We've been keeping pretty close tabs on the Hyundai Avante / Elantra LPI mild electric hybrid. Just when we thought there couldn't possibly any new details to add about the propane burner, out pops a press release from the Korean manufacturer announcing that the LG Chem-supplied battery underpinning the hybrid component of the car will actually be lithium polymer (li-poly) as opposed to the lithium ion type that had been previously publicized. Now you may be thinking to yourself, understandably, "Ok, so what? What's that even mean?" Well, we could tell you that the electrolyte in the li-poly battery is held within a solid polymer composite instead of an organic solvent, but that probably wouldn't mean as much as the hard numbers describing its energy capacity and longevity and such. Unfortunately, those numbers weren't supplied by Hyundai who were content only to say this formulation has "...higher energy density, lower manufacturing costs, being more robust to physical damage and they can also take more charge–discharge cycles before storage capacity begins to degrade." Thank you, Hyundai.

We will have to take their word for those claims for now. If they do manage to begin retail sales of the car in Korea around this time next year, as currently planned, at least one of the other claim touted in their bulletin should indeed be true. They will be the first to feature this chemistry. For all the details and chest thumping, check out the press release after the break.

[Source: Hyundai]

Solar power has the highest power density among all renewable energies, so we should certainly be devoting a great deal of research into how best to capture and use that power. Being that solar electric power cells generally deliver their power in the form of DC current, as opposed to AC current like would be used in a home, it makes sense to pair solar power with batteries and battery powered devices. One problem with this strategy is that electronics tend to be small, and get smaller with each revision. Not only that, when one thinks of solar cells, they generally think of flat surfaces, of which there are few on electronic devices, or cars for that matter. Fortunately, all of these problems are being worked on, and solutions are being developed.

Take, for instance, this article from Technology Review. This article details what the European Polymer Solar Battery project has come up with: thin, flexible lithium polymer batteries with integrated solar recharging. What is noteworthy about this project is that the batteries must have a charging limiter built in to protect from over-charging the batteries. The batteries being used are the same as the ones used in the iPod nano. What possible problems might this be a solution to? Being a blog on automobiles, I think of the car battery. Removing the large lead-acid battery from under the hood and the associated charging system, i.e., the alternator or generator, belts and pulleys would obviously save gas and cut down on maintenance.

[Source: Technology Review]