Has Chevron stalled hybrid and electric vehicles?
Does Chevron make NiMH licensing for hybrids too hard?Who killed the electric car? GM did when it sold its stake in NiMH battery patents to Chevron many conspiracy theorists claim. Are they right?
Would there be many more hybrid vehicles today if not for Chevron? Read more.....
Labels: Camry hybrid, Hybrid Vehicles, lithium battery, toyota prius
posted by Dahcredyns at
8:07 AM
12 Comments:
Prismatic cells in the second gen (US) Prius are not large format. They are intentionally designed small enough to avoid law suit from Cobasys but they sued anyway.
Due to these small size (6.5Ah), Prius needs 168 of them. If large format cells can be build, the number of cells will be signaficantly less due to lower number of cells. This would also reduce the cost of the electronics (BMS)to control/maintain the pack as well.
A lawsuit that Toyota lost for the record.
Do you know if Toyota sells large format cells in hybrids outside the US? I assume they produce just one format because of economies of scale?
It's my understanding that the Cobasys lawsuit only involves cars sold in the US. It would be interesting to learn what the size and weight difference would be between large and small, and whether price, performance, etc. would be significantly affected.
I believe PEVE settled with Cobasys for the general NiMH chemistry technology.
RAV4 EV had very large format NiMH cells (95 Ah @288V making 27kWh). EV1 had similar size too and you don't see them anymore. Rav4 EV pack hold about 21 times more energy than Prius' HV pack.
Anything larger than 10Ah is considered "large format". The US patent number is #5558950. Here is the direct link: http://patft.uspto.gov/netacgi/nph-Parser?Sect1=PTO2&Sect2=HITOFF&p=1&u=%2Fnetahtml%2FPTO%2Fsearch-bool.html&r=13&f=G&l=50&co1=AND&d=PTXT&s1=5558950&OS=5558950&RS=5558950
Rav4 EV had 10 cells per modules and there are 24 modules. Each cell makes 1.2V.
There is no conspiracy as it is a matter of public record. GM sold its rights which were gobbled up by Cobasys. Toyota was sued for 30 million and then large format NiMH batteries (i.e. Panasonic EV-95) ceased to exist. Toyota can sell all the 1.3 kWh NiMH batteries that it likes. We need 29 kWh batteries like the ones in RAV4 EV's.......
Yes, it has. The battery has been perfected and running in all electric Toyota Ravs for years. They are pushing the crappy hybrids and pretending these Toyotas don't exists. Clearly, they want to keep selling oil.
So, Americans would go nuts trying to buy a RAV EV for $60,000? Please.
To answer dahcredyns: Americans ARE going nuts trying to buy a Toyota Rav4 for $60K. When one comes up for sale on EBAY they hit that price, even though there is usually more than 100K miles on the car (and still functioning battery). That's not the major point though. If the Large Format NiMH battery were allowed to be sold, then mass production whould bring down the price so that more consumers could afford the battery electric vehicle.
While it's true Lithium has more energy and weighs less than NiHM, so far there are no Large Format Lithium batteries available, so Lithium batteries in cars are costly due to the fact that about 6000 individual Lion cells need to be soldered together as with the Tesla.
Big Oil killed the 95AH large Format NiMH battery because they know that it would have brought electric cars into the mainstream for those of us who drive less than 100 miles between charge-ups.
I don't disagree that some Americans are willing to pay a lot for EVs, but I don't believe there enough consumers, even today, to achieve the proper scales of economy for automaker profitability, which is why Tesla is focused on the two-seat, $100,000 Roadster to start.
And, let's be frank about Tesla's battery solution, most in the battery and automotive world believe its nonsense, it's simply not cost-effective.
But back to NiMH. Toyota had to develop an entire division focused just on securing cost-effective copper contracts for the last several years, in addition to Nickel and other battery resources, knowing that NiMH would forever only be an interim solution. Spreading this technology into as many hybrids as possible was a smarter move, in my opinion, than putting these batteries into far less EVs that cost more and achieve less in terms of consumer expectations. It also helped scale down the costs of other vehicle electrification components more efficiently than would have been achieved with few EVs.
