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Nickel Metal Hydride ("NiMH") batteries are cheap, available, long lasting
| "...Nickel-metal hydride (NiMH) batteries, employed in more than 1000 vehicles in California, have demonstrated promise to meet the power and endurance requirements for electric-vehicle (EV) propulsion...NiMH batteries have realistic potential to last the life of an EV, or at least ten years and 100,000 vehicle miles...". Actually, we find it probably closer to 200,000 miles, and possible much longer than that. "...plant commitments in 2000 could result in establishment of manufacturing capacities sufficient to produce the quantities of batteries required under the current ZEV regulation for 2003..." But GM sold control of NiMH to Texaco in 2001, which then was absorbed into Chevron. "...Current NiMH EV-battery modules have specific energies of 65 to 70Wh/kg, comparable to the technologies of several years ago�reported in the BTAP 1995 report (1)�and major increases are unlikely. If NiMH battery weight is limited to an acceptable fraction of EV total weight, the range of a typical 4/5-passenger EV in realworld driving appears limited to approximately 75 to 100 miles on a single charge..." That's 770 lbs., and 120 to 200 miles on a charge. It turns out that the very latest Panasonic-Toyota batteries were 30 kWh for 770 lbs., or about 105 amp/hours, about 90 wh/kg, perhaps 80 wh/kg accessible. "...Despite extensive cost reduction efforts by the leading NiMH EV-battery developers, NiMH battery cost remains a large obstacle to the commercialization of NiMH-powered EVs in the near term..." Even more of an obstacle after Chevron took control and sued Toyota and Panasonic. It turns out that the cost is minimal, just the life-cycle costing profile is different. A lot more cost up-front, but much lower maintenance and fueling costs down the line. The economics of propane vs. electric fork lifts are exactly the same; electric is to be preferred from life-cycle costing, but propane is cheaper up-front. "...costs of at least $350/kWh, $300/kWh and $225-250/kWh can be estimated for production volumes of about 10k, 20k and 100k battery packs per year, respectively. To the module costs, at least $1,200 per battery pack...for the other major components of a complete EV-battery, which include the required electrical and thermal management systems...NiMH batteries for the EV types now deployed in California would cost EV manufacturers between $9,500 and $13,000 in the approximate quantities (10k-20k packs per year) required to implement the year 2003 ZEV regulation, and approximately $7,000 to $9,000 at production levels exceeding one hundred thousand packs per year..." This sounds cheap now, but there's the march of inflation since 2000, when this CARB report by the Battery Technology Assessment group was delivered. Nickel has gone from $7 to $18 per lb.; but Nickel metal is only a small part of the cost of the NiMH battery, about 20-30% (similarly, lead acid batteries are largely water and sulfate, not lead. This is known to battery recyclers). Hence, assuming that the other components did not come down in price, as they are for Li and Pb, the increased cost of Ni metal would add less than $3,000 to the cost of even a full-size NiMH batttery, or, at the very most, $12,000 to $16,000 in 2007 dollars. The Volt pack would be less than half that. That's not an obstacle, that's a price any EV driver would be happy to pay. http://www.arb.ca.gov/msprog/zevprog/2000review/btapreport.pdf |
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