BBC Focus Magazine

[MrIsaksson]

Hello,

A lot of the future of electric cars seems to hang on battery technology.

Is there any battery technology in the research at the moment which could revolutionize the amount of energy a battery can hold or is it more of a case of improving over current technology rather than a revolution?

Cheers
Jon

[M Paul Lloyd]

Yes battery technology is one of the stumbling blocks with electric cars. The Tesla electric sports car http://www.greencarsite.co.uk/comingsoon/tesla-ev.htm uses 6,831 lithium ion batteries not unlike those used in cell phones. However they still add an enormous weight penalty for the amount of power they deliver. This has been overcome to a degree by making the car itself as light as possible.

However my concern is a little more basic than what batteries are used or even how much it all weighs and that is where all the electricity for charging them up these vehicles is going to come from. Its ok at the moment with only a very small number of electric vehicles on the road but even if just 20% of the motoring public switched to electric cars then the domestic power grid would simply not cope with the increased demand for electricity. This is because cars require tens of killowatt hours of energy which is considerably more than the average household uses in 24 hours.

So I'm betting that even if the battery technology improves tenfold the (proper) electric car will remain a novelty that only the well off can afford.

[MrIsaksson]

Very good point. I have always assumed the batteries are the main hurdle to overcome.

I guess the infrastructure might actually stop any serious adoption of electric cars, never really thought about it in that way.
One solution, but that obviously require a lot of other technology advancements could be a more distributed network of power stations, rather than the centralised strategy that is currently in place.
I appreciate that isnt as easy as just saying that each "fuelling station" should have its own power source.

[M Paul Lloyd]

Another problem with batteries that I forgot to mention is the unfortunate fact that Lithium Ion batteries create a massive carbon footprint during manufacture, which when added to Lithium mining makes the whole process somewhat less eco-friendly than most other forms of green energy such as bio-fuels distilled from vegetable matter.

As for a greater distribution of power generation, this is not beyond the realms of feasibility except when it comes to choosing where to put the power plants, imagine how environmentalists would react to having literally thousands of new power stations all over the landscape and then you have to consider how you might transport the relevant fuel to those sites, pipes, rail, road and how far it might have to be transported etc.

Some optimists believe this will be solved by wind power but in reality wind is just too unreliable by far. Just imagine an entire county being unable to go to work because the power was off, except of course for those Luddites who have stubborly refused to give up on the old internal combustion engine.

[Shadowwolf]

...imagine how environmentalists would react to having literally thousands of new power stations all over the landscape...

Especially if they are those green stations that are big but only output a paltry 49Mw.

[M Paul Lloyd]

The mythical 'green volcanoes' ? Yes they would raise a few hackles.