Engineers Develop Electric Car Battery That Can Heat Itself During Winter (popularmechanics.com) 118
Engineers at Penn State have created a battery that can self-heat, allowing for rapid charging regardless of the outside cold. The battery can reportedly provide a 15-minute rapid charge at all temperatures, even when the cold is as low as minus 45 degrees Fahrenheit. Popular Mechanics reports: Batteries have both positive and negative terminals. The scientists placed thin nickel foil with one end attached to the negative terminal and the other end creating a third terminal. When a temperature sensor attached to a battery detects that the battery is below room temperature, it then sends electrons flowing through the nickel foil. This heats the battery up until it's above room temperature again. When the sensor detects that the battery is above room temperature, that's the sign that charging that can begin again. Electric current flows into the battery, rapidly charging in a more efficient state. After 4,500 cycles of testing, the new battery only showed a 20 percent capacity loss, which could provide approximately 280,000 miles of driving and a lifetime of 12.5 years. This is compared to a conventional battery that "showed a 20 percent capacity loss after only 50 charges," reports Popular Mechanics. Penn State released a press statement with more details.
This is News? (Score:1, Informative)
Short circuit a battery, and it heats?
Re: This is News? (Score:1, Funny)
SHUT UP, not everyone is a "pro" like you. This is news to nerds like us who do not have an engineering Degree.
==BeauHD==
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Umm, the coldest day of June was yesterday. As I backed out of my (unheated) garage my car told me it was 12.5 C. Outside it was about 4C.
And in summer the garage, at 6am, is easily 20+C. Outside it is likely to be warmer (the garage is insulated).
How is this useful? It's NOT cold!
Ooooh, it might be useful to those people who, for some strange reason, choose to live in places where water actually freezes OUTSIDE of a refrigerator freezer???
That is, in bugger all parts of the world?
Yeah... great advance I'm
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Yeah... great advance I'm sure.
[Yes, I'm being deliberately obtuse, as I know that for some reason/s large numbers of humans insist on living outside the comfortably habitable range of climate suited for humans, but I still do not know why they choose this].
Did you actually choose to live where you are, or was that choice made by someone else when you were a wee tot or before you were born? If so, did they make the choice based primarily on climate?
You may be correct that the climate you are living in is the objective optimal one, the fact that it is not currently completely buried in new immigrants seems to indicate that people generally do not decide where to live based on this type of thing.
There are economic reasons why people live in places with non-ideal
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That is all true, hence my use of the word 'choose'. Many don't choose to live in location X, it's just where they were born/grew up, etc.
I still find it somewhat puzzling that many of those able to move - don't.
Humans, eh?
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I am curious - did you move some from other less hospitable part of the planet or did someone else make the "smart choice" for you?
I am not as surprised as you that more people don't move to "better places", since climate is but one factor that is important to human decisions, and there are a WHOLE BUNCH of factors that are essentially randomly decided that get "baked into" the desirability of a location. "Hey what a pretty spot for a hunting campsite, I like the way that tree gives good shade next to the f
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A bit of karma served upon me, and deservedly so. Nicely done, sir or madam :)
I was born about 10km from I've lived in a city for the last 16 years, but I grew up in "the country", several hundred km away from the city, and moved around to other country towns until high school, which I attended at a boarding school in the 'big smoke' (city).
Since then I've lived in the city, country life is a bit bland and lacking of opportunities (jobs) unless you are in one of a few specific careers.
And yes, my entire cou
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Thanks for sharing. I don't know that there is much "karma served" - but these sorts of discussions can provide some interesting perspective.
As the product of a fairly similar "Commonwealth Colonial" legacy in Canada and the Northern US, I usually manage to convince myself that most of my life choices are the product of rational thoughts and decisions, rather than emotion and clever self justification of whatever my lizard-brain instincts have decided it wants or whatever the random history of my self, fami
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I have a Canadian friend, when she & family emigrated Downunder, they left 40 below to arrive, 3 days later, at 40 above.
Celsius.
She was not impressed.
