CSIRO's UltraBattery to power hybrid cars

By Stuart Corner
Thursday, 17 January 2008 08:01

Science - Energy

During development of the UltraBattery the CSIRO discovered that the inclusion of the 'capacitor' created a better battery, and this is what makes the device so attractive. "The inclusion of the carbon seemed to help the battery avoid all the usual battery problems so it lasts four to five times longer that an conventional lead acid battery. That extended battery life is a real plus," Lamb said.

He said that, initially the research team had expected use of the UltraBattery to be limited to mild' hyrids - those that are predominantly driven by their internal combustion engine but with some electrical assistance. "After all this testing we are now very confident we can support medium hybrids [like the Toyota Prius] or even full, plug-in hybrids [which are charged overnight from a power point]," Lamb said.

The test vehicle was a Honda Insight: a production hybrid (no longer in production) that used a nickel metal hydride battery (the same technology as powers the Toyota Prius). "Our goal was to fit our battery into the same space," Lamb said. "It is 17kg heavier and that creates a fuel consumption penalty of 2.8 percent. But it is about one quarter of the cost, so you save around $2000 on the cost of building the car."

The UK test was undertaken in collaboration with the Furukawa Battery Company of Japan, which manufactured the battery and the US Advanced Lead-Acid Battery Consortium.

Lamb said it was likely that Japanese car manufacturers would be well-advanced in the development of production vehicles using the new UltraBattery. "They will have had these batteries on test for a year and if they have done as well as that car in England they will be as thrilled as we are and will be doing their best to find ways to milk the technology in some future model. But they don't tell us what they are doing." However he predicted that cars using the UltraBattery would be in showrooms with two years.

The CSIRO is also involved in a company which is looking to commercialising the UltraBattery technology for renewable energy storage from wind and solar power generation, "That will require a totally different approach to battery building," Lamb said.