These batteries are unable to power a small truck and also they are unable to power a small car for short distance without degrading themself. These batteries can only be use as a small electric buffer for fuelcell cars only to regulate the power and recapture some kw when breaking.

A D is the anti-HarveyD!

"Higher energy density cells also contain proportionately lower amounts of flammable electrolytes, which substantially improve safety considerations, the company says."

Now, please refresh my memory. Do I not recall that gasoline is flammable? Perhaps it no longer is as seeing how some folks have their bloomers in a bunch over battery electrolytes being flammable.

If gas is, in fact, still flammable and we can carry 12 to 15 gallons around in our ICEVs how many gallons of electrolyte might be found in an EV?

And since we know that all the gasoline in a ruptured tank can burn how do we compare that to something like the BYD fire in which only the ruptured batteries burned?

Bob:
You are in the right of it.
I should have said 'overheating' not fires.

Thank you E-P.....I prefer to stay on the optimistic side even when a few manufacturers have thermal management problems with their new batteries. Overheating problems can and should be fully addressed before electrified vehicles are sold.

My 7+ years old (custom built) desktop PC uses 10 variable speed very low noise high quality fans. It never overheated nor had a failure. Internal temperature is continuously measured in 5 critical places and are always within +/- 2.5C. I also change the air filters regularly. The hard disks seems to vary a bit more than the other components but stay below 40C. It cost a few more $$ but it has worked extremely well.

It might not be possible to balance the cooling properly while fast-charging.  Battery voltages decrease with increasing temperature; in a series-parallel connected string, an overheated cell will have less output during discharge (thus staying cooler) but GREATER charge rate during charge (making itself even hotter).  The only way to fix this is to reduce the charging rate.

"It might not be possible to balance the cooling properly while fast-charging."

Possibly. But consider a nicely integrated battery/cabin heat pump system. Give the battery pack plenty of cooling coils and make the heat pump robust enough to dump that heat into the atmosphere during charging. Circulate the coolant faster and use a lareger fan system to move heat away from the system while plugged in.

Use the heat pump to pull heat from batteries to cabin in cold weather.

We don't have information about how bad the overheating problem is. All we know is that it seems to be more than what the Chrysler test cars are capable of dealing with.

Let's take it further. Let's say that this is the best bettery that will ever be invented. We're stuck with this one. Could we make it work?

How about an electric plug and a coolant connection at rapid charge stations? Set up a robust cooling system outside the vehicle and let the heat be pumped outside the battery pack quickly during rapid charges.

(I don't think we'll need to go that route, but I just dislike the "Oops, that didn't work, let's give up" attitiude that is so popular these days. I'm a "let's-fix-this" engineer at heart.)

I suspect that's why Chrysler moved to a different battery. They're already behind and designing a cooling system would have slowed them down even more.

If this battery has solved the weight/size/capacity problem and more than doubles range for the same size battery and without increasing material costs then a dual use heat pump should not be a budget buster.

Manufacturers are already looking to heat pumps for cabin conditioning. Using battery heat as opposed to ambient temperature air to warm the cabin would be a real energy/mileage saver. All that would seem to be needed would be a set of cooling coils in the battery pack.

Some trims of the Mitsubishi iMiEV cool the battery during charging:

'The custom-made battery pack on the ES trim of the Mitsubishi i is equipped with a fan-driven, forced-air induction system that automatically engages to protect the battery from overheating during charging. Drivers can upgrade to the Premium Package which allows, among other good things, the ability to charge the Mitsubishi i with a public quick-charger. Because quick-chargers can tend to heat batteries and reduce their efficiency in the long term, we've added an air-cooling system that draws cold air from the air conditioning unit to keep the battery nice and cool, even in hot climates.'

http://i.mitsubishicars.com/miev/charging/battery

Batteries, motors and wiring all generate resistance heating, it's true but compared to an ICE heating management system, i's a walk in the park and if a clever engineer can heat exchange that with the cabin air, well you've got yourself a problem that becomes a solution!

If memory serves, EV1 had such a heat exchanger.

I am still not a fan of Lithium though. Thermal runaway is scary and Pb can take such a pounding. Has anyone heard of the lead foam concept? The company went bankrupt I think.

"Self-contained dual purpose heat pumps may become standard equipment for electrified vehicles in the near future."

This makes huge sense to me. Keep batteries from overheating and warm them up in very cold times. Worst case, it would mean that EVs would need to be plugged in when parked in extreme temperature conditions, which would not take a lot of infrastructure.

Running conduit for future outlet installation should become part of building code for new construction. Some locales have already begun requiring conduit runs to parking spaces. Conduit is cheap and easy to run during construction. Then later all that is needed is to pull wire and connect both ends.

Just trigger it from your phone or computer. It should be a minor task to design a system that can ID the individual car and bill the owner for electricity used.