100Kwh i3 battery...

Unfortunately it is just a one off, proof of concept, but still pretty neat....

https://pushevs.com/2018/09/05/lion-smart-shows-off-a-bmw-i3-with-a-100-kwh-battery/

Here's their presentation, https://www.iceseminars.eu/images/Vortraege/LIGHT_Battery_LionSmart_14_Batteriestammtisch.pdf, very exciting if true.

4.1 kg/kWh at a pack level may mean that the current 33 kWh pack could be replaced with a 65 kWh one of the same weight. That's about 250 miles of EPA-rated range in case the usable capacity is 60 kWh.

Thanks for posting that presentation!

That would be most interesting if a 3rd party offered a larger capacity battery pack that weighed the same or near as the current pack so we would wouldn't have to alter the suspension and have slower cars.

One thing to consider on a large battery is your charging time...unless the on-board charging is made larger, from 'dead', something this large would take probably in the order of 16-18 hours to recharge the battery with an EVSE. Now, if you have access to a CCS unit, over two hours. Newer vehicles will be taking advantage of the 150-350Kwhr CCS units just now starting to show up. Considering many places don't have many 50Kwhr units...the utility of a much larger battery somewhat becomes problematic. Sort of the cart before the horse?

That's fair, the car will be kind of out of balance with 50 kW DC capability vs. a battery that is north of 60 kWh. I'd go for it anyways, the battery will be degrading so much slower as I continue utilizing about 8-10 kWh in the middle of the pack for daily commuting. According to the tests, such approach increases the number of cycles dramatically (https://pushevs.com/2018/04/27/battery-charging-full-versus-partial/). Also, some mid-range weekend road trips will become possible as well.

Oleksiy said:

4.1 kg/kWh at a pack level may mean that the current 33 kWh pack could be replaced with a 65 kWh one of the same weight. That's about 250 miles of EPA-rated range in case the usable capacity is 60 kWh

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jadnashuanh said:

One thing to consider on a large battery is your charging time...unless the on-board charging is made larger, from 'dead', something this large would take probably in the order of 16-18 hours to recharge the battery with an EVSE. Now, if you have access to a CCS unit, over two hours. Newer vehicles will be taking advantage of the 150-350Kwhr CCS units just now starting to show up. Considering many places don't have many 50Kwhr units...the utility of a much larger battery somewhat becomes problematic. Sort of the cart before the horse?

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Jim...there you go making incorrect assumptions....again....

If we go with the claims from the presentation and it has active thermal management on par or better than the stock system: It shouldn't take any longer to charge from 'dead' than the Chevy Bolt (9.3 hours). The Bolt has the same sized inverter (7.2kw), 60kw battery and an aggressive taper - it can do a complete charge in 9.3 hours at 240v: https://media.chevrolet.com/media/us/en/chevrolet/vehicles/bolt-ev/2018.tab1.html

...you don't hear many folks complaining about their model S/X 75-100 or bolts taking overnight to charge on 240v...


If it really only took 2 hours to get a full 60kwh charge on an i3 with a 50kw CCs, I would be ecstatic...could mean an 80% charge would only take slightly longer than an hour. It already takes about an hour to charge the i3 (18.8kwh) from 30% to 100% with a 50kw dcfc...an extra hour to get 3x the range is a pretty good trade off, as we can't do that now.... yeah, the i3 was not designed to be a long hauler, but having this ability would be great for those unforeseen predicaments or allowing a little room to allow it to be an intercity car, without stressing about if the EVSE on the other end is available....

Well.....9.3 hours to charge a 60KW battery. 100KW is 66% more than 60, so maybe it would take 1.66x 9.3 hours, or about 15.5 hours to charge a 100KW battery. Not too far off Jim's estimate.

theothertom said:

Well.....9.3 hours to charge a 60KW battery. 100KW is 66% more than 60, so maybe it would take 1.66x 9.3 hours, or about 15.5 hours to charge a 100KW battery. Not too far off Jim's estimate.

