The Oil Drum: Australia/New Zealand | The Air Car Part 2

46 comments on The Air Car Part 2 - Q & A With Louis Arnoux of IT-MDI

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GreyFlcn on January 20, 2008 - 3:10am

==The air tanks are here and now with no moving parts. They aren't that expensive. But batteries (that don't exist yet) will be expensive. Same for ultra-capacitors. They don't exist yet and will be expensive.==

Ah good point.
I guess I should say "SuperCapacitor"
Like those Produced by Maxwell Technologies.

They don't have large storage, but they do have quick storage.

Thats the reason you would have a lead-acid battery mixed with a super-cap.
So you can get the benefits of both quick recharge (for regenerative braking) and a decent volume of storage.

I'd hardly call that mixture "Exotic".

_

And anyways, battery production tends to have a massive "economies of scale" price reduction.
Much in the same way as microprocessors.

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Big Gav on January 20, 2008 - 6:40am

On the subject of mixing supercapacitors with lead batteries, check out this report at GCC on a CSIRO initiative:

http://www.greencarcongress.com/2008/01/csiro-ultrabatt.html

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CalGuy on January 20, 2008 - 2:57pm

You can also see the AFS Trinity VUE hybrid using supercapacitors to increase battery life. They have submitted a provisional patent on their design and are trying to get auto companies interested.

http://www.greencarcongress.com/2008/01/afs-trinity-unv.html

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