If there’s one major failing in electric cars, it’s their batteries. They recharge in hours, and who, really, wants that? The standard battery used is not the normal lead acid battery used in automobiles, but the more rechargeable lithium-ion battery as is typically used in laptops, cellphones, etc.  But let’s face it, even though the lithium-ion battery is fine for your portable electronics, it’s too slow to recharge for automotive use.  Because of this, researchers are looking at some new options:

Option 1 – Hydrogen Fuel Cells:

The hydrogen fuel cell is in a lot of ways like a battery.  The essential purpose is to get out electricity.  However, where as batteries essentially trap electricity in a complex chemical balance that always leaves the battery physically full of the same amount of chemicals, a fuel cell basically breaks down its chemicals as fuel, growing more and more physically empty as it produces electricity.  Typically the chemicals / fuel used in a fuel cell is hydrogen, although theoretically other fuels could be used to produce electricity as well.  And as the hydrogen depletes and turns into electricity, it also creates a waste product: water.  While creating water is by no means harmful, and might work just fine in a car, it’s a little harder to imagine this being a useful concept in laptops or cellphones.

The distinct advantage of the hydrogen fuel cell in automobiles is one simple thing: rechargeability.  Where the typical battery takes hours to recharge, to “recharge” a fuel cell takes mere seconds.  All that you do to recharge a fuel cell is literally just top off its fuel.  Fill the hydrogen fuel cell with more hydrogen, and it’s good to go another couple hundred miles, just like topping a regular car off with gas.  It’s a concept that automobile drivers know and understand quite well.  So it’s no wonder that this is a much preferred method to plugging in a car and waiting for hours.

But hydrogen comes at a cost.  That cost is, you have to produce it.  The “cleanest” method of producing hydrogen is from water, using electricity to break water into its components: hydrogen and oxygen.  Okay, so as long as your electricity comes from something nice and clean like solar, hydroelectric, or geothermal you’re clean.  But if that electricity comes from something less than stellar, like coal, it can in fact make your nice “green” hydrogen so very not green.

Then there’s the other method of hydrogen production that green-lovers don’t like to mention: from hydrocarbons.  Instead of using electrolysis to create hydrogen from water, you generate it from natural gas, releasing the dreaded CO2 – carbon dioxide – in the process.  With about an 80% efficiency.

There’s also a theoretical third method to produce hydrogen which has yet to be proven effective in large quantities, which is using algae to produce hydrogen.  By depriving certain algae of sulfur, it changes their normal photosynthesis process from producing oxygen into producing hydrogen.  While nifty and about as green as you can get, it unfortunately is a very tricky process to do in anything larger than a test tube.  So, as of yet, isn’t really an option.

And if the means of producing hydrogen weren’t questionable enough as a means of fighting the evils of pollution and CO2 greenhouse gasses, there’s also the question of how to get it to the “gas station”.  Like any fuel, to transport it is to reduce its efficiency because you have to burn fuel to get the fuel to the consumer.  So transporting hydrogen makes it less green.  The other option is to eliminate transport overhead by producing the hydrogen on-site … which would typically require a significant boost to any fueling station’s electrical backbone to handle the electrolysis of converting water into hydrogen.  It’s quite possible to do, and economically feasible if the world all one day drives hydrogen vehicles, but is financially costly while hydrogen vehicles are rarely used.  And, the bigger question would be, if we can expand the electrical systems of gas stations everywhere with higher amperage to produce hydrogen on-site, then why can’t we just expand the electrical systems the exact same way to recharge cars in minutes instead of hours, thereby completely negating the whole purpose of hydrogen fuel cells as battery replacements in the first place?

Option 2 – Enhance Lithium-Ion Batteries With Lithium-Phosphate Glass:

Lithium-ion batteries are highly rechargeable batteries used in almost anything that doesn’t use the standard AAA, AA, C, D, 9V replaceable batteries.  They’re handy, but slow to recharge, taking hours.  But wait…  What’s this?  It’s big news!  Just recently MIT’s Byoungwoo Kang and Gerbrand Ceder have found a way to rapidly increase the energy transfer of the lithium ion battery by using lithium-phosphate glass.  What took hours might now be down to seconds.

