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News Release from: Advanced Lead-Acid Battery Consortium
Edited by the Engineeringtalk Editorial
Team on 05 February 2002
New life for lead-acid batteries
Lead-acid battery technology is gaining the upper hand in the race to equip the next generation of automobiles with energy saving power trains.
Lead-acid battery technology is gaining the upper hand in the race to equip the next generation of automobiles with energy saving power trains, industry researchers will tell a conference in Las Vegas this week The lead battery specialists will tell the second Advanced Automotive Battery Conference being held in Las Vegas (4th-7th February 2002) that lead-acid technology is the only "acceptable cost" technology the auto industry has available to it if it is to seriously address the issues of improved miles per gallon and emissions performance, now being promised in hybrid electric vehicles
This article was originally published on Engineeringtalk on 28 Sep 2004 at 8.00am (UK)
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Already the first lead-acid battery packs to power a Honda Insight hybrid electric car are being assembled in the UK following delivery of specially built lead-acid cells, made by Hawker Energy in America to a design jointly developed with CSIRO in Australia (patent pending).
The new lead-acid battery pack, developed by a research team jointly sponsored by the Advanced Lead-Acid Battery Consortium (ALABC), the UK Department of Trade and Industry, the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council and Hawker Energy, will be retrofitted to the Honda vehicle, presently fitted with expensive nickel metal hydride (Ni-MH) battery technology.
Testing of the units will take place later this year.
This new battery system incorporates features not previously seen in commercial lead-acid batteries.
These include onboard battery diagnostics and management at the cell level, thermal management and an in-built cell conditioning system to keep the battery in peak condition.
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Pat Moseley ALABC programme research manager says: "The 42 volt power net and the hybrid EV require that the battery operates in a 'partial-state-of-charge' (PSoC) condition which avoids the traditional life-limiting factors of lead-acid, but does bring some new challenges.
The concerted research programme of the ALABC is showing how the valve-regulated lead-acid battery can be made to cope well with the new PSoC regime by development of the grid design, by modifications to the materials used in battery manufacture and the incorporation of a sophisticated but low-cost battery management system.
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"These developments will allow the battery chemistry with the lowest cost to serve the developing markets for 42-volt and hybrid electric vehicles effectively".
To date the auto industry has looked at newer battery chemistries to solve its requirements.
But there is increasing evidence that the auto makers are concerned that these newer technologies cannot deliver on price and performance.
As proof of this, both Ford and GM have publicly stated that they are reconsidering lead-acid battery technology for hybrid vehicle usage.
An example of such evidence of the industry's growing disillusion with the rival Ni-MH technology comes from an unusual source - the biennial World Solar Challenge event in Australia, held last autumn.
Australian battery specialist and race battery scrutineer Dr David Rand, writing in the specialist journal Batteries International magazine, points out that not one entry in this event, seen as a major proving ground from hybrid and electric car technology, used Ni-MH technology.
He writes: "Could it be that Ni-MH might also struggle to compete with lithium, and even lead-acid, in various commercial markets? The specific power and energy of some Ni-MH batteries are not that impressive.
Moreover, the need for significant thermal management increases the weight and volume of the finished battery to the point where the values of these two parameters are actually greater than those for comparable valve-regulated lead-acid batteries.
Other weaknesses of Ni-MH include high self-discharge, poor low-temperature performance, and mediocre charge-efficiency at high temperatures".
(This was Engineeringtalk's Top Story on 4 February 2002).
(This was Engineeringtalk's Top Story on 4 February 2002).
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