Weekly Ebike Tech chat January 5th 2024 Super Capacitor Ebikes and Sodium Ion Battery Light Car
Welcome to the high voltage Light Electric Vehicle Channel this is the weekly look at interesting technology and Trends in ebikes and light electric vehicles this week’s video looks at a couple of battery or energy storage formats that have been talked about for a really long time and promis much but
Have remained largely a bit of a pipe dream and something in a lab and not the wider World these two technologies are super capacitors and sodium ion batteries we’re now though seeing the first few cons consumer products to use this technology so the question that this video will explore is whether this
Is another false Dawn or if 2024 is the year when some of these Technologies are finally able to move people and cargo around the first thing to look at is in a bike made by a Dutch company and it caught my attention because it’s the first bike that I’ve seen that’s making
A big deal of super capacitors or Ultra capacitors if you want in the place of your traditional lithium ion battery I have a very health healthy dose of skepticism when it comes to these because they’ve always been one of these bits of tech that promises to be gamechanging and then the reality is
Somewhat different I think there was this company called eore and they made a big thing in the early 2000s about their amazing capacitors and then it came to nothing there were a lot of people that invested in it and nothing came from it this Dutch company however is using them with
Their bikes and is actually providing a 4-year warranty for the capacitor component they’re also giving a pretty bullish figure on the range of the bike but you do need to look at it within the context of who is and where they’ll be using the bike this is something that’s
Been created for a very specific place in Market the idea of using capacitors as batteries to store energy has been around for a long time and it’s an attractive proposition because you can charge them very fast you can get lots more life cycles out of them you can
Charge them when they’re cold they have a high rate of discharge they don’t burst into flames when damag and they emit far less toxic smoke if they are to burn and they don’t as far as I’m aware reach the point of thermal runaway the issue has always been one of
Energy density and this is something that has improved over time it used to be that the best capacitors had an energy density of 10 W hours per kilogram which doesn’t stack up at all against lithium ion batteries the idea is an attractive one though and investment in the technology is moved
Forward and you can find companies now making capacitors that have an energy density of 70 to 90 Wat hours per kilogram which is still a long way from lithium batteries the capacitors used in this bike are from a company called Fast cap in the USA and they’ve attracted considerable government investment which
Based on this bike appears to have paid off the energy storage for the bike is listed at 540 W hours and weighs in at 7 kg so you can do a quick bit of math and you can get 77 W hours per kilogram from this they’re giving it a top range of 12
20 km and I’m always super skeptical with ranges and ebikes everyone always pumps them up but this is a very low powerered pedal assist bike for use in a very very flat country Holland everything about this bike is tailored to the Dutch Rider from its vandalproof design to its bright Dutch orange paint
Job I like the look of this bike I know it’s not some super high powered machine but from a design perspective it’s not only practical but I think it’s nice to look at it’s powered by a tiny mid Drive drum brakes front and rear and the
Gearing is kind of set for riding on the flat I’m really shocked at the price as well this comes with a 4-year warranty for a frame and Battery yet costs with a current discount about $2,500 right I know it’s not a super high powered machine but you really need
To look at this in the context of where it’s meant to be used this is a Dutch bike designed to be used in places like Amsterdam and in a country where it’s almost completely flat where there’s a huge network of designated and segregated bike Lanes where etiquette is
Ingrained into all Road users and pedestrians where there are plenty of places to lock up bikes I don’t see this being particularly practical where I live because there are lots of hills the power that the motor can produce is pretty low the capacitors would be drained pretty quickly and I wouldn’t
Want to mix it in traffic with this but Dutch Riders don’t have to this has been designed for the daily commuter using their networks as such it has drum brakes a solid frame it’s very uncomplicated it has a max assisted speed of 25 kph because that’s the speed
That will fit with everyone else using the bike networks it does not need to have a huge energy capacity as the power levels needed to get people about in the flat at those kind of speeds are minimal so the fact that the energy density of the capacitors is lower than lithium
Doesn’t really matter in this case even if the person was to deplete all of the charge with this they can charge it in about 10 minutes while grabbing a coffee the fact that there’s no lithium ion battery involved May well make it viable for somebody that wants to charge one of
These while they’re at work or even in a multi-person condo unit I’m not making this video about battery safety but there are places now that won’t permit lithiumion battery charging so something like this could be more acceptable I’m not sure that this bike represents a place where capacitors have
Finally come of age more that they work for this specific vehicle I don’t see them working so much where you need to use higher power you will run that small capacity down very fast I think using these to move heavier vehicles and cargo might be a long way
Off however it’s really good to see them in a vehicle and being used to actually move people rather than another story making lofty promises that always seems to be over the horizon hopefully they can continue to work in this technology because to make a super capacitor is less energy and resource intensive than
