LTC Delivers Battery System for Diesel Plug-in Hybrid Prototype

Motiva Provides Terminal Infrastructure for Biodiesel Blending

Japanese New Car Sales Down in FY05, Minicar Sales Up

LTC Delivers Battery System for Diesel Plug-in Hybrid Prototype

04 April 2006

Zytek’s prototype diesel-electric plug-in series hybrid.

Lithium Technology Corporation is providing three lithium-ion battery systems via its wholly-owned German subsidiary GAIA Akkumulatorenwerke GmbH, to UK-based Zytek Systems for use in a diesel-electric plug-in series hybrid prototype of a four-door smart forfour.

The car is Zytek’s entry in the Energy Saving Trust’s Ultra-Low Carbon Car Challenge (ULCCC) project. The hybrid combines a 1.5-liter, 3-cylinder turbocharged diesel engine with two high-efficiency permanent-magnet electric motors.

The li-ion battery packs have an output of 288 V, a capacity of 7.5 Ah (or about 2.2 kWh of energy) and the a capability to deliver 25 kW of power. These batteries can be charged by either the ICE, by regenerative breaking, or the grid, and will have a modest all-electric range.

The first battery has been installed in the vehicle and road tests will commence shortly. The remaining two batteries will be delivered in April 2006.

LTC, together with Zytek and I+ME, have jointly developed an improved version of the Battery Management System (BMS) to include additional safety features and to control the grid- charging of the battery. The BMS will also communicate with the vehicles energy management system for better efficiency and control.

In December 2005, Lithium Technology Corporation (LTC) announced that it will supply two of the vehicles in Challenge X—one of which is a plug-in hybrid—with its GAIA high-power lithium-ion polymer batteries. (Earlier post.)

Zytek worked with smart on the development of an all-electric drive for a smart fortwo, shown last year. (Earlier post.)

Posted on 04 April 2006 in Diesel, Hybrids, Plug-ins | Permalink | Comments (25)

Comments

Whoa....
This will make alot of the posters on this site happy. Potentially combining BIODIESEL, and PLUG IN capability in one package!!!

Posted by: Mark A | 04 April 2006 at 01:08 PM

I'm curious about its pure electric range...

Posted by: marcus | 04 April 2006 at 01:58 PM

Presses all the right buttons, but do we have any performance figures ?
MPG ? EV range ? 0-60 ?
But this sounds like state of the art in terms of ticking the hot boxes. The question is: how well is it implemented.
It is also nice to see that it is a small vehicle, not a huge SUV, because making cars smaller and lighter is part of the equation.
Surely there is a lot of good in a "light duty" plug in which might only have a range of 10 miles on EV and as you extend this, you hit diminishing returns.

Posted by: mahonj | 04 April 2006 at 02:01 PM

Well, the Smart Forfour is going out of production anyways. It has been incredibly unsucessfull.

Posted by: Starvid | 04 April 2006 at 02:16 PM

Pretty clear the range is rather limited since it only stores 2.2 kwh of energy.

Posted by: t | 04 April 2006 at 02:21 PM

Well, if you really want to punch every ticket, you must start by picking the best and most promising technology AVAILABLE. For example, pick the best battery: either the Toshiba fast charging lithium polymer (or if you want to keep it in the US, A123 Systems fast charging lithium battery). Make it a RAND cam diesel engine (highest power to weight ratio and if manufacturer's claims are true, highest efficiency of any engine in the market). Make it a series hybrid (it goes very well with the RAND cam engine). Have a copact heat energy recovery system similar to the one developed by BMW (which will work extremely well with the RAND cam engine due to the very small surface area of the engine (therefore reducing the size and mass of the heat exchangers), and there you have it, the most energy efficient car ever produced.

Posted by: freddy | 04 April 2006 at 02:37 PM

Freddy. Don't forget to include a little carbon fiber on the side for good measure.

Posted by: t | 04 April 2006 at 02:45 PM

That was the first thing I was looking for too - numbers. MPG first, 0-60 and the rest of it later.

Using the forfour doesn't bother me much - this is only a prototype anyways, and that is as good of a starting point as anything else.

Battery size is a bit on the small side, but it is still a bit larger than a Prius.

Posted by: eric | 04 April 2006 at 02:55 PM

I'd buy one today if it was available.

Posted by: Lucas | 04 April 2006 at 03:53 PM

I thought the prius had a battery with 9 kwh's of energy, or am I wrong? I can't remember. But anyways, battery technology is coming along!

I read about a new rechargeable *aluminum* battery that uses nano-technology to overcome the recharging problem with aluminum batteries and which has a *theoretical* capacity of 20 times the lithium ion systems today. As far as I know, it's to be released or produced sometime in 2007 or later, but take what I say here with a grain of salt as it's not out yet. I'll believe it when I see it, but boy, do I sure hope to see it. Let me find a link...

http://peswiki.com/index.php/Directory:Europositron_Rechargeable_Aluminum_Batteries

Posted by: John W. | 04 April 2006 at 05:16 PM

I had understood that it was the plug-in Prius that had about 9KWh. As delivered from Toyota it is a lot less.

Posted by: eric | 04 April 2006 at 05:50 PM

The "aluminum battery" at 20 times the capacity of Lithium? Maybe so. I'll believe it when I see it.

The 'peswiki' is actually operated by 'free-energy' advocates. The main page also includes a 300kW 'self-running generator' operating on 'principles not understood by modern science,' and a 'cold fusion' product.

Yeah, right.

Posted by: BlackSun | 04 April 2006 at 09:20 PM

This light of a vehicle does not need a ton of energy for electric only use (at least at urban driving speeds). The prius outweighs a standard forfour by about 1200 pounds (I'm sure the hybrid drivetrain adds a couple hundred pounds but it is still light enough that you don't need as much energy to move it at low speeds as you would for a 3000pound prius).

Posted by: Patrick | 04 April 2006 at 10:21 PM

It seems like most people are skeptical about the aluminium battery. The company that claiming it has 20 times energy density of lithium didnt even explain how it works.

Posted by: rexis | 04 April 2006 at 10:39 PM

Lets do some 'back of a cigarette packet' type figures so we know what we're discussing...

Petrol energy content is about 33,000 kJ/litre. Multiply kWh by 'seconds in an hour' to convert to Joules. So :-

2.2 kWh is 2.2 * 60 * 60 kJ = 7920 kJ

Even allowing ICT to be 1/3 as efficient as battery power 2.2kWh is roughly 3/4 litre of gasoline

Which is OK if you are going to carry a diesel engine around anyway but would like to use regenerative braking and occasionally run the engine intermittently (in order to run it closer to full load under light load conditions)

Posted by: Robert | 05 April 2006 at 05:21 AM

That finnish Europositron-guy is probably fake. No small prototype has been shown and I think it is BS until an official testing has been done.

Posted by: TheSwede | 05 April 2006 at 01:52 PM

Those gosh-dang limeys took a perfectly good BioWillie Liberty PHEV and borged it. No self-respecting soccer mom would be caught with a dead-head sticker on the back, I tell you watt! (Hawk, sphlut.)

Posted by: jcwinnie | 05 April 2006 at 06:39 PM

On the side door it says 83mpg. WELL now thats a number I can live with but like so much out there when? Is it real?
All I have seen will be ready sometime in the future.
I like the concept I wonder if you could add the air compression system that I read about here to make it more effecient?

Posted by: Robert | 06 April 2006 at 04:03 AM