At least in a lab.

Though while there seems to be a lot of excitement over the concept, there are also some who are more reserved, noting that so far all they’ve really proved is that they can discharge a lithium-ion battery quicky.  Whether or not it can recharge quickly remains to be seen.  So far it’s all a lot of excited hypothetical and theoretical green-geek mosh-pitting.  When (or even if) it will be commercially available remains to be seen.  But, if at all possible, it could easily revolutionize the entire battery world by making lithium-ion batters rechargeable in a tiny fraction of the time that it used to take, completely negating any need for fuel cell technologies.

Option 3 – Enhance Lithium-Ion Batteries With Lithium-Tritanate Anodes:

Lithium-ion batteries typically use graphite anodes.  Altair Nanotechnology found that by using lithium-tritanate anodes instead gives you a battery that recharges in minutes instead of hours, and that has operating temperatures much better suited to automobiles.  They trademarked this battery technology NanoSafe.  And so far, there has been very little actual excitement about these batteries.  Perhaps it is because these batteries could negate the whole purpose of the hydrogen fuel cell by being a battery that can recharge in about the same time that it takes to refuel a fuel cell?  Or maybe I’m just being pessimistic.  But whichever the case, here we have a proven battery technology, marketed today, that could very well make the electric car quite usable by the majority of the world.  All with a minimal change to any gas-station infrastructure.  And did I mention, these batteries are available, right now?

Conclusion:

While it remains to be seen whether or not the electric car’s superbattery will be a hydrogen fuel cell or enhancements to lithium-ion batteries, one thing is for certain:  The race is on! With the right funding to establish the necessary support, the use of petrolium-based gasoline, or even the need for greener biofuels, could be completely eliminated by simply using electricity.  And so long as the electricity comes from the greenest sources, it could severely reduce or even completely negate the production of carbon dioxide to move people and cargo from Point A to Point B … at least on the ground.  On the air and in the sea are still matters best left for the future.

The Swedes are really on a roll.  Not only do they have stealth warships, but now they also have electric car recharging stations at McDonald’s!

McDonald's in Sweden get electric car recharging stations.

Fancy that!

The McDonald’s in Stockholm will be the first to get one of these lovely posts as the pilot for the new concept.  (As if they’d first try it anywhere else in Sweden.)  The post itself is 230V, 16A with both single and three-phase charge sockets … and, as you can see, ever so McDonald’s in appearance.  The concept is a joint operation between Elforsk (who will provide the power and product) and McDonald’s of Sweden (who will provide the cash to pay for it all).

It’s an interesting idea, and a novel step forward in modern thinking.

One would wonder why McDonald’s over in America doesn’t attempt a similar trial, at least if one didn’t already notice the American automotive distaste for all vehicles with plugs.  Hopefully, one day soon, America can join in the green innovation.

And while we ponder the complexities of creating a hydrogen infastructure for fuel-cell vehicles, let us look upon the constrasting simplicity of something as simple as a plug.

The Tesla Roadster

Tesla Motors, makers of the fully electric sports car, the Tesla Roadster, may have had a cheer, a chuckle, and a groan when BBC’s Top Gear took a Tesla Roadster out for a spin.

It starts out quite well.  After a quick jibe at the Toyota Prius, Jeremy Clarkson moves on to the stunning all-electric car of wet dreams: the Tesla Roadster.  And it’s a mighty impressive bit of production editing with electrifying special effects.

The high point is when they go head-to-head between a Tesla Roadster and a Lotus Elise in a drag race.  The Tesla wins, no hands down.  It’s not even a competition.

The Tesla Roadster beats a Lotus Elise off the line.

This is exactly why electric motors make perfect sense in a sports or race car.  Their torque is unbeatable.

The Tesla Roadster's motor cranks up to over twelve thousand RPMs!

