Miracle Capacitor for Elec. Car or Hoax

Tom_H · Sep 8, 2007

An ultracapacitor that can take a car 500 mi. and flash charge in 5 min.? Sounds too good to be true, yet the maker is being financed by the same venture capital group that underwrote the startup of Amazon and Google. Is the end at hand for liquid fuels and the IC engine, or is this the same baloney as the "cold fusion" hoax a decade or so ago? Which of us put big $ on MS, e-Bay, Amazon, or Google when they first started? Monday a.m. armchair quarterbacking is easy, reading crystal balls not such a crystal clear task.

Battery-like device could power electric cars - CNN.com

Tig · Sep 8, 2007

Pretty exciting technology and not so far away. If they are for real.
One issue they would have to deal with is the bleed down that caps have. Normal caps can hold quite a large charge but they will loose it over time. It would be a drag to go camping and wake up to a dead car.
The issue with the 5 min charge is having a source to deliver it. You average 15 amp outlet is not going to do that. It's a lot of power to try to get out of any household source.
I would love to see this technology on the street.

bill177 · Sep 8, 2007

Theoretically possible - in real life, hmmmm?????

Sure would like to see it happen. The batteries are a real rip-off.

jdbower · Sep 8, 2007

I'd say neither real nor hoax - just optimistic marketing until they actually get a production model. It'll be nice when they actually have a tangible product, but until then I tend to ignore claims of miles between charges and the like. If you've got a hankering for a real electric vehicle I'd start drooling over this one which is available today. Of course, if you want an eco-friendly car not stuffed to the gills with toxic batteries a good old simple VW diesel is probably just the ticket.

RonMar · Sep 8, 2007

Untill this is proven, my vote goes with the VW on biodiesel

And as with all electric vehicles, where does the electricity come from to charge it? Due to ecology, I don't see any new hydro plants on the horizon, for the same reason, I don't see any new nuke plants either... Solar is great, but it is expensive and it dosn't shine at night.

Soundguy · Sep 8, 2007

Hmm.. amperage is amperage. if the cap stores enough charge to do those 500 miles.. then that 5 minute flash charge must be hooked to a pretty hefty dc supply rail.. Not you average house electrical outlet..

I'm not saying bunk.. but I wouldn't hold my breath just yet..

Soundguy

hitekcountry · Sep 8, 2007

Sounds like they've developed a new dielectric material and probably some sort of buildup technology to fabricate the sandwich in order to get the layers very thin. I'd hate to see that sucker blow.

BobRip · Sep 8, 2007

RonMar said:
Untill this is proven, my vote goes with the VW on biodiesel And as with all electric vehicles, where does the electricity come from to charge it? Due to ecology, I don't see any new hydro plants on the horizon, for the same reason, I don't see any new nuke plants either... Solar is great, but it is expensive and it dosn't shine at night.

You could add a high power electric outlet in your garage or driveway. Probably would not give you five minutes, but pretty fast. Recharging at night would use the extra capacity that most power compaines have avaialble at night. You could probably get a better rate at night. Wind power peaks in the early morning hours. Air conditioning and industrial loads are low at night. I think the power companies would love another night load. That's why they push street lights.

Soundguy · Sep 8, 2007

If the thing is really that good.. make it a hybred setup with a small IC engine coupledto a genny and run at max efficiency...

Soundguy

Cottonhawk · Sep 9, 2007

When it sounds 'too good to be true', it must be 'too good to be true'. Three mils investment is extremely small regarding that type of products. There exist too many real world problems for that technology to be implimented in a working car as a reliable power source.

BobRip · Sep 9, 2007

Cottonhawk said:
When it sounds 'too good to be true', it must be 'too good to be true'. Three mils investment is extremely small regarding that type of products. There exist too many real world problems for that technology to be implimented in a working car as a reliable power source.

You're probably right, but I hope not. This would be a great boon to mankind. I have read some articles earlier on that nano particles could make a super cap 10 times better. Maybe it's real.
On the other hand I have found what Edison said to be very true ("If your are talking about batteries, then you are lying") most of the time.

cp1969 · Sep 9, 2007

The only time my power company cuts me a break is in the winter, and that is because I have a heat pump. It doesn't care if it's night or not--I pay the same.

