I was driving my prius to work this morning, and kept getting bummed every time the ICE came on. I keep reading all these stories of 'things to come' about how great EV's are going to be and all that, but it seems to be taking FOREVER! I was wondering if anybody has looked into simply replacing the stock drive battery with Li-Ion. I haven't really done any research into the availability of LiIons, but it seems that even just stacking a bunch of laptop batteries in the same space would still be an improvement over the little weakling in there now, even if it doesn't have plug in capabilities. Maybe we could get 4 miles in EV mode!
Several major issues with Li-Ion battery today #1- Cost (higher than NiMH) #2- Safety (could catch fire if shorted - e.g. in an crash) #3- Charge Cycle - 1000 times down to 70% (worse than NiMH) which makes #1 even worse. I see #3 is the major issue among the 3. Let us hope than some smart guys would come up with a better solution that is "productizable". No a whole bunch of untested, unverified claims of innovation.
If you understand a battery chemistry correctly, the Li-ion's charge/dis-charge profile is completely different from NiMH's. You have to replace at least the Battry ECU, and maybe the Hybrid ECU too. Ken@Japan
