IBM's Battery500 Project announces breakthrough in quest for 500-mile EV range

[wtmusic]

"ONE of the biggest drawbacks with owning an electric vehicle (EV) is range anxiety - a driver's nagging fear that the battery charge will not get them to their destination. Now IBM claims to have solved a fundamental problem that may lead to the creation of a battery with an 800-kilometre (500-mile) range - letting EVs potentially compete with most petrol engines for the first time.

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However, if the electrolyte reacts with the oxygen when the car is in use it will eventually be depleted. So, working with his colleague Alessandro Curioni at IBM's Zurich research labs in Switzerland, Wilcke used a Blue Gene supercomputer to run extremely detailed models of the reactions to look for alternative electrolytes. This included a form of atomistic modelling right down to the quantum mechanics of the components, says Curioni.

"We now have one which looks very promising," says Wilcke. He won't reveal what material it is but says that several research prototypes have already been demonstrated. And as part of Battery 500, an IBM-led coalition involving four US national laboratories and commercial partners, the hope is to have a full-scale prototype ready by 2013, with commercial batteries to follow by around 2020."

http://www.newscientist.com/article/mg21328466.200-air-battery-to-let-electric-cars-outlast-gas-guzzlers.html

Battery500 website

http://www.ibm.com/smarterplanet/us/en/smart_grid/article/battery500.html?lnk=ibmhpcs2/smarter_planet/energy/article/battery_500

[txlibdem]

1. I think I just had an EV-gasm

This is great news!

I'm afraid the anti-EV crowd will be eating crow decades before they thought they'd have to. Bon Appetit.