Anybody calculate the amperage to recharge this critter in 5 minutes?

BobRip · Sep 9, 2007

cp1969 said:
The only time my power company cuts me a break is in the winter, and that is because I have a heat pump. It doesn't care if it's night or not--I pay the same.

Anybody calculate the amperage to recharge this critter in 5 minutes?

I have a friend in Tennesse who gets a low rate at night for electric heat with thermal storage. I have seen this in Germany also.

Anyway the current would be about 1600 amps. That's a lot but take 20 minutes and that's 400 amps. My house has that much current available.
30 Kilowatt hours/220 volts = 136 amps to charge in one hour
Multiply by 12 = 1636 amps. I think this is only needed when on the road. At home I think you could normally take an hour or eight.

cp1969 · Sep 9, 2007

I'm curious as to how you arrived at your figures and what assumptions you had to make.

I did it using a 50mpg car as the baseline power requirement and got something like 7200 amps for 5 minutes to recharge. I think I assumed a 100V battery in the car.

MossRoad · Sep 9, 2007

Soundguy said:
Hmm.. amperage is amperage. if the cap stores enough charge to do those 500 miles.. then that 5 minute flash charge must be hooked to a pretty hefty dc supply rail.. Not you average house electrical outlet..

I'm not saying bunk.. but I wouldn't hold my breath just yet..

Soundguy

Hee, hee. Just take your arc welder out and clamp it to the "charge recepticle" on the car!

Soundguy · Sep 10, 2007

Cottonhawk said:
When it sounds 'too good to be true', it must be 'too good to be true'. Three mils investment is extremely small regarding that type of products. There exist too many real world problems for that technology to be implimented in a working car as a reliable power source.

I guess you'd need LED headlamps!! ( and tail lamps too.)

Soundguy

Soundguy · Sep 10, 2007

MossRoad said:
Hee, hee. Just take your arc welder out and clamp it to the "charge recepticle" on the car!

Might have to have a big industrial one.. or 2-3 of them laying around so that when one hits it thermal cutout you can kick another on.. and so on.

Might even need a solar cell on your roof helping out too.. plus wind generators.. and then you'd still probably lack some!!

Soundguy

Tom_H · Sep 10, 2007

IF the thing actually did pan out, I'd expect to see "charging stations" spring up similar to gas stations. That infrastructure would be easier to build than setting individual houses up to flash charge. You might be able to slow charge at home overnight and flash charge at a charging station while out on a long trip.

jdbower · Sep 10, 2007

I'm actually thinking that having a second slow-charge device as a sort of docking station could also help. In essence this thing would charge 24x7 off standard AC and be able to give off a flash charge in 10 minutes - or when some little kid sticks a fork in there.

Note that all the cars seem to be fantasy - they're just pitching the ultra-cap. 500 miles per charge could be a car loaded with these things while the 10 minute charge could be another mythical car that's only designed for a 10-minute drive. I also question the concept that cars are bursty - I do a lot of bursty local driving but my wife's commute is all steady highway driving.

BobRip · Sep 10, 2007

cp1969 said:
I'm curious as to how you arrived at your figures and what assumptions you had to make.

I did it using a 50mpg car as the baseline power requirement and got something like 7200 amps for 5 minutes to recharge. I think I assumed a 100V battery in the car.

I used a 30 Kilowatt hour battery (I think that was mentioned in the news article). I figured on using a 220 volt circuit. This charger in the car would convert it to whatever the battery needed. To get the current you divided the watts by volts (Amps = Watts/volts). So 30,000/220 = 136.36 amps. This is the current to charge in one hour. To get five minutes 60/5 = 12. So you need 12 times the current = 1636 amps. I don't know that the 20 Kilowaty hour battery is enough. Seems kinda low. At 60 miles and hour youl would drive for 8.33 hours, which means you would use 3.6 kilowatts to maintain speed. That's 4.8 horsepower. I am assuming 100% efficiency, which is impossible of course, so actaul current would be higher. I am just trying to get a rough idea, to check for credibility. Even at only 1636 amps, the wiring and charging circuit would be very large and I doubt that they would build that.