In a brick hall by the Charles River,
where blacksmiths made cannons for the Union Army,
a new breed of metalworker forges what may be the
best weapon automakers will have for surviving the
21st Century.
At the labs of A123 Systems, technicians
assemble an electric heart for the Chevrolet Volt,
a battery pack that will be shipped to General Motors
Corp. for testing as the company races to build
an electric vehicle by 2010.
And for all the doubts about whether
a tiny 7-year-old company can essentially rewire
the domestic auto industry, A123's executives express
abundant confidence in their invention.
"Today, we are providing enough batteries
to power the equivalent of 100,000 vehicles," said
Ric Fulop, one of A123's founders and its chief
evangelist. "If you look at other technologies,
they're still in the lab. It's years before they
get into mass production." The hurdles to powering
vehicles with electricity instead of oil have become
less daunting in the past year, but they're still
towering.
--Cost -- a battery pack for a single
Chevy Volt would cost about $10,000 today.
--Safety -- protecting passengers
in crashes and controlling hot batteries.
--Longevity -- guaranteeing 10 or
15 years of life from untested technology.
While GM's plan to build a car that
travels 40 miles on a single electric charge has
galvanized the industry, most experts say the technology
isn't ready.
No battery today "does it all," said
Don Hillebrand, director of the Center for Transportation
Research at Argonne National Laboratory. "But when
you watch the history and the progress they're making,
they're improving rapidly. ... Soon, they'll have
it."
Because 78% of U.S. commuters drive
less than 40 miles a day, a vehicle that could travel
that distance on electricity could find widespread
appeal.
But several automakers and analysts
question the electric vehicle charge, saying that
plug-in hybrids and Volt-type vehicles can't make
a major dent in U.S. oil demand before 2020, and
that their extra expense and complexity will keep
them rare.
Plug-in hybrids "aren't viable in
the next seven or eight years," said Menahem Anderman,
a battery industry consultant whose work is closely
followed by many experts. "Even if existing technology
can make it, automotive standards will require three
to five years of testing in small volumes before
anybody can seriously consider production."
But Fulop and other defenders say
no other technology will deliver vehicles that can
average the equivalent of 150 miles or more on a
gallon of gasoline, and see a growing chorus of
consumers who want to make an environmental statement
with their cars.
"Why not give people that choice?"
Fulop asked.
Reviving the dream
Automakers have attempted to power
their vehicles with electricity for more than 100
years, with little success. Only in recent years
has a new generation of battery been advanced enough
to revive the concept -- along with tougher pollution
rules that push automakers to get out of the fossil-fuel
burning business.
Take that hunk of lead and acid under
the hood of your car. To match the energy in a gallon
of gasoline, you would need about one ton of those
batteries. The nickel-hydride batteries in hybrids
have twice the energy capacity per weight, but still
lack enough capacity to power a regular-size vehicle.
Only with lithium-ion batteries, first
sold by Sony in camcorders in 1991, did a design
come close to the right levels of energy per pound.
Most portable electronics use lithium batteries
today, and Tesla Motors uses 6,831 standard lithium-ion
cells to power its Roadster, which is supposed to
begin regular production this month.
But industry executives say that Tesla
has taken risks by going that route, and other automakers
reject regular lithium batteries for a number of
reasons. They are prone to overheating and are highly
flammable, especially if punctured. They last just
a few years at best, not the 10 years for which
automakers usually certify their engines.
And solving those problems gets expensive.
Experts estimate the battery pack in each $98,000
Tesla Roadster will cost $35,000, but Tesla executives
have suggested that the cost is closer to $20,000.
Tiny scale, big results
While dozens of tech start-ups are
pursuing new batteries, A123 has emerged as an early
favorite. Founded in 2001, the company was the brainchild
of Boston-based tech venture capitalists and Massachusetts
Institute of Technology scientist Yet-Ming Chiang.
Battery research has been like trying
to crack a safe with 100 dials. Improvements required
testing endless combinations of materials and designs,
with few clues for which combinations might work.
Chiang developed a way to tinker with
the innards of the battery at the atomic level.
The result, called nanophosphate technology,
is a battery that holds more energy per pound and
pumps out power like a sled dog. The changes also
make it safer. Putting a nail through an A123 cell
results in a little smoke and occasionally a small
flame, while the same test on a regular lithium
cell creates a high-powered firecracker.
"This is the safest chemistry in the
market," Fulop said.
The company has more than 850 employees
and $148 million in funding, with General Electric
Corp. as its largest contributor. From a factory
in China, A123 supplies 10 million lithium-ion batteries
that power everything from cordless drills to New
York City hybrid buses. Its Ann Arbor branch works
on finding military uses.
Yet it's the auto industry where A123
sees its future. The company has opened a Livonia
office with 30 engineers, and it is one of two battery
suppliers chosen to test batteries for the Volt
program.
GM also is considering A123 cells
for the Saturn Vue plug-in hybrid due in 2010. Most
of the major automakers also have talked to the
company.
But A123's technology still has some
drawbacks, namely cost.
David Vieau, A123's chief executive,
and Fulop contend that A123 has the largest staff
of engineers working on vehicle batteries outside
of Toyota Motor Corp., and that costs will fall
rapidly if they can put their batteries into mass
production.
"If we could take that initial conversion
to hybrids from conventional vehicles, add batteries
to it and get 100 miles per gallon rather than 45,
the return you get on that investment is a much
better case," Vieau said. "The higher the price
of oil and gas, the better the case gets."
Volt of confidence
While most automakers expect to use
lithium batteries in regular hybrids soon, GM has
been the only major automaker to pledge mass production
of plug-in hybrids.
Despite the daunting economics of
plug-ins -- GM recently disclosed that the Volt
may cost $35,000 -- the automaker remains optimistic
that batteries from either A123 or the partnership
between South Korean-based LG Chem and Troy-based
Compact Power will meet its targets.
"They're not quite there yet," said
Denise Gray, GM's director of hybrid energy storage
systems. "But I'm hoping we'll have two suppliers
who meet our qualifications."
Peter Savagian, director of hybrid
powertrain engineering for GM, said the largest
hurdle to getting the Volt built was proving that
the batteries would last at least 10 years.
Battery life is "an open question,"
Savagian said. GM wants to have "a significant confidence
that the battery will last the lifetime of the vehicle.
When we talk about batteries that last 10 years,
15 years -- that's unprecedented in any application."
It's those kinds of questions that
have cooled many automakers and experts to the idea
of plug-in hybrids.
Battery expert Anderman, while praising
A123, said plug-in hybrids could take off if gas
prices soar and batteries continue to develop, but
that GM's 2010 goal is simply unworkable.
"To rush into plug-ins is too much
of a business risk, and actually there is a risk
someone will put a car on the road with a safety
problem and actually kill the good name of hybrids
in the marketplace," he said.
Contact JUSTIN HYDE at 202-906-8204
or jhyde@freepress.com.
