MIT students develop liquid fuel for electric cars

Zach Bowman — Wed, 08 Jun 2011 11:29:00 EST

A group of Massachusetts Institute of Technology students may have come up with the perfect solution to our electric vehicle charging woes. Instead of relying on lithium or nickel, the new battery design stores its electrons in semi-solid flow cells. Charged particles are suspended in an electrolyte solution and pumped between compartments used for storing or releasing energy. The tech supposedly makes the batteries up to ten times more efficient than their traditional counterparts, and even more importantly, the new tech is cheaper to produce. Estimates say that the design could cut the size and expense of current batteries by as much as 50 percent.

That's all well and good, but the really cool part is that charging the cells is as simple as pumping the drained fluid out and pumping fresh charged fluid in. That means that getting on your way could take as little time as a standard gasoline fill-up, greatly reducing the inconvenience and range woes associated with modern EVs. An operational prototype is expected to be completed in the next 18 months or so.

MIT students develop liquid fuel for electric cars originally appeared on Autoblog on Wed, 08 Jun 2011 11:29:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Report: China forcing foreign automakers to give up EV secrets?

Jeff Glucker — Mon, 20 Sep 2010 10:31:00 EST

Filed under: Hybrid, China, Etc., Plants/Manufacturing, Technology, Electric

So you want to sell your foreign cars in China? If you're an automaker, it might cost you a whole lot do so. A report in The Wall Street Journal claims that the Chinese government wants to force foreign companies to divulge their electric vehicle technology secrets in order to sell their products in China.

China wants to become a global power in the development and production of electric cars and hybrids. Apparently, they want to skip the whole research part and go right to utilizing technology developed and tested by others. This would be fine if they wanted to pay for said tech, but simply bullying manufacturers into handing it over is not the way to go.

From the WSJ:

"The car executives are joining a chorus of companies criticizing China's industrial policies. Business people and government officials say Beijing's so-called indigenous-innovation efforts discriminate against them and are aimed at gaining control of foreign intellectual property."

China is a very important market for automakers, as it's the world's largest purchaser of automobiles. China's current proposal says that any foreign automaker wishing to produce new-energy products there must establish joint-venture agreements with Chinese companies. The foreign automaker would then only be allowed to hold a 49-percent stake in the newly formed alliance. Obviously, this isn't sitting well with companies that have invested massive sums of money developing new energy-efficient solutions.

Forcing a so-called "alliance" that all but hands over highly-valuable intellectual property to the Chinese party is not an example of China "playing nice" with others. Hopefully, a more workable solution can ultimately be agreed upon. Unfortunately, China has a lot of leverage here. It knows exactly how important its market is to every other automaker on Earth, and it's obviously not afraid to twist arms to get what it wants. Thanks for the tip, Sea Urchin!

[Source: The Wall Street Journal]

Report: China forcing foreign automakers to give up EV secrets? originally appeared on Autoblog on Mon, 20 Sep 2010 10:31:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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