[Paul Lin, auto export manager of BYD Auto] [...] said his company wants to launch in the U.S., among other vehicles, a new breed of a gasoline-electric hybrid that can be plugged into a home wall outlet and run 100 kilometers (about 61 miles) on electricity when fully charged.

Mr. Lin said the plug-in hybrid, based on its gasoline-fueled BYD F6 sedan, will likely hit U.S. dealer showrooms until the end of 2009 or the beginning of 2010. BYD Auto is expected to display the plug-in hybrid at the North American International Auto Show that opens to the public on Jan. 19.
[...]
He said the launch of the plug-in hybrid would be quickly followed by other models including other plug-in hybrids, all-electric cars, as well as conventional gasoline-fueled vehicles. Mr. Lin didn't elaborate on what kind of time frame BYD Auto had in mind.

Mr. Lin said the plug-in hybrid is almost ready for sale in China, but BYD Auto will need at least two more years to make sure it meets America's tough safety and other regulations.

In China, Mr. Lin said BYD Auto plans to launch the plug-in hybrid this summer -- "during the Beijing Olympics" -- and is likely to sell it for 200,000 yuan [$27,542.50 USD].
[...]
The car would likely to sell for a similar retail price tag in the U.S., he said.

The BYD plug-in hybrid, to be called the BYD F6 DM, is similar in design to General Motors Corp.'s Chevy Volt concept car which GM is aiming to launch by 2010. Both cars are propelled by electric motors using electricity stored on batteries and generated by a small gasoline engine on the car when the car run out of electricity when it isn't plugged in.

BYD Auto, which began producing and selling cars in 2003, is displaying the plug-in hybrid car and four gasoline-fueled vehicles at the Detroit auto show.

Why not focus on 21st century solutions like transit and rail news?

Here are a couple of items in the news today.

Sales tax hike could fund subway to sea
http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-subway11jan11,0,2 ...

China plans $41bn rail upgrade
http://www.thepeninsulaqatar.com/Display_news.asp?section ...

The thing about a plugin hybrid is that it can take hours to charge.  Needing no very expensive quick charge nano lithium ion batteries.  A pure electric plugin needs a recharge time of minutes to compete with gas pump fueled vehicles.

A plugin with a backup generator like the Volt, has it's own gas powered recharge onboard.

By covering the average daily trip, with a 40 mile plugin range, average mileage remains stupendlously high.  But gas pump refueling gives the range and convenience drivers need.

Great top see this explained on CBS news!  Good work Joe!

http://amazngdrx.blogharbor.com/blog John Schneider, Northern Wisconsin

http://thefraserdomain.typepad.com/energy/2007/10/firefly ...

Graphite and foam lead acid.  It looks really good from energy density, but is slower charge than the nano batteries.

Better let Al know about this one.  When Hillary makes him energy secretary he can use the information, hehey.

http://amazngdrx.blogharbor.com/blog John Schneider, Northern Wisconsin

BY DAN STOBER

Printable Version
Courtesy Nature Nanotechnology  

Stanford researchers have found a way to use silicon nanowires to reinvent the rechargeable lithium-ion batteries that power laptops, iPods, video cameras, cell phones, and countless other devices.

The new technology, developed through research led by Yi Cui, assistant professor of materials science and engineering, produces 10 times the amount of electricity of existing lithium-ion, known as Li-ion, batteries. A laptop that now runs on battery for two hours could operate for 20 hours, a boon to ocean-hopping business travelers.

"It's not a small improvement," Cui said. "It's a revolutionary development."

The breakthrough is described in a paper, "High-performance lithium battery anodes using silicon nanowires," published online Dec. 16 in Nature Nanotechnology, written by Cui, his graduate chemistry student Candace Chan and five others.

The greatly expanded storage capacity could make Li-ion batteries attractive to electric car manufacturers. Cui suggested that they could also be used in homes or offices to store electricity generated by rooftop solar panels.

"Given the mature infrastructure behind silicon, this new technology can be pushed to real life quickly," Cui said.

The electrical storage capacity of a Li-ion battery is limited by how much lithium can be held in the battery's anode, which is typically made of carbon. Silicon has a much higher capacity than carbon, but also has a drawback.

