Have you seen or heard of this battery???

BTW, I emailed these folks and asked them to subscribe to the forum and tell us more about their plans and this lead cobalt battery. I really hope they do. I'd love for some of the more expert battery folks on here to get a chance here to scrutinize their claims.

Gushar

Sounds very interesting. They certainly make some impressive claims on the first page of this paper: http://www.electricauto.com/_pdfs/new_batt_Ecar_Whitepaper.pdf

Also, they claim it can be sold for $75 per kWh! That's cheaper than current SLA prices (my 75Ah x 12V = 0.9kWh batteries were about $80 each). The cheapest readily available LiFePO4 is $100 for a 40Ah * 3.2V cell which gives around $780 per kWh.

I haven't read enough to know about the energy density yet - these could be bigger and heavier than standard SLA's for all I know. Nor do I know their availability.

I expect there's a snag somewhere in all of this!

I'm going to read up more on their site and do some googling. Let us know if they send you a reply to your e-mail.

Update - I read this section of the above white paper:

Battery Capacity and Cost
The battery capacity of the Tri-Polar Lead Cobalt Battery I is 37.2669 watt-hours per kilogram
(WH/kg) (h). The theoretical capacity of a lead-acid battery is 170 WH/kg. It is reported that the
capacity of Nickel-Metal Hydride Batteries is 90 WH/kg and the capacity of Lithium-Ion batteries is
110 WH/kg. Engineering calculations show that the Tri-Polar Lead Cobalt Battery II will have a
capacity of 109.80 WH/kg, 2.945 times greater than the first generation battery. This means that
the driving range of a car with the Tri-Polar Lead Cobalt Battery II should be greater than a car with a
Nickel-Metal Hydride Battery and approximately the same as a car with a Lithium-Ion Battery.
However, the cost of the Tri-Polar Lead Cobalt Battery II is $75 per kilowatt-hour (kWh) vs.
$360-$450/kWh for a Lithium-Ion Battery. A Lithium-Ion Battery weighing 450-pounds might cost
$25,000, while a Tri-Polar Lead Cobalt Battery II of the same weight would cost $5,200 and take an
electric car the same number of miles on a charge.

So, that sounds fantastc - however, back to reading to find out if their "engineering calculations" are being born out in prototypes...

Hmmm... They signed an exclusive deal with ZAP for their fuel cell (not their battery): http://www.zapworld.com/node/118 - that was back in 2004 and it doesn't seem like much is happening with them.

So, at the moment I'm guessing that things aren't going so well for them.

BTW, I wonder if the "Lead Foam Substrate" is at all similar to Firefly's battery technology? I haven't heard much about them recently either.

Oh yeah and the "146 miles on a charge" back in the 60's was at a constant 22 mph in 2nd gear round an oval. Not all that impressive really.

As far as I can tell there's no magic bullet here.

Oh well.

Here's some info on Firefly: http://www.fireflyenergy.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=204&Itemid=89

and on their first release (a truck battery): http://www.greencarcongress.com/2007/10/firefly-energ-1.html

(I think the similarity is only in the "foam substrate" - not in any of the other stuff that Apollo claims to be doing).