Lithium Ion Battery

New Technology

New lithium batteries for electric/hybrid cars

GM-General Motors is the first auto-car company dared to be the first company which will produce a car which runs on “only battery” for longest distance, using their state-of-the-art technology. You can “refuel” this car right in your garage by using this the wall plug.

Usual hybrid cars have a simple technology comprising of a series of batteries from which the electrical motors drain energy to run the vehicle. They have a combustion engine which is mostly used only to recharge the batteries of necessary.

GM-General Motor’s Chevrolet Volt is the only concept hybrid car from such a big name. It has a 16 kW -hour Li-ion battery which is made up of 4*80 volt individual cells. Their target weight is about 400 pounds and they want the battery to have at least 4000 charge-recharge cycles which sums unto 10 years on normal use.The battery pack would be charged fully in about 6.5 hours and can power a 120 kilo watt electric motor. The car could go unto a (whooping) speed of 64 kmph and deliver a torque of 320 Nm.

This new technology sounds interesting right,but the problem is, a battery pack like this one hasn’t been yet made.So everything relies on the research on Li batteries.Why lithium is the star here. Consider a material which is best suitable for a battery which is light and cheap at the same time, also it can hold more charge per kilo gram.

Here we are using an array of smaller batteries than a single big battery, WHY ??? Big battery means more risky,because it is more likely to have a problem called thermal runaway.So the new car would be having complex systems made with the latest technology monitoring these individual batteries looking for any odd ones continuously.

Constant advances are made in the field of these batteries.Many companies are competing to build a better battery and a better technology than the other one has.All this means, lower price for battery and hence for the car too.Thus we can bring down the pollution and make a cleaner environment.

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