- Supercaps are in the news again, this time with a few stories about EESTOR and their supercapacitors. According to this Wikipedia entry EESTOR filed a patent for supercapacitor technology, “That would give it an energy/weight value of about 342 Wh/kg, twice that of lithium-ion batteries.“ Great sounding stuff. Still no public demonstration or scientific review of working units.
- The company financing EESTOR, Zenn Motors out of Canada, is set to have their EV launch in the next couple of days. Zenn, Zapi, Zap … I wonder what it is about Z’s and electric vehicles?
- I ran across a guide to using a Prius as a backup power supply for your house, or at least some of the electrical appliances you might need the most. Quite thorough job documenting and analyzing the system. If you like that be sure to check out his many other Prius and energy efficiency articles with fantastic details.
- Electronic weekly’s “Made by Monkeys” sub-site has an article on What’s wrong with Lithium Batteries. Mostly regarding the recent recalls and laptop fires related to lithiums. They don’t talk about A123’s lithium cells, which supposedly does away with many of these problems.
I love the idea of those supercapacitors but chances are we’ll never see them. If they really are as good as they say then surely Big Oil will leap in there and buy them out. It’s happened before.
The Zenn motors vehicle in the ‘EV Launch’ linked page looks like a small crossover SUV to me. While I don’t like SUVs, it is good to widen the EV options available to people who are too proud to drive converted 80s and 90s econoboxes, or very small EVs like Commutacars, Kewets or the G-Wiz.
For around $12,000 I sure would buy one if it has the Eestor power cells.
Z ususally = zero
zero emissions,
zero air pollution,
zero products other than xebra after much hype. (Zap)
Spreaking of SUVs- I’ve been wishing I could find a Chevy HHR w/ a blown engine. I can easily imagine some huge battery boxes in all that floor.
I came across this nice link when checking out the A123 battery when used as a Pack. I thought someone might find it useful.
http://www.rcgroups.com/forums/showthread.php?t=599316
I came across some more Ultra-capacitor information while searching over YouTube®™.
AFS Trinity has put together a few nice videos displaying their research and though it is a Plug in Hybrid SUV with a 170hp engine and a 200hp electric motor; it has the option to run the vehicle in any of the three modes of Gas, Electric or Both. When the (Saturn VUE) XH150 is in Hybrid mode it is combining its drive train into 370hp and since an electric motor has more noticeable torque then a gas of equal rating, they have hedged the selling feature of electric even greater then gas by using a 200hp motor. I think I noticed the driver wearing the infamous EV Grin!http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w22jz6r06t8
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Fk7xbcnzxks&feature=related
I’m very interested in seeing these Ultra-Caps used in someone’s homebrew EV.
Who knows, I have another three years of child support but if I still have my moms old Plymouth Grand Voyager – ( I hope not), I’ll think of converting it but if anyone is interested; it’s a 98 with 150k that’s from Georgia runs great but needs valve guide seals (typical oil burner). Never seen salt and yes my little grey haired mother drove it to church. OK, enough of shameless ad… Mom just wants it to have a good home; she named it Vonda! What’s a good son to do?