Battery Balls, fast way to fill your electric vechicle?

[Bert]

Granularity can be achieved with standardized battery packs too: decide on a baseline unit, say 200V 50AH, then equip vehicles with a multiple of those in combination series-parallel to meet performance and range requirements.

This is true to a certain degree. Paralleling does not work well when aging differences start to emerge.

As for having a battery with unknown history, the same goes with TankTwo: you have hundreds of unknowns histories in the tank.

Says who? Read the patent papers if you want the details.

By buying into any batteries-as-infrastructure scheme, you are trusting the battery ecosystem to maintain the battery/cell park and refurbish/retire bad packs/cells as necessary. The packs/cells individual history should not matter since the ecosystem should be ensuring the packs/cells it circulates are still within specs. An energy ecosystem where people cannot trust the infrastructure is not going to last long. If you are going to tell me TankTwo cells have built-in history, monitoring and logging circuitry could be added to hypothetical standardized-format packs too.

That's certainly true, and yes they do all of that. I have never claimed that the Tanktwo system does something that cannot be applied elsewhere, as a matter of fact, the whole design logic is such that we reuse as much as possible..

[Bert]

Compare with commercial distribution of compressed gasses:

There are two basic options: ...

This is an excellent insight, and you are halfway there. Certain specifics need to be added to calculate residual value correctly and to ensure safety, authentication and provisioning.

Ownership, leasing, renting, lease-to-own, and closed systems are all possible models. The business model defines the operational mode.

Reverse logistics from industrial gas distribution systems was indeed the baseline.

[Bert]

Bert.

How many Wh is each cell? (300Wh per cubic meter?)

Both have been said before. It depends on how much you want to spend on the chemistry. >10Wh. Volumetric density is >300W/l. The liter is an SI unit.

How many kWh for a typical tank? (the Tesla has 60 - 85kWh under the seats)

How typical is your tank? 60l? Then you can get roughly 20kWh. Less if you optimize for cost, more if you optimize for density. I know the model S pack quite well, for an outsider.

How much does a typical cubic meter of cells weigh?

That varies too, as said before, and also has been addressed. We do significantly more than 100W/kg.

How long to recharge in the battery tower refill station?

Normal charging is <0.75C. Fast Charging >1C. Cell Swap <180s.

How do you insure the batteries are topped off when you refill?

How about just counting them? Topping off is not needed.

How does the tank put pressure on the cells to maintain good contact?

Has been addressed before, an inflatable silicone bladder system and a tiny air pump work fine.

Does the tank work if let's say 50% full?

Of course.

How do you locate bad balls? I assume they're sorted during the tank empty process.

Good call.

IMHO.
They only features I see are 3min fillup time and and dead cell replacement. You'll need distribution stations

No, not needed. It's the same thing as saying that you can't sell Tesla Model S cars without installed battery swap systems. Maybe you are not easily impressed, that's ok.

You'll also need auto manufactures on board or you have zero chance go getting off the ground

You might want to consider that we, too, came to the same conclusion a little while ago.

(do you have any confirmed vehicle manufactures on board?). It's also going to need real world testing, that'll take significant time and money.

Darn. We always thought that it was effortless and free, just like type approval, EMC, UL, CE, and the other labels we were planning to buy off eBay! 

As battery technology improves and it will, a typical EV will likely average 200 or more km per charge, for most commuters this is plenty. Longer range consumers will opt for hybrids as they do now and fill up on fossil fuel once a week. 2016 is likely to see Hydrogen vehicles getting hyped by manufacturers over EV.

A far better solution is a replaceable battery pack, it's been tried but because it adds cost & weight it's a hard sell to money conscious consumers it's down the ladder of must have auto accessories.

My crystal ball sees no future for battery balls. It does see self driving cars that don't need handholding to keep their cells topped up. It also sees inductive coupling at intersections so EV can get a quick top up if needed.