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I was replying in the order of the thread- fixed my response so it is clear I was referring to Oleksiy's observation that based on the presentation a 60kwh pack would weigh around the same as the current 33kwh pack...

Newer battery tech that's in the labs now can accept a charge faster, but there just aren't all that many 50Kw CCS units out there, let alone 150 or 350Kw ones. Some of that will change in the next few years...Porsche will be pushing some of them so their new EVs can become viable. Don't expect much of any help from the current administration as they really would rather you burn gasoline.

One study I saw in the last year said there were about 113K (gasoline) service stations, each typically with multiple pumps in the USA. It takes maybe on average about 8-minutes to fill a tank give or take a bit. My ICE can go about 500-miles between fill-ups. The best EV maybe a bit over 300 (for now). Finding a working gas pump is pretty easy...that cannot be said about a working EVSE or CCS unit. But, figure nearly an hour, and your choices of where to recharge are severely limited. Yes, if you stay on a major highway, you have a chance of longer travel without too many issues, but should you want to take the road less traveled, right now, you're out of luck unless it's a local trip.

I really would like a long-range EV, but it is going to still be awhile before not only will they be available, but also have the infrastructure to support them. Say it takes an hour to recharge your EV with a bigger battery and there's only one station...you get there just as someone plugs in, they go out for dinner, and get back in an hour and a half. Not too convenient, especially if you don't have enough charge to get the the next (hopefully) working and available unit. A gas pump starts to look really good at that time.

It's likely that the next new car I buy will be a hybrid, preferably with a large enough battery so my day-to-day needs will never need to use the engine. I'd like to get to the point of one car, but until then, my ICE takes me when I need to go further than my BEV, but 95% of the time, my BEV is all I need. Might be cheaper to rent one when I go away, but it's paid for and works well, and, it's in my garage.

Tesla already has a long distance capable network of chargers. The Model 3 Long Range can recharge 170 miles in less than 30 mins, enough to get more than 2 hours driving. I think people are actually getting around 150 miles in 20 mins.

Using one of the calculators (EV Trip Planner), I could make my annual 800 mile trip back home adding only 30 mins more time than gas car as I have to stop and feed the family, bathroom breaks, etc.

Some companies, Tesla, already have suitable infrastructure for long distance travel unless you are in North Dakota. Electrify America plan seems good for CCS (similar plan as Tesla SC).

viking79 said:

Tesla, already have suitable infrastructure for long distance travel unless you are in North Dakota. Electrify America plan seems good for CCS (similar plan as Tesla SC).

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My point...not everyone's travel is along interstates. Things will improve. A 350Kw CCS unit, on a capable car will be significantly faster than a Tesla, too. Yes, if your travel is along certain paths, and you own a Tesla, you can certainly go long distances. All others currently, will need to plan very carefully, and probably make some compromises. The Electrify America's build-out plan is over a number of years. It's hard to say what the market will end up providing. The more EVs out there, the more demand, the more units that'll get installed. Same problem, though, until there are more units to charge, fewer people will be willing to buy an EV as their only vehicle driving the incentive to build them down. Because other countries have endorsed them much more fully than the USA, we won't get the full range as quickly.

Since a lot of the infrastructure including maintenance and new things is funded by gasoline taxes...EVs will eventually begin to see a hit that their ICE uses have felt forever (but nowhere near the level people in, say Europe feel with the taxes on their fuel - maybe that's why our infrastructure is not aging well). Given that the typical ICE's energy efficiency is less than about 30% of what's in gasoline, many electrical generation methods are significantly better even with distribution losses. But, the batteries do have probably a bigger impact than producing an ICE power plant. How that works out in the long run, it's hard to say with the tech evolving. Engines have been evolving for over a hundred years...high interest in batteries is much younger, at least for the application for driving a vehicle.

From existing infrastructure, though, you can't beat an ICE, probably best augmented by being a hybrid, ideally, a plug-in version. Hopefully, there's enough pressure to make the EV charging network build out faster rather than slower. A good portion of that pressure would normally come from policies from the top, but those are unlikely in the current environment, at least in the USA.

