Hybrid Car Batteries
Lithium Batteries
It seems that hybrid cars are here to stay, so we better get used to them! Sooner or later, fossil fuels will be exhausted and we won't
have choice, anyway. I'm afraid the days of one person behind the wheel of monster trucks, SUVs, and Hummers are numbered.
And if you ask me, I don't care if all of those big parking space hogs are gone anyway! The only thing that concerns me is the
reliablity, price, and performance of the hybrids.
Well, as it turns out, I think you're going to be pleasantly surprised. Read on...
The energy for most of these motors is generated from the hybrid cars engine and stored in the batteries. There is, however, a
slight drawback to this system: the battery.
The batteries that are commonly used in hybrid cars are still very similar to the standard lead-acid car batteries that have been in use for
great many years.
These batteries were adequate to power the normal requirements of your average car, such as starter motor, lights, air conditioning,
etc. But they aren't powerful enough to drive the electric motor of the new hybrid cars. The new hybrid cars that are actually driven
in part by their electric motors need a far greater source of energy. Traditional lead-acid batteries are simply not powerful enough.
This shortfall has, in the past, been made up by simply using larger amounts of batteries to increase the power available in hybrid
cars. This solution, however---although practical in the short term---provided its own set of problems. The power needed to drive
a hybrid car's electric motor meant that a large number of batteries were needed.
This meant a large increase in weight and cost.
Extra weight means more load had to be pulled by the cars motor (whether gas or electric) and this led to increased fuel
consumption---either to drive the engine or to provide electricity for the motor. This of course---in part at least---defeated the object of
using the electric motor, which was to cut fuel costs! Also, lots of batteries are expensive to buy. Not only that, but given the
limited lifespan of most batteries, both the initial cost and the maintenance of the vehicle is now increased.
The main hope for improving this situation for hybrid cars lies with lithium batteries. These are the same batteries that are currently used
to power laptops and cameras. They provide a much more concentrated and therefore smaller way of storing energy as electricity.
If developed to their full potential, they could provide a long term solution to the problem of providing sufficient electric power to make
hybrid cars a more practical solution to low cost, low emission motoring.
Next page we look at the problems and challenges with Lithium Batteries.
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