I appreciate your feedback!

edit: fixed some nested quoting mess

[DanielS]

2016 is likely to see Hydrogen vehicles getting hyped by manufacturers over EV.

The last battery replacement technology I remember seeing hyped was ethanol/methanol fuel cells: cleaner and more efficient than internal combustion, safer and easier to manufacture than hydrogen. Some fuel cell manufacturers have models that can accept some combinations of methanol, ethanol, gasoline and hydrogen for convenience.

The big missing piece is having a cost-effective and scalable method of creating methanol/ethanol and there are a few companies working on ways to do that using algae or waste vegetable matter instead of the traditional corn, sugar cane and other methods involving edible plants.

[cosmicray]

Bert, because the arrival of the battery balls in a tank is pseudo-random (at least that is how I understand it), is there a concern for a sub-optimal distribution of batteries with different supply/age characteristics occurring ? The mesh can solve some problems, but not all of them.

[Ian.M]

Do you get different grades of battery ball at the pump? 

Premium - Newish and selected for high loads and high capacity
Regular - Middle aged and not outstanding
Economy - Near end of life or reduced load or capacity

[calexanian]

Perhaps Vincent can correct me or elaborate, but I thought I heard somewhere the Tesla plan down the road was for you to pull up to a tesla station, drive over an apparatus, and the battery pack is pulled of the bottom of the car and a freshly charged one is put in its place and off you go. That sounds like the most practical solution. Just like exchanging welding tanks. They don't fill your tank. They just hand you another full one.

[edavid]

It sounds like they are planning to make battery packs cheaper by adding expensive electronics to each cell, and make them denser by adding air space 

(Does anyone else remember Ball Semiconductor?)

[eneuro]

How much does a typical cubic meter of cells weigh?

That varies too, as said before, and also has been addressed. We do significantly more than 100W/kg.

Do you have mechanical background?
Question was about cells density = weight/volume [kg/m^3] 
You gave technical guys marketing spam answer in [W/kg] units right?

So, lets assume your battery has... air density 1.2 [kg/m^3] since... you din't show in claimed proof of concept nothing what can store energy but a few layers of PCB and AIR  between them

Sorry, but for the moment it qualifies for Ig Nobel price and this  since even rotating steel ring at decent speed will be able store energy.
Yes, if you put insteed of those bloody PCBs steel balls and spin them at desent RPM speed much more energy can be stored than in your inovation 
Why? That is simple density of steel is around 7860 [kg/m^3], so 6550 times higher than your AIR battery 

[DanielS]

Yes, if you put insteed of those bloody PCBs steel balls and spin them at desent RPM speed much more energy can be stored than in your inovation 

A 10Wh battery stores 36kJ (10 joules per second for 3600 seconds) worth of energy. How fast would you need to spin a steel ball of similar volume to store 36kJ as inertia?

Decent RPM? If your steel was in the form of  a 200 grams ring with a 2cm radius to fit in a similar volume to these balls, you have q = m * v^2/2 so v = sqrt(2*36kJ / 0.2kg) = 600m/s and to achieve that linear speed, it would need to be rotating at half a million RPM. Unless you have a perfect vacuum and frictionless bearings inside your rotating storage, your losses will be horrible and that is before we add the extra components to pump energy in/out of it or the impossibility of forming 200 grams of steel into such a small ring.

Inertia energy storage is woefully inefficient at small scales. It is better suited for MVA-scale application like electric grid dampeners/synchronizers where mechanical and electrical losses are relatively small compared to the system's power handling capacity.

[eneuro]

Yes, if you put insteed of those bloody PCBs steel balls and spin them at desent RPM speed much more energy can be stored than in your inovation 

A 10Wh battery stores 36kJ (10 joules per second for 3600 seconds) worth of energy. How fast would you need to spin a steel ball of similar volume to store 36kJ as inertia?

Do you see any Wh in @Bert answer? 

