GM Opens New Global Battery Systems Lab
08 June 2009
General Motors further expanded its battery research and development capabilities by opening what it called the largest and most technologically advanced battery lab in the US on its Technical Center campus in Warren, MI.
The new Global Battery Systems Lab will lead GM’s global advanced battery engineering resources and expedite the introduction of electrically driven vehicles, including the Chevrolet Volt, as well as plug-in hybrid and hybrid-electric vehicles and fuel cell vehicles.
The Global Battery Systems Lab spans 33,000 sq. ft.—four times larger than GM’s previous Tech Center battery lab—and will be used by GM’s growing team of more than 1,000 engineers working on advanced batteries and electrically driven vehicles.
| Lab Features |
|---|
| Increased pack testing |
| New cell and module testing
|
| Environmental control capability to allow for test correlation and repeatability
|
Planning began in December 2007 and construction started in August 2008. Operations began in January, nine months ahead of schedule. The lab became fully functional in May, equipped with 160 test channels and 42 thermal chambers duplicating extreme real-world driving patterns, hot and cold temperatures and calendar life. The lab’s maximum power capacity is 6 megawatts, or enough electricity to provide power to approximately 1,400 homes.
More than half of the lab is dedicated to testing the electrochemical battery cells and modules, a capability not available in GM’s previous battery lab, said Jim Queen, GM group vice president, Global Engineering. The lab’s remaining floor space is committed to evaluating completed battery packs.
The Global Battery Systems Lab was built within GM’s Alternative Energy Center facility, and includes environmentally friendly features such as a center hallway with high-efficiency LED lighting and a floor made from recycled tires. Approximately 90% of the electricity used for battery testing can be returned to the local energy grid for use by homeowners and businesses.
Additional new benefits offered by the Global Battery Systems Lab include a thermal shaker table for battery structural integrity testing, a battery teardown area for failure analysis and competitor benchmarking, an integrated test automation system and improved Design of Experiments methodology.
The Global Battery Systems Lab complements GM’s other battery labs in Mainz-Kastel, Germany, Honeoye Falls, NY, and the Warren Technical Center’s Research Chemical Engineering facility.
I wonder if they'll do any testing with NiMH batteries there.... I guess that will have to wait until 2014, won't it, GM? For now it's Lithium ion....
Posted by: Mark_BC | 08 June 2009 at 10:25 AM
I should send them a pack made from NiMH D cells so that they could put them on their cycle machines and see how they compare.
Posted by: SJC | 08 June 2009 at 11:14 AM
That link doesn't work .... it goes to this: http://www.greencarcongress.com/2009/06/Jim%20Queen, WTF?
Posted by: ejj | 08 June 2009 at 06:41 PM
I think GM just might know the capabilities of NiMH,as well as Li-ion batteries and Lead-Acid batteries.
NiMH batteries are not up to the task.
The market proves this, more every day from GM to Toyota to Hafei.
Posted by: ToppaTom | 08 June 2009 at 11:04 PM
I know GM knows NiMH, I was joking. I was alluding to the fact that the Chevron patents preclude them from using them. The Chrysler EPIC minivan in 1999 proved that NiMH DOES work in EVs with high loads and rapid charging. The RAV4 EV DID prove that they work in EVs and most of those batteries are still working today 10 years and 100,000 miles later. The same can not be said of all lithium in the same application.
Posted by: SJC | 09 June 2009 at 07:02 AM
If Chevron patents preclude them [GM] from using Ni-MH batteries, why did Toyota use them in the Pruis for the last 10 years and is only now preparing to upgrade to Li-ion cells?
Posted by: ToppaTom | 10 June 2009 at 12:22 AM
Because under the 2004 lawsuit against Toyota and Panasonic, they stipulate that Toyota can only sell certain sizes and types of NiMH batteries for certain applications. I haven`t been able to find the specifics of what is meant by that, but it seems pretty obvious to me that what they are preventing Toyota from doing is making a plugin hybrid (the 2011 Prius is plugin but uses Lithium ion, surprise surprise), and also not a series hybrid, only a parallel. This way, all of the energy required to move the car still comes from gasoline, and the complexity required to make a parallel hybrid keeps the cost of the Prius up, the combined effect of which is to have basically no impact on Chevron oil sales. If they were to outright ban the use of NiMH batteries I presume that would open up Chevron to some patent manipulation lawsuits (I`m not a lawyer though), so to keep everyone happy and hush hush they do allow a limited use of NiMH batteries.
