Pilot Production Begins for New Electric Vehicle Batteries
1 April 1998
Pilot Production Begins for New Electric Vehicle Batteries
Some Vehicles Will Drive Twice as Far on One Charge, But Costly
SOUTHFIELD, Mich., April 1 -- Pilot production begins this
year of new batteries with approximately 70 times the energy of an average
laptop computer battery, designed to move electric vehicles up to twice as far
as today's electric vehicles.
But the powerful new batteries that last three times longer and work
better in cold weather than today's advanced lead-acid batteries are several
times more expensive, according to the United States Advanced Battery
Consortium (USABC).
"The start-up of pilot production of nickel metal hydride batteries for
electric vehicles is a significant step toward giving consumers more choices
in electric cars," said Robert Hayden, executive director of the Electric
Vehicle Association of the Americas. "This is essential for bringing down the
cost of these longer-range batteries. Moving into pilot production is an
impressive success story for the USABC."
Developed through a unique government-industry partnership, the
maintenance-free and recyclable nickel metal hydride battery packs for
electric vehicles are being manufactured by GM-Ovonic Co. of Troy, Mich., and
Saft America, Inc. of Valdosta, Ga. Some of these battery packs are in
vehicles on the road already, while others will make their way into vehicles
this fall, says Bob Davis, Chrysler's representative to the USABC.
The batteries from GM-Ovonic are being made available in GM's EV1 electric
car and S-10 Electric pickup truck. The Saft batteries will appear in
Chrysler EPIC minivans after midyear. Ford will offer nickel metal hydride
batteries in its electric Ranger EV in the latter half of the year.
Since 1992, the USABC has spent over $90 million on the research and
development of nickel metal hydride batteries. Funding for the projects is
split equally between industry and DOE.
During the past decade, nickel metal hydride batteries have proven
themselves in laptop computers, cellular phones, video cameras and other
products in use worldwide. But adapting nickel metal hydride technology for
electric vehicle application has been challenging for battery developers
because of the need to provide electric vehicles with the same performance as
conventionally-powered vehicles at a significantly lower cost per unit of
energy compared to the smaller consumer batteries. Battery developers have
had over one hundred years' experience working with lead-acid battery
technology, whereas nickel metal hydride batteries were invented just 12 years
ago. These and other factors explain the high cost of the new batteries,
which at pilot production levels are still several times more expensive than
USABC's commercialization cost target.
The new batteries are the result of battery developers' research contracts
with the USABC, a partnership of Chrysler Corp., Ford Motor Co., General
Motors Corp., the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE), the Electric Power Research
Institute and its utilities. USABC is one of 12 research consortia under the
auspices of the United States Council for Automotive Research (USCAR), formed
by Chrysler, Ford and GM in 1992 to coordinate their pre-competitive research.
Nickel metal hydride batteries offer several technical advantages over the
lead-acid batteries used in conventional vehicles and electric vehicles
already on the market. First, because they have double the energy of a lead-
acid battery by weight, says Mark Verbrugge, GM's representative on the team,
in some applications, like General Motors' EV1 electric vehicle, the effective
over-the-road range is doubled by changing from lead-acid to nickel metal
hydride batteries. Second, they can accept over three times as many charges
and discharges (known as a battery's "cycle life") as lead-acid batteries,
increasing the projected miles of urban driving over the vehicle's life. The
new batteries also outperform lead-acid in cold weather conditions. This is
important because batteries typically have less available energy in the cold,
thereby shortening an electric vehicle's range.
For more information on the USABC or USCAR, visit http://www.uscar.org.
SOURCE USCAR