Worldwide Battery Developments

Dean Sigler Announcements, Batteries, Electric Powerplants, Sustainable Aviation Leave a Comment

Worldwide, batteries are getting a great deal of backing, but probably not at the level of China’s push to rule over world electric vehicle markets.  Recently, China awarded BYD $3.7 billion to enable it to pursue dominance of the world EV market.  According to Bloomberg.com, “Virtually all of China’s listed companies received direct handouts in 2022, the Kiel Institute [for the World Economy] said, flagging support for wind, solar and railway rolling stock companies. Industry aid in China is “at least three to four” times higher than in large EU and OECD countries, the group said.” The European Union is busy investigating China’s underwriting of its own auto industry in what the EU sees as an anti-competitive advantage in an ongoing EV price war.  America, for the most part, and aside from relatively minor Advanced Research Project Agency – Electric (ARPA-E) funding, does not seem to encourage EV development. What usually starts with automotive advancement eventually finds its way skyward.  …

Quantumscape Batteries – an Emerging Answer

Dean Sigler Batteries, Sustainable Aviation Leave a Comment

Hiding in plain site next to the San Jose, California International Airport, Quantumscape has been quietly developing a solid-state battery now emerging and trending toward mass production.  With backing from Volkswagen, Bill Gates and a founding member of Tesla, the battery company would make big splash if it used a liquid electrolyte.  It doesn’t.  Wired goes a bit dramatic in describing the faults of batteries with liquid electrolytes.  “IF ELECTRIC VEHICLES are ever going to fully supplant gas guzzlers on the world’s roads, they’re going to need an entirely new type of battery. Despite steady improvements over the past decade in the energy density and lifetimes of lithium-ion batteries, the cells in new EVs still lag behind internal combustion engines on pretty much every performance metric. Most EVs have a range of less than 300 miles, it takes more than an hour to recharge their battery packs, the cells lose nearly a third of their capacity within a decade, and …

Follow the Battery Money

Dean Sigler Batteries, Diesel Powerplants, Sustainable Aviation Leave a Comment

With Tesla’s $5.5 billion “gigafactory” already producing cells for its line of cars and its “Powerwall” home energy storage systems, it now seems like a tenuous, toe-dipping approach with Volkswagen announcing its own battery plans.  VW may invest up to $15.5 billion according to Tech News, the outlet projecting the highest number.  Others with less money but promising technologies are also betting on better batteries. Tesla Gigafactory Grand Opening – More to Come With only 14 percent of its total area completed, the Tesla Gigafactory on Electric Avenue (what else?) near Sparks, Nevada, is already up and running, producing Tesla’s Powerwall and Powerpack battery systems.  According to Teslarati.com, “Elon Musk told investors at the 4th quarter earnings call earlier this month… those products are already profitable and are expected to become more so as volume increases.” Other projections anticipate that the Gigafactory will “be net zero and have no carbon emissions,” “net zero meaning that it will create more electricity …

Bosch Doubles Down on Solid-State Batteries

Dean Sigler Electric Aircraft Components, Electric Powerplants, Sustainable Aviation Leave a Comment

Bosch, the German electronics giant, is making a strong showing at the Frankfurt Motor Show (IAA), and showing off its solid-state Li-ion battery technology.  It recently acquired Seeo, Inc., an American startup that has been developing such a battery for several years, and will add Seeo’s research to its own expertise and exclusive patents. Encouragingly, the company says it will be able to double the energy density of Li-ion batteries while cutting prices by half.  Perhaps discouragingly, Bosch says this will take until 2020 to bring to production. Green Car Congress quotes Dr. Volkmar Denner, chairman of the board of management for Robert Bosch GmbH, claiming a breakthrough.  “Bosch is using its knowledge and considerable financial resources to achieve a breakthrough for electromobility. Solid-state cells could be a breakthrough technology. Disruptive start-up technology is meeting the broad systems knowledge and financial resources of a multinational company.” Coupling the acquisition with its 30 production projects “related to electromobility,” Bosch has been …

All-Electron Battery – Stanford Strikes Again

Dean Sigler Electric Powerplants, Sustainable Aviation Leave a Comment

With recent news of a solid-state battery coming for the labs of Yi Cui, a second solid-state solution seems to follow from another Stanford Laboratory.  The All-Electron Battery, funded at least partly by an ARPA-E grant that underwrote the program from 2010 to 2012, has fostered a startup, QuantumScape. Starting from the stated need for a battery “with twice the energy storage of today’s state-of-the-art Li-Ion battery at 30% of the cost,” ARPA-E worked with the premise that Stanford was “developing an all-electron battery that would create a completely new class of energy storage devices for EVs. Stanford’s all-electron battery stores energy by moving electrons rather than ions. Electrons are lighter and faster than the ion charge carriers in conventional Li-Ion batteries. Stanford’s all-electron battery also uses an advanced structural design that separates critical battery functions, which increases both the life of the battery and the amount of energy it can store. The battery could be charged 1000s of times …

Will VW Take on Tesla?

Dean Sigler Electric Powerplants, Sustainable Aviation Leave a Comment

Volkswagen just bought a five-percent stake in a startup company called QuantumScape, a commercial spinoff of work done at Stanford University’s Nanoscale Prototyping Laboratory for Energy Conversion and Storage.  The Labroratory’s head, Fritz B. Prinz, Finmeccanica Professor of Engineering and Robert Bosch Chairman of Mechanical Engineering, explains: “Our team creates, models, and prototypes nanoscale structures to understand the physics of electrical energy conversion and storage. We are exploring the relation between size, composition, and the kinetics of charge transfer. We are also interested in learning from nature, in particular by studying the electron transport chain in plant cells.” (Note that the QuantumScape web site is curiously without detail, showing only four pretty pictures and making three or four non-controversial statements.  The most information comes on the Contact link.) Whatever they are doing, the Lab has caught the interest of not only Volkswagen’s CEO Martin Winterkorn, but produced a flood of often speculative articles from Bloomberg, EV World and other sources, …