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My wife had a student (actually their spouse) who did the opposite, getting on the plane in Africa at about +40 and arriving in Toronto at -40. He ended up deluding himself that winter was a fabulous wonder and took up skating and had his newborn signed up for hockey teams as soon as he could walk.
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Ice and snow are pretty awesome things to people who don't get to experience it 'at home', it's quite possible to enjoy freezing weather, even outside, if you can muck around in snow and stuff.
Though, admittedly, the ability to go "nup, had enough, going inside now" is kind of an essential, indeed integral, part of that enjoyment :)
Re:This is News? (Score:5, Informative)
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The real news is this 'sensor' that somehow knows what temperature it is and turns on the heater. That kind of thing could be useful in other ways. So many possibilities!
They should call it a 'thermo-switch'.
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And fit it with an Arduino and give it an IP address
In no time, it will be able to spam us all!
Re: This is News? (Score:1)
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Interesting, but would it run Linux?
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And can you make a Beowulf cluster of these things?
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15K miles per year is pretty close to average when taking age grouping into account.
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Different on different instances of the car. But it doesn't matter.
The batteries have more than one mode of ageing. One is driven mainly by time-since-manufacture, others by cycling. So after you drive it for 280,000 miles in, say, eight years OR park it for 12.5 years on a trickle charger, don't expect the car to work well any more (or the manufacturer's warranty to still be in f
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My MacBook Pro is now 7 years old, is used daily and still has 84% of its original capacity so you must be right. That is good news for me because I hope it will male the 15 years, considering the abysmal rubbish Apple has on the market now.
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Make, not male.
Why does THE site for nerds have such an archaic posting feature?
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Why does THE site for nerds have such an archaic posting feature?
Well, because nerds are very conservative when it comes to technology.
Nerds typically won't switch to new software unless it has been proven to be better than the old at almost everything.
Also, I wouldn't be so sure about Slashdot being "THE site for nerds".
It's more like the site for old farts who used to be nerds in the 90's.
You know, back in the days when Slashdot loaded quickly and had a better design.
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Spot on, LOL.
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I've got a 2008 VW Jetta with 255000 miles on it...
so.. they 'invented' this? (Score:3, Insightful)
essentially a resistance heater in an electricity storage device.. for when the natural heat generated from charging isn't 'enough' to keep a suitable temperature?
wow. it took 'til 2018 to come up with that?
next you're gonna tell me they got a cooler for batteries for use in hot climates.....
US PATENT#123456789: Battery With A Shelf Life. (Score:2)
essentially a resistance heater in an electricity storage device.. for when the natural heat generated from charging isn't 'enough' to keep a suitable temperature?
wow. it took 'til 2018 to come up with that?
next you're gonna tell me they got a cooler for batteries for use in hot climates.....
Basically, a PetSmart aquarium heater in the electrolyte. Generations of Canadians have known that hair dryers are Really Good Things at 4:AM and it's -30C and you car *MUST* *START* *NOW*. (Or, usually, within 15 minutes.)
The concept of heating a battery is nothing new. And I applaud any effort which brings practical renewable energy to any environment.
The gasoline engine is an absolutely beautiful thing, but it is an inefficient machine, and it wastes the vast majority of its input energy as the heat that
Comment removed (Score:5, Interesting)
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The first hybrid cars that came to market continuously trickle charged the lithium packs...
The first hybrid electric car was the Lohner-Porsche, which used lead acid batteries, but I assume you are referring to the Toyota Prius and Honda Insight, which employed NiMH. Lithium ion batteries offer far better specific energy density and other advantages, but should never, ever be trickle charged.
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I'm a big fan of Tesla and think they have the potential to disrupt the auto industry in very positive ways (if they already haven't), but I also believe it would be a mistake to characterize traditional car manufacturers as comparatively clueless when it comes to battery technology.
As I said, I'm a big fan of Tesla but their cars cost much more than I'm willing to spend on a vehicle. In fact I bike to work and a lot of places which is a dirt
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Sorry, I should have been clearer: the first Lithium hybrid cars had serious issues [wikipedia.org]. The manufacturers thought that the lithium batteries were simple drop in replacements for the NiMH and had them setup to trickle charge with the obvious results.
