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Dual Carbon Battery Charges 20x Faster than Current Li-Ion Batts [VIDEO]

Power Japan Plus has launched a new battery technology – the Ryden dual carbon battery. This unique battery offers energy density comparable to a lithium ion battery, but over a much longer functional lifetime with drastically improved safety and cradle-to-cradle sustainability. The Ryden battery makes use of a completely unique chemistry, with both the anode and the cathode made of carbon.

“Power Japan Plus is a materials engineer for a new class of carbon material that balances economics, performance and sustainability in a world of constrained resources,” said Dou Kani, CEO of Power Japan Plus. “The Ryden dual carbon battery is the energy storage breakthrough needed to bring green technology like electric vehicles to mass market.”

The Ryden battery balances a breadth of consumer demands previously unattainable by single battery chemistry, including performance, cost, reliability, safety and sustainability.

  • High Performance – energy dense and charges 20 times faster than lithium ion batteries. It is also more powerful than other advanced batteries, operating above four volts.
  • Cost Competitive – slots directly into existing manufacturing processes, requiring no change to existing manufacturing lines. Even more, the battery allows for consolidation of the supply chain, with only one active material — carbon. Additionally, manufacturing of the Ryden battery is under no threat of supply disruption or price spikes from rare metals, rare earth or heavy metals.
  • Reliable – first ever high performance battery that meets consumer lifecycle demand, rated for more than 3,000 charge/discharge cycles.
  • Safe – safest high performance battery chemistry ever developed. The Ryden battery eliminates the unstable active material used in other high performance batteries, greatly reducing fire and explosion hazard. Even more, the battery experiences minimal thermal change during operation, eliminating the threat of a thermal runaway. Finally, the Ryden battery can be 100 percent charged and discharged with no damage to the battery.
  • Sustainable – contains no rare metals, rare earth metals or heavy metals, and is 100 percent recyclable, vastly improving the cradle-to-cradle sustainability of an advanced battery. Even further, Power Japan Plus is testing the Ryden battery with its organic Carbon Complex material, working towards the goal of producing the battery with all organic carbon in the future.

    • “Current advanced batteries have made great improvement on performance, but have done so by compromising on cost, reliability and safety,” said Dr. Kaname Takeya, CTO of Power Japan Plus. “The Ryden dual carbon battery balances this equation, excelling in each category.”

    Path to Market

    Power Japan Plus will begin benchmark production of 18650 Ryden cells later this year at the company’s production facility in Okinawa, Japan. This facility will allow the company to meet demand for specialty energy storage markets such as medical devices and satellites. For larger demand industries, such as electric vehicles, Power Japan Plus will operate under a licensing business model, providing technology and expertise to existing battery manufacturers to produce the Ryden battery.

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    Tesla Sees Need for Hundreds of Battery ‘Gigafactories’

    Tesla Motors founder Elon Musk said the need for lower-cost batteries for autos and power storage means there will need to be hundreds of “gigafactories” like the one the carmaker is planning to build.

    The electric-car company based in Palo Alto, California, anticipates the battery factory will reduce the cost of lithium-ion cells by more than its initial guidance of 30 percent, Musk said. He spoke yesterday at the World Energy Innovation Forum, an annual conference hosted by Tesla board member Ira Ehrenpreis.

    “I think we can probably do better than 30 percent,” Musk, 42, said yesterday at the company’s Fremont, California, plant. As carmakers increase demand for batteries “there’s going to need to be lots of gigafactories. Just to supply auto demand you need 200 gigafactories,” he said.

    Tesla is getting close to deciding where it will build the first such proposed facility, which Musk has said will cost as much as $5 billion and involve partner companies such as Panasonic. Last week he said groundbreaking at one of at least two potential sites could happen as early as June.

    Along with supplying cheaper batteries for Tesla’s electric cars, the plant is to supply stationary power storage devices to SolarCity Corp., another Musk-affiliated company. Those power storage devices will also be needed by other solar power providers and to store wind power, he said, without identifying specific companies.

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    BMW i5 with 300 km range expected by 2017

    Following news late last year of a large battery powered BMW sedan 'already in the works', details are starting to emerge about the 2017 i5.

    According to Car & Driver, the model will be heavily influenced by the i3 but feature distinctive styling and front-hinged rear doors. The model could also be equipped with a more conservative interior but nothing is official as of yet.

    Like the i3, the i5 is expected to feature an electric motor that develops 170 PS (125 kW) and 250 Nm (184 lb-ft) of torque. However, the model's increased size could enable it to use a larger lithium-ion battery that delivers an electric-only range of up to 200 miles (322 km). There could also be a range-extended variant that uses a 1.5-liter three-cylinder petrol engine.

    The BMW i5 will reportedly be launched in 2016, as a 2017 model, and cost approximately $50,000.

    Source: Car & Driver

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    BMW SGL to triple carbon-fiber production capacities

    Due to the high demand for carbon fiber in automotive production, BMW and SGL Automotive Carbon Fibers is going to triple the capacity of the carbon fiber plant in Moses Lake, WA (USA).

    The expansion will be funded by an investment of 200 million US dollars, in addition to the previously invested 100 million US dollars. The site expansion, scheduled to be completed by early 2015, will make the plant in Moses Lake the world’s largest carbon fiber plant. With the anticipated creation of 120 new jobs, the headcount at the joint venture in Moses Lake is going to rise from currently 80 to about 200 people. Due to the automated production processes, the expansion of the site in Moses Lake will make it possible for the BMW Group to apply carbon fiber material also in other model series in the future, at competitive costs and in large quantities.

