Green Options

In a move that clearly signals Toyota’s future intentions, the auto manufacturer, acting through an intermediary, has secured a deal with Argentinian lithium mining company, Orocobre, to supply a large amount of the lithium required for advanced electric car and plug-in hybrid batteries. The deal was shuttled through one of Toyota’s sister companies and main suppliers, Toyota Tsusho Corp, which is 22% owned by Toyota.

In a breakthrough that might change a few minds about the battery-swap concept, Nissan says that they have succeeded in tests that would extend the range of the LEAF and other electric cars up to 186 miles on each charge, almost double today’s range with an improved battery.

Nissan has developed a new battery combination by adding small amounts of cobalt and nickel to the manganese in their current batteries. Now it’s a real mouthful: a lithium nickel manganese cobalt oxide cathode battery, or NMC.

As much as I love the coming onslaught of electric cars, they use lots of materials that currently have almost no recycling infrastructure — especially when it comes to their batteries. The numbers vary by the type of lithium-ion battery used, but on average, for every 100 miles of pure-electric range, a lithium-ion battery needs to contain about 15 pounds of lithium.

Although the developed world has had robust systems in place for a long time to deal with the recycling of lead-acid batteries (in the U.S. more than 95% of battery lead gets recycled), the lithium-ion battery has a long way to go to catch up. Granted, lithium-ion batteries are not nearly as toxic as lead-acid batteries and so the urgency of developing a recycling infrastructure is virtually non-existent. In fact, lithium-ion batteries are classified by the U.S. government as non-toxic and “safe” to throw away in the regular trash.

VW premiered its spanking new EV concept, the E-Up!, at the Frankfurt Auto Show yesterday, and gave the strongest hint yet that the car will be very close to the production model available from 2013.

The E-Up! boasts acceleration to 62 mph in a fairly zippy 11.3 seconds and tops out at 84 mph, whilst its 18 kWh integrated lithium-ion batteries will enable a range of over 80 miles (see picture gallery after the jump).

The Toyota Prius is among the most popular cars under the Cash For Clunkers program right now. But many people who want one will have to wait, as production of the popular hybrid has slowed because of a battery shortage. The supplier of Prius batteries, Panasonic EV Energy, can not keep up with Toyota’s 500,000  annual Prius capacity. While Panasonic EV says it should have its production capacity ramped up to a million units annually by mid-2010, this begs the bigger question;

Will battery packs hold back hybrid production and development?

Toyota has revealed that its eagerly anticipated iQ-based all-electric car will receive its own individual body-style makeover, to create a stand-alone model set to become Toyota’s first all-electric car.

It appears that the electric iQ, due for launch in 2010, will not be pushed in the same market sectors as the original. Speaking about the strategy Hiroki Nakajima, chief engineer for the iQ said, “We wanted to position the iQ as premium, but not so the BEV (battery electric vehicle).” Perhaps they think that your average EV user is a little more low-rent than other drivers?

Technological innovations can solve some of the world’s biggest problems right? That’s what a firm of Chilean architects would like us to believe. They’ve come up with a creative idea for how land-locked Bolivia could regain access to the ocean. It was not too long ago, in 1883 to be exact, that Bolivia lost the little coastline it had in a war with Chile. Since it’s only be gone for a short time, now’s the perfect time to get it back!

Researchers at MIT have managed to genetically engineer viruses so that they can build rechargeable lithium-ion batteries in the form of a plastic film. These new batteries could then be used in anything from cellphones to iPods to the rechargeable batteries in plug-in electric hybrid cars.

Researchers at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) have developed battery cells capable of charging in under a minute, an astonishing 100 times faster than a regular rechargable battery.

The breakthrough could revolutionize electric car battery technology and pave the way for ultra-fast charging electric vehicles in as little as two years.

The discovery came when MIT researchers Byoungwoo Kang and Gerbrand Ceder found out how to get a common lithium compound to release and take up lithium ions in a matter of seconds. According to Ceder, the compound, known as lithium iron phosphate (LiFePO4), has a crystal structure that creates “perfectly sized tunnels for lithium to move through,” allowing the team to reach “ridiculously fast charging rates.”

With growing speculation that electric cars and other energy efficient vehicles will soon dominate markets worldwide, Bolivia is a nation that perhaps stands to benefit (or suffer) more than any other from the energy revolution.

Most electric cars will be powered by lithium batteries, and Bolivia has more lithium than any other nation worldwide. How this development will affect Bolivia is unknown, but will squarely place the South American country at an intriguing and crucial crossroads.

if you’re like me, you’ve probably been caught numerous times with a dying cell phone and no outlet in site. That’s when a product like Freeplay’s ZipCharge comes in handy. You may remember Freeplay for inventing the world’s first hand-cranked wind-up radio in 1996. Now the company is back with a sleek hand-held rechargeable power stick. The ZipCharge, which debuted last week at the Consumer Electronics Show, takes only ten minutes to power up with enough juice for an iPod or cell phone.