I would like a long-range EV, but I'm not in love with any of the current choices or the environment they populate. My BEV comprises the majority of my needs. A larger battery in it isn't a big deal for me under the current infrastructure. I have faith that that will happen eventually.

Here's to hoping that happens faster than what seems to be the current case. I see that happening faster in other parts of the world than in the USA.

I left the following message on LION Smart's website and got an interesting reply


Message: The POC with the BMW i3 is impressive. Are you planing to offer replacement batteries to i3 owners? If so depending price I expect this would be an excellent way to upgrade and extend the life of these cars.

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prices are prototype prices in the moment. The i3 battery pack is only a proof of concept right now. There will be different car battery projects with different automotive customers in the future with the goal of series production. We will inform about this to the right time. Additionally, we will collect all requests for the i3 pack and will communicate these to BMW. Perhaps a joint product for the i3 will arise from that.

That is exciting!! They are using IR transmitter to communicate instead of wires! What a brilliant way! Reducing weight, cost, improving reliability.

ps. They are not the first though...Was shopping for a floor mop the other day and it was using the same IR transmitter to turn the spray on. No wires between button on handle and lower part of the mop.

I'll be replacing my two PHEV BMW's in 2 years. I'll do one PHEV and one all-electric. The PHEV will probably be the 2020 X5 45e with 50 mi electric range. That will satisfy all my local driving in full electric with daily charging, and I'll still have an ICE for long trips. I just completed a 6000 mile road trip in the X5 and it returned 35 MPG with no charging en route. The charging infrastructure could never have supported this trip in 14 days in an all-electric car. I'm hoping the iNext will be available in 11/2020 when my second car's lease ends. I'll get it. If not, I'll look for a used 2017 i3 as a "gap" car. The utility of an all electric car with 250 mile range is not for trips, it's for only needing to charge once a week in local use. For people without a home charger, the ability to charge during a grocery store run (the nearest grocery store to me has 2 DC chargers) will be critical. I was able to put in a dedicated Level 2 charger at my Condo parking space. For those that can't do a home charger, daily charging is not a viable option unless it's available at work. For those people, an electric car only becomes viable if it has enough range to support once a week charging. That X5 45e is really interesting. Almost as much range as my 2014 i3.

ted99 said:

The PHEV will probably be the 2020 X5 45e with 50 mi electric range.

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ted99 said:

That X5 45e is really interesting. Almost as much range as my 2014 i3.

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You might be a bit disappointed to learn that the 50 mile range stated for the X5 xDrive45e is based on the unrealistic NEDC protocol as discussed in this article. The estimated E.P.A. electric range would be ~30 miles which is much lower that your 2014 i3. Nevertheless, this is much improved from the 19 mile NEDC electric range of the current X5 xDrive40e.

Sometime (soon?) the EU will institute a revised EV efficiency test that will be closer to reality. I think I'd heard it started September 1st, but I'm not sure. If we're lucky, in the next year or so, battery tech may improve yet again, and we may be surprised what actually shows up in the vehicle.

ted99 said:

I'll be replacing my two PHEV BMW's in 2 years. I'll do one PHEV and one all-electric. The PHEV will probably be the 2020 X5 45e with 50 mi electric range. That will satisfy all my local driving in full electric with daily charging, and I'll still have an ICE for long trips. I just completed a 6000 mile road trip in the X5 and it returned 35 MPG with no charging en route. The charging infrastructure could never have supported this trip in 14 days in an all-electric car. I'm hoping the iNext will be available in 11/2020 when my second car's lease ends. I'll get it. If not, I'll look for a used 2017 i3 as a "gap" car.

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Best to consider the decision in 2020, EVs improvements will accelerate each year exponentially. If you need something now, 2015 REX+code to unlock range extender, they are available for ~$20K while 2017 are expensive and offer slightly more range.

EVs are not for everyone until AAA/tow truck can come and recharge.