Whenever I think about reducing the size of batteries, I remember the arc reactor scene from the Iron Man movie. We need that kind of technology to reduce the battery size for us. I did not understand what that technology was all about or did it even make any sense but I wanted to have a technological breakthrough so that we can store a lot of energy and reuse them with a small size. The future is moving towards the effective utilization of energy we produce through renewable means. It will be nice to store them and use them whenever we need them.
Drawbacks in electric vehicles
I have been using an electric vehicle and one big drawback I see is the size of the batteries. Another thing that I hate about electric vehicles is the need to carry my charger along with me. The charger is very big and not very handy. I have to carry that separately. I wish they had provided a facility to keep the charger inside the vehicle itself similar to how they keep the batteries inside the vehicle. I'm talking about an electric motorcycle and not an electric car.
When it comes to vehicles batteries occupy a lot of space in the vehicle. If the size of the battery in the vehicles can be reduced, we should be able to have an increased range. Today that is already in competition where one company is trying to provide a higher range and another company is trying to compete with that and come up with another innovation. But in all means storing more charge in a small place is still not a convenient thing yet. The batteries are huge and they are also heavy. The cost of the batteries is also close to 40 percent of the vehicle cost.
Innovation around batteries
We need more innovation done in this area. We need a smart mind that can create a battery that is efficient than the regular batteries we are using. I know there will be pressure from some of the battery manufacturing companies but the invention is going to be a good thing anyway. There were discussions about using Aluminum and Sodium instead of Lithium as these are abundant materials in the earth's crust.
Sometimes if we prefer to pick another abundantly available material, we might be able to create batteries but we cannot guarantee that the size will continue to be small. We might have to consider both possibilities.
Long lasting batteries
Today Lithium Ion batteries are very good and they have a good lifecycle. They last long enough for a mobile phone to stay intact for several years. I would say that's a great innovation. But when they tried to solve the burning or bursting problem of batteries, Lithium Ferro phosphate batteries looked promising. There is continuous research work going on to identify what will be the best combination to have a battery that will be very efficient and also that makes the size small.
If you like what I'm doing on Hive, you can vote me as a witness with the links below.
as a Hive Witness 
as a Hive Engine Witness
 |
 |
 |