Batteries

UPDATE, Thu, April 12, 11:15 am: The Detroit News quotes an unnamed source this morning as saying that the battery pack being tested that caused yesterday's explosion at GM's Warren Technical Center contained lithium-ion cells from battery maker A123 Systems. The Chevrolet Spark EV is the only GM...

We breathed a sigh of relief when Coda announced it had started production of its electric Sedan earlier this month. Then, we positively jumped for joy when little over a week later, the first customers started taking delivery of their new 2012 Coda Sedans. It had certainly been a long time coming...

So you got yer gasoline cars, and yer electric cars. And yer extended-range electrics, and yer plug-in hybrids. Sure, old news, been there, done that. How about an electric car with a gasoline engine you can swap in and out as you need it? Think of it as a range-extended electric car (like the...

Lithium-ion battery cells are expensive, challenging, and time-consuming to develop. And they can be hard to get right, as the current woes of A123 Systems show. Even the large car companies that develop their own cells--Toyota is the largest among a small number--want to spread their costs. Today...

Hundreds of recalls a year get announced for gasoline cars, the vast majority completely under the radar. The high visibility of the electric-car business makes any recalls of batteries different, though. With that in mind, lithium-ion cell maker A123 Systems [NSDQ:AONE] said this morning it will...

It's an assertion that comes up a lot in comments on our stories. It goes, essentially, like this: No one recognizes the horrible pollution problems that will arrive when hybrid and electric cars are junked, and their nickel-metal-hydride and lithium-ion battery packs go into landfills. It's a...

Lithium-ion cell maker A123 Systems announced today that it would supply complete battery packs to Tata Motors, the largest vehicle maker in India, to be used in hybrid systems for commercial vehicles. The lithium-ion battery packs will first be deployed in city transit buses in the latter half of...

Here at GreenCarReports, we’re fans of all-electric cars, but even we have to admit that most electric cars on the market today suffer from the same problem: limited range. But according to battery firm Envia Systems, the days of limited-range electric cars could soon be over, thanks to a new...

Late last night, a sensational blog post circulated through Silicon Valley. It claimed that several $100,000-plus Tesla Roadsters were now useless as the result of a "devastating design problem," with their battery packs "bricked" from being left too long without plugging in. Early this morning, we...

Heard of "bricking" yet? No? You will shortly. It's the phenomenon in which the lithium-ion battery pack of an electric car that's left unplugged for a long period goes completely, utterly dead--to the point where it cannot be recharged, and becomes a large, expensive "brick." [FURTHER UPDATE: Is...

We'd be the first to point out that many of the electric car owners currently out on the roads have had absolutely no trouble with the 100 or so miles they get from a full charge. However, it'd be foolish to assume that some people really don't need more than that, and as a result there's always...

An animation released by General Motors depicts the modifications to Chevy Volt that will be performed by dealers to strengthen the battery compartment.

GM announced today that it would offer a "customer satisfaction" initiative that provides modifications to roughly 12,400 Chevrolet Volt range-extended electric cars to reduce the chance that the battery pack could catch fire days or weeks after a severe accident. The safety "enhancement" is meant...

Via Motors, the extended-range electric truck conversion company with GM legend Bob Lutz on its board, announced today that it would use lithium-ion cells from A123 Systems in its battery packs. The startup company will show its full lineup of electric-drive pickup trucks at next week's Detroit...

Engineers at General Motors are close to finalizing a set of design modifications to the Chevrolet Volt battery pack to prevent later fires in packs that have been severely damaged in accidents. The updates come in response to two fires in lithium-ion Volt battery packs that were compromised during...

Better Place, charging infrastructure, battery leasing and global pioneer of rapid battery swap stations for electric cars, has just announced it has secured $200 Million of investment in its series C funding. Aiming to make electric car ownership and refueling as simple and as quick as refueling a...

Every carmaker ramps up production on a new vehicle slowly. So Fisker Automotive struck back at the thesis of a GigaOm article yesterday that suggested the company was delaying the production schedule for its 2012 Karma extended-range electric luxury sport sedan into the middle of next year...

Well, this one's not a big shock: Tesla Motors announced yesterday that its 2012 Model S electric sport sedan would use Panasonic lithium-ion cells in its battery pack. Panasonic is one of several companies that have invested in Tesla, and the two companies had announced in 2009 that they would...

Solid state batteries could be seen as everything we're looking for from an electric car battery, improving on all the fundamental characteristics needed for electric mobility. Unfortunately, we probably won't be seeing them any time soon. The latest estimations reported by Automotive News...

A common misconception of electric cars and hybrid vehicles is that at the end of a short battery life, the remainder is dumped in landfill and contributes ever more pollution to the Earth. Of course, we know this to be incorrect. Not only are the more common lead acid batteries the world's most...