closing the power gap between a hybrid’s supply and demand - energy storage devices

By MATTHEW L. WALDJAN.
13, a hybrid that drives the first few miles of each trip with a battery charged from the grid
Don't burn gasoline until the battery runs out.
It is a popular antidote to $3 gasoline.
But there are no car manufacturers showing battery packs for this vehicle known as a plug.
In hybrid power, this will be durable enough for mass production.
There is now a company located at AFS Trinity Power in Bellevue, Washington.
There is no need to wait for advanced batteries to be invented, he said.
A successful plugin
In a hybrid, it can be assembled from components that are already available.
The company, which specializes in energy storage devices, is presenting a running prototype at the North American International Auto Show in Detroit, which opens on Sunday with a News preview and will continue until January. 27.
The prototype is based on the Saturn Vue Green Line, a hybrid crossover built by GM using low levelcost belt-
It's a power-driven alternator system.
The company said that with extensive modifications, the Vue of AFS Trinity can operate 40 miles on electricity alone to obtain power from the combination of lithium
Ion battery and ratio-
A common version of an electrical device called a capacitor.
A second electric drive system was added to the standard gas
Electric setting of Electric green line, it is not easy to call the creation of AFS Tricity a hybrid system. AdvertisementG. M.
There will also be an announcement in Detroit about the Vue hybrid, including a version that uses both versions
Recently, the mode hybrid system was introduced on the large S. U. V. ’s.
Saturn promises to update the production of its own plug-ins
This is also true in the version of Vue.
Advertising typically, hybrids use the synergy of power and internal combustion by using only electric motors at low speeds;
As the speed increases, the gas engine starts and both are used when the maximum output is required.
On the other hand, AFS Trinity took a purely principled position.
In its system, the gasoline engine does not start until the battery runs out, which is Edward W.
Furia, the company's chairman and chief executive, called it an "extreme hybrid ".
"By designing the system to operate in this way, the AFS Trinity Vue can reach a speed equivalent to 150 miles per gallon.
But technical problems have arisen, because it only carries a few batteries and puts a lot of pressure on each battery during the acceleration process.
This is a serious problem for a car manufacturer who has to provide long-term serviceterm warranty. An electric-
Only vehicles can avoid this problem by carrying four to five times the battery, although this will greatly increase the cost of the vehicle.
In fact, the problem with hybrid cars is not just how much energy the battery holds, a mass called energy density, but how fast they provide energy density.
The difference between energy density and power density is like the difference between the jug and the peanut butter jar --
The capacity of the containers may be the same, but their opening sizes vary greatly.
The battery selection for a given application is task-based.
For hybrid cars, long-distance driving requires a lot of energy reserves, and one of the most promising types is lithium ion, because it has good energy density and can carry many watts.
Hours per pound
This is the choice of AFS Tricity for Vue, about 16 KW-
Available capacity hours.
Don bend, the company's chief technology officer, said the typical battery of household equipment can be emptied within an hour without damage and can be kept at three or four times the instantaneous discharge rate.
Professional batteries can be emptied in six minutes, but they are much more expensive, running regular batteries in this way "like driving the engine for three or four minutes on the red line, he said.
But the emissions requirements of discharge are even higher than that, and the consequences may be serious.
Emptying the battery too quickly will heat the battery, causing damage or even fire.
To make up for the gap between the ability of the battery to supply energy and the demand for a hybrid electric motor, the experimental Vue uses a super capacitor, which is equivalent to a peanut butter jar.
Larger version of the device used to manage power flow in various electronic circuits, the super capacitor can be from lithium-
Ion batteries, then quickly empty the motor driving the wheel according to the driver's requirements.
Advertising when a hybrid car slows down, the speed of energy flow is also a problem when its electric motor becomes a generator.
This process, called regenerative braking, converts the movement of the car into a powerful current stream, but today's hybrid car can only capture about half of the energy generated in this way.
The super capacitor can absorb a higher percentage.
Although the super capacitors store less than 1 KW of the time in total, they take up about as much space as lithium-ion batteries. Mr.
Bender describes the entire package as an 18-
Canned red bull packaging, shrink-wrapped.
In use, the function of the capacitor is very similar to that of the water tank on the toilet.
The reservoir used a small water supply pipe to let the toilet through, but still provided a lot of flushing at a time.
This idea is not unique to AFS Tricity;
For example, GE is considering capacitors for hybrid buses.
Because the distance of the AFS Tricity Vue running as a pure electric device is very long, it needs a complete
Used with full size motor-
The size gasoline engine it uses in hybrid operation. While G. M.
The design of the AFS green line can be achieved by connecting the belt to the small motor of the transmission system, and the AFS Trinity version has been used with 200-
Horsepower motor under the rear floor.
The standard hybrid system of the Vue Green Line drives the front wheel, and the motor added by the AFS Trinity drives the rear wheel.
So in the first 40 miles, the Vue is a rear. wheel-
After that, it's an intermittent four-wheel-
The regenerative braking energy captured by the capacitor and delivered by the motor driving the rear wheels drives the vehicle.
"It saves us from mechanical integration and makes it basically software integration," he said. Bender said.
But he says the super capacitor can be used in any design.
The idea behind the AFS Tricity is based on a widely accepted rule of thumb: the vast majority of drivers travel less than 40 miles a day.
According to AFS Trinity, a driver drives 40 miles or less a day six days a week, 100 miles a week, and 150 miles per gallon of gas, gasoline costs just under $8 and electricity costs just under $8.
The total cost of fuel is $15. 49 is about 1-
According to the calculation of AFS Tricity, the cost of gasoline driving traditional hybrids like Lexus RX 400 h at the same distance is third.
In the AFS Trinity prototype, the ordinary residential current charging the lithium ion battery enters the car through the plug behind the rear license plate.
In mass production, the plug
According to the company, the cost of the in version will be $8,600 higher than the average hybrid, and the company's calculation of the payback period is 3. 5 years.
If the US were to price carbon dioxide emissions as a way to reduce global warming gases, the return time would be shorter.
When Saturn builds the Vue Green Line, nearly a pound of carbon dioxide is emitted every mile;
AFS Tricity version, running an average of kilowatts-
About six hours.
A tenth of a pound
A version of this article appears on the New York version 1012 in print, titled: closing the power gap between the supply and demand of hybrid cars.
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