I wondered when this battery would show up in production; it may be the interim answer to the problem of producing low-cost batteries for BEVs. If the price of batteries is low enough, changing them out every few years wouldn't be a problem. The key: the price must be low!

Firefly batteries do not use expensive metals such as Lithium. Also, Firefly can use well understood techniques for manufacture.

So would this be competetive for hybrid applications or is it more for adding start/stop functionality to trucks? And does "trucks" mean pickups or 18 wheelers?

I remember they were initially harping 15000 deep discharge cycles. There is no mention of cycle life in the above info.

The initial advantage of firefly batteries was the low price. It was intended that the price per WH was to be 0.25 $US (last year). versus $3 minimum for lithium. The other advantages as to be the high cycle life and high availabilities of raw materials.

Their old propaganda said that the lead in a recycled battery could be made into at least 6 firefly batteries of equal or greater capacity.

-Michael McMillan

Hi Michael,

From their October 3 press release;

http://www.greencarcongress.com/2007/10/firefly-energy-.html

While conventional deep-cycle lead acid batteries used in truck starting show sizeable performance drop-off after some 200 deep discharge cycles, the Firefly Energy battery is capable of achieving more than triple the deep cycles while still maintaining more than 90% of its initial capacity.

...so I'd guess they can take ~700 deep cycles so the key questions are How much can the life be extended through battery management and What will they cost.

What about the recycling aspect of this battery? Lead is toxic so recycling is a must. I suppose since lead melts at low temperature, and carbon is inert chemically at the melting point of lead in the absence of oxygen, the lead may simply be heated up until it melts and runs out of the foam?
Sounds promising, though. Hoping that further testing will uphold Firefly's promises.

I suspect they will make batteries for regular cars as well. Eventually. They seem to be focused on a pretty heavy duty battery for now. These first batteries should be available for sale in 2009. Hopefully, much of the testing they do with the heavy duty batteries will shorten the time it takes to bring car batteries to the market.

IMHO They are addressing one remaining problem with high energy density batteries, the cost.

Reticulated Vitreous Carbon isn't new - it was invented in the 60s. Phil Ross was using it on ZnAir in the early 90s. It really is not an earth shattering idea to use a lighweight substrate plated with the Pb or Pb/Sn as Power Technology Corp have done well before Firefly got the limelight. Gives increased surface area to volume ratio, hence more power capability and greater total energy capacity. I think the RVC is formed by a high temperature process so either you could perhaps melt the lead out or strip it out electrolytically, by a deep discharge.

Remember most of the lead mined in the world goes into PbA batteries and nearly half the lead produced each year comes from recycled PbA batteries - its a huge industry. Life is really the only thing stopping use of PbA in EVs - if Firefly and Power Technology Corp batteries can give us over 50Wh/kg then being so much cheaper than NiMH even a 2 year life becomes affordable.

Very impressive and welcome substract foam technology.
I think necessary more information about how thermal runaway can react or affect carbon foam lead acid battery to the sealed VRLA versions.