As a follow-on to my June 21st blog regarding Electric Vehicles [EVs: an Electric Car in Every Garage], here are some additional notes of interest:
1 – An RC plane and car expert explained to me recently that if you want to follow the latest updates in battery technology, look to the RC marketplace. That market being full of avid hobbyists, it’s willing to embrace nascent technologies as early adopters.
The current technology that’s “hot” in RCs is the lithium polymer, or LiPo, battery. It’s still expensive, suffers from reduced shelf-life, and is reportedly more flammable than the lithium-ion battery technology currently installed in EVs, but the LiPo battery appears to offer “lighter weight and higher discharge rates” to power-hungry RC devices.
Per RCHelicopterFun.com: “In short, LiPo’s provide high energy storage to weight ratios in an endless variety of shapes and sizes.”
Thanks to the global RC user base, LiPo battery technology is enjoying intense research and deployment – not necessarily in that order – and may one day be widely utilized in the more “conventional” EV market. If the bugs can be worked out, the LiPo chemistry [possibly] stands to replace the “traditional” lithium-ion EV technology in years to come.
