AutoblogGreen

Ah I think this might be the one referred to here:

http://www.toshiba.co.jp/about/press/2005_03/pr2901.htm

Looks like they're not too far off their anticipated performance too. Good to see it's arrived at last!

Reply

Good news!

Reply

GM has an open door policy on batteries for the Volt. The Japanese declined to bid.

Reply

Hmmm... Guess it's good news for battery technology, but I wish it had come from a company that is run by people who don't think it's ok to sell out their country (and mine) for money. Treason should carry the death penalty, not be rewarded with more business.

Reply

From reading the press release on the link "scatter" had provided, it appears that this new battery tecnology is cost competitive to conventional LiIon batteries, and with a slightly higher energy density as well. Bad news for Altairnano, worse news for H2 promoters, good news for everyone else wanting to drive electric.

Reply

Many of the folks on AltairNano's message board (yahoo/finance) have digested today's news from Toshiba. At first, the 5-minute charge claimed by Toshiba was seen as a threat to Altair's Nanosafe battery, but no longer. The 5-minute charge time claimed by Toshiba is actually on the module level (10 cells placed in series), and does not reflect the time it takes to charge an entire battery pack, as in something like a 16- or 32kw-hr pack that Altair claims it's Nanosafe battery pack can charge in under 10 minutes.

It's also important to note that Toshiba's claim is only for 90% charge status, while the Nanosafe battery can easily charge to 100% without any resistance (i.e. it takes even longer for the Toshiba battery to charge from 90% to 100% than it does from 80% to 90%).

Lastly, since Toshiba didn't release the energy density figures, several Alti geeks had to run the numbers....and they don't look good for Toshiba.

Will somebody (EDTA, others?) please create a standard protocal for measuring and releasing statistics on the performance of Li-Ion batteries? Any company can describe how well their batteries perform in a million different ways, so as their battery appears to be superior.

Reply

The press release says a single module has a voltage of 2.4V, and an electric charge of 4.2Ah in a package that has a mass of 150g. 2.4V*4.2Ah/.15Kg=67.2Wh/Kg. that number is hardly impressive as its far less than Li-ion and less than most NiMH cells.

Reply

All well and good for all of these new battery technologies as well as some of the other "solutions" I have read about, but at what price? Maybe the new protocol should be to judge a battery or new technology by not only how much juice it pours out or how quickly it is charged or whatever but also by how much CO2 it takes to produce it or take it out of service (can it be recycled or just added to our woes?) minus the amount of CO2 that it saves going into the atmosphere by running a vehicle with it. Don't forget that every one of these needs to get electricity from somewhere. All technologies sound great at first until you analyze them from every aspect. Look at ethanol. That's turning out to be a huge mess since it is now affecting food prices and water reserves. There are no adequate benchmarks or protocols for any of these so how can we form an intelligent decision to determine whose mousetrap is the best thing out there? Things sometimes only look green until you flip them over and twirl them around a bit and see that their bellies are black and blue. My thoughts.

Reply

It is interesting that Toshiba and Toyota are in the same keiretsu (Japanese business group) but Toyota seems to be working with Panasonic on the lithium based battery for the new generation Prius. This battery would be quite ideal for the 2008 Prius and maybe for the plug-in Prius Toyota is working on.

Reply

Any news on improved batteries for Mobile phones coming out of this??
I have a power hungry Nokia N95, and I would love a battery that last all day at least with the functions I use my battery is lucky to last 1 hour.

Reply

New battery technology never lives up to the hipe cycle life or discharge rate amps, or price compared to lead acid.The death of the interal combustion engine has been greatly exagerated by the press,when a battery is made with a energy density geater a 20 gallon gass tank I would be a convert.

Reply