Such a mistake would be grade A incompetence on the part of the designers of the cars, and while your link does talk about lots of issues -- not a single one of those issues is attributed to trickle charging Li-ion cars.
I do not believe your claim that any electric or hybrid car manufacturer (let alone multiple manufacturers) actually thought that Lithium-Ion/LiPo/etc. batteries were a drop-in replacement for NiMH batteries and so they could still trickle charge them even when full. They would absolutely h
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The original Leaf 24 is fine without heating/cooling of the battery. There were some early issues but lack of cooling was not the problem.
The new Leaf 40 is major issues due to lack of thermal management. Most EVs do have at least cooling for the battery.
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The original Leaf 24 is fine without heating/cooling of the battery. There were some early issues but lack of cooling was not the problem.
The original Leaf was notorious for battery degradation in high temperatures. Nissan updated the battery chemistry (the so-called "lizard" pack) and that seemed to mitigate the worst problems. But cooling WAS the problem, and still is. Passive cooling does NOT work with LiON battery packs at this point in the game. The chemistries aren't there yet. Toyota and Ford use forced air from the cabin to keep their LiON cells cool, while GM and Tesla use liquid cooling loops. But Nissan does nothing and then
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s/limpwristed/corrupt/
No active cooling, heck that's just additional sales down the road, amirite?!
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Chevy seems to be doing pretty well in this area, actually. Like Tesla, the Chevy Bolt EV has active heating and cooling (as does the Chevy Volt, a PHEV). The Bolt has a dedicated heater for the battery coolant loop, and uses the same cooling as the air conditioning. When fast charging, it does start off slowly in cold weather, but it can get faster as the battery heats up. Chevy is more conservative than Tesla in many ways, though; for example, even fast charging on the Bolt is limited to 1C (not that ther
Tesla batteries last longer than that. (Score:5, Informative)
A group of Tesla owners on the Dutch-Belgium Tesla Forum are gathering data from over 350 Tesla vehicles across the world and frequently updating it in a public Google file. We have previously reported on the data, but they have since added many more vehicles and those vehicles have been driving a lot more – completing more battery cycles. The data clearly shows that for the first 50,000 miles (100,000 km), most Tesla battery packs will lose about 5% of their capacity, but after the 50,000-mile mark, the capacity levels off and it looks like it could be difficult to make a pack degrade by another 5%.
https://electrek.co/2018/04/14/tesla-battery-degradation-data/
The trend line currently suggests that the average battery pack could cycle through over 300,000 km (186,000) before coming close to 90% capacity.
Cycles vs. Miles (Score:5, Interesting)
If they say it can go 4500 cycles with a 20% degradation, then assuming a linear drop, a total distance of 280,000 miles implies...
280000/4500/0.9 -> 70 miles of range.
That's a compliance car. Even the Leaf is over 100 miles now, and most are over 200.
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I assumed (probably incorrectly) linear degradation. As such, 20% degradation at the end means an average of 10% degradation. The real formula would be an integral of the degradation curve, but what I used should be sufficient.
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It's not like there are a lot of pure EVs out there (excluding limited distribution compliance cars), so any generalization is flawed. The market clearly is moving towards a 200-mile minimum advertised range. But even 150 is about double the range cited in the article.
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And the important point is that quick charging is nearly irrelevant except on trips, and you don't take a short-range EV on a trip. Regular charging is mostly at home or work. People aren't generally buying EVs on the assumption that they'll fill them up at a quick charge station like they do with gas.
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And the important point is that quick charging is nearly irrelevant except on trips, and you don't take a short-range EV on a trip. Regular charging is mostly at home or work. People aren't generally buying EVs on the assumption that they'll fill them up at a quick charge station like they do with gas.
