High power density means you can re-charge the at a high rate. A battery re-charge rate of 10KWh/min should be sufficient for most fast charging requirements. Fast public charging is very important to EV adoption. As the mean daily travel in the US is only 30 miles per day. Long range batteries carry a weight penalty for general use. 35% of car owners won't have access to home charging. For owners who need a vehicle for longer trips the size of battery would be defined by the charging intervention rate, (how frequently people are prepared to stop). I guess 2-3 hours driving with <5mins re-charge might be good enough for most.

Fair point Jay Dubs but you should be more concerned about CO2 pollution from gasoline. The impact on the planet and our society is far greater. Battery plants are regulated to treat emissions and not release contaminants into the water table. If they are responsible and conform to legal requirements there should not be a serious concern. Unless you are making batteries in China. Maybe they only worry when more than 10,000 people start growing a third arm.

Here you have it officially.... http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:T629172A.gif Between themselves China and the US are screwing the rest of the planet. You could try whipping US and Chinese asses, but I suspect you will get ignored.

Every year more and more coal is dug out of the ground, more and more oil and gas is drilled. It never reduces. (Except for the recent short term decline in oil production) Nobody should be suprised there is more CO2. All countries behave the same. Those that have large coal resources (e.g. US and Australia) mine more and ship it to India and China. The same countries pay just enough lip service to reneawable energy to appease the local population. I believe we can only move forward by making an effort to reduce world production of carbon. Reducing demand for energy is like asking people to drink less water. We will never halt AGW digging and burning more carbon every year. The richer producers should be the first ones to consider capping production rates. I don't wish to start a war, but it might even be an advantage for the West to cause an increase in China and India raw material costs. Indonesia and other coal producers can only supply so much coal. I suspect they could be pusuaded to cap and control exports following a US and Australia lead. China can whistle as hard as they like.

Clett's right. We should also spend billions on battery plants instead of sticking notes down bankers bikinis.

I'm outraged. What a bunch of paid tarts who write these things.

Ehh...pardon me... I saw those when I actually read the article.

Could they think of some better uses for the material?

I feel a bit sad, but it puts real customer demand for BEV's in perspective. We need peak oil or $2/gallon tarrif, otherwise it will be business as usual.

That was refreshingly off topic.. Thank you Arnold. $7.5M to make that little Noddy car in the picture. Great Britain is really looking up.

What size of unit? If each unit is 24KWh each (as in the leaf) that would add up to a helluva lot of battery. Putting this much buckaroo on the table they have to believe they can achieve low enough battery costs to sell in big numbers. Renault Nissan are becoming my most favourite car company. I also suspect GM spout BS on battery costs, so they can overcharge on the early model Volt.

You said you were not going to argue. Red rag to a bull! How did you know you were the crackpot? Anyway your points are valid. $ for $ low range PHEV's may have a bigger impact reducing fossil fuel use than long range PHEV's. I would rather see a lot of PHEV 20's than a few PHEV 40's.

All very technical. I conclude this will NOT revolutionize the auto industry anytime soon. No revolving puns intended.

255 trucks on the order books is worthy. That's going to generate a fair bit of battery volume. From a previous article on the arrangement with Valence Smith said they were aiming for $500 per KWh. That included BMS and controls. Gives me quite a bit of hope on the road to $250/KWh and below.

I think its something similar. Didn't MIT use nano rods to absorb the volume change of the silicon? Where this is using a composite structure. I think 10X increase in Anode capacity can only lead to ~2X increase in overall battery capacity as the anode is only XX% of the total capacity. Interesting that this is patented with Varta. I hope it could actually lead to commercialisation in the next 5 years. No sign of commercialisation from the MIT disclosure thus far.

That's an interesting snippet on carbon fibre cost competetiveness. I still think the problem is that it's more labour and time consuming to process than steel. Thus much more costly in finished form. Rocky Mountain institute had a fibre forge development that looked really promising. What happened to that?

@175 Wh/Kg a 25KWh battery weighs a fairly respectable 142Kg. Less packaging and controls of course. I always thought Electrovaya had the most energy dense batteries around. This looks different to the really high energy polymer stuff, maybe someone can enlighten me.

"coal-biomass-to-liquids via FT synthesis......could conceivably reduce aviation’s impact on both global climate change and air quality." This paragraph is conceivably utter BS.

The original Agressor had a fuel cell. Nice, but might be limited in range behind enemy lines. I'd like a bio-diesel diesel hybrid option for a special forces operations. If running out of gas you can hold up a fish and chip shop.

I don't think Australia can sustain it's economy and way of life without extensive mining and export of their resources. Even though they are one of the countries most at risk from AGW. They will continue to compound the problem by expanding both coal and NG production. They have a lot of it so no respite for us all anytime soon. I think the entire political system of the country is built on this premise. No different to Saudi or any other net fossil fuel exporter.

Good enough pack's are already available to GM for a decent Volt BEV. There's a boatload of testing required before they can make a product to sell. It's a business decision not to go in that direction. Then again, they may be doing so in secret.

Very niche product. Don't fancy carrying around a bottle of methanol myself. I prefer they focus on decreasing the power used in devices. Simplification and efficient code would be a good start.

Puting Rogers point another way. The volt could almost become a PHEV with 80 miles range. Just with a subtle change in the spec's for battery use. I don't recall hearing GM ever talk about a BEV option. Guess it don't fit in their current business plan. Doesn't look a big technical stretch on the Volt platform. Taking out the range extender and tank there should be enough space for 24KWh or 36KWh options.

I wish the spoksman had given more numbers on the actual savings vs higher upfront costs.

I'm a bit suprised no one has commented on this. Seeing as most of the cost of ownership (ICE vs EV)comparisons assume 100% depreciation it makes a big difference to the economics of EV's. Even if you only get a 20% discount on the replacement cost at EOL. That's a big deal in making BEV's a more attractive economic proposition. There should be a basic commodity price per KWh of capacity per year of age. Looks like an attractive market for second hand storage.