In 2001, a professor of materials science and engineering at MIT, Yet-Ming Chiang, announced some promising results concerning new battery materials. But those materials might still be in the lab today were it not for Ric Fulop, then an enterprising 26-year-old from Venezuela. Today, the materials are being used to make high-performance batteries that General Motors is testing for use in its new electric car, the Volt.
Fulop founded his first company--which imported computer hardware and software and sold it to Venezuelan retailers--at the age of 16. He has since founded five more companies, including one, Into Networks, whose software is used in the Windows Vista operating system. But it is at A123 Systems, the company he founded with Chiang in 2001, that Fulop has had his greatest success. Now the company's vice president of business development, he has helped A123 raise over $250 million, including investments from Sequoia Capital, GE, and OnPoint, the venture capital initiative of the U.S. Army. A123's batteries can already be found in power tools, airplanes, and hybrid buses.
Fulop dropped out of college to found one of his companies, only to return for an MBA after starting A123. But despite a lack of academic training in materials science, he is quick to grasp technical details. He spent months scouring scientific journals, attending conferences, and picking the brains of university technology licensing officers before his search led him to Yet-Ming Chiang. And thanks to this preparation, it took just one meeting to convince the MIT professor that Fulop's idea for a battery company was sound.
Commercializing battery technology, especially for new cars, is a capital-intensive and risky business. To help jump-start the company, Fulop helped negotiate a deal with Black and Decker to supply batteries for the power-tool market. Not only did the agreement give A123 an early and much-needed source of revenue from an industrial customer, but it was an ideal way to start testing its production technology for the much larger automotive market. In 2006, partly on the strength of the company's success in reliably producing millions of battery cells a year for power tools, Fulop and his partners persuaded GM to give A123 a chance. The automaker is testing two different battery technologies for its Volt, with a decision expected by the end of the year. If GM does select A123's technology, Fulop will have played a key role in making possible the United States' first mass-produced electric car. --Kevin Bullis
Full Version
Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Comments
A123 Claims:
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http://www.a123systems.com/html/tech/power.html
A123Systems M1 cells offer the highest commercially available
power density of any Li Ion chemistry: Our high power products are
able to pulse at discharge rates as high as 100C and deliver over
3000W/kg, over an order of magnitude better than conventional
Lithium-Ion cells and with their low impedance and thermally
conductive design, A123 cells can be continuously discharged to
100% depth of discharge at 35C rate, a marked improvement over all
other rechargeable battery alternatives.
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http://www.a123systems.com/html/_chart_popUps/techComp.html
Parameter A123 Ml LiIon
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Power Density >3,000 W/Kg 1,350 W/Kg
Weight to discharge @ 1,500W 0.9 lbs 2.75 lbs
Life at 100% DoD >1,000 500
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However, it would seem that Lithium sulfur cells may be superior:
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http://www.electronicsweekly.com/Articles/2000/04/05/15579/lithium-sulphur-holds-key-to-future-of-battery-power.htm
Lithium sulphur, offering far higher performance than lithium ion, will be the chemistry of the next generation of batteries if Berkeley-based PolyPlus has anything todo with it. ... Power packed… A lithium-sulphur laboratory cell. PolyPlus claims between 150 and 400Wh/kg. This is more than any lithium ion device. ... Lithium sulphur system is expected, by PolyPlus, to deliver more than twice the energy capacity of lithium ion batteries and use low-cost, non toxic materials. Operating voltages 2.1V ...
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And it would appear that the UK military is currently using lithium-sulphur dioxide batteries, click for full article.
And the US military is too, click for full article.
LDighera
09/02/2008
Posts:13
If so, this will not be an ideal battery system for car since it will cost you a fortune to replace each time you run out of juice.
Even Saft seems to be providing Li-ion and Ni-MH Hybrid battery system for EV and HEV market.
Or is there rechargeable Li-S02 battery out there that you can point me to? (or for that matter, anybody out there who can?)
mit4
09/03/2008
Posts:2
They are risking too much in a sensible moment for GM, SAFT, VALENCE etc has been in the labs for 10 years or more, Valence is moving people with Segway (no hand tools) and they are having a hard way...Ric(ardo) be careful.
advil
09/03/2008
Posts:5
http://www.edn.com/blog/1700000170/post/1640032164.html?nid=2433&rid=548996647
thrunner
09/03/2008
Posts:1
Even if Li-So2 is a commercially available item with it 60 or so recycle life as it stands anything less than 100,000 recharge cycle is not a number car company may be looking for.
And, as important if not more, safety of the battery has to be proven again, again. Since car blowing up (worst PR) is the last thing any car company wants...and as of yet, Li SO2 is still widely known to have that tendency.
mit4
09/04/2008
Posts:2
while waiting for new, better and (maybe) "perfect" (very-high-capacity/very-fast-charging/very-low-cost/very-small-dimensions) FUTURE batteries, there's NO NEED to have them NOW, but (just) to SWAP today's technology batteries, paying ONLY the "energy" inside them, as FIRST suggested 16 months in MY "cellphoneCAR" article:
http://www.gaetanomarano.it/articles/033cellphoneCAR.html
and, now, it seems that, the Israeli company "BetterPlace" actually wants to do that soon:
http://www.betterplace.com/
.
Gaetano Mara...
10/23/2008
Posts:120
Planning on using them in electric cars caused people to look at the supply of Lithium salts and to quickly conclude that they are mostly in lake beds in northern S. America in Bolivia & Columbia if I remember right, where politics is tough & could affect supply.
In addition, there is not enough readily availably Lithium in the Earth's crust for long time supply for automakers to handle a century of car production.
Ultimately it seems another battery chemistry is likely to prevail.
Bonobo
10/23/2008
Posts:8