I presume Toyota is now upgrading to Lithium cells because they were heavily invested in NiMH and behind the ball with regards to Lithium.
Scroll a third of the way down this page and read from the bottom of page 11 to the top of page 15.
http://esignal.brand.edgar-online.com/EFX_dll
/EDGARpro.dll?FetchFilingHTML1?SessionID=9v_SWOrCD0bgpyB&
ID=3960401&AnchorName=HH_&AnchorDistance=0&
BeginHTML=%3Cb%3E%3Cfont+color%3D%22%23cc0000%22%3E&
EndHTML=%3C%2Ffont%3E%3C%2Fb%3E&
SearchText=%3CNEAR%2F4%3E(%22SAMUEL+W.%22%2C
%22BODMAN%22)
``The licenses granted to MEI, PEVE and Toyota did not include rights to use the licensed patents to (i) offer for sale certain NiMH batteries for certain transportation applications in North America until after June 30, 2007 or (ii) sell commercial quantities of certain transportation and certain stationary power NiMH batteries in North America until after June 30, 2010. PEVE was granted expanded rights in July 2005 to solicit and sell NiMH batteries for certain North American transportation applications and Cobasys will receive royalties on PEVE North American sales of NiMH batteries through 2014. ``
Posted by: Mark_BC | 10 June 2009 at 10:05 AM
"If Chevron patents preclude them [GM]"
GM uses a few NiMH for mild hybrids by guying the batteries from Cobasys, but their quality was not good so they used another brand. No battery maker, outside of Gold Peak can make a cell larger than 10 ah. Gold Peak has one of the original licenses.
Please go to sites and read for yourself. That is a better way than to hear someone else explain it, then it allows you to judge for yourself. It also frees people from having to do all the work for you :) Besides, when others explain it, you are less likely to believe them anyway, which makes it a waste of time for everyone. I would think everyone on this site would know the full story by now, but I guess not.
Posted by: SJC | 10 June 2009 at 11:57 AM
It's not completely clear that Lithium Ions are better than NiMH. If they were, why haven't Toyota and Ford transitioned to them sooner than now?
Lithium ions are denser energetically than NiMH, but are more expensive and have lifetime issues that are still a problem for them. Chemistries to make them safer also make them bulkier and less costly.
10 years ago, large format NiMH cells such as the 95-amp-hr EV-95 used by the Toyota RAV4-EV, were definitely a "good enough" technology, though to be fair, no one knows what they actually cost to make. EV-95 packs are still working today, after 200,000 plus miles on some of them.
It seems clear to me that the patent limiting vehicle use to 10-amp-hours or smaller hampered the development of the Prius and the Ford Escape Hybrid. I don't think anyone would fill a car with D-Cell sized batteries by choice.
Posted by: Jim | 12 June 2009 at 12:29 PM
"D-Cell sized batteries by choice.."
Nope and if you scale that up and try to run an EV with 16 kwh of D cells, you run into power problems. They really do not want to put out 90 kw to accelerate the car even for 10 seconds. You can see how limiting the capacity of the battery limits the potential uses. You can use them for hybrids that still use gas, but not EVs that use NO gas. If I were in the oil business, I would be delighted at all of this.
Posted by: SJC | 12 June 2009 at 06:27 PM
Stanford Ovshinsky himself says, “Cobasys is not preventing anybody, Cobasys just needs an infusion of cash.
No wonder you cannot explain your position.
SOURCE:
I went to a site recommended by a believer in this Chevron/GM conspiracy BS :
http://www.sigmaxi.org/programs/prizes/chubb.ovshinsky.shtml http://web.mit.edu/invent/iow/ovshinsky.html ...
Stanford Ovshinsky Interview, Part 1, Ovshinsky (who is indeed a genius second to none, but maybe not the best businessman) in answer to this question
“ So it’s your opinion that Cobasys is preventing other people from making it [high capacity ECD batteries] for that reason”
Ovshinsky says, “Cobasys is not preventing anybody, Cobasys just needs an infusion of cash."
If this doesn't close this BS out - what will?
Posted by: ToppaTom | 20 June 2009 at 10:16 PM