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Sensors Could Make Electric-Car Batteries Smaller and Cheaper (by 20%-50%)
http://www.technologyreview.com/news/518791/sensors-could-make-electric-car-batteries-smaller-and-cheaper/[font face=Serif][font size=5]Sensors Could Make Electric-Car Batteries Smaller and Cheaper[/font]
[font size=4]ARPA-E says better sensors and controls could allow automakers to cut battery size by 20 to 50 percent.[/font]
By Kevin Bullis on August 30, 2013
[font size=3]Electric-vehicle battery packs could shrink 20 to 30 percent, and make electric vehicles more affordable, if new sensors were developed to monitor the cells in a pack, according to the U.S. government’s Advanced Research Projects Agency for Energy (ARPA-E). The agency says such sensors could have an even greater effect on hybrid gas-electric vehicle batteries, causing them to shrink by half.
Better sensors could tell what’s happening inside each of the hundreds of cells that make up an electric vehicle’s battery pack, allowing automakers to safely store more energy in them. A $30 million ARPA-E program that’s been underway for about a year is seeking to develop the necessary technology.
Developing new battery chemistries can take a decade or more, so increasing the capabilities of existing ones could be a faster way to reduce the cost of batteries, one of the main things holding back the adoption of electric cars (see “How Tesla Is Driving Electric Car Innovation” and “How Improved Batteries Will Make Electric Vehicles Competitive”).
Automakers currently don’t allow their batteries to be charged all the way, which helps avoid the high voltage levels that can degrade battery materials or in some cases cause fires. They also keep some capacity in reserve in case overheating or other factors reduce the performance of the battery. They build in these safeguards because they don’t know exactly what’s going on inside each cell—the temperature, chemical composition, mechanical strain, voltages at each electrode, and so on.
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[font size=4]ARPA-E says better sensors and controls could allow automakers to cut battery size by 20 to 50 percent.[/font]
By Kevin Bullis on August 30, 2013
[font size=3]Electric-vehicle battery packs could shrink 20 to 30 percent, and make electric vehicles more affordable, if new sensors were developed to monitor the cells in a pack, according to the U.S. government’s Advanced Research Projects Agency for Energy (ARPA-E). The agency says such sensors could have an even greater effect on hybrid gas-electric vehicle batteries, causing them to shrink by half.
Better sensors could tell what’s happening inside each of the hundreds of cells that make up an electric vehicle’s battery pack, allowing automakers to safely store more energy in them. A $30 million ARPA-E program that’s been underway for about a year is seeking to develop the necessary technology.
Developing new battery chemistries can take a decade or more, so increasing the capabilities of existing ones could be a faster way to reduce the cost of batteries, one of the main things holding back the adoption of electric cars (see “How Tesla Is Driving Electric Car Innovation” and “How Improved Batteries Will Make Electric Vehicles Competitive”).
Automakers currently don’t allow their batteries to be charged all the way, which helps avoid the high voltage levels that can degrade battery materials or in some cases cause fires. They also keep some capacity in reserve in case overheating or other factors reduce the performance of the battery. They build in these safeguards because they don’t know exactly what’s going on inside each cell—the temperature, chemical composition, mechanical strain, voltages at each electrode, and so on.
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