Electric cars could transform due to new battery technology within a year

A new lithium battery that could triple the driving range of an electric vehicle and significantly lower its maintenance costs is all set for mass production within a year. Developed by scientists at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), the battery operates safely at a wide range of temperatures.

"It can also double the running life of a smartphone or a laptop," Qichao Hu from MIT was quoted as saying in an Irish Times report. Qichao developed the battery with former professor and battery expert Donald Sadoway.

Current batteries in electric cars can account for as much as 30 percent of the sticker price. They also need temperature control systems to stop them overheating or catching fire.

"We have got to get a car on the showroom floor for $30,000 and not $130,000 and the big piece is the battery: it's too expensive and it runs down too fast," Sadoway was quoted as saying. The new battery will be about 20 percent cheaper than existing ones.

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Hu hopes the battery will be in production for consumer electronics in the first half of 2016 and in electric cars by the second half.

Earlier reports also suggested that  walls and car chassis could turn into batteries. These new devices would basically work as a supercapacitor that stores electricity by assembling electrically charged ions on the surface of a porous material, instead of storing it in chemical reactions the way batteries do.

As a result, supercaps can charge and discharge in minutes, instead of hours, and operate for millions of cycles, instead of thousands of cycles like batteries. The mechanical robustness of the device doesn't compromise its energy storage capability.

With inputs from IANS