Interview with Dr. Menahem Anderman, President of Advanced Automotive Batteries
EV World, June 20, 2007
Bill Moore
advancedautobat.com
When Neil Armstrong uttered those immortal words, "That's one small step for man, one giant leap for mankind", he wasn't thinking of hybrid batteries or ultracapacitors, much less European micro-hybrids. But for Menahem Anderman, some of the news coming out of the 2007 Advanced Automotive Battery Conference may be just as significant.
Since 2005, the battery conference Dr. Anderman founded and hosts each year, has morphed into three events rolled into one. While the main conference is very application and market focused, the pre-conference Symposia concentrate on the development issues of advanced batteries in one session and ultracapacitors in another.
This evolution of what has become a well-respected and well-attended industry event mirrors the evolution of the technology itself.
"We have three or four sessions in each Symposium and they are focused on particular technological issues with either Li Ion batteries or ultracapacitors. For example in the case of Li Ion, we had a session about life, we had a session about advances in materials, a session about safety, and a session about large Li Ion battery application development . . . general and not limited to automotive.
"In the case of the ultacapacitor, we had one session on advances in components, one session on advances in cell design and performance, and one on pack design and application," Anderman explained, noting that attendance continues to grow as individuals and companies come to explore potential applications for their technology. Seven hundred people attended this year, which he said is a significant step over 2006. He added that interest in the conference and automotive battery industry seems to have crossed an important threshold starting with the 2005 event, the catalyst being, he believes, the introduction of the 2004 Toyota Prius.
"Everybody became aware that hybrid vehicles can be made economically, work well, and so save you fuel without compromising performance or passenger space."
Since beginning the conference in 2000, Anderman sees three stages of development in the electric-drive vehicle industry beginning in 1997 through 2003 with the introduction of the first Toyota Prius and Honda Insight. While the other OEMs deemphasized the battery electric car, and convinced the Bush White House that fuel cell vehicles were the future, Toyota and Honda - honed their technology and prepared to develop competitive products for the market. Outside Japan, only Ford made a serious commitment to develop a hybrid - the Escape.
Then starting in late 2003 and into 2004 with the introduction and early success of the second generation Prius, followed by the rising price of oil in 2005, reinforced by back-to-back hurricane seasons (2004-2005), carmakers began to re-evaluate their positions and accelerate development, as Ford, Honda and Toyota announced they would be offering even more hybrid models.
The current phase he sees being marked by steady progress on the part of car companies as virtually all of the major auto makers devote engineering resources to their own hybrid programs.
"I think the momentum is positive and the volumes of vehicles are up. Battery technology is important and customers are becoming more and more interested. Gas pricing is helping . . . of course the concern for energy security and global warming is helping.
"I think that technology has proven that we can go to 20, 30, 40 percent market share with conventional hybrids. This will have an incredible impact on the environment and energy security, but will not happen on its own. We would still need some government incentives (and/or regulations) to help that happen," he observed.
Blended Battery-Ultracaps Unlikely
I asked Dr. Anderman, since his conference now includes both batteries and ultracapacitors, whether he saw an increased interest in finding a way to combine the two systems in a way that plays into the strengths of each: ultracaps to absorb and release electrical energy quickly and batteries for the more gradual release of electrical power.
He acknowledged that the concept has been around for a while now, but that from a cost perspective, he doesn't believe it is feasible for moderate and strong hybrids, though they could make it into micro and mild hybrids. Ultracaps are just too expensive and there is little likelihood of any significant drop in prices anytime in the foreseeable future.
"If you are going with Li Ion, it is not necessary," he commented, "because you can get plenty of power from the Li Ion." He explained that adding ultracaps would not make that much of an improvement and it would add unnecessary cost and complexity.
"With lead acid batteries it could help more . . . it would make more sense and NiMH would be somewhere inbetween.
"So, it is really looking at system optimization and what assumptions you make as to the cost of ultracapacitors, but if you use realistic numbers projected for the next five-to-eight years, you are most likely going to end up with a more expensive system. And ultracapacitors are pretty good on a weight base, but not quite as exciting on a volume base."
He explained that ultracaps tend to be bulky; and that makes it difficult to integrate into a vehicle where volume is more important than weight.
The other issue with ultracapacitors is their cost. Although carbon might appear to be a very low cost material, in fact, the type of carbon used has to be ultra-pure and currently costs $60 to $100/kilogram. In addition, the manufacturing process requires greater environmental (moisture) controls - drier clean rooms - than Li Ion. And while it is possible to find low purity carbon for a $1/lb, high quality ultracap manufacturers don't see the price dropping below $30/kg. The electrolyte is similar to that used in Li Ion batteries, which is also expensive.
