GM-backed Envia claims huge advance in cheaper, better batteries for 300-mile EVs

Looking for signs that the automotive landscape may be changing sooner than most people realize? Here's one. Envia Systems, a start-up battery company that counts General Motors as a significant investor, has announced it has produced a cell with an energy density of 400 watt-hours per kilogram (Wh/kg). It also claims they will be priced somewhere in the $125 per kilowatt-hour neighborhood. Put another way, a $20,000 car using these cells could travel 300 miles on a charge. Even if that scenario sounds a bit optimistic, color us impressed. GM must be pleased, too, since when it made its $7-million investment is also concluded a separate licensing deal to use Envia's new technology in future vehicles.

To contrast Envia's numbers with batteries in electric vehicles available today, most lithium cells fall between 100-150 Wh/kg and easily cost double to triple Envia's projected price. Only Tesla Motors – using cells from Panasonic – even comes close to these figures. Its Model S batteries should weigh in at around 240 Wh/kg and, price-wise, Tesla CEO Elon Musk is recently on record as saying he expects to see cost drop below $200 per Wh in the near future.

Envia says its breakthrough comes from pairing a "High Capacity Manganese Rich (HCMR)" cathode with a silicon-carbon nanocomposite anode. The other major battery component, the electrolyte through which the lithium ions pass, has also been altered from what is typically used and allows for a somewhat higher voltage.

Perhaps the best part of this news is the fact that Envia's numbers aren't just based on expectations from early research. In fact, the cells in question have already undergone independent testing by the Electrochemical Power Systems Department at the Naval Surface Warfare Center (NSWC) and are expected to be commercialized by 2015. The company will make its official announcement of the breakthrough at the ARPA-E conference today.



Source: Autoblog Green