Lithium they don’t use Cobalt they’re potentially easy to recycle they also work effectively in a huge temperature range don’t have to keep them warm like you do with say a Tesla car battery in Winter conditions there’s a lot of money going into the development of this
Technology so I see no reason why the energy density cannot be increased some labs are even making claims of up to 200 W hours now per kilogram however nothing approaching this has actually been delivered in terms of a product that can be used economically but still 77 W
Hours per kilogram in this bike is a huge jump from the 10 W hours per kilogram that was previously given as the limit not so long AG go just want to say at this point if you are enjoying this video please leave me a like and consider subscribing and if you have
Already done those things it’s greatly appreciated and really really helps to spread the video thank you very much while I’m looking at energy storage technology and energy density there are a few others that we can look at if we can start making viable vehicles for certain use scenarios with super
Capacitors there is also sodium batteries these can have an energy density of 120 Wat hours per kilogram which again is not really competitive with lithium in terms of density but there are also some case you scenarios where it really does not need to be sodium ion again is in attractive
Chemistry because it has better low temperature performance of lithium faster charging speed and a longer lifespan the components are also significantly cheaper than lithium which would reduce the cost of electric vehicles they’re also much less of a hazard if they catch fire and don’t thermally run away I realized that this
Here is a car but it’s also a very Compact and lightweight car and it’s going to be the first passenger vehicle using sodium ion batteries this is heavy heavy backing from Volkswagen the price of these as well is very very interesting they are around $7,000 to $8,000 which is vastly cheaper than
Pretty much any other electric car or vehicle I can think of in a time when everything just seems to get more and more expensive this could be a real bonus compared to something like say Nissan Leaf or the cheapest Tesla it’s a pretty damn good price some of that is
Due to the size of the vehicle but I suspect most of it is because the cost of the sodium ion battery is vastly cheaper which also means it will presumably be vastly cheaper to replace said battery when its time is up so for people this vehicle is viable
For they’re saving a huge amount of money on their transport costs one of the things that makes me really angry about electric cars right now is they tend to be in aite stateus symbol if this pans out it could make them much more affordable to buy maintain and run
Like this clearly isn’t the kind of vehicle that most people would want to use for an interstate journey in the US at least until recharging networks are more built out but in a country like UK or Europe or China where the density of people is huge this kind of vehicle will
Be able to do pretty much anything a family would want low cost fast charging most Journeys are not that long a distance anyway especially for City dwellers when you start looking at even lighter Vehicles there could be even a greater payoff here I could see smaller one
Person LVS with this type of battery taking people all over cities efficiently and cleanly there are a few companies making small Vehicles like this and they have a claim range of up to 300 km which I’m going to call BS on ranges are always exaggerated it’s the
Same with gasoline vehicles as well to some extent but even if these only get 200 km in Europe for most people that’s probably going to be fine some of this is also going to depend on the charging networks and the speed of charging right
Even if I need to go to 300 km if the facilities exist and I can stop off plug it in and have it charged to near full in the time it takes me to take a leak stretch my legs and have a coffee does it really matter that it can’t do the
300 km in one go by 2026 these companies claim they will be able to have an energy density for sodium batteries of 200 W per kg which is much more competitive with lithium I don’t think that sodium iron cells are going to be found in ebikes particularly soon mainly because of
Discharge rates with things like ebikes the discharge rating of the cells is important because people often use quite small batteries with relatively low numbers of parallel groups to get them to fit a car with the room for many more groups of cells is more viable with less
Load on each group of cells overall though I think these are exciting times and encouraging because it seems to me that some of the technologies that have been touted around for many years are now reaching the point where they’re ready to move from Beyond just Theory and Laboratories to the real world where
They can start moving around people in Goods as with everything it’s important to have a healthy dose of skepticism it’s up to these companies to prove these products work as always I’d love to hear your thoughts in the comments and on Discord next week I’m going to explore the topic
Of graphine which is another one of those Technologies which everyone went nuts over when it was developed and all these gamechanging ideas were proposed and very little seems to come of it anyway that’s it for this week thanks for listening and special thanks to all the channel members and I’ll see you in
The next one cheers
This is the High Voltage weekly e bike tech chat – This week I am looking at an ebike you can actually buy that uses a super capacitor battery as well as a sodium ion battery powered light car. The question being asked is are these technologies finally coming of age.
Timestamps
0:00 – Intro
0:43 – Super Capacitor Powered Ebike
6:42 – Sodium Ion Powered Light Car
10.28 – Conclusion
If you want to get involved in the discussion you are welcome to do this via the Discord or the comments here. https://highvoltagekits.com/discord
Ostrichoo Bikes https://www.ostrichoo.nl/
More information on the Sodium Ion car https://jacmotors.co.za/jac-motors-unveils-worlds-first-sodium-ion-battery-vehicle/
Huge thanks to LUX https://www.youtube.com/@LUX-AmbientMusic for allowing me to use their amazing sounds for this video. Well worth checking out.
