Trying to keep its eggs in more than a few baskets, GM is a member of the USABC, or United States Advanced Battery Consortium. Among this entities other members are Ford and Chrysler.

The consortium is actually a subunit of the parent body known as the United States Council for Automotive Research (USCAR) which was founded in 1992 to help promote the development of fuel cell, hybrid, and electric vehicles.

It was announced today that USABC is giving a 6.5 million battery development contract to EnerDel, a subsidiary of Ener1 which is in turn an alternative energy company.

EnerDel makes a lithium-ion battery using "patented lithium titanate and hard carbon technology and cell design technology" which is based on initial developments coming out of Argonne National Lab.

From the press release ...

"Under the full three-phase program, EnerDel is working to develop a fully integrated battery system for use in hybrid vehicle applications. The USABC program aims to produce a cost-competitive, lithium ion battery that is lighter, smaller and higher in power than existing battery technologies for hybrid electric vehicles."

It looks like we have another big player in the lithium-ion battery pack field and more evidence that this will be the future of automobiles.

EnerDel Website

 

Great! The more the merrier.

Here's their site:
http://www.enerdel.com/

 

Their technology looks somewhat similar to AltairNano's, at least in terms of the materials used.

Their batteries appear to have excellent life and safety, but one thing you definitely notice is the low LOW voltage (2.5V versus 3.3V or higher for lithium iron phosphate, e.g. A123). This means you'd have to use a lot of cells connected in series to get a good enough voltage, so large format cells is out of the question.

I'm not sure what quantity of titanium is used in their anode, but that's not a cheap metal.

 

I was going to say the same thing about the fact that it seems similar to Altair batteries which are known for being heavy, expensive, low in power, quick rechargeability and having a practically infinite recharge cycle lifespan. GM rejected Altair battery technology when it chose A123 and LG. Let's hope this new attempt will produce better results than what Altair has produced. The batteries would then be available to all the members of the USABC, which includes Ford and Chrysler as well, perhaps others.

 

Strong vote of confidence in A123.

 

The Enerdel design looks VERY impressive.

http://enerdel.com/content/view/104/87/

 

Kent is misleading with his assessment of Altair's tech. First off, price is not set for Altair, it is currently falling constantly because they are at the very beginning of production of units. Second, Altair's power density is comparable to ultra-caps, I think Kent meant to write "low in energy" not power, or else he is purposefully misleading us. Third, Altair's theoretical energy density is only slightly lower than A123's at this point and now they are working on the cathode to increase this. And if you take into account the fact that A123's volt batteries will only be cycled between 30-80% of charge to save service life (coddling not required of Altair's batteries) you would then see that comparison change. I would say that if you want the battery to last the life of the vehicle, the coddling of A123's batteries and the full depth of discharge capability of Altair's batteries draw them about even on the energy denstity question.

As for EnerDel batteries comparison to Altair, go to EnerDel's website and see their cycle life testing. Down to 95% capacity after 1000 cycles, pretty good and probably good enough for HEV's, but nowhere near the Altair specs (last I heard was well over 20,000 cycles and still going over 80% capacity) and probably not as good for PHEV's, which get cycled so often.

Also note that EnerDel never mentions that they have "Zero Strain" lithium-titanate, a key difference between Altair and other lithium-titanate batteries. It's what makes Altair's last so long. All lithium titanate is not the same.

 

"Third, Altair’s theoretical energy density is only slightly lower than A123’s at this point and now they are working on the cathode to increase this."

The problem is that titanium has very poor electrical conductivity. In comparison to copper or graphite, it could even be considered a resistor. Hence the low voltage of the Enerdel and Altair cells, since R=V/I. Also, Altair says they are using a conventional cathode, which implies that it's cobalt-based. Cobalt-based cathodes already have the highest energy density of li-ion rechargeables (except perhaps for Li-sulphur), so I'm not sure if there's much room for improvement.

Nonetheless, if they can get the specific energy to approach 140 Wh/kg, which is the theoretical maximum of LiFePO4, I see things evening up a bit.

 

Altair's specific energy (aka energy density) is somewhere around 85Wh/kg, possibly slightly more discounting the weight of the packaging material.

With regards to Enerdel and specific energy, their site has a figure showing the relative mass and volume of a conventional NiMH pack for HEVs compared with that of a hypothetical pack built using Enerdel cells. If you assume that this is a pack from something like a Prius, the NiMH cells can hold ~45Wh/kg. So this 36kg NiMH pack must hold 1.62 Wh. If the Enerdel pack holds the same amount of energy using only 23kg, (1620Wh)/(23kg)= ~70Wh/kg.

Compare that to power-optimized LiFePO4 at 108Wh/kg, and the prospect of something between that and 140Wh/kg with the 32 series cells. There is the "coddling" issue as you mention, but LiFePO4 really doesn't *need* that much coddling to begin with.

My honest feeling is that lithium titanate is a great technology that should be actively explored in the years to come, but for now it doesn't fit the bill for what's needed.

 

But the key is to have all of the performance characteristics simultaneously in large format vehicle pack form and verified. I agree that the A123 cells are probably coddled more than necessary in the Volt design, but I don't see any claims that they can be full DOD cycled like Altair's and still provide the life and safety claims. You have to ask, are the power or life stats of the cells mutually exclusive? On most batteries there is a strong tradeoff and many battery companies site their best stats in each category from testing of different cells.

The first battery tech I know of that is being 3rd party verified to do it all at once in large format vehicle pack form is Altair through AeroVironment (who by the way GM worked with on the EV1). We're not just talking about theoretical numbers or individual cell numbers, they are putting an actual battery pack through the paces, at rapid recharge.

Here's an interview to listen to:

http://www.podtech.net/home/3227/aerovironment-charging-ahead

 

Granted, I think Altair is more of a full BEV tech (where fast charge is a huge plus) and may not be leveraged for hybrids as well since that is not required.

 

Yes but: re Altair use in HEVs. Fast charge allows for better regen brake energy capture and the full DOD capacity makes up for lack of energy density (you don't need to make the battery bigger than necessary and then avoid using the last 30% to save the battery)

 

The RackPack2 beats the EnerDel system on every front including price plus it has more features at a lower cost and the actual patents. They are at www.deviceconduit.com