Absolutely true. People are far too hung up on charging stations and fast-charging concerns. They are stuck in the gas station mindset [understandably, to a degree] and worry a lot about non-issues. I've owned a Nissan Leaf for nearly 3 years and I've never taken it to a charging station. All of my charging has been in my garage by 120V "trickle" charge. I drive it almost every day. Obviously, it's local/commuter vehicle only, which won't work everyone, but if you have a 2-car household it's very easy to ge
Lies! (Score:1)
Re:Lies! (Score:5, Informative)
EVs work fine in the cold, but it does reduce their range. A friend of mine used the same cells that Tesla uses to power a light for his dog sled in the Iditarod, and it worked flawlessly at 40 below.
Some cars do worse in the winter than others. My Tesla may lose a third of its range in extreme cold while my Leaf loses more than half. Whether this makes a particular EV impractical for you depends on the car and your needs.
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Ok so everyone insisting that cold climates didn't affect EVs so I should definitely get an EV.... was lying to me?
Anyone saying that cold climates do not affect EV's either weren't specific enough in what they meant or were smoking something.
As stated by another poster, cold weather and more specifically, a cold battery, affects the range of the vehicle. I've read that it can be up to a 40% loss in distance.
Personally, I live in the New England area and would not feel comfortable owning an EV as my primary vehicle. Between cold snaps, winter storms, traffic, and some of the distances that I drive, there is, in my opi
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Ok so everyone insisting that cold climates didn't affect EVs so I should definitely get an EV.... was lying to me?
No. What you should do is get out of that anti EV echo chamber you and all your other nutters seem to hang about in.
Heating for Driving? (Score:3)
This sounds like it may be a nice solution for heating the battery during charging, but you also need to both heat and cool batteries during driving to keep them in the optimal temperature range. Can this also be used while also drawing power to drive the vehicle? It sounds like it only works with external power.
So if you assume that the battery will have external heating and cooling anyway, the elegance of the solution is lost, and now it's back to the question of whether this method of heating the battery is more efficient than using a traditional heating system.
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With the plug and the heating and the charging. More power to look after the battery.
....eh....ok (Score:2)
How far we have fallen if this is news.
Here's a free analog alternative (Score:2, Insightful)
Prior Art (Score:3)
I thought Samsung invented those....
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no they invented the round corners version
Tesla is already shipping it (Score:2)
Adding a heating coil to the charging circuit while plugged in is quite trivial.
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The Model 3 doesn't even have a dedicated heater element: it uses waste heat from the motor to heat the battery and has some way to use the motor for heating even when not moving.
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Key phrase, favorable conditions
Will a Heat Pump Work in Cold Weather? [mspplumbin...ingair.com]
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Correct. Heat pumps only make sense in environments where a cool [warm] source is available to drain [source] heat to [from]. According to BMW, "The operation of a heat pump in all its operating modes makes sense in a temperature range between -10C and +40C / +14F and +104F." Pretty much all populous areas of the planet are within this range as I write this, though I admit McMurdo Station in Antarctica is colder (-2F) and I may have missed an unusually cold mountain village or two in the southern hemisph
This tech is a stop gap (Score:3)
... fuel cells. The batteries are a stop gap. We need air breathing fuel cells to compete with hydrocarbon internal combustion engines.
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... fuel cells. The batteries are a stop gap. We need air breathing fuel cells to compete with hydrocarbon internal combustion engines.
I don't think fuel cells will take off. There are some pretty fundamental difficulties with them, and relatively little research investment is going into them -- certainly nothing to compare with the research going into improved batteries. We see another probably-significant battery research result every couple of weeks.
Further, BEVs already compete quite well with ICEVs. Not for all use cases, but many. Batteries are going to continue getting better, and cheaper, and moving BEVs into ever-broader roles,
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the use categories they're not competitive in are the ones where they're not commonly used... the internal combustion engine is to be challenged in those "use categories" then you need a technology that is competitive in them.
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But narrow use cases aren't going to drive a broad technology shift. More passenger vehicles are built than all other types combined, and BEVs have that use case pretty well covered now, and will have it fully covered within a few years. I expect Tesla's semi trucks to move the freight industry towards BEVs as well; the economics are pretty compelling.
No, I don't see fuel cells going anywhere. Batteries are going to continue moving into larger and larger swaths of the vehicle market and the remaining use
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time will tell
I don't see batteries having legs.