The rapid surge to over twelve and a half thousand RPMs makes Jeremy sing, “That’s Biblically quick! This car is electric! Literally.“  Which he later follows with a proclamation, “Not bad for a motor that’s the size of a watermelon, and only has one moving part.”

Unfortunately, that’s the upside of Top Gear’s review of the Tesla Roadster.  It’s not long before the downside begins.

The first complaint is that the batteries add so much weight to the otherwise ultra lightweight car that it affects the handling.  As Jeremy puts it, the Tesla Roadster is kind of like him, “Thin at one end, thinning at the other, and ends with a big fat bit in the middle.”

Unfortunately, the Tesla Roadster has a few handling problems.

This, however, begins to be mitigated by the tires, which Jeremy says are low rolling resistance (which at InsanIT.net means low traction) wheels.  And because of the combination of tires and batteries, on their test track the Lotus Elise is able to easily squeeze by the Tesla Roadster on the corners.  “However, come the next straight … Yes!  Come on!  Come on!  Go!  Bye!“  Jeremy, in the Roadster, slingshots right by the Elise with ease once again as he hits a good straight.

Jeremy in the Tesla Roadster waves goodbye to the Lotus Elise once he gets back onto a straight part of Top Gear's testing track.

But then, on a high note again, the next disappointment falls.  The claim of Tesla that the Roadster will go 200 miles between charges is quickly dashed as the Top Gear team only gets 55 miles out of theirs.  The Roadster comes to a stop and has to be pushed into the garage for a recharge.

The Top Gear team has to push their Tesla Roadster back in for a recharge after only 55 miles of driving.

The disappointment is further explained by Jeremy.  “Ok, to fill the tank on a normal car takes, what, a couple of minutes?  To fully recharge the batteries in this, from a normal thirteen amp socket like that, takes sixteen hours.”

Things only get worse from there as the Roadster proved to be more prototype than production quality.  Taking a second Tesla Roadster around the track some more quickly comes to a halt as the motor overheats, putting the car into a reduced power mode.  And while it cooled down Top Gear tried to go back to using their first Tesla Roadster … “Only to find that while it was being charged its brakes had broken.“  Oops.  Not so good for Tesla.  “So then, with the light fading, we had no cars at all.“  It was a dismal end to the Top Gear’s first day of Tesla Roadster testing.  Jeremy ends the day walking down an empty track, musing, “I did think that the Teslas would bring a bit of peace and quiet to our track with their electric motors.  I didn’t think it would be this much peace and quiet though.”

Jeremy is sad as Top Gear's TWO Tesla Roadsters both fail on testing day, leaving the track eerily silent at the end of the day.

“What we have here then is an astonishing technical achievement:  The first electric car that you might actually want to buy.  It’s just a shame that in the real world it doesn’t seem to work.”

Of course, being Top Gear, that’s not quite the end.  They still had to hand the car over to The Stig for a track time run.

Even The Stig slides a bit off the track because of Tesla's choice to use low rolling resistance tires.

The Stig finds out all too quicky just how bad the traction of low energy ties are as he bites into the grass through the first turn.  But being the professional that he is, once gauged, he pushes the Roadster quite well.  The Stig manages to get a track time of 1:27.2 in the Tesla Roadster, exactly the same time as a Porsche 911 GT3, and strangely enough, exactly on the same mildly moist track conditions.

And there it is, the Tesla Roadster completes Top Gear's test track in the exact same time (and conditions) of a Porsche 911 GT3 at a mere 1:27.2 seconds.

So there it is.  We knew that the Tesla Roadster was fast.  We knew that an electric motor could really tear up a track.  And Top Gear proved it.  But we also knew, all too well, just how expensive it was.  And, unfortunately, Tesla Motors still seems to have a few quality control issues to work out, at least if you’re going to push your Tesla Roadster in track conditions, as Top Gear found out in the worst of ways.

