Lead Carbon: Rising upto the challange

Automotive battery market is heating up. Last week, the state of Michigan approved investments by four battery producers amounting to US$1.7 billion. Lithium-ion battery technology, which is often touted as the most mature technology for the automotive use dominated the investment space in the state.
However, the week also witnessed a rather unusual deal between battery major Exide Technologies and relatively unknown Axion Power International. Axion is a small company focusing on Lead Carbon battery technology. The company is working on the similar lines as Australia’s Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation (CSIRO) in developing the activated carbon battery. Axion Power is taking a slightly different approach with its battery technology replacing the negative electrode with microporous activated carbon. The company is confident that by doing so it will be able to overcome major drawbacks of lead acid batteries namely high weight and low energy density.
While CSIRO’s ultrabattery has been road tested on Honda Insight for 100,000 miles and licensed to Furukawa and East Penn, Axion power states that battery technology is still in development phases. However, significant cost advantages of lead carbon technology over NiMH and Lithium-ion prompted Exide to enter into a supply agreement with Axion Power.
Lithium-ion is the default choice among the automakers for motive power including GM, Ford, Chrysler and Renault Nissan. Longtime NiMH champion Toyota is also following a Lithium-ion development program for its 2010 model of Prius. However Lithium-ion’s prohibitively high cost makes it unaffordable to most of the buyers. Approximately half of US$40,000 price tag of Chevrolet Volt is attributed to the Lithium-ion battery packs. One of the reasons behind Lithium-ion’s dominance is the absence of a worthy competitor. Large-format NiMH deployment in automobiles is restricted due to Cobasys’ patents and standard lead acid batteries are good for SLI (Starting, Lighting and Ignition) only. Let’s hope the Lead Carbon batteries change the game.

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