Lithium-Interesting article about market for used auto batteries

[Daveh]

http://thinkprogress.org/climate/2016/05/09/3775606/used-second-life-electric-car-batteries/

[NH2]

Interesting article. Depending on how they were cared for, I'd certainly consider powering our coach with a used battery bank. A win-win for both parties.

Thanks for sharing.

[Star Dreamer]

Nuke-e on the HDT forum has been working on using a Chevy Volt battery pack in his Showhauler truck conversion. I believe he might have it installed now. He has artclies on the conversion on a RVnerds website.

 

If I remember correctly he may be able to power his ac from the batteries if he is boondocking.

[Star Dreamer]

Duplicate post

[RV_]

Guys,

This just came out last week, a breakthrough in Li-Ion battery interior conductors using nanowires for extreme fast charging. That hasn't worked well in the past because the wires broke down limiting number of charges it is capable of withstanding.

 

A researcher at UCI had a fateful accidental discovery that looks to be able to provide very fast charging but more than a hundred years capacity if they can be manufactured economically. Just read the article, estimate one charge or two per day, and do the math yourselves.

 

https://news.uci.edu/research/all-powered-up/

 

It has not had time to be evaluated for marketability price and volume wise. May fade away. But in today's world it seems to be exactly what Tesla and RVrs might be looking for. Ten years from now or even five? Or never.

[Nuke-E]

There's definitely a lot of value in used battery packs, especially for non-traction purposes. My system has been up and running for a while now--about 2 months--with the smaller of 2 planned inverters. Even when plugged in, most of the RV loads are running off of the batteries, with the charger typically cycling on once or twice a day to top the batteries off (not quite literally--I'm stopping at about 90% or so). So far so good--the battery controller has worked really well, and it's quite simple, but not something you can go out and buy yet.

 

When you look at the cost per unit energy stored, and the number of charging cycles it'll last, a used Chevy Volt battery pack comes in at about 10% of the cost of LiFePO4, significantly cheaper than AGM, and if you're re-doing the whole system or buying new, on par with or slightly cheaper than flooded lead acid. The catch is that my approach doesn't scale down to small packs very well--the economics change quite a bit if you just have that one pair of batteries running at 12V for example.

 

There's a lot of work being done to make rapid charging more practical for electric cars, but it really doesn't affect RV usage. As it stands now, the battery pack I have could support charging and discharging in excess of 170kW. For comparison, a 50A RV hookup supplies 12kW at most (and shouldn't be loaded with more than 9.6), a 30A gives 3kW, and a 15A hookup gives you 1.5. What that means in terms of typical charging is that we're not further degrading the pack. And by all accounts, even at well over 100,000 miles, the Volt packs still have very near their original capacity.

 

There's a lot up on my website already, but I'm a good bit behind where the project actually is at this point. Hopefully I'll be catching up over the next couple of weeks.

[RV_]

David,

Awesome websites! Thanks so much. I don't have an HDT so miss a lot of you guys and gals' neat stuff.

[Kirk W]

There's a lot of work being done to make rapid charging more practical for electric cars, but it really doesn't affect RV usage. As it stands now, the battery pack I have could support charging and discharging in excess of 170kW. For comparison, a 50A RV hookup supplies 12kW at most (and shouldn't be loaded with more than 9.6), a 30A gives 3kW, and a 15A hookup gives you 1.5. What that means in terms of typical charging is that we're not further degrading the pack. And by all accounts, even at well over 100,000 miles, the Volt packs still have very near their original capacity.

With all of the recent advances in technology for the RV traveler, it really makes me wish that we were just starting our fulltime experiences, rather than at the down-slope of the traveling life. Age and health catch everyone in time, so make the most of the experiences and thanks for sharing yours with all of us!

[Kevin H]

The Lamar Buffalo Ranch in Yellowstone is now powered by solar and used Toyota batteries. Here is a Youtube on it.

The ranch is located about halfway through the Lamar Valley in the northeast part of the park. It is where the Yellowstone Association and Yellowstone Foundation have a classroom and log cabin housing for their education programs. There is a Ranger housed there as well. Everything is now solar powered.

I've been through the entire setup, battery room, control center and generator backup. Pretty cool setup and collaboration with Toyota. Excellent re-use of over 200 old hybrid vehicle (Toyota Camry) batteries.

[RV_]

I'd like to see the new tech developed to market resulting in charging very fast and several hundreds of thousands of charging cycles with no loss of capacity as I linked to above. They made the breakthrough, now it is just a matter of can it be done on a large scale at least as economically as the current battery packs. Imagine home rechargeable batteries too that never break down?

[Kirk W]

I've been through the entire setup, battery room, control center and generator backup. Pretty cool setup and collaboration with Toyota.

It is really interesting the way that Toyota has become involved in many outdoor programs here in the US in recent years. They sponsor quite a number of programs for the Texas Fish & Wildlife as well as many Natl. Park programs around the country.