EV World story, Prius plug-in battery

[razzleberry]

on EV World a story about
Lithium Technology Corp.'s anticipated offering
of an add-on battery pack for the Toyoto Prius.
(not that i believe any of this crap, but who knows)

http://www.evworld.com/news.cfm?newsid=15242&url=

the company's website
http://www.lithiumtech.com/

something similiar to what is being discussed, I guess
http://www.lithiumtech.com/120AhHE.pdf

173 wh/kg seems to good to be true

[gravity]

1. 173 wh/kg is not too good to be true

but having that capacity at a reasonable price is.

[skids]

2. More like "not good enough to be true"

Reading their PR material they seem to be a bit in the lurch given that two other companies have much better specs for their cells. Like they state their cycle life as 3000 cycles, but actually it's 400 when measured at 100% depth-of-discharge like their competitors do (and they state 1000+ cycles at 100% DoD)

Not to say they don't have a product, and even if it isn't as good technically as the other cells, still they might be able to undercut on price -- they are doing the right thing by going for a niche in making large format cells. And then there's the lawsuit that the holders of the patent that these guys are licensing has pending against the two leading competitors, which will probably fizzle but who knows.

As long as they actually turn out product and it does what the buyers expect it to, though, more power to them.