Batteries

One year before starting production of the Chevy Volt, General Motors engineers say they are confident in the performance and safety of the electric car's batteries.

GM executives gave an update on the car's plans on Tuesday, saying engineers are making some tweaks to the design but that they are on schedule.

The Volt's chief engineer, Andrew Farah, also implied that GM is close to moving ahead with a project to make a Cadillac that uses the same gas-electric power train that the Volt uses. Last week, there were reports that the Converj concept had been given the green light internally, … Read more

LOS ANGELES--Nissan Motor will keep the price of its upcoming battery-powered Leaf competitive with similar-size cars and expects to make money on the vehicle despite the cost of its launch, said Chief Executive Carlos Ghosn on Friday.

The five-passenger hatchback, which is being designed to have an all-electric range of 100 miles, would cost only 1 percent to 2 percent more than traditional combustion engine vehicles in its class, he said.

"On the pricing of the vehicle it is too early to say, but there will be no surprise," Ghosn said. "We know it will be the … Read more

BOSTON--While hundreds of other companies are trying to make a better battery, start-up SustainX Energy Solutions is trying to find better ways to compress and store air to help utilities take full advantage of intermittent sources of energy like wind.

Dax Kepshire, president of SustainX, sketched out the company's technology and product plans here Thursday at the Fifth Annual Conference on Clean Energy. SustainX was spun out of Dartmouth College last year and received $4 million in funding from Polaris Venture Partners and Rockport Capital in August of this year. It now has 10 employees.

There are already a … Read more

Start-ups Green Plug and WiPower are working together on a universal wireless charger for portable devices, the companies said Thursday.

The partnership makes sense since GreenPlug has developed a protocol to allow power sources and portable devices to communicate, while WiPower has invented technology to transmit power wirelessly over short distances.

Green Plug's universal chargers allow portable electronic devices containing its embedded Greentalk chip to be charged from a universal port. Once a device is plugged in to a Green Plug charger port, the charger's Greentalk protocol reads the chip inside the device to determine the power supply … Read more

Lithium-ion battery manufacturer EnerDel has signed an 18-month, $1.29 million contract with the U.S. Army to design and test hybrid battery options for the Humvee.

Trying to power the iconic fuel-guzzling High Mobility Multipurpose Wheeled Vehicle (HMMWV aka Humvee) with a battery, may seem like trying to put out a fire with a garden hose. But a lithium-ion battery system can deliver a lot of power from a battery quickly, giving a truck like the Humvee the thrust it requires.

EnerDel, a subsidiary of Ener1, will collaborate with the U.S. Army's Tank Automotive Research, Development, and … Read more

Start-up ReVolt Technology is developing rechargeable zinc air batteries, a technology it says promises longer runtime for consumer electronics and plug-in vehicles.

The Switzerland-based company, which was spun out of a Norwegian research institute five years ago, anticipates commercializing a rechargeable coin-size batteries next year. But the technology has the potential to be a cheaper and more energy-dense alternative to lithium ion batteries in consumer electronics, grid storage, and transportation, according to CEO James McDougall.

Zinc air batteries, which are already used in hearing aids, create an electrical current through a chemical reaction between zinc and the oxygen in air. … Read more

A record for a Tesla Roadster driven on a single charge was set at 313 miles (501 km) in Australia on Tuesday.

Tesla Roadster owner Simon Hackett and his friend Emilis Prelgauskas drove his electric sports car from Alice Springs, Northern Territory, to Coober Pedy, South Australia, as part of an alternative-fuel vehicle rally called the Global Green Challenge.

The Tesla's electric-charge port door was sealed shut at the start of the 313-mile journey and the trip was filmed for a documentary, as well as monitored by contest officials. The Tesla's lithium ion battery, which the company assures … Read more

DETROIT--For plug-in electric cars, it's no longer a question of if. It's a question of when and how.

After many years of buildup, plug-in vehicles aimed at mainstream buyers are set to come to the market starting next year. But even with the momentum around plug-ins, many questions remain unanswered over how this technology transition will impact the ailing auto industry and how the cars will received by consumers.

"You have the feeling that we're at the beginning of something that could be very special," said David Cole, the chairman of the Center for Automotive Research, … Read more

Lithium ion batteries used as energy storage for utilities will be a $1 billion industry by 2018, according to a report released Wednesday by Pike Research called "Energy Storage Technology Markets."

Much of the lithium ion battery development has been geared toward perfecting the batteries as power sources for electronics, and in recent years, cars. But the alternative energy industry is going to benefit from that research, too. Once that happens, there will be a surge in the sales of industrial-scale lithium ion batteries for power utilities, according to Pike research.

"Utilities will be the downstream beneficiaries … Read more