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The problem with using fuel cells in cars isn't the fuel cells. It's the fuel storage.
Home fuel cells are easy. You can pipe natural gas at low pressure to your house and crack it as needed with no real problem.
When you start putting hydrogen (or natural gas) in tanks at high pressure, you get problems due to the pressure cycling (think "Tank rupture") along with embritlement and in the case of hydrogen it's hard to keep _in_ the tank over a prolonged period.
Hydrogen is a "gee whiz" technology, but trhe rea
Ambient temps, constant heat? (Score:2)
So it seems there is no real logic to the sensor...if ambient temp is low, it heats.
I live in MN. What happens if this battery is sitting in a car outside when it -reasonably frequently - is -35c for a week? How much of the charge is them eaten by constant heating?
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I suspect that this heating system is only used prior to rapid charging a cold battery pack. Park your car for a week when it's not plugged in and I suspect the battery temp will drop to ambient. There may be some preheating logic that connects some loads and warms the battery up due to internal losses when it's time to drive off.
Back in the 'old days', we used to warm up a car's cranking battery in sub freezing weather by turning the headlights on for a few minutes.
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I have vivid memories of tromping down to the lot to see the local tow trucks circling like vultures. If
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You're kidding, right?
I'm 50, lived in MN in the Twin Cities and southern MN all my life.
For example, IIRC the winter of 1987 - I was a skating rink manager in my early college years, and we were required to close (for safety) when the temps were persistently below -20 - that winter, we were closed in Dec before Christmas more days than we were open.
Usually when it's hitting -35-40C, sure it's usually no more than a handful of days in row but 0F? It's an unusual winter when there AREN'T a week or more.
http [state.mn.us]
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The question I was responding to was was: "I live in MN. What happens if this battery is sitting in a car outside when it -reasonably frequently - is -35c for a week?"
Just to convert for people more used to Fahrenheit, -35 C is -31 F, - not that much different. The Fahrenheit and Celsius scales converge at about -40.
If I was going to be nitpicky, the phase "-35c for a week" would mean that the temp never varied from -35c for 7 st
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Seriously, if you don't want/need something don't fucking buy/steal or otherwise acquire the god damn thing. The market place, like the universe, doens't revolve around your sorry ass.
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Sure it's useful in Florida (Score:4, Insightful)
I take issue with your "Not useful in Florida" title.
Sure, in Florida (at normal temperatures) the battery/controller would go straight to charging (and the normal cooling fans or whatever would kick in once it got hot enough). So it would work just fine, though it wouldn't use the "heat me up first" feature.
Until some winter when you drive up to Michigan, Quebeck, Alaska, or the nearest ski mountain or place where your kids can make snowballs, park it overnight at a motel or resort (because all the charging stations are full), then charge it in the morning while you eat breakfast. Oops! THEN you'll want the feature to be installed.
(It's really low weight, so hauling around a extra power transistor and some nickel foil heating elements doesn't cut into your mileage.)
So even if you don't actually use it in Florida it's still useful there - to the dealer selling you the car. B-)
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I have a picture of a Model S charging at the supercharger in Pyhäjärvi in Finland. It was -35C at the time so they must have done something.
Sidenote: While double checking the name of the supercharger on Google maps I found that the maps entry had a picture of a Model S charging in winter so someone else was intrigued as much as I was ... even more so if he felt the need to post it on Google Maps.
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Who the hell's driving from Florida to Alaska?
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Yeah, it never gets that cold in Florida. That's why they never had problems with shuttle launches, and orange growers never panic about freezing.
I'll agree that it's rare to drop below freezing, but it does happen.
Also, it's not clear to me that the optimal charging temperature is anything above freezing. That's not a magic temperature when dealing with battery chemistry. I know my Tesla starts to have reduced regenerative braking below 45 or so until the pack warms up. For high speed charging, they'll
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Your temperature units are so shitty that you have to cut them in half for a thermostat. Your mass unit is so terrible that you had to multiply it by a thousand to be useful.
Ouch! What a burn! I am sure the rest of the world looks upon the non-metric system with envy.
They don't use it because they hate our freedom.