Some say that the all-electric car is dead.  That sentiment even gets thrown around at Top Gear.  But here, honestly, I think that’s just a load of back-minded hogwash.  With better battery technologies like NanoSafe, and better (higher amperage) recharging stations put into place (If hydrogen “gas stations” can get an infastructure built up from nothing, then why not high amp “recharging stations” from our already solid electrical infrastructure?) then there’s really no reason for the electric car to be dead.  At all.  In fact, frankly, across most of the world it makes more sense to use electricity than it does to use hydrogen, at least until we have a good means of producing hydrogen for every region.  The electric car only gets its bad name from the early attempts to push it before the technology was ready.  Where as the hydrogen car has no bad name yet simply because it practically doesn’t exist.

And still, the only difference between a hydrogen fuel cell car and a battery car is … the battery.  You either charge a battery by electricity, or you charge the battery by filling a fuel cell back up with hydrogen.  The motor is the same.  The transmission is the same.  Everything is the same, except which battery provides the electricity to power the car.  So most of the advances in one technology are likewise advances in the other.  They don’t have to compete.  Their technologies are almost completely shared.

So if you’re in the least bit green and simultaneously a car nut, you’ve probably heard by now of the Tesla Roadster. It’s a purely electric sports car. What do I mean by sports car? Well, how does 0 to 60 in 3.9 seconds sound? Yeah. It can move.

But the one thing about electric cars is what do you do when the battery goes dry? When you run out of gas in a normal car, you just go to a gas station and fill ‘er up. No biggie. In and out in minutes.

But when you run out of juice in an electric car, you plug it in, and wait. And wait. And wait. And wait. Not very convenient for long distance trips.

Until now!

Introducing the Lightning, UK’s hot new electric sports car!

Built along similar lines, the Lightning is an all-electric road-eating monster. The performance can put most sports cars to shame. And since electric motors are so incredibly simple compared to an engine in something like a Ferrari, it’s also a lot easier to maintain. But again, there’s that whole long long wait to recharge the thing, right? Wrong!

At least in theory…

The Lightning uses a new battery technology. Unlike the lithium-ion batteries and lead-acid batteries traditionally used in electric cars, the Lightning uses NanoSafe™ batteries. These are lithium-titanate batteries manufactured with nano titanate particles instead of lithium-ion’s use of graphite. They’re supposedly a lot faster to recharge, are more stable at extreme temperatures (something batteries just don’t like), and contain no toxins or heavy metals.

And if you noticed, yes, in there were the words “a lot faster to recharge”. Something which Lightning hopes to take advantage of. In theory the Lightning’s batteries can be recharged to 80 per cent in just three minutes.

In practice however, this requires a three-phase industrial power line, something your typical home (and even a lot of businesses) just don’t have.

Yet.

Perhaps one day, in a world where alternative fuels catch on, you can drive up to your “filling station” and get a tank of petrol, a tank of ethanol, a tank of bio-diesel, a tank of hydrogen, or even a quick charge of your batteries from an industrial power line, all in one nice convenient station.

In the mean time however, Lightning owners will have to live with the fact that while they recharge their nifty sports car from their home line, the recharge time is really not much different than that of any other electric car. And they’re still screwed if they want to travel beyond the range of their batteries.

Something where hybrid cars, like the Toyota Prius, still reign supreme in that they still can just top off their tank of gas from any old gas station and keep truckin’ all night long.

Still, if anything interesting comes from this, it’s that cars are no longer necessarily held down by the crappy battery technologies that we’ve been using since the dawn of time (lead acid) or by those used in the last few decades (lithium-ion). We’ve got something new: lithium-titanate AKA NanoSafe™. Hopefully we’ll be seeing these used in new cars. And just as hopefully, the industry will continue to research and develop even newer and better battery technologies to vault the electric car into the twenty-first century.

And maybe one day, we’ll even have the ultimate green-hybrid. A flexible-fuel hybrid that can take petrol or ethanol to power either a normal car engine (like a Prius hybrid has) or perhaps some sort of electric generator, has a hydrogen tank for filling up a hydrogen fuel cell powered electric motor, and even has some NanoSafe™ batteries for also powering the electric motor and operating as a recharge point for regenerative braking. It’d be the ultimate hybrid. Who knows? It could happen.