ZPower promises to deliver Silver-Zinc laptop batteries in 2009

ZPower has made a few promises before that haven't exactly panned out, but that apparently hasn't stopped it from making another bold claim at IDF this week, with it boasting that its newfangled Silver-Zinc battery will be rolled out in a "major notebook computer" sometime in 2009. According to ZPower, that battery will provide up to 40% more runtime than traditional lithium-ion batteries and, just as importantly, be far more "chemically stable" than its sometimes explosion-prone lithium-ion counterpart. ZPower also looks to be going the extra mile when it comes to recycling the batteries, with 95% of the battery itself apparently recyclable, and the company offering "financial discounts" to folks when they trade in their old Silver-Zinc batteries.

[Ignatius @ Aug 22nd 2008 9:36PM]

Holy crap.

I hope this will go towards development on larger scales, such as cars.

[Ignatius @ Aug 22nd 2008 9:38PM]

Actually, now that I check the Wiki on the battery chemistry, it seems like it provides the baseline performance that Lithium-ion polymer batteries do. Then again, ZPower might have better batteries than the standard.

[Alex @ Aug 22nd 2008 10:35PM]

There is almost no way these batteries will make it into cars. A car using these would require about $50,000 worth of silver as a bare minimum. Even if people were willing to pay a huge amount for the silver: #1 the price go even higher and #2 The total amount of silver on the earth would only be enough to produce about 11,000,000 cars or enough to replace approximately 1.8% of cars in the world or about how many cars are produced in the US annually.

[steven @ Aug 23rd 2008 12:07AM]

Silver is about $18/ounce. Would it really cost $50,000? That's about 173 pounds of silver there.

[steven @ Aug 23rd 2008 12:10AM]

Sorry, it's actually less than $14/ounce.

[Alex @ Aug 23rd 2008 1:12AM]

I think it would at least use 250 lbs because there is a 2:1 ratio of silver to zinc in the battery and smallest lithium ion battery pack that can run a very lightweight car would weigh around 500 lbs. This is a very rough estimate. The cost of the batteries would easily be six figure range for most cars comparable to today's sedans. They might make race cars that run on them but I can't see any other type of vehicle running on them.

[bertross @ Aug 23rd 2008 9:01AM]

It's 2:1, that means that it's, according to this, 166.66 lbs?

But yeah, apart from that, I agree

[Alex @ Aug 23rd 2008 4:03PM]

I just did those numbers in my head to show that even if you changed that numbea lot there would still be no way to make it practical. I first assumed a battery weight of 500 lbs and gave it a 1:1 ratio because I hadn't looked at the chemistry yet. Of course some of the battery weight is for packaging but I ignored that.

[Sulaiman @ Aug 22nd 2008 9:42PM]

Dell XPS M1530 please.

[Techie @ Aug 23rd 2008 8:14PM]

I seriously want to know how the hell you get that from. How is this Dell related?

[collegekid13 @ Aug 22nd 2008 9:46PM]

won't these be like ubber expensive. silver ain't cheap

[mike @ Aug 22nd 2008 10:03PM]

über

[bureX @ Aug 22nd 2008 9:47PM]

I'm guessing that the silver inside this thing will make the final product so expensive, that you'll be crazy not to recycle your old SZ battery for a discount on a new one...

[chun.kevin @ Aug 22nd 2008 10:04PM]

cool

[FN @ Aug 22nd 2008 10:08PM]

We used silver-zinc batteries a long time ago in our solar powered race car. At the time (1993) the batteries were extraordinarily expensive (about $40K for 5kwH) but they also had amazing energy density (much better than lithium ion even). Now granted this was a long time ago and things might have changed, but the biggest challenge with silver-zincs (aside from the cost element) was that they only lasted a few cycles when deep discharged. For solar car racing we would get maybe a dozen or two cycles before having to toss them away for a new pack. I wonder how the life cycle has improved...

[FN @ Aug 22nd 2008 10:14PM]

More on the solar car here in case you're interested: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1993_%22Maize_&_Blue%22_University_of_Michigan_Solar_Car_Team

[steven @ Aug 23rd 2008 12:09AM]

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/b/b8/Test_chassis.jpg

Is that you?

[steven @ Aug 23rd 2008 12:13AM]

Nazeeri, Furqan?

[steven @ Aug 23rd 2008 12:15AM]

* Entrepreneur-in-Residence at Softbank Capital
* President / CEO / Chairman at Pivot Solutions
* CFO / EVP at Eze Castle Integration

Rich boy!!!

