General / Off-Topic Austin Motors (UK) buys new battery tech

Robin of Spiritwood

Robin of Spiritwood

UK Man Invents Aluminum-Air Battery In His Garage - CleanTechnica

Trevor Jackson of the UK says he has invented an aluminum air battery that could power an electric car for up to 1500 miles. And Austin Electric says it will pay him millions of dollars to manufacture it. What's going on here?
cleantechnica.com cleantechnica.com

This looks interesting, more of an aluminium powered fuel cell than a rechargeable battery, but way cleaner, cheaper, easier to recycle than LiOH ones.
 

Chris Simon

Chris Simon
I always found this hunt for a better chemical battery kind of funny, considering we already have almost the ideal power source for cars - hydrogen cells.
Yes, it takes energy to create hydrogen, but the footprint on environment is laughably small compared to mining/manufacturing aluminium or lithium.

Then you can use the hydrogen to power an internal combustion engine - also clean energy source, as the exhaust is basically water vapour - or use it in the energy cells to power an electric motor. We are doing it in space for decades and it's extremely efficient.

But neither of these will catch on any time soon, of course, because the lobby owning the metalurgy and most battery factories are the same people owning the refineries and generally the oil industry.
 

Morbad

Morbad
I'm highly dubious of the viability of single use batteries, even kinds that are relatively easy to recycle.

Lithium ion batteries certainly have their own sets of problems, but these aluminum-air ones look like will need to be replaced and recycled a hundred times during the life span of a single lithium battery pack. I can't imagine the sum of that process being much better for people's wallets, or the environment.

Still, there are certainly use cases for such batteries, and technological development is important...I'm just skeptical about the mainstream EV applications. Will probably make it into combat drones and missiles though!
 

FrogsFriend

FrogsFriend
I may be misunderstanding it but from the numbers in the article I can't see that it adds up. The running costs appear to be in the region of £3.00/mile, as opposed to a LiOH electric car at less than £0.04/mile. It could be better for the environment, but only because nobody could afford to run a car :)
 

Robin of Spiritwood

Robin of Spiritwood
FrogsFriend said:
I may be misunderstanding it but from the numbers in the article I can't see that it adds up. The running costs appear to be in the region of £3.00/mile, as opposed to a LiOH electric car at less than £0.04/mile. It could be better for the environment, but only because nobody could afford to run a car :)
Click to expand...

That would be the cost of a new battery every 1500 miles?

That's not the running cost. All the stuff needed is some aluminium sheeting to replace the used up electrodes. Maybe a couple gallons of electrolyte too. It can literally be recycled cans, worth pennies. And the labour/transport costs.

There won't be an energy cost, as no recharging takes place. The reusability of the battery case is attractive.

We'll have to see how much they charge for the swap service. Obviously, buying it new every time isn't going to be commercially viable. I would just rent batteries to the customer, so the cost of the car drops even more.
 
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