But it is the fundamental property of ultracaps that militates against their wider application as the main energy storage device in strong hybrids (but will not preclude their use in micro and possibly mild hybrids). Anderman explained that in terms of units of power, if you only need a second or two worth of energy, then they can be cost competitive, but beyond that, they aren't.
"If you need power for multiple pulses of ten, fifteen seconds, they lose their competitive edge very quickly. They become bigger and more expensive than advanced batteries."
Differences with CARB Expert Panel
Anderman has his differences with the California Air Resource Board analysis and conclusions with respect to the future of advanced battery technologies. He notes that the current cost of nickel metal hydride technology - despite recent high prices for nickel - is lower now than what the panel is projecting it will be five-to-ten years from now.
"They did not get quite the right number," he asserted. "The cost today is already below $1000/kWh for the strong hybrids at the pack level, and much below that for the module level, maybe $600 or $700. So, their projection is already more expensive than the market has already seen."
When talking about Li Ion and its future role in hybrids, especially plug-in hybrids, he believes their analysis is flawed, especially in terms of the size of the pack that will be needed. His research indicates that a Li Ion based battery pack will have to be larger in terms of storage capacity than what the panel envisions. He said the panel assumes that in the case of both NiMH and Li Ion, the pack can go to 100% state-of-charge (SOC), which it cannot do without seriously shortening its cycle life, requiring very expensive replacement, something carmakers and their battery supplies will not accept. He noted that none of the manufacturers are planning to take their packs much beyond 85 or 90% SOC.
"And you also have to keep 20-30 percent margin at the low end, so you can only assume that about 60 percent of the rated capacity of the battery will be used for electric range." This translates then into either less electric-only range or a more energy-dense battery will be needed. He also contended that the panel's cost projections for a plug-in hybrid "are lower than they should be, and the cost projection for the regular hybrid is higher than what the market is already, so they are definitely higher than they should be. This makes the delta smaller than it should be.
In other words, the difference in costs the panel is projecting between conventional hybrids and future plug-in hybrids is simply too small, based on AAB's own research and discussions with battery and auto manufacturers.
"And what is largely missing from the discussion is how do we transfer liability risk and life risk to dollars? This is really what the industry is struggling with when looking at plug-in hybrids. There is no way a car company and an individual customer can afford to replace a six or eight thousand dollar battery after six or seven years, or three or four years . . . and how do we deal with that?"
This poses a serious conundrum for the car maker who has to figure out how to monetarize an unknown risk while keeping the vehicle affordable for the average car buyer. If battery makers must assume the liability then they will have to find a way to include the risk into their costs, which will drive up the price of the battery to the manufacturer, who must pass it on to the consumer.
"The whole financial risk associated with introducing something like this into a high volume business is not being handled properly."
While Anderman agrees plug-in hybrids can be built and a few thousand people can afford to enjoy them, for PHEVs to have a significant environmental impact, they must be profitably built and sold in the millions. While a program like the Chevy Volt demonstrates that the technology is doable, what is less certain is its practical economic viability when talking in terms of large volume production. A few hundred or a few thousand limited production cars can be subsidized; a million can't to any substantial amount. For himself, Anderman isn't convinced they can be.
He views Li ion batteries as maybe being ready for "prime time" but it will be "high-risk prime time."
"It is a preferred technology for sometime in the future, and the question for each vehicle that is being developed is: Is it ready for me to put it on 10,000 or 50,000 or 100,000 cars next year?"
Anderman, who has been following the industry for some 20 years, the last ten in detail, said that carmakers have shied away from signing long-term contracts for Li ion batteries in favor of NiMH.
Case in point: when Nissan was weighing up whether to use Li Ion in its new Altima Hybrid back in 2002, they asked Anderman his opinion. In the end, they made their own decision; they would go with NiMH, despite having more practical experience with Li Ion than any other carmaker to date; their Altra electric car was powered by some of the first automotive-sized Li Ion packs ever developed.
Long term, he sees costs come down, but today, the risks are simply too great for a volume vehicle manufacturer.
And there is the safety issue. Li Ion chemistries can go into thermal runaway and the first one in a car that does will precipitate the recall of thousands, if not tens of thousands of cars. As early as January of this year, Anderman - through a press release - estimated that Li Ion batteries would only share less than 5% of the hybrid battery business in 2009 and 15 percent of the HEV battery market in 2012, which clearly precluded it being used in the 2009 generation three Prius.
"The assumption that Toyota would switch 300,000 Priuses from NiMH to Li Ion overnight was wrong to begin with," he stated.
