Another EEStor Update

Tyler at Clean Break has another post on EEstor referring to a write up about them in Business 2.0.  The three main points of the article are:

• Feel Good Cars, which plans to incorporate EEStor's technology in vehicles by 2008. That is a year later than previously reported.
• An EEStor-powered engine with a range roughly equivalent to that of a gasoline-powered car would cost about $5,200. That's a slight premium over the cost of the gas engine and the other parts the device would replace.
• Their aim is to compete with the internal combustion engine. The engine technology is not just for the small passenger vehicles, but could easily replace the 300-horsepower brutes in today's SUVs.

Comments

[Matt]

Sure sounds good.

Lets see it.

Matt

[Greg Woulf]

I hope this technology gets off the ground. It just looks too good to be true.

That always triggers the skeptic in me.

I think there's a public perception of electric cars that doesn't match the problems that they have.

Trains are powered by electric motors, there's no shortage of torque, and I think regular people see electrics as weak, short ranged, high maintenance vehicles for radicals.

I think the Tesla opened eyes by showing that they could make a sports car that blew away the competition with electric. I think the last step to crushing the misperception is an all electric SUV.

It would probably take 2 capacitors, but I think it would open eyes.

[amazingprofessorzztop]

I suggest a moratorium on writing about this "device" until some hard details are forthcoming. This is the type of "gee whiz" reporting that gives renewables and alternatives a bad name.

[Harvey D.]

Let's not kill unavoidable progess so fast. High energy, quick charge (50 KWh to 100 KWh) on-board electricity storage units (ESUs)will be around within a few years.

Weight and size will be reduced with much higher (3500 to 5000 Volts) inner-working voltages. By-directionnal,light weight, but rugged on-board voltage converters will be designed to reduce the ESU voltage to 600 Volts for the vehicle motors and increase the corner station charger voltage from 600 to 3600+ volts to recharge the ESU very quickly.

The SUV may very well have a vigorous come back as a 200 mph EV mastodone within 10-12 years.

[Vagif Verdi]

I'm not quite sure why EEStore is linked with electrical cars.
One British company have built a concept electric car on mini-cooper basis.
They are using normal batteries and small gas engine to replenish electric battery.
Car is purely electric, 4 in-wheel motors.
High torgue, sports car, and brake energy returns back to battery.
80 mpg

This is good enough even without EEStore.

[Stephen Boulet]

A slight premium to an ICE engine would definitely be worth it from a cost of ownership perspective. No oil changes, no exhaust train. I have a 10-year-old Accord and I'm sure I've replaced the exhaust train at least three times (road salts in northern latitudes do that).

EEStor is indeniably secretive, but I don't get the sense that there are any red flags here. I don't see Kleiner Perkins and Feel Good Cars easily taken in.

If this supercap is shown to work, it could certainly disrupt the auto industry and its supply chain.

Stephen

[phobos]

I've seen a lot of skeptics out there comment on the infrastructure. Let me just say that creative design should solve that even with today's power delivery systems. For example, there are large gas tanks under gas stations. Replace these with capacitor arrays that trickle charge from standard power delivery systems. Over 24 hours, you shouldn't run out of 'fuel'.

Someone also commmented on heat still being a problem. Although heat will be generated, it is not supplemented by a chemical reaction. It should go down.

Finally regulating the rate of charge so as to not damage equipment is as simple as a cooled resistor. Any EE can tell you that.

This may not be perfect, but it's a positive trade off.

[CapacitorMan]

I find it fascinating how this EEStor capacitor has entranced (read "conned") so many people. If one looks at any of the three patents, with an elementary understanding of how ceramic capacitors work, they would quickly see the folly.

Look at any ceramic capacitor site for voltage and temperature coeeficients, for example: www.nicomp.com, and under "Y5V" ceramics, (those with K's above 10,000) is revealed that at the temperature and voltage they are claiming, they will have very little of the energy they claim.

I can give you a capacitor, and let you measure it on the normal instruments, and show how we can simply multiply the volume and get the capacity needed. WRONG!

So the trick to con people, even sophisticated venture capitalists, is to not tell the whole truth.

[VirtualGathis]

Hmm I was doing some research to see if there were any new updates in the plug in and electric market and stumbled across this article.

http://www.theautochannel.com/news/2006/11/07/027933.html

It's about a company Altairnano that is making a similar device. They might beat eestore to market.

As to the electrical component there are systems already that "regulate" a variable voltage source. Just look inside any decent LED flashlight. It would be simplicity itself to scale that up to handle the wattage. They already make high wattage versions of all the components.

[CapacitorMan]

Wow, if you think that simple, I can't imagine what you consider complex. The LED flashlight is a battery, which will maintain voltage even as it runs down with such small currents. It is only a couple watts. We are talking here of 35,000 watts. Thats not just a difference in degree. Its a hundred sticks of dynamite!

I think Altairnano may have something real, but it is a battery, not a capacitor.

[Eric Laffoon]

For the gentleman saying the Mini-Cooper conversion by the British PML company did okay let's check the facts. This prototype cost $350,000 to make. Granted the motors were handmade and they say costs should come down in production. They are also claiming 640 hp from four motors and using Li-Ion batteries as well as a mega-capacitor bank for acceleration. With all this it still posts a lower time than all light weight prototypes power by AC Propulsion systems, though the wheel motors even replacing brakes is intriguing.

The key point in comparison is if EEstor delivers on their promises they are talking substantially less cost than Li-Ion. The 150-200 mega-capacitor banks used for acceleration also are costly. I saw a project where a guy spent something like $4K on clearance for his CRX conversion. Note also the additional battery management and cooling systems required for Li-Ion along with several times the cost of lead-acid. The Mini-Cooper is supposed to go 200-250 miles on a charge before needing the ICE generator. I doubt they are storing 52 kw in Li-Ion but aside from it being theoretically possible to charge the EEstor device in minutes my top of the head calcs say it's likely to take an efficient EV design much more than 200 miles, probably twice that.

That's the nail in the gas hog coffin. If you drive 65 mph for 5 hours that's 325 miles. Most people don't just want to stop for 5-10 minutes after that, but if you could... Not many ICE cars do that well. Add a fraction the cost to operate, no oil changes, better performance on hills and at stop lights and rarely ever having to charge anywhere but home... Deliver that for within a $1000 of what an ICE greenhouse smogger costs and who is going to choose $4 a gallon to wait in rationed lines?

For people who doubt the technology consider the accounts of what Nikoli Tesla did powering a city without wires and an electric car with a box he built. His explanation was power out of the ether, which sounds like zero point energy. Of course that would have been a lot harder for George Westinghouse to sell than power from Niagra falls.There is a void presently in storage and delivery of electrical power at reasonable costs and a growing demand. Someone will accomplish something as seemingly impossible as AC electric power was. I trust quiet development acquiring patents more than an energy machine denied a patent that someone says God told them to build.

[W.Fraser]

The petroleum industry has more then enough money to "BUY" government legislation preventing "any" mass market gas substitutes. There are also many other steak holders that want to maintain the status quo. Bush has put his country so far in debt that only the petroleum industry could bail it out. "PARADOX"???