I’ve received quite a few email over the last few months asking about one Chinese battery manufacturer who appears to be offering the backyard EVer the ultimate battery solution; Lithium on a budget. Thunder Sky have been making Lithium batteries for years but unfortunately it is a name that sends shivers down many an EVer’s spine. Basically this web site explains why.
A few years ago Thunder Sky (TS) were offering large format Li-Ion cells which they promoted as being suitable for electric vehicles. As far as I know - several individuals, at least one university (QUT) and a couple of groups (UK and USA) bought batches of various sizes and quantities of these cells. I also was very tempted to part with many thousands of dollars to be part of the action. Fortunately for me, I only went as far as requesting a price list from them and that was enough to encourage me to try something less expensive first.
Victor Tikhonov from Metric Mind Engineering organised the USA group buy of TS batteries. Victor is no dunce, he is an electrical engineer and sells advanced AC EV motors and controllers that are to drool over, he sources other EV components from Europe which just ooze quality (read $$$!) and he recently designed the ultimate in EV instrumentation - EVision. (As a matter of fact Victor’s conversion web site was the inspiration for me to do my own conversion and to document the process on the web.) Anyhow, if you were to ask Victor what he thinks of TS now he wouldn’t be inspiring. TS simply ripped him and many others off with poor quality, grossly under performing cells.
OK so now TS are making large format LiFePO4 cells and initial independent testing shows that these cells are performing as specified but the BIG question is how long for??
I notice that for their 160Ah cells they specify a maximum constant discharge current of 480A (3C) yet a “standard” discharge current of 48A (0.3C), presumably to get >2000 cycles (80% DOD). 48A is barely enough to maintain my EV at 40km/h on the flat. So how many cycles do you get when you need much more than 48A for normal driving? I don’t know and as far as I know neither does anybody else.
Be warned; if you purchase TS LiFePO4 batteries you are participating in an expensive experiment, a one year warranty is no protection for poor cycle life.
Ok, so the doco Who Killed The Electric Car may have stung GM into full blown counter-spin mode and hence the knee-jerk announcement of the Chevy Volt, AKA “the electric car that runs on press releases” but I’ve got to admit that after viewing this interview with GM’s Bob Lutz my scepticism is waning. Which can only mean that my excitement is building!
Yes, I am now fully convinced that the Chevy Volt will be built and that it just may be the catalyst that triggers our departure from the Fossil Fuel Age and finally propels the human species into the into the Lithium Age. If GM are telling us that they have 150 engineers working on the Volt and another 400 engineers working on the “flexible” drive trains of the near future then I ain’t gunna fight it any more, I believe ‘em.
My Hero; David Vieau, President & CEO, A123 Systems.
Of course, it isn’t GM who’re the real catalyst, it’s the Apple Computers of the battery industry, A123 systems, that are really changing the world and to GM’s credit, they know it. If you want to get a good idea where we are at the moment with Lithium batteries and EV’s and you have a spare half hour then I can highly recommend this “Lithium-Ion Live” video (also from Autoline Detroit), in particular, the Q & A video at the end is very interesting.
Now, back to the garage to do some more cycle testing on MY A123 batteries…
(Thanks to Steven Lough for posting these links on the EV Discussion List.)
I think it must be called the “Blog-inversely-proportional-rule”, that is, the more you have to say the less time you have to say it because there’s so damn much going on! I’ll try to summarise…
A couple of months ago I was contacted by Jeff Poole from the Queensland Conservation Council (you should see his really cool sustainable home) about being one of the 30 participants nation-wide to go and see their local member about climate change policy for the Bigswitch campaign. Anyhow, enough about politics the upshot was I got my ugly mug on page 1259 of the local rag buried amongst some car yard ads, I think. It did get better though because the Courier Mail were contacted and they did a much better job and apparently Jack and I got some reasonable real-estate in today’s hard-copy edition. The online version is here.
Also a couple of months ago I was contacted by a very nice chap from WA (well, he writes nice emails) by the name of Ian Hooper from ZEVA (Zero Emission Vehicles Australia), how cool is that name. Ian is an Mechatronic Engineer (more coolness!) and is in the middle of his own electric vehicle conversion and in an effort to help promote EV’s he is venturing into the world of being an Australian EV parts supplier.
Ian kindly sent me a couple of battery pack dashboard gauges to try out. Now KISS has always been a philosophy of mine so I’ve never had any such gizmatronics fitted in the past but I have to say now that I’ve got them, I love them! It’s well worth a visit to Ian’s ZEVA website, a very professional effort.
Ok, so then I started getting excited about lithium batteries again, I can’t remember what triggered this, but I think that’s a side-effect of most addictions. I’ve decided that if I’m to even think about those A123 Nano Phosphate super-cells then I have to get a little more serious about testing out just how good they are and how would I put together and manage 1600 of those little cells. So I finally signed up to THE EV live knowledge base - The Electric Vehicle Discussion List and got some of the answers I wanted but many I didn’t. It appears that not too may folks have built battery packs from these cells so I’m going to try and document my cautious journey in the hope that it may help others.
Then amongst all this, Toyota decide to start testing the electrified water with a trial Plug-in Prius (great video). This may turn out to be the biggest automotive news ever, then again, it might not…
A few weeks ago I was filming some on-board video from my Electric-Echo on the way home from work for a little project I have in mind, when I came upon the finest of Italian engineering and styling, a little red Ferrari (is there any other colour?). Well, I couldn’t help myself and just had to show him what the finest of backyard EV engineering could do to his sorry little red tail!