We do significantly more than 100W/kg.

It is 100W  NOT 100Wh , [W] is [J/s]

Ball I=2/5MR^2,
Es=1/2*I*w^2, w=2*PI*f

Lets assume 1inch (0.0254m) in diameter steel ball:
 V=4/3*PI*R^3 -> M=0.067 kg (7860 kg/m^3)
R=0.0127 [m]
I= 4.35*10^-6
w=sqrt(2*E/I)
E=100 [J]   -> w~ 6780 -> f= 1079 Hz -> 65 000 RPM 

UPS: Quite high spin speed, but... we have 100J in cubic inch and for observer it looks like nothing moves at all and this is quite amazing 
 NOT EGG BATTERY filled with PCBs and AIR 

Definietly this below is... prima Aprilis joke 


BTW: This 1inch rotating steel ball has 1483 [J/kg]  @ 65000 RPM

@Bert you made mistake with 100W/kg ?-show us how did you get this 100 [Wh/kg] and at which volume or unveil percentage of real battery volume (Li-on? ) in this EGG BATTERY ?
For the moment you showed only PCBs, AIR and nice loking cover - but this good only as Easter gift or prima Aprilis joke 

Than we can easy calculate energy density in EGG BATTERY 

[LabSpokane]

Wow.  "Tough" crowd.      

Sorry for all the vitriol sent your way, Bert.  I really hope this works out.

[max_torque]

Wow.  "Tough" crowd.      

Tough?  Wait till you have to persuade the Brand manager or platform controller of a major automotive OEM that your idea is worth them investing in...........

There are basically two routes available for new automotive tech to get to production:

1) The "fully productionised" idea.  Have an idea, that either saves money, or increases efficiency (but any increased cost must be less than the current £/gramCo2 limit), fully develop and homologate that idea, generally using an existing Tier 1 to help you.  Present production ready solution to OEM. (but be prepared to only be paid peanuts for it, even though you've spend £10M to productionise it)

2) The "i've had this great idea, it'll be brilliant, but i haven't developed it yet idea.  Attempt to get an OEM interesting in your brand new technology.  Then give them then bad news that it will need massive investment, and isn't a sure thing.


The issues with any kind of new "Battery" tech is that it could be rendered obsolete by improvemets in conventional battery tech, which only needs something like a 60% further increase i energy density to be viable across a vast number of consumers.

So now, you have to go to the OEM and tell them your idea will cost them £10M, take 3 years to develop, and there is a better than 50% chance it will be obsolete before it even gets to production.  Good luck with that 

[DanielS]

BTW: This 1inch rotating steel ball has 1483 [J/kg]  @ 65000 RPM

@Bert you made mistake with 100W/kg ?-show us how did you get this 100 [Wh/kg] and at which volume or unveil percentage of real battery volume (Li-on? ) in this EGG BATTERY ?

Easy enough: many lithium chemistries can achieve better than 150Wh/kg so if 33% of the mass is other stuff (air, PCBs, plastic, etc.) then you get 100Wh/kg. That part is absolutely plausible.

100Wh/kg = 360 kJ/kg, more than two orders of magnitude more than your spinning balls, so you would need to spin them an order of magnitude faster and make them ~25% bigger to catch up, which brings you pretty much in the same ballpark as what I arrived at earlier.

If you wanted to improve your energy-to-weight ratio for mechanical storage, you would be much better off using a torus-like shape: save all the dead weight near the rotation axis which contributes almost nothing to the moment of inertia. That's why flywheels are wheel-shaped with most of their mass located near their outer perimeter.

[BlueBill]

Wow.  "Tough" crowd.      

Sorry for all the vitriol sent your way, Bert.  I really hope this works out.

I feel worse for anyone who's already spent time and or money on the project.

I am curious to how they manage to automatically squeeze / compress the tank when necessary yet allow for ample cooling (airflow?). The egg to egg contact patch has to be pretty small, after all it's spherical.