Instead, despite high commodity prices for nickel, the price of NiMH battery modules has been halved since the original introduction of the Prius in 1997 when the per kilowatt hour cost for the modules was around $1200-1300. Now the cost of the modules is around $600-700/kWh, he estimates. However, even if nickel prices drop back to the $15-20 a kg range, he doesn't see modules prices ever dropping below $500/kWh. (The price of the metal on the London Metal Exchange slide 7% this past Monday to a low of $37,500 per metric ton or $17/lb.)
"There is no additional cost reduction by a factor of two," he said, which would halve the price of NiMH modules to $300-350/kWh.
And if there is little room left for reductions in the price of NiMH, what about Li Ion? There should be continued cost reductions, but Anderman noted that for the first time since their introduction, the price of Li Ion cells actually increased this year.
"2007 is the first year since the introduction of Li Ion that pricing actually went up, the first time ever."
The cause? Li Ion battery makers got a $500 million bill from cell phone and laptop computer makers who had to recall their products due to battery smokes and fires. Most of this hit Sony, but virtually every other Li-ion maker also took a hit; and responded by monetarizing the risk of product recall - as well as implementing slower, more careful manufacturing processes - into their battery prices.
Any manufacturer - battery or carmaker - is going to learn from the lesson and proceed with caution, making sure that there is sufficient margin in the price to account for possible product failure and recall. Unlike small mobile applications like cell phones and laptop computers, carmakers are asking for large, high power density, high voltage batteries with much longer life than a computer or cellphone, and they want them at the lowest price possible.
"You put them all together... yes, long term, Li Ion can do a lot of things, but today from where the industry is, the cost of introducing Li Ion is not trivial, even for conventional hybrid and considerably more complicated for plug-in."
He added in follow-up correspondence that he is concerned about "hype" surrounding Altairnano's lithium titanate battery chemistry, stating that the LTO anode the company is using is "inherently inferior to conventional Li Ion by a large margin in both energy density and cost due to the low cell voltage. The safety and life claims, considering the cathode and electrolyte that they are using, are unconvincing," he wrote.
"Frankly, I am concerned that the whole hype will end up damaging the industry as a bad incident could develop a bad name for Li ion."
One Small Step
The big news for Anderman to come out of the conference was BMW's 14-volt automatic engine stop-start system that is beginning to appear on its new 1-Series sedans. This is the first time a "micro" hybrid system will be introduced as a standard feature on any car sold in Europe. While he estimates this will improve the overall fuel efficiency of the vehicle by a very modest 5-6 percent, it is, in his opinion, significant that it is being introduced in all the 1-Series (initially only models with manual transmission) model line.
"That is great news, positive news," he said, "and hopefully showing the direction Europe is going in the next five years, which is micro-hybrid, a stop-start vehicle could become very popular and go to very high volumes," which is, in the case of the 1-Series, about 80,000 vehicles a year.
According to Anderman, to do this, BMW is alleged to have bought out all of Europe's automotive valve regulated lead-acid battery capacity for the next three years.
"It's a small technical step, but big as far as volume impact and the direction it's showing."
The other exciting news to come out of the conference this year was the interest being expressed by what he calls general technology and materials companies, "that are now seeing advanced batteries for hybrid vehicles becoming a potentially high volume attractive technology that they want to invest in." He listed Dupont, Dow, General Electric, Degussa, BASF, Asahi Kasai, and others.
"Major materials companies are saying this is going to be big business and I want a piece of it. Some companies have expertise in carbon, some companies have expertise in plastics, in electrolyte, in metals, in metal oxides . . . But the whole industrial material expertise that we have around the world is looking mostly at Li Ion, but also at ultracapacitor, and to some degree advanced lead acid and NiMH . . as an area that they want to get active in with material development because they hope there is some big piece out there."
He sees this validating the effectiveness of market-driven capitalism. With the combination of correct long-term government policies and industrial investment driving the technology; he sees that while it might not produce a million plug-in hybrids by 2009, it will begin to make possible in 10-15 years what we think of as difficult today.
The complete and updated Proceedings of the 2007 AABC are available for order as hard copy or digital download from the AABC website. Dr. Anderman’s 2007 Industry Report “A Comprehensive assessment of an expanding industry on the eve of a technology shift” is also described there.
Next year's conference is planned for Tampa, Florida, May 12-16, 2008.
You can listen to the complete 37-minute interview using either of the two MP3 players at the top of the page linked below or by downloading it to your computer hard drive to transfer and playback on your favorite MP3 device using the following URL: evworld.com |
