LithiumIon
Latest
Lithium Ion motorbike prototype is emission and sound-free
Now that Tesla Motors has resurrected the electric car in screeching sports car form, it's the turn of the motorbike to get all Lithium Ioned up. While it's not the first electric motorcycle, it is possibly the most rough and ready design: if you can afford the $15,000 odd fee for a custom modification, a team at the Electric Motorsport shop in Oakland will take out the nasty engine in your ride and replace it with an array of Lithium Ion batteries. As a prototype, the company created a fully electric version of the Yamaha R1 which has a top speed of 100MPH, a range of 100 miles, does 0-60 in 3 seconds, and looks pretty damn ugly to tell the truth. Ya' see, the number of brick sized Lithium Ion batteries required to eke out this level of performance is 28, which have to fit all willy nilly underneath the bike. Fortunately, the company hopes to produce a more refined production model, as well as a cheaper design with less advanced performance.[Via Digg]
Matsushita to begin production of new, non-explosive Li-ion batteries
Apparently Matsushita isn't waiting around for the (notoriously slow) IEEE task force to settle on a new Li-ion battery standard, as the company has announced that it will soon begin "mass production of a new lithium-ion battery that is safe from the overheating problems" we're all too familiar with. These batteries in particular will be built to replace those that prompted a massive recall of Sony cells earlier this year, and should be available en masse "by the end of the year." Sony's global recall affected "around 9.6 million cells" used on nearly every laptop under the sun, so we're sure Matsushita's conveyor belts will be approaching record speeds to crank out these replacements. Notably, the company asserted that while actual pricing would depend on the quantity ordered, it would be "higher than existing models" regardless -- which makes sense considering all the loot Sony is losing from this fiasco.[Via Laptoping, thanks Kaztm]
Boston-Power promises better, safer lithium-ion batteries
Startup tech company Boston-Power seems to think it has a solution to the many woes plaguing lithium-ion batteries, emerging from stealth mode today (otherwise known as issuing a press release) to announce that it's raised more than $8 million in Series A financing. Not surprisingly, they're keeping most of the details on the batteries themselves under wraps, saying only that they employ "novel chemistry with groundbreaking innovations" to provide longer life, faster charging and -- most importantly to laptop manufacturers potentially looking to buy 'em by the truckload -- greater safety. The first cells using the company's seemingly cure-all technology are set to be available in the first half of next year, although we're guessing that we'll have to wait a little while longer than that for public consumption.[Via EE Times]
