liveforphysics
100 TW
Evidently there have been 26,000 of these cars with GM e-assist packs sold in 2011 and 2012.
I only know this about the packs. They are lithium. They are 0.5kWh. They are 115v (I don't know if this is nominal or peak). They are capable of 11kW discharge evidently.
To be 115v nominal and 0.5kWh, it means you're 4.3Ah of capacity.
To discharge 11kW from 0.5kWh pack, you're capable of 22C discharge.
At only 0.5kWh, I would think these batteries are hopefully 10lbs-ish, I wouldn't expect more than 15lbs worse case, and evidently capable of ~95amp discharge (which is what it would take to meet the 11kW claim on the assist system).
I've only spent 5mins researching it, so I don't know what cell, what cell mfg, or if it's packaged in a neat little box that would be easy to mount on an ebike, or some wonky spread-out awkward arrangement that would be awful to try to fit on an ebike. I would assume someone willing to dig through an online parts manual could find a part drawing of the pack.
If we can get into the auto-wreckers waste stream on these packs, with 26,000 cars all ready on the road using them, you know there must be many hundreds of them sitting in auto-wrecking yards that would likely sell for cheap.
I don't have time to dig deeper into it myself right now, but just wanted to plant the seed for folks to investigate if we can start recycling these things into reliable durable packs made with a Tier1 automotive grade cell for our ebikes. Hopefully it's small and light enough that fitting 2 or 2 on a bike is easy enough to do.
I only know this about the packs. They are lithium. They are 0.5kWh. They are 115v (I don't know if this is nominal or peak). They are capable of 11kW discharge evidently.
To be 115v nominal and 0.5kWh, it means you're 4.3Ah of capacity.
To discharge 11kW from 0.5kWh pack, you're capable of 22C discharge.
At only 0.5kWh, I would think these batteries are hopefully 10lbs-ish, I wouldn't expect more than 15lbs worse case, and evidently capable of ~95amp discharge (which is what it would take to meet the 11kW claim on the assist system).
I've only spent 5mins researching it, so I don't know what cell, what cell mfg, or if it's packaged in a neat little box that would be easy to mount on an ebike, or some wonky spread-out awkward arrangement that would be awful to try to fit on an ebike. I would assume someone willing to dig through an online parts manual could find a part drawing of the pack.
If we can get into the auto-wreckers waste stream on these packs, with 26,000 cars all ready on the road using them, you know there must be many hundreds of them sitting in auto-wrecking yards that would likely sell for cheap.
I don't have time to dig deeper into it myself right now, but just wanted to plant the seed for folks to investigate if we can start recycling these things into reliable durable packs made with a Tier1 automotive grade cell for our ebikes. Hopefully it's small and light enough that fitting 2 or 2 on a bike is easy enough to do.