Silicon placed in a battery swells as it absorbs positively charged lithium atoms during charging, then shrinks during use (i.e., when playing your iPod) as the lithium is drawn out of the silicon. This expand/shrink cycle typically causes the silicon (often in the form of particles or a thin film) to pulverize, degrading the performance of the battery.

Cui's battery gets around this problem with nanotechnology. The lithium is stored in a forest of tiny silicon nanowires, each with a diameter one-thousandth the thickness of a sheet of paper. The nanowires inflate four times their normal size as they soak up lithium. But, unlike other silicon shapes, they do not fracture.

Research on silicon in batteries began three decades ago. Chan explained: "The people kind of gave up on it because the capacity wasn't high enough and the cycle life wasn't good enough. And it was just because of the shape they were using. It was just too big, and they couldn't undergo the volume changes."

Then, along came silicon nanowires. "We just kind of put them together," Chan said.

For their experiments, Chan grew the nanowires on a stainless steel substrate, providing an excellent electrical connection. "It was a fantastic moment when Candace told me it was working," Cui said.

Cui said that a patent application has been filed. He is considering formation of a company or an agreement with a battery manufacturer. Manufacturing the nanowire batteries would require "one or two different steps, but the process can certainly be scaled up," he added. "It's a well understood process."

Also contributing to the paper in Nature Nanotechnology were Halin Peng and Robert A. Huggins of Materials Science and Engineering at Stanford, Gao Liu of Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, and Kevin McIlwrath and Xiao Feng Zhang of the electron microscope division of Hitachi High Technologies in Pleasanton, Calif.

(Darn!  I was drawn in.)

I'm getting kinda tired of "eco-cars" at car shows that turn into nothin' more than PR no-shows.

Also, the real breakthrough with the Volt/BYD is that it's a Series Plugin Hybrid.

That alone cuts out a huge amount of needless complexity, cost of ownership, and weight.

-David Ahlport

The firefly battery is one fifth the cost of lithium ion.  And nano tech lithium is even costlier than regular lithium ion.   And since a plugin hbrid only needs 40 miles of battery power around 5 kwh of storage, costs are way down.

Firefly actually has their battery in mass production and available for diesel semis.  4 or 5 of them ought to do the job in a plugin hybrid.

http://amazngdrx.blogharbor.com/blog John Schneider, Northern Wisconsin

"...a hybrid crossover that General Motors builds using a low-cost belt-alternator system for its electric drive."

Can't the Times maybe get an outside reporter to write on technology? Borrow one from "Popular Science" or just get a grade school science fair winner to volunteer.  That is one moronic mistake.

This car has a 200 hp electric motor.  About 120 hp more than it needs.  It has a battery capacity of 16 kwh, only 6 kwh are needed for a 40 mile range with the apropriately sized electric motor.

And the dual, parallel drive of the regular vue plus a whole extra parallel battery plugin rear axle?  Ridiculous and very expensive duplication resulting in over-complication.

The A123 batteries are already in the Hymotion Prius conversion, no new breakthrough using lithium ion in this model.  Are they nano tech lithium ion or not?  Of course the NYT "reporter" wouldn't be expected to know the difference (duuh).

And the company feels no need to actually explain their technology on the website.  The ultracapacitors are a good addition (though an  extra expense), but only necessary because of the vastly over powered electric motor.  

Auto designers evidently think like teens with dad's car, they just wanna burn rubber.  But hardly any drivers ever want to burn rubber, especially in an SUV!?!  (duuuh again)

Back to the drawing board Joseph.  But at least you will get plugin hybrids a bit of publicity.

Please check out the Audi, with the 41 hp battery electric plugin rear axle mated to a regular front wheel drive engine/transmission setup.  much cheaper and easier to build and repair.  A practical design.

Even the over powered, probably never to be mass produced 160 hp Volt beats this "hybrid hybrid" Frankenstein engineering mistake.  Very dissappointing.

If Audi does not step up and compete by mass producing their plugin hybrid, there appears to be no real practical competition out there going on in this important technological leap to eliminating 90% of liquid fuel use in cars.  Just more pie-in-the-sky diversion to stall government action on mileage standards.

http://amazngdrx.blogharbor.com/blog John Schneider, Northern Wisconsin