Filed under: EV/Plug-in, AutoblogGreen Exclusive
Everything you ever wanted to know about Ener1's batteries
If you were planning on breaking into Ener1 headquarters to steal secret papers about their super batteries, put away the ninja outfit. Ener1 is a public company, and slides they plan to use in investor presentations October and November, were filed with the SEC today and will be available at the company website. All the slides say "confidential" at the end because it has amazing information from their battery's chemistry to internal company milestones.
For example, Ener1 will show a demonstration car (Prius?) in December and they will deliver prototype battery packs to Th!nk (they just signed a deal) in March 2008. The SEC file even has pictures of a safety test, details of the inner workings of the battery; everything anyone would need to steal ... I mean see to confirm Ener1's extraordinary claims on their battery cost and capacity. Any chemists reading this?
[Source: Ener1, SEC]
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
AES 3:46PM (10/29/2007)
Most of the information on that technical presentation has actually been available on their website for some time now - pure cut and paste. They don't explicitly talk about energy density or ANY of the exact specs other than cycle life, so there is still a lot of information being kept secret.
The only thing really new in the document is a cycle life diagram for their hard carbon anode cells.
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Lascelles Linton 4:55PM (10/29/2007)
AES... where? I have found very little at the website.
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BlackbirdHighway 6:26PM (10/29/2007)
From what I have been able to determine, the energy density of their batteries is significantly lower than regular Lithum-Ion cells, so you would end up with a shorter range. They do have lots of other great attributes like long life and thermal stabilty, so if they can somehow get the energy density up, then it's great product.
I'm not really clear if they support quick recharge, didn't see that in the presentation, so I guess not.
Eventually, someone is going to come up with a battery about twice the density of current Lithium-Ion, with thermal stability, long life, and quick recharge, at about half the cost of current batteries.
That will be the end of oil based transportation. It could happen next year, or it could be in ten years, maybe longer, but eventually it will happen.
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AES 2:18AM (10/30/2007)
LL-
A lot of the crucial info has been under "products" and "advantages" section of their website.
It's worth noting that the HC anode cell seems to have poor cycle life, especially relative to the competition. But then again, it's a work in progress compared to the LTO cells.
Energy density for LTO cells isn't mentioned, but the HEV pack as a whole is supposed to be 600Wh and 23kg total weight.
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Lascelles Linton 4:16AM (10/30/2007)
AES, Thanks. You are right. Enerdel's website. Not Ener1. I still think there is more than just one new thing even on the technical side. The company press release said the chemistry was new.
Density was mentioned too. They may just have begun testing so don't have data graphs. Here is that quote; "We are also encouraged that initial tests on our high energy density EV and PHEV batteries exhibit good cycle life and rate capability."
Anyway, do any of you know of anyone trying to validate this? I would love to write about it.
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AES 2:21PM (10/30/2007)
EnerDel only recently started their PHEV program, from interviews I've read, so we may have to wait a while before there's anything to validate. The "high energy" EV and PHEV packs probably refers to hard carbon anode, and that technology is evidently a work in progress, given the relatively poor cycle life compared to something like an A123 or Saft battery. The LTO packs for HEVs are apparently a bit more mature.
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Joseph 11:56PM (10/30/2007)
The slides show the batteries intheir own packaging and modules and all.
I guess this means for sure, that Ener1 is providing the batteries and the modules/cooling/electronics ect.
So, I guess, this would mean that Tesla's ESS systems are not completely out of the picture.
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Joseph 11:56PM (10/30/2007)
typo!
I mean that this must mean now tha Tesla's ESS systems are NOW completely out of the picture.
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Timo 10:54AM (12/13/2007)
@Joseph
Not likely. That Enerdel battery has much much weaker energy density than Tesla ESS. Almost half with the Hard Carbon and about third with LTO.
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Timo 11:11AM (12/13/2007)
Correction. Tesla ESS has about 117Wh/kg and Enerdel Hard Carbon battery is almost exactly same (if I calculated it right). Difference is minimum, and battery safety is much better. What made me wrote nonsense is that I did compare Enerdel battery pack energy density to individual batteries used by Tesla. Tesla Battery pack safety features makes it much heavier than it would need to be with safer batteries.
Though Tesla ESS will improve quite a bit before Enerdel is ready with theirs.
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