[FN @ Aug 23rd 2008 3:15PM]

@Steven, that's Jeff Reece in that pic...

[wslcrew @ Aug 24th 2008 2:04AM]

Wow. You worked on 93!
I worked on the batteries for Momentum in 05.. We used Li-ion and each pack was about $5000 to make, much less than Ag-Zn.

Go Blue!

[tekdroid @ Aug 22nd 2008 10:09PM]

1) how many charge cycles before losing usefulness (Li-Ion go about 400-500ish before holding very little charge, basically ending their useful lives at that point)
2) I'm wary of "up to" 40% claims. What real-world improvement in storage capacity are we talking about here?
3) initially they will be offered as a premium upgrade, which doesn't sound like it's gonna be hugely popular to me (or cheap to the laptop manufacturers). Perhaps there is potential for competition with Li-Ion on the price front.
4) better recyclability is a plus
5) designing new devices to run on different chemistries of batteries sounds like a burden for the manufacturers. Obviously something is different with these batteries.
6) delays from early 2007' to 2009 doesn't sound good, either.
7) no (less?) battery explosions mean those who live dangerously will have to get their kicks elsewhere.

[Jaimi @ Aug 22nd 2008 10:09PM]

Silver is expensive? I don't think it's been expensive since the mid 1800's. It's current price is fluctuating between $5 and $15 per ounce, which is approximately the same as Lithium.

[Ian @ Aug 22nd 2008 11:25PM]

Damn i was totally ready to flame you until i looked up the price of silver and saw that it just dropped to under $13.50 an ounce. damn the internet for making me wrong!!!!

lol but very true on ur point

[ScOObyDoo @ Aug 22nd 2008 10:15PM]

I hope their technology is better than their spell-checker... From the press releases on their site:

A Spage-Age Battery is Coming to a Laptop Near You!

[967pj @ Aug 22nd 2008 10:50PM]

i hope they make them for older laptops!

[rv @ Aug 22nd 2008 11:01PM]

In 2 years I will have a monster laptop with this battery, SSD, quad core processor, 1920x1200 display, blu ray, etc. It will be amazing!

[cesium @ Aug 22nd 2008 11:57PM]

You can already get all of that, save for the battery.. What would actually be amazing is if the whole combination got 4+ hours of battery life at full load

[Mel @ Aug 23rd 2008 10:55AM]

In two years you will have that laptop and we will all laugh at how primitive it is.

[spankdog42 @ Aug 23rd 2008 1:43PM]

In 2 years, you will still be a douche.

[MadMike @ Aug 23rd 2008 12:03AM]

This looks promising but I have one of those vaporware feelings. One thing is the cost of the materials. Zinc & Silver are not the cheapest materials. More expensive than lithium. They had already promised summer 08, and now they pushed it back more than 6 months. As much as it would rock to have, if it worked as promised - I have this feeling that its going to come out right after the Experia X1, Meizu M8, Palm OS 2 and Duke Nukem Forever.

I hope I am wrong.

[wonkydonkydotnet @ Aug 23rd 2008 12:32AM]

Just think, you could Bake your lap and Galvanize your package -SIMULTANEOUSLY-!!!!!!!!!!!!

[Chris Gibson @ Aug 23rd 2008 12:38AM]

Extended run time would be nice, but more than anything else... the cell stability gives the concept its greatest appeal to me. Even after transitioning from systems with lithium-ion batteries to lithium-polymer batteries, I've still yet find a laptop battery thats found its end of life through any means but malformation and property damage.

[Jason White @ Aug 23rd 2008 12:43AM]

I smell a rise in Laptop thefts.

[Aarheadc @ Aug 23rd 2008 2:07AM]

hopefully it will cost comparably to current lithium-ion batteries

[substance90 @ Aug 23rd 2008 3:40AM]

I wonder when are people going to start using fuel cells for notebook power source...

[mrpoo @ Aug 23rd 2008 5:45PM]

In three months and 12 days

[catter12 @ Aug 23rd 2008 8:13AM]

Sweet!

[霽月瀛台 @ Aug 24th 2008 3:41AM]

I do not want to pay any extra $ on battery upgrade.
I rarely use the laptop without the power cord more than 2 hours.

[seneca @ Aug 26th 2008 9:29AM]

It's my understanding that the silver needed to drive a laptop is around 3 oz., +/- $50, and that the theoretical power limit is about twice that of lithium. In addition, no thermal runaway and no decline in the total energy of the charge with succssive charges. In addition, I believe there will be credits issued for the value of the silver when spent batteries are turned in for recycling for new ones. C'mon ZPower.