Mitsubishi, in a field of many otherwise less-than-reputable companies, has unveiled and demonstrated an Ultracpacitor. Previously, I haven’t paid much attention to this category of devices because most of the most hyped solutions have been vaporware. However, Mitsubishi has demonstrated it, and has an otherwise good reputation (they build everything from cars, to regional jets). How does it play into the 21st century of vehicular transport?
The ultra-capacitor is designed to store small amounts of energy (small compared to regular batteries) but are able to receive and put out large quantities of energy quickly. The ultra-capacitor unveiled here can store 14Wh of energy, about three times your iPhone battery. You can see that one or two of these alone wont be able to push a 2,000 lb car very far. So you would put many of these together to form an energy capture device. When you brake, the ultra-capacitor is charged, and when you start again, the stored electrical energy is used to propel the vehicle.
With many of these, you would build a small battery, about 1000 Wh or more depending on vehicle size, and then charge and discharge them. These particular ultra-capacitors could deliver 50kW of energy, which would be enough to propel a small sedan up to 40MPH. They wouldn’t be able to provide for all-electric driving, since a usable 500Wh of energy could only provide about 2 miles of range, but it would create a new range of super-hybrids that could very efficiently provide for acceleration on residential and side streets.
They are designed to put up with the stop-and-go driving, since the initial demonstration units lasted for 2,000 cycles before losing 20% of their capacity. It is likely that this will be worked on and improved up to 10,000 cycles to be suitable for hybrid vehicles.
Mitsubishi has not announced a production time table.
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