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2. do not drive for a month
3. car's slow but steady draw drains battery to where it self shuts off
4. attempt to enter car
5. realize that it is a modern car, and without electricity from the battery you cannot even open the door
6. ...
7. profit?
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Yeah, we're still figuring out the best way to handle collecting the units at the end of life, but there's already places like this that we can send them to and keep it from turning into e-waste: http://www.kinsbursky.com/
You might want to add language re battery orientation. It looks like your device doesn't care about up and down. That's a big deal for car people. They pay extra for a 'dry' battery that can be mounted in weird places and angles. And mention venting or lack thereof. That's another sticking point for people shopping for aftermarket batteries. Also, vibration testing if you have done any. Custom cars and offroad machin…
Lithium-ion car batteries are already commercially available, though cripplingly expensive: http://www.jegs.com/p/Lithium-Pros/Lithium-Pros-12-Volt-Lith... The innovation here seems to be the capacitor bank, which lets you get away with a much smaller and cheaper lithium ion pack.
We really approached the problem from the opposite direction. We started with supercapacitors and asked ourselves how we could make a reliable system around them. Huge current surges at the levels needed for starting a car are hugely destructive for batteries. It's almost as bad as just shorting them with a wrench. We decided that capacitors were fundamentally better suited for what a car battery does.
(1) Those nasty things inside car batteries are easily recycled and in fact are recycled more often than not (like 95%+) (2) Car batteries do not last only 3-4 years as per the OP. Car batteries can last decades. There are many variables, but the car in my battery is far older than 4 years. (lol) (3) Replacing an easily-recyclable product with a less-recyclable one is no step forwards. (4) XX addressed by OP comment,…
Back when I drove a fast sporty little car, I got one of these:
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0002ILK6I
$100, 4 pounds. Proven technology. I can buy it today.
Half the cost, 60% more capacity, and 2/3 the weight of this "Ohm". Smaller too, from the looks of the "Ohm".
I'm not trying to rag on you guys, but I can't figure out why I would pick the "Ohm", unless maybe it's got a really rippin' CCA.
Edit: Amazon is incorrect, ODYSSEY quotes the battery as 15.4lbs:
http://shop.odysseybattery.com/p/pc680-p
To compare like for like, we would look here:
http://shop.odysseybattery.com/p/pc310-p?pp=12
8Ah, 5.9lbs, tiny, $163 on Amazon. I hope you can beat it on CCA.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
You might want to add language re battery orientation. It looks like your device doesn't care about up and down. That's a big deal for car people. They pay extra for a 'dry' battery that can be mounted in weird places and angles. And mention venting or lack thereof. That's another sticking point for people shopping for aftermarket batteries. Also, vibration testing if you have done any. Custom cars and offroad machin…
Sportbike owners are already buying cheap LiFePO4 batteries sans capacitors in droves, so there'd have to be some kind of strong differentiation for Ohm.
Hey everyone! I'm Hunter, one of the cofounders of Ohm. Let me know if I can answer any questions.
I can also see how one would implement a low voltage cutoff to prevent running down the battery, but then, how in the world do you automatically re-engage the battery to allow starting the car? You've shut off the power to the whole car, so you no longer have a circuit to monitor. If you're allowing some amount of current to trickle out, you must, by definition, be allowing the voltage to sag, which can run the ECU or alarm out of spec, causing havoc.
As the battery designer, your only input to make these decisions is the resistance of the car's electrical system.
The only thing you control is your own internal resistance.
Hey everyone! I'm Hunter, one of the cofounders of Ohm. Let me know if I can answer any questions.
Have you calculated how much money a typical driver would save in fuel due to losing 34 lbs of weight? I have no idea if this ends up being a significant number, but I think the average driver spends somewhere around $10k in fuel over the expected lifetime of this battery; if cutting down the weight by 1-2% reduces fuel consumption by a comparable amount then Ohm would pay for itself.
My car has a significant design flaw(1), in that it allows children to turn on the backseat car lights and leave them on. I've had more dead batteries in the five years I've had sentient children than I've had in the 40 years prior. This is a great idea. (1) Perhaps the design flaw is in the children.
The problem is I don't understand how the battery would shut down just lights and accessories without a) losing all your radio presets b) requiring entering the anti-theft code in the radio (risky because if you get it wrong you can brick your radio) c) still have power to know that you're trying to start the car.
It seems to me this requires more than internal battery smarts but changes to the car's wiring to have separate battery connections for computer, accessory, and starter.
Right now most cars have just one big post clamp for the + and - battery connections.