Toshiba to ship new rechargeable battery "Toshiba Corp.'s Super Charge ion Battery (SCiB), to start shipping in March, can recharge to 90 percent of its full capacity in less than five minutes."
"The new battery will first be used in electric bicycles, motorcycles, forklifts and construction machinery. It can work in temperatures as low as minus 22 degrees Fahrenheit."
90 percent full in less than five minutes. That's impressive. That's accomplished from a 50 amp circuit (not your standard household outlet). They are also only recharging a 24V battery. Will that still be possible for a forklift battery? Our company has an electric forklift that requires a very industrial sized outlet to recharge it. Recharging is done overnight. Fast charging is not a necessity for us. However we have run the thing dead more than once because someone forgot to plug it in at night.
If this can scale up for mass produced EV battereis then there might be a use for all those gas stations once gasoline becomes scarce. They