好消息：SB LiMotive的高层管理人员说，将有可能设计出可供汽车行驶300英里的锂离子电池。
坏消息：这个电池原型有爆炸起火的趋势。
SB LiMotive公司成立于2008年，股份由Robert Bosch 和Samsung拥有，两公司各占50%。该合资公司总部设在韩国，为八个汽车生厂商提供动力电池。公司还将为菲亚特500电动车以及宝马i3电动车等电动车提供电池。
Fetzer表示特别看好两种新型的锂离子电池：锂硫电池、锂空气电池。锂硫电池中，使用相对较轻、便宜的硫，并且具有更高的能量密度。锂空气电池中，带正电的充电离子流在多空碳阴极中氧化，可以降低重量提高能量密度。
Fetzer说：“目前这些技术取得了良好的进展，乐观的估计，我们将在未来5年（the first half of the next decade）看到这些电池。硫锂电池将有可能储存400-500Wh/kg的电能，锂空气电池将储存最少1000Wh/kg的电池。”
First, the good news: a top executive at SB LiMotive says it may be possible to design lithium batteries that can deliver a 300-mile daily range.
And now the bad news: the prototype batteries have an unsettling tendency to burst into flames.
And that, in a nutshell, is what occupies Joachim Fetzer these days. As executive vice president of SB LiMotive, it's Fetzer's job to deliver lithium ion batteries to customers--mission accomplished--and figure out how to improve their performance--a work in progress.
SB LiMotive is a 50-50 joint venture between Robert Bosch and Samsung, launched in 2008. The venture is based in South Korea and has contracts to supply batteries for eight automakers.
The company will supply the Fiat 500 EV and the BMW i3 electric car, among others.
Happily, global battery makers have figured out how to design cooling systems that prevent lithium ion batteries from overheating. But it gets tricky when researchers experiment with alternative chemistries that would allow them to store more energy in the battery.
During an interview at the Frankfurt auto show, Fetzer said two new battery types--lithium sulfur and lithium air--are especially promising. Lithium sulfur chemistry, which uses relatively light and inexpensive sulfur, is capable of high energy densities. In lithium air cells, positively charged ions flow to oxygen in porous carbon cathodes, which cuts weight and boosts energy density.
"I expect these things," Fetzer said. "There is good progress being made. The optimistic assumption is we'll see these batteries in the first half of the next decade."
A lithium sulfur battery might be able to store 400 to 500 watt hours per kilogram while a lithium air battery might store at least 1,000 watt hours per kilogram, Fetzer said.
By comparison, a conventional lithium ion battery typically stores a maximum of 150 watt hours per kilogram. That's enough, Fetzer noted, for automakers to design electric cars with a range of 100 miles or so.