CNN visits South Korean EV Battery Plant

[needWheels]

Eunice Yoon visits the labs of LG Chem, the maker of the battery for GM's electric car.
http://www.cnn.com/video/#/video/world/2009/06/01/yoon.skorea.powers.cnn

They say Li-Ion but I assume it's LifePO4? What does the Chevy Volt use?

 

[Ypedal]

now THAT is a Fire Extinguisher ! :wink:

 

[NickF23]

Interestingly it uses Lithium manganese. Whilst only using a small percentage of the available capacity to get maximise cycle life so effectively the pack as has an energy denisty of only 50 Wh/kg.


http://www.designnews.com/article/162063-GM_Selects_LG_Chem_to_Build_Volt_Batteries.php

 

[needWheels]

now THAT is a Fire Extinguisher ! :wink:

LOL it took me a full minute to find it in the still (it's in the back between the two of them)

It's on a dolly! Dayum!

 

[John in CR]

now THAT is a Fire Extinguisher ! :wink:

LOL it took me a full minute to find it in the still (it's in the back between the two of them)

It's on a dolly! Dayum!

Maybe the red is fooling us and that's a battery instead. Think giant red Konion! Hopefully GM is atypically making a good choice. I like to think my 1000+ LiMn Konion cells will last significantly longer than in their designed use as toolpack batteries, since I use them very conservatively too. BTW I recently over-discharged and over-charged one of my 1kwh Konion packs made of the Sony V cells, and to my pleasant surprise it is still well balanced (+/- .015v). The pack is made up of 6 strings of 2p17s in parallel with cells from used packs that I crudely matched in series strings with a single discharge cycle using a pair of lightbulbs as a resistor, and the matching based on ending voltage after 60% discharge.

I'm sold on LiMn, since I opt for large capacity packs. They can still deliver sufficient C rates if really needed, but I don't want an e-bike, or a car for that matter, that's HAS to be recharged after less than an hour of use. A123's are great and may be what's needed for the peak balancing needs of a utility company, but for useful transport they're overkill, and A123 is still too proud of their cells anyway if the retail prices of Bosch packs compared to Dewalt is a good indicator.

John

 

[needWheels]

Has anyone calculated the capacity of the battery in the volt?
It gives it a 40 mile range without recharge right?
That has to be some serious capacity, on a bike you'd need at least 30ah for real,
so in a 2 ton car that would be exponential?

 

[John in CR]

Has anyone calculated the capacity of the battery in the volt?
It gives it a 40 mile range without recharge right?
That has to be some serious capacity, on a bike you'd need at least 30ah for real,
so in a 2 ton car that would be exponential?

I think the plug in car tax credit based on battery capacity that was tacked on to the initial $800B bailout bill was written specifically for the Volt's battery pack. If I remember correctly the credit maxes out at 17kwh of pack capacity.

John

 

[needWheels]

Ah so our tax dollars are now shifting from China to South Korea.
Well if North Korea someday collapses like East Germany the money may be worth it.
But they really should have given A123 a better chance.

Hmm so for comparison is a typical 48v 20ah ebike battery pack 1kwh?