[ltp] One battery or two? (rant warning)

[Nikolaos D. Bougalis]

bhaskins@chartermi.net wrote:
> I don't think that this is really OT but I want to post
> it here because laptop users tend to know much more 
> batteries that the average person.
> If any of you do think it's OT I apologize.
>
> Did any of you watch "60 minutes". the bit about 
> electric cars.
>
> It was stated that a small two-seater used 6000 laptop 
> batteries.
> Now I pay $8.00 each for those so even at 50% of that
> it's $24000.00  to replace the batteries and that's for about
> 500 charge/discharge cycles or not much over a year.
> The batteries that I buy are rated for a three-year life
> if only subject to light usage.
> So eight grand or so a year if you just drive it to church 
> on Sundays.
> Battery cost and life item was not mentioned in the story.
> Now am I waaaaaaaaaaay off base or is our
> wonderful news media trying to sell us yet another load of crap.
>
> If you read this, thanks and please comment.
> If you agree, please send it on.
> Thanks,
>    Bert        
>   
    Yes you are right that LiON (lithium ion) cells have a limited shelf 
and cycle life (as with any battery technology) but the number of useful 
cycles varies significantly based on a lot of factors, including (but 
not limited to) the cells charge state, undercharging, overcharging, 
charging at high rates, discharging at high rates, maintaining a 
constant rate of high charge, being stored in a fully charged state and 
being stored in a fully discharged state.

    If you had actually bothered to google for this (hint: 
http://www.google.com) you would have come across a Tesla Motors blog 
that addresses this exact issue at 
http://www.teslamotors.com/blog2/?p=39 where they explain all this 
fairly clearly, and quite confidently state that their battery packs can 
provide over 100,000 miles of total range and more than five years of 
useful battery life. So far, it seems that their numbers will end up 
panning out.

    Thank you, come again.

    -n