 7% [wikipedia.org].
Re:10 min charge is BS? (Score:1, Informative)
Informative? More like didn't quite RTFA.
Well, what do you know, the people at MIT who are building this thing have also realised that a 10min charge requires shit loads of power!
Re:Outperform? (Score:3, Informative)
Huh?
33.6kWh is the energy potential of gasoline. That it is impossible to perfectly convert 100% of the chemical energy into kinetic energy is meaningless. It is just as impossible for an electric motor to turn 100% of 33.6kWh of electrical energy into kinetic energy.
To compare the efficiency of an EV to the efficiency of a gas powered car, you compare the amount of kinetic energy it can squeeze out of 33.6kWh. For gasoline engines this is done in miles per gallon. The electrical equivalent of a gallon of gas is 33.6kWh. This will NEVER CHANGE. That's why we can use it to compare them! That's how conversions work. So an EV that gets 100 miles on 33.6kWh of electricity has exactly the same efficiency as a gas powered car that gets 100mpg.
They are the same. Identical. It's a conversion.
Re:Outperform? (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Outperform? (Score:2, Informative)
So, if an electric car can go 100 miles on 33.6kWh of energy, it is equivalent to a car that gets 100mpg. They are the same. It is a conversion. There is no difference.
Get it?
Actually, it is not that simple at all, Mr. Smarty Pants. That gasoline did not just appear in the tank. It was pumped out of the ground, refined, tanked, trucked etc. All of this requires energy. Similarly, the electricity used in the car had it's own set of inefficiencies in producing and delivering the electricity.
Furthermore, there are differences in raw materials, construction, waste, etc. that have to be taken into account for a fair comparison. You're implying that charging my electric car with 33.6 kWh of electricity is exactly as efficient as filling my ICE with a gallon of gasoline. Do you have data to back that up?
Also, for a Mr. Smarty Pants, you are quite imprecise. The 33.6 kWh is the amount of energy released from the complete combustion of gasoline into carbon dioxide and water. It is not ALL the energy contained in the bonds, which is quite a bit larger and is what was being indirectly referenced in the GP's post. It also doesn't account for all the other nasties released from the inevitable incomplete combustion.
Re:Outperform? (Score:2, Informative)
Re:Outperform? (Score:3, Informative)
>>>How about a [kg-X / km], where X is any desired pollutant that you care to measure?
I already referred you to greenercars.org which does exactly that. You can order their annual published report and read a pollution break-down for all current model cars, and not just at the car, but from oil-well-to-destruction.
You can also look to the EPA which also measures the grams per mile of every model car, and then rates them LEV (low emission vehicle), ULEV, or SULEV. Hybrid cars are SULEV. Electric cars are also SULEV due to emissions from the electrical plants, although they can be ZEV if you use solar power or hydropower.
Re:I didn't graduate from MIT; however (Score:3, Informative)
Its one thing to build a prototype. Its a much bigger challange to produce it.
That's exactly right. All too often people tout a new electric vehicle and then compare to existing vehicles.
Where you then replied, "Yeah, the article said they retrofitted a 2010 mercury milan hybrid...which has gone through crash tests, has airbags, etc. Which article did you read?"
Which raises the question, what thread did you read because while topical to the article your completely tangent to this thread.
Re:Outperform? (Score:3, Informative)
No not really. A 5-seat Lupo 3L gets 88mpg on the highway. The new VW 2-seater arriving after Christmas gets 250mpg on the highway.
Ugh. Time for another round of, "Lies, Damned Lies, and Miles-Per-Gallon". First, the Lupo 3L
1) "Comparing different drivecycles": The Lupo 3L is measured on the NEDC, not the US06 and FTP drivecycles we're used to. European mileages for the same vehicle are generally about 15% higher than US combined mileages.
2) "Comparing non-equivalent vehicles": The Lupo 3L is a four seater with no trunk (you have to fold the rear seats down to get trunk space, making it into a two-seater) that does 0-60 in 17 seconds in its "economy" mode that is used to get that NEDC mileage figure.
3) "Comparing different fuels": Diesel is a fuel that is nearly 15% denser than gasoline, contains that much more petroleum energy, and releases about that much more CO2 when burned.
Now for the VW 1L car, which is even worse:
1) "Comparing different drivecycles": That figure isn't even for an official drivecycle -- it's for a steady-state 45mph on the highway. Good luck coming close to that in any kind of real-world driving.
2) "Comparing non-equivalent vehicles": The 1L car not only has two seats and no trunk space and is low enough to conveniently wedge itself under a semi, it has virtually nothing you'd expect in a car. Like, for example, an air conditioner. Enjoy all of that greenhouse over your head in the summer!
3) "Comparing different fuels": Also diesel. Divide by 1.12 or so to get a gasoline equivalent in terms of petroleum consumption.
There are, mind you, two more big fallacies that they didn't use:
4) "The PHEV Game": Only applies to plug-in hybrids. You make up a ratio of how much gasoline to how much electricity your average driver will use, then only count the gasoline towards the MPG. By picking whatever ratio you want, you can make the MPG figure be anything you want.
5) "Wrong gallons": Reporting miles per imperial gallon instead of miles per US gallon. Imperial gallons are ~30% bigger.
As for your last sentence, that doesn't even make sense. What are you talking about, and who the heck is "Greenercars.org"? There have been dozens of *peer-reviewed* studies on the subject (including from the DOE/PNNL), and essentially all of them state that even on our current grid, for the same vehicle, an electric drivetrain is notably lower emission. In the US, about 30% less CO2, somewhat more particulate matter, about the same SOx, somewhat less NOx, and almost no CO or VOCs -- with all of those emissions being moved away from ground level/population-dense areas and up to high altitude stacks in remote areas where they affect people less. And to top it all off? The grid is getting cleaner while oil is getting dirtier. Even *without* cap and trade, 42% of new power added to the grid last year was wind, and most of the rest, natural gas. Meanwhile, oil production is getting dirtier, increasingly turning to syncrude (ultra-heavy, bitumen, shale, coal, etc), unconventional high-extraction-energy structures (such as the Bakken), remote areas (deep sea, arctic, etc), isolated pockets, poor quality crude, and so forth.
Re:Outperform? (Score:3, Informative)
Ooh, *another* round of "Lies, Damned Lies, and Miles Per Gallon"! (see further down for the first installment this thread).
When a manufacturer cites an efficiency figure for an engine, that is at a single specific torque and RPM condition with no powertrain losses. In the real world, where torque and RPM are often far from the optimal band and where powertrain losses can be significant, modern gasoline vehicles average about 20% tank-to-wheels efficiency and modern diesels 25%.