Battery Electric Car Rebound? | Green Energy News

March 6, 2005 – Vol.9 No.50

BATTERY ELECTRIC CAR REBOUND?

Too bad General Motors and other major car manufacturers have walked away from battery electric vehicles. If they hadn’t, advances in energy storage (and other technologies such as electric motors, controls, even vehicle lightening) would have probably given us long range zero emission vehicles by now.

For instance, how far would GM’s EV1 (the cream of the electric vehicle crop in the 1990’s) go if its lead-acid, or nickel metal hybrid (NiMH) batteries were replaced with state-of-the-art lithium-based batteries? Unless GM is testing that combination behind the scenes somewhere, no one will ever know.

Though a group of EV1 supporters had been holding a 24/7 vigil to protect what may have been the last of remaining EV1s outside of museums (and possibly inside GM’s black-ops, secret vehicle development operations) the group has apparently lost. The last of the 77 battery electric cars have been taken to the scrap yard, according to news reports.

With fears, and realization that hydrogen fuel cell vehicles are still decades away for the mass market, and would need massive government help to build a hydrogen supply and fueling network, battery electric vehicles are now on a bit of an upswing - at least with green vehicle enthusiasts.

(Hybrids are still thought of as a transition vehicle technology.)

One possibility is to build hybrid/hybrids. That is, battery electric vehicles with an additional energy storage device that could capture much more of the energy lost in braking than is now available through typical regenerative braking.

(Typical regenerative braking allows the electric drive motor in an electric, hybrid, or fuel cell vehicle to become a generator for a few seconds each time the vehicle slows. The motor-come-generator pumps electricity back through the battery to help recharge it - a small bit.)

An ultracapacitor or perhaps a flywheel would do a better job at capturing energy. Nearly all of the energy used to slow a car or truck could be captured almost immediately and be available for reusethe next time the vehicle accelerates.