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MOTORINDIA
l
January 2012
and trucks because they have no
problems of hydrogen distribution
and their operators look at payback
and green image more than up-front
cost. Lead acid batteries will be the
losers.
Lithium-ion batteries are expen-
sive, but their costs will drop to at
least one-third in the next decade,
according to developers, while tiny
new range extenders and multi-
ple energy harvesting reduce the
amount of battery needed anyway.
See
www.electricvehiclesre-
search.com for reports “Energy Har-
vesting for Electric Vehicles 2011-
2021” and “Range Extenders for
Electric Vehicles 2011-2021”.
Electrochemical double layer ca-
pacitors are known as ultracapaci-
tors or more commonly supercapac-
itors. They have four times the life
of rechargeable batteries, tolerate
much faster charge-discharge and
employ readily available materials.
Traditionally they are used across
batteries in electric vehicles to
cope with regenerative braking and
fast charging stations. Their self-
discharge and energy density has
been poor, but now there are some
that self-discharge in a month rather
than a day and some now have the
energy density of a lead acid battery.
Certain electric buses run on super-
capacitors alone.
Indeed, Elon Musk, founder of
Tesla electric car company, thinks
supercapacitors are the future, not
batteries. On that journey, both
technologies have been combined
in experimental “supercabatteries”,
and there are lead acid versions of
these, though they are not the most
promising.
Death by a thousand cuts
Clearly, lead acid batteries are
suffering death by a thousand cuts
and the end will come more sud-
denly than most expect. We concede
that a few people still make tools out
of flint and niche markets for lead
acid will remain. Nonetheless, there
may be an alternative view, and
IDTechEx seeks a proponent of lead
acid batteries to speak at its forth-
coming Electric Vehicles Land Sea
Air event in San Jose, California,
during March 27-29 next (www.
IDTechEx.com/evUSA)
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