The Toyota Prius has proved to be a great platform for engineers to tweak and test their inventions that enhance its performance. The latest company to do so is ETV Motors, who has replaced the gas engine with a microturbine, making the Prius a range-extended electric vehicle (REEV). One has to wonder why the Toyota company themselves has not done likewise.
From Green Car Congress:
Israeli startup ETV Motors Ltd. (ETVM) completed a proof-of-concept test of its Range-Extended Electric Vehicle (REEV) architecture using a gas microturbine for the range-extending generator. The company had closed a $12M Series A round in April. (Earlier post.)
For the test drive, the company modified a Toyota Prius using commercially available components. ETVM replaced the OEM NiMH pack with a large-format lithium-ion battery, and retrofitted a liquid-fueled, gas turbine generator to the car for the range extender.
The proof-of-concept demonstrator REEV will serve as a test vehicle for the company’s ongoing development work, which is focused on developing a new microturbine and a new Li-ion battery, in collaboration with the electrochemistry team at Bar Ilan University.
This milestone is a major pre-requisite for materializing our vision of plug-in EVs equipped with fuel-efficient, low-emission gas turbines for range extension.
—Dror Ben David, ETV Motors CEO
ETVM is developing its own microturbine, based on RQL (Rich-Quench-Lean) principles. The ETVM turbine will have the unique property of achieving optimum efficiency at two operating points. This “dual mode” property will provide a number of degrees of freedom when matching the microturbine to various drive cycles and vehicle categories.
ETVM expects that its first generation of the turbine, with an efficiency that outperforms the present state of the art by approximately 30%, will be fully functional in Q2 2010.
On the battery side, ETVM is working on two cell chemistries: lithium manganese nickel oxide (LMNS)/graphite to form a 4.7V cell; and LMNS/LiTiO to form a 3.2V cell.
| Characteristics of the ETV 3.2V and 4.7V cells compared with the chemistries of selected commercial batteries | ||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Commercial | ETVM | |||||
| Battery chemistry | NiMH | LiCoO2 | LFP | Adv. rapid charge | LMNS | LMNS |
| Voltage | 1.2V | 3.7V | 3.2V | 2.4 | 3.2V | 4.7V |
| Energy Density Wh/kg (80-100% DOD) | 50-70 | 180-200 | 65-110 | 50-70 | 120 | 240 |
| Power Density W/kg | 400-500 | 250-400 | 2,000-3,000 | 3,000-5,000 | 2,000-5,000 | 1,000-3,000 |
| Cycle-life | 300-500 | 300-500 | >1,000 | >3,000 | >3,000 | >3,000 |
| Self-Discharge %/mo. | 25% | <0.3% | <0.3% | <0.5% | <1% | <1% |
| Projected $/kWh | $500-700 | $400-500 | $200-300 | $300-400 | $200-$350 | $200-$350 |
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