Ironically, when Toyota launched the 2nd gen Prius they had to convince consumers that it wasn't a plug-in vehicle. And yet, I believe the Prius has helped consumer re-evaluate the prospects of EVs, especially PHEVs.
And, finally, back to NiMH patents. Patents are part of industry. The Escape hybrid is what it is because of HSD patents. Should Toyota then be blamed for limited Escape hybrid production?
The same will happen with many EV components, especially batteries and their chemistries. Patent law is a huge part of American business, whether good or bad.
If the electrification of the automobile cannot move forward because of patents, then it has no future.
I’m tired of the talk about hybrids. I want a pure battery electric car, but I know we won’t see one built by the car companies we grew up with.
Who does not want EV’s in our driveways:
-Big Automakers, because they, and their dealer networks do not earn significant revenue by selling cars. A look at how large their service departments are (and our out-of-wallet experience with them) shows what’s at stake revenue-wise because EV’s never need service beyond tire changes. EV’s don’t even need brake jobs due to electronic regenerative braking that does most of the work. Their ordinary friction brake pads and rotors thus last the life of the car (as shown on the Toyota electric Rav4).
The large established car companies depend on their service department, like printer companies depend on sales of ink cartridges. So why did Toyota sell the Rav4 instead of leasing and crushing as GM did with the EV1? It’s a mystery, but I came across a blog that mentioned that a Toyota exec at a public speech mistakenly said that the cars would be sold, and so to save face, Toyota reluctantly sold the Rav4. Buyers, however, now post on blogs that they actually had difficulty in getting the Toyota dealer to sell them an electric Rav4 and that they were highly pressured to instead buy a Gas Toyota or a Prius.
-Large oil companies, for obvious reasons. Note they are also major stockholders in auto companies and thus probably have influence over their board of directors.
Business firms exist to make profits, but profits are going to be reduced if EV’s replace the ICE car. Much of our economy is based on the automobile, and its upkeep. Almost every business is related in some way to the car. What will happen to employment if the need to service a car is reduced?
What happens to Midas, Pepboys, Kragen’s, smog check, AMCO, gas stations, Jiffylube, general service repair centers, the manufacturing plants that fabricate repair parts, the UPS people that deliver the parts, the corner deli or Taco Bells frequented by those firm’s workers at lunchtime? What about government agencies that depend on collecting all manner of tax revenue from the above interlinked economy?
If people understand this scenario, then they will understand why they can’t yet buy an EV from the legacy business infrastructure. Only recently can one sniff the scent of a potential EV from upstart EV start-up manufacturers like Tesla (too costly for mass production partly because they hand-solder a battery pack of 6000 Lithium AA sized cells together in series-parallel groups), Aptera, and even the tiny BugE, etc., because a startup company does not need to address the risk that a service-free vehicle will parasitically affect revenue from other parts of its company.
Curiously, Nissan’s CEO has advocated a pure EV but I have a hard time believing he really will build one and that the announcement is mostly PR in nature. After all, Nissan has service centers, too.
I found a Chinese battery that could break the present stranglehold on battery sources for EVs, hopefully available to the EV conversion market. It is a large format Lithium cell of the long lasting and "safe" chemistry, LiFePO4. Here is the link for a 90AH single cell:
http://www.thunder-sky.com/pdf/TS-LFP90.pdf
I have suspected that it would be the Chinese that would actually build EVs as I think (hope) they are independent from the Western business forces that have blocked EVs so successfully over here. I have been to China on business and I have seen the rapid industrialized growth presently taking place there. I don't they will allow themselves to be locked into petroleum.
Chinese Lithium batteries, 24V, 36V, and 48V, are already for sale on EBAY for electric bikes, and they are priced at about 1/3 the cost of American ones.
It may be unpatriotic to cheer-on and wish for market success for a Chinese firm that may flood our market with products, but in the area of EV's I will since it's apparent that our companies will only build EVs reluctantly (and so far, will not).
I don't think its unpatriotic to hope for Chinese innovation in the battery space.
Still, how has "safe chemistry" been proven?
Toyota thought they had a safe cobalt based lithium technology as well, but that was proven wrong. It's not just developing a battery that does well in lab tests, even on the roads, its mass-producing and maintaining cell integrity that is the real trick.
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