    At present, the Moses Lake plant operates two production lines, exclusively for BMW i, with an annual output of approx. 3,000 tons of carbon fiber. Already this summer, SGL Automotive Carbon Fibers will commission a third and fourth production line in Moses Lake, which are currently being built, thus doubling the plant’s capacity to 6,000 tons per year. Today’s groundbreaking ceremony for a fifth and sixth production line has been the first step toward tripling capacities to 9,000 tons annually in the medium term. The energy needed for the carbon fiber production is fully generated from hydropower.

    “With its highly automated carbon fiber production and stringent quality standards, Moses Lake is setting new standards in the industry. At present, the site is the world’s fastest growing carbon fiber producer. Together with the BMW Group, we are doing pioneering work to establish CFRP as a material in large-series automotive production. In a mix of materials, CFRP offers new opportunities in lightweight construction for an eco-friendly mobility,” explained Dr. Jürgen Köhler, CEO of SGL Group.

    Dr. Klaus Draeger, Board Member Purchasing and Supplier Network at BMW AG: “CFRP is a key material for the automotive industry of the 21st century. In our endeavor to identify increasingly lightweight materials in order to reduce a vehicle’s weight and thus its fuel consumption and carbon emissions, this material plays a crucial role. As part of an intelligent mix of materials, we will apply carbon also beyond our BMW i and BMW M models in the future. Thanks to the pooling of the SGL Group’s expertise and our knowledge in large-series production of CFRP components, we will be able to produce the ultra-lightweight high-tech material also for other model series, at competitive costs and in large quantities.”

    The carbon fiber plant in Moses Lake is a key element in the strategy pursued by the two companies, which anticipates the industrialized large-series production of carbon fiber reinforced plastics (CFRP) for the application in future vehicle concepts. Up to now, carbon fiber produced in Moses Lake is exclusively used for the BMW i models. Since the start of the year, the Leipzig plant has built over 5,000 BMW i3 vehicles. At present, the production output stands at 100 units a day. Furthermore, the BMW Group has been applying the ultra-lightweight high-tech material also in its BMW M models for the past ten years.

    Andreas Wüllner, CEO of SGL Automotive Carbon Fibers: “In the course of only four years, SGL Automotive Carbon Fibers has managed to become the world’s largest carbon fiber production site. The automotive industry will increasingly turn to CFRP because it is a material of the future.”

    Availability of renewable energy crucial in the decision for the location in Moses Lake
    As part of their joint venture agreement, the BMW Group and the SGL Group invested an initial 100 million dollars at their Moses Lake site by 2013, creating 80 new jobs. Jay Inslee, Governor of Washington State: “Congratulations to the BMW Group and the SGL Group on the groundbreaking of their fifth and sixth production line at the Moses Lake Plant. Washington State is proud to partner with BMW. The game-changing technology of carbon fiber is driving a surge in U.S. manufacturing, and with this production plant Washington State is at the forefront of that surge.”

    The production of carbon fiber requires a great amount of energy. Accordingly, decisive factors for the set up of the carbon fiber plant in Moses Lake included the availability of renewable hydropower as well as competitive energy costs in Washington State. The availability of skilled workers also had an influence on the decision in favor of the location, which was taken in April 2010. The groundbreaking ceremony for the plant was in July 2010, the opening of the production site in September 2011. Dr. Jörg Pohlman, CEO of SGL Automotive Carbon Fibers: “We received great support from the regional authorities in Grant County and Moses Lake, a decisive element in making this rapid development of the past few years possible. With the site expansion, we are reaching an important milestone in safeguarding the site’s future.”

    Production of carbon fiber composites
    The production of carbon fiber composites for automotive manufacturing requires several process steps: The necessary precursor, which is based on polyacrylnitrile fiber, is made by a joint venture between SGL Group and the Japanese company Mitsubishi Rayon in Otake, Japan. In a next step, polyacrylnitrile fiber is turned into the actual carbon fiber in Moses Lake. This material is then processed at the second joint venture site in Wackersdorf, Germany, and turned into textile carbon fiber layers, the starting point for the production of CFRP body parts at the BMW plants in Landshut and Leipzig. In the BMW i models, CFRP already holds a significant share in the mix of materials, a first at this scope and in series production. The joint venture gives the BMW Group access to this innovative key material in the long term. The SGL Group provides their expertise in high-performance materials and their experience with carbon fiber-based materials.

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    Test driving the new Mercedes B-Class electric Drive [VIDEO]

    For the first time, Mercedes brings a fully electric car to the U.S

    The B-Class ED is the product of a technology-sharing alliance between Tesla and Daimler that goes back to Mercedes’ 2009 investment.

    Rather than rely on in-house R&D, Mercedes essentially contracted with Tesla—the Silicon Valley car maker and acknowledged leader in electric automobiles—to provide the EV architecture (motor, transmission, battery, power electronics) for its electron-fired B-Class.

    Tesla will make the B-Class battery pack, power management system etc at the factory in Fremont, Calif., and ship them to Germany for final vehicle assembly.

    The B-Class Electric Drive, which is built on the same production line as the gasoline-powered version, is going to go on sale in Europe around the end of the year and will also come in a right-hand drive version for other markets in 2015.

    One of these days, one of these compliance cars is going to break out, sales-wise. The B-Class ED, which will sell in all 50 states, could be the one. While it might have emerged out of a compliance effort, the B-ED just shines, a premium family electric that braids Tesla’s and Mercedes’ DNA so convincingly the car might as well be called the Model B.