That plus the 3min load & unload without jamming or damaging the eggs.

It also appears to be trying to solve a problem that isn't an issue that I'm aware of, was any marketing research done? I wonder how much they're trying to raise in capital?

[LabSpokane]

Wow.  "Tough" crowd.      

Sorry for all the vitriol sent your way, Bert.  I really hope this works out.

I feel worse for anyone who's already spent time and or money on the project.

I am curious to how they manage to automatically squeeze / compress the tank when necessary yet allow for ample cooling (airflow?). The egg to egg contact patch has to be pretty small, after all it's spherical.

That plus the 3min load & unload without jamming or damaging the eggs.

It also appears to be trying to solve a problem that isn't an issue that I'm aware of, was any marketing research done? I wonder how much they're trying to raise in capital?

This post is a joke, right?  April Fools?

[LabSpokane]

Wow.  "Tough" crowd.      

Tough?  Wait till you have to persuade the Brand manager or platform controller of a major automotive OEM that your idea is worth them investing in...........

There are basically two routes available for new automotive tech to get to production:

1) The "fully productionised" idea.  Have an idea, that either saves money, or increases efficiency (but any increased cost must be less than the current £/gramCo2 limit), fully develop and homologate that idea, generally using an existing Tier 1 to help you.  Present production ready solution to OEM. (but be prepared to only be paid peanuts for it, even though you've spend £10M to productionise it)

2) The "i've had this great idea, it'll be brilliant, but i haven't developed it yet idea.  Attempt to get an OEM interesting in your brand new technology.  Then give them then bad news that it will need massive investment, and isn't a sure thing.


The issues with any kind of new "Battery" tech is that it could be rendered obsolete by improvemets in conventional battery tech, which only needs something like a 60% further increase i energy density to be viable across a vast number of consumers.

So now, you have to go to the OEM and tell them your idea will cost them £10M, take 3 years to develop, and there is a better than 50% chance it will be obsolete before it even gets to production.  Good luck with that 

They are likely already talking to these companies.

I doubt seriously that anyone isn't already aware of the risks.  As far as the "risk" of a miraculous 60% overnight improvement in battery energy density, *that* is not what I would be betting on. The risk of packaging a battery is vastly different than the risk of betting the farm on a new battery type.  And if battery chemistry improves dramatically, they can simply swap in that cell for the existing 18650.
 
And $15M is a pittance these days.  Even *bad* energy companies have pulled off $100M USD funding rounds.  Being out of Finland, they may attract the attention of certain investment groups there who tend to finance these types of ventures on the behalf of the Finnish government. 

I'm not endorsing the technology, but it *could* solve a real problem:  how to distribute electrical charge as flexibly as liquid fuels.  The problems to be solved are electromechanical and algorithmic in nature.  But it really comes down to building a custom IC, standardizing the packaging, and creating a suitable interface and controller on the vehicle end. I have no dog in this hunt.  At first, the idea struck me as silly, but then I thought about it, and it *might* be the unconventional solution that's needed to bring down vehicle battery costs. 

It's one thing to go busting people's balls over bad science, pseudo-science, and fraudulent claims, but I'm not seeing that here.  It may well turn out to be impractical for various reasons, but this certainly doesn't appear to be a typical "free-energy" scam. 

[Bert]

Bert, because the arrival of the battery balls in a tank is pseudo-random (at least that is how I understand it), is there a concern for a sub-optimal distribution of batteries with different supply/age characteristics occurring ? The mesh can solve some problems, but not all of them.

It is random, but it is not a problem as there are plenty of routing opportunities and there is indeed no risk for sub-optimal distribution. This is a complex problem and is not easily grasped by 5 minutes of thinking, but extensive (many years) of research have been spent on this and it can be proved beyond any doubt, both in simulation and real world tests.

Do you get different grades of battery ball at the pump? 

Premium - Newish and selected for high loads and high capacity
Regular - Middle aged and not outstanding
Economy - Near end of life or reduced load or capacity

Actually, that option exists. It will not be implemented by everyone but it is indeed built into the concept.

Perhaps Vincent can correct me or elaborate, but I thought I heard somewhere the Tesla plan down the road was for you to pull up to a tesla station, drive over an apparatus, and the battery pack is pulled of the bottom of the car and a freshly charged one is put in its place and off you go. That sounds like the most practical solution. Just like exchanging welding tanks. They don't fill your tank. They just hand you another full one.

It has been around for a long time. Google Better Place. Also Musk demoed it already in July 2013.

It sounds like they are planning to make battery packs cheaper by adding expensive electronics to each cell, and make them denser by adding air space 

(Does anyone else remember Ball Semiconductor?)

It seems you have information about our BOM that we don't have?

Wow.  "Tough" crowd.      

Sorry for all the vitriol sent your way, Bert.  I really hope this works out.

Well, it's nothing new that people hiding behind anonymity and a keyboard get sometimes overly confident and when they can't win the argument (or just don't manage to grasp what is being told), they start looking like a a baby that keeps on throwing its pacifier out of the pram. It's cute in a way, but mostly annoying.

There are also intelligent and competent people reading forums, but the ones at the other end of the scale tend to make a lot more noise. 

We're a new business and those badmouthing such efforts, or - worse - spitting on people personally, are just childish. What are you going to do about it? :shrug:

Tough?  Wait till you have to persuade the Brand manager or platform controller of a major automotive OEM that your idea is worth them investing in...........

There are basically two routes available for new automotive tech to get to production....

You pretend like you know how it works, but you obviously don't. It is not nearly as simple as you make it sound. I'm sure you are a nice guy that is just trying to bring out the truth, which is admirable. However, when the point comes you are trying to teach an Eskimo about snow, please ease off a little.

I feel worse for anyone who's already spent time and or money on the project.

Hi Bill, it's nice you feel for us. No need to worry - we're doing great.

I am curious to how they manage to automatically squeeze / compress the tank when necessary yet allow for ample cooling (airflow?).

I'm not sure if it is better or worse for the forum that I repeat for the 5th time how that works. Anyhow, the key words are bladder, air, coolant and pump.

The egg to egg contact patch has to be pretty small, after all it's spherical.

They are not spherical, they are ellipsoids with a certain semi-axis ratio.

It also appears to be trying to solve a problem that isn't an issue that I'm aware of, was any marketing research done?

What can I say to that?

This post is a joke, right?  April Fools?

It's hard to tell sometimes..!

Do you know what's strange? I was expecting people here to ask technical questions about how it's done, specifically about the electronics. But that seems to be all rather obvious. Weird 

[eneuro]

I was expecting people here to ask technical questions about how it's done, specifically about the electronics.

People asked you about egg battery energy density and you gave them... marketing answer, because of all you need now is... more hits to your web page to show "investors" there is interest in this   

This is classic public relations answers and it is boring 

Ok. it is funny   

They are not spherical, they are ellipsoids with a certain semi-axis ratio.

Yep, they have to be... because of nobody will give patent if someone reinwents wheel, so now those magic numbers might help 

[eneuro]

Why people do NOT need ANOTHER  egg battery? 



http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Egg_%28food%29

Nutritional value per 100 g (3.5 oz)
Energy    647 kJ (155 kcal)

So, we have in this well known egg battery (647 kJ *10)/kg ~ 6.47 MJ/kg ~ 1797 Wh/kg   

@Bert  Good luck. I prefere well known egg battery 

[Codemonkey]

Well if I had to put my money on either eneuro or Bert succeeding in the marketplace, Bert would be the winner by a long shot. He has answered all questions reasonably and appears to be competent and capable of reasoned argument, whereas eneuro comes across as a free energy nutjob incapable of stringing together even the most basic of arguments!