OK, so the idea is a little desperate and the production is very corny but it was fun to make!
EV Owner: I’ve converted my vehicle to electric drive, here is the completed approval paperwork.
Queensland Transport customer service representative: Err…we don’t have a category for electric vehicles, it’ll have to remain registered as a petrol vehicle.
EV Owner: Oh.
…Two Years Later…
Journalist: Why are you opposed to the proposal of free registration for environmentally friendly vehicles such as hybrid and electric vehicles?
State Gov’t Rep: Because we already provide a discount for registered electric vehicles, they only pay $159.35.
Journalist: How many electric vehicles are registered in Queensland?
State Gov’t Rep: Err…none.
Journalist: Oh.
Mmm. A few E-E friendly folk took the time to point out this article in the local rag, printed Friday the 20th of April;
So after a 20 minute phone call and a one hour visit in person to the Customer Service Center of the local transport authority I was advised to write a letter to the “Policy” people to get the discount I’d never heard of. Did that today so we’ll see what transpires…in the meantime I’ll continue to hover around in my non-existent E-E.
Well there I was, just Google-ing around and I spot this URL; “electric-cars-are-for-girls.com” and in my usual hyper-sensitive-defensive-mode I think, why would somebody go to the trouble of registering this URL, just to deride electric cars?
Curiosity got the better of me and one click later I was smiling, not frowning.
Lynne Mason from Seattle really likes electric cars, the planet and in particular her son Gavin, so she’s put together this great website in an effort to help all three, in a…dare I say it…girlie type way!
Speaking of the planet, did you notice over the last couple of weeks a couple of big things have happened in the world with regard to climate change;
Firstly the Supreme Court in the U.S. ruled that greenhouse gases are pollutants and therefore can be regulated by the federal government. This will have a huge impact on making the world greatest emitter more accountable.
Then the IPCC released a very sobering, more detailed account of what they consider are the greatest risks of climate change so that policy makers have something to work with over the next few years. I suspect that this assessment, from a few hundred scientists no less, has all but killed off, the last of the professional denialists.
Whether your an occasional lurker of the EVlist archives or a frequent visitor of the Green Car Congress, you find out pretty quickly about the latest (public) movements in battery technology.
Without any doubt, lithium technology is forging ahead, things are moving really fast. Early last year A123 Systems signed a deal with the large battery manufacturing company China Bak Battery to make lithium battery packs primarily for DeWalt (Black and Decker) power tools. These Nano-Phophate Li-ion batteries have some very promising spec’s (mainly the number of recharge cycles) AND they’re cheaper to make AND mass production is making them even cheaper.
Then a few weeks ago there was a discussion over at GCC on the economics of these batteries and how they’re not far off a tipping point of affordability. Believe it or not the proposition was put that if a new 36V DeWalt battery pack reached the price of $40 on eBay then lithium would be unstoppable and could compete with fossil fuels as an economic energy storage medium! So what’s the current eBay price? Only about $130. I don’t know about you but I find this very exciting…
I have to admit I cringe every time an article about a 3 wheeled electric vehicle appears in the media. I immediately imagine the vehicle being ruthlessly savaged by automotive “journalists” as; too slow, too unstable, too small, too dangerous etc, etc.
To me, these sorts of vehicles hinder the positive promotion of EVs to the masses. It’s understandable why some EV designers are attracted to the three wheel option, their light weight greatly extends the range of a battery pack and they often circumvent difficult legislation not applied to “motorcycles”.
So when the Green Car Congress posted this article about the VentureOne my pulse rate slowed as usual but the comment count was more than I expected so I decided to see what all the fuss was about…
Well it turns out that to drive this vehicle is to feel like you are flying it because it leans into the corners. It gets some huge wraps (”…the most fun you’ll ever have!”) from the hugely popular folks at Top Gear (admittedly they were driving the petrol version). This is something to get excited about because EVs need to be seen as fun to gain even a small foothold in the mass market. Take a look at the Top Gear videos at the Venture Vehicles Website and see how much they enjoyed the low level flying!
It’s been a while between posts because I’ve rewritten this one several times, just can’t seem to find the balance to keep it interesting for the technophiles and those a bit more perplexed by elec-trick-imy. So apologies if this doesn’t hold your interest…
The Issues
My lead acid AGM batteries will be damaged if overcharged.
I want to collect data about my batteries, while driving and while charging.
I want everybody to see my data, live on the web - if possible!
The solution
A computer that;
monitors all the individual battery voltages (12 x 12Volts).
monitors the battery pack current.
shuts off the battery charger if any battery is over the recommended maximum voltage (14.7V).
applies a temporary load to any battery that appears to be charging quicker than the rest.
stores the collected data onto a removable memory card.
streams the live data to a standard serial port.
is very configurable.
The progress
So far my friend and brother-in-law, Mark Philips has done a fantastic job of putting together a little AVR micro controller board that does all the logic stuff required for the above.
His micro (well, it’s mine now!);
has an SPI interface that talks to my 16 channel A/D MUX for individual battery monitoring.
has a basic 80 char two line display.
sends the data collected from the MUX out on a RS-232 Com port.
saves the data collected from the MUX onto a SD memory card in CSV format.
has an ISP port for simple reprogramming of the micro.
has its own real-time clock.
has another 13 programmable pins to do lots more I/O stuff with!
the upshot was I got my ugly mug on page 1259 of the local rag buried amongst some car yard ads, I think. It did get better though because the Courier Mail were contacted and they did a much better job and apparently Jack and I got some reasonable real-estate in today’s hard-copy edition. The 