[max_torque]

Tough?  Wait till you have to persuade the Brand manager or platform controller of a major automotive OEM that your idea is worth them investing in...........

There are basically two routes available for new automotive tech to get to production....

You pretend like you know how it works, but you obviously don't. It is not nearly as simple as you make it sound. I'm sure you are a nice guy that is just trying to bring out the truth, which is admirable. However, when the point comes you are trying to teach an Eskimo about snow, please ease off a little.

Here is a brief CV of my Automotive experience:

I have a MechEng degree and over 20 years direct automotive product development experience. I have worked for cutting edge engineering Tier1 & 2 suppliers including Cosworth & Prodrive. My engineering knowledge has been / is used in numerous highly respected cars from OEMs such as Aston Martin, Bentley, LandRover, Jaguar, Ford, Porsche,  and many others.
 I have been involved in the development and marketing of Eboosting and hybrid systems for 15 years, including running technology demonstrator and benchmarking programs for the OEMs. 
I currently run my own specialist powertrain engineering services company, that provides high tech powertrain engineering resource to OEM and Tier1 clients.  If you attend events such as LCV, you will find that most of the companies there are already my clients.
 The last major powertrain i worked on (that i am allowed to talk about) was the Mclaren P1, doing Emachine and system design,development and integration. 
My "contacts list" has 20 years worth of high level OEM personnel in it, people directly responsible for determining the direction and sourcing requirements for most major OEMs. I have direct and current experience of providing OEMs with powertrain hardware and technology, and have high volume production systems using technology that i have developed.
As we speak, 5 major OEMs are benchmarking an Eboosting system that i was instrumental in developing, and that has taken over 6 years to reach OEM level readiness.



Perhaps you could enlighten me as to your automotive CV before you off handedly brush me off?

[Bert]

Here is a brief CV of my Automotive experience:

....

Perhaps you could enlighten me as to your automotive CV before you off handedly brush me off?

In that case I stand corrected. You indeed appear to have quite some experience that actually has some relevance in this discussion. Which makes it even more surprising, people of this seniority level typically don't bother with trying to prove that someone else is doing it wrong. Perhaps you only have the best of intentions and want to share your vast experience by outlining methods that have worked well for you? In such case, I applaud your effort. We'll consider studying your go-to-market suggestions.

I don't have any automotive CV, but that is not relevant. The company, however, does. This is not about individuals.

[eneuro]

I don't have any automotive CV, but that is not relevant.

UPS, Eskimo has to learn a lot howto avoid  fall into ice hole hidden under snow, which he thinks he knows very well

[LabSpokane]

One would think that someone with cellular phone design credentials would know a thing or two about battery management.  Sorry for the abuse you're getting, Bert.  It's inappropriate. 

I do have some questions:

- The 18650 battery was mentioned.  I also saw mention on the website of "tablet"-style batteries - which would make a lot of sense as far as volume utilization is concerned.  Is the plan to eventually layer such a battery into the ellipsoid?  Is it possible for those batteries to be manufactured into shapes other than rectangles, such as a "stretched" octagon that will fill the ellipsoid better?

- Do you know what your business model will be for this yet?  I can see a couple obvious paths, one being to become the actual manufacturer.  The other, which may be better, is to become a technology licensing company, once the proof of concept is validated.  i.e. You only license the physical form factor and interactive logic, and anyone who wants to build a battery can.

- Do you have a target, per-unit cost, yet? 

- Are you going to try an build an IC that incorporates all the needed functions into one die in order to reduce the part count / BOM cost?  (It doesn't seem like you need to ask much of a FET for this application.) 

- How are you handling node-to-node communications?  The transceiver design must be interesting since you're depending on random pairings of contacts.  Or is it RF?  How do you conclusively identify each battery's nearest neighbors?

- How long does it take to identify all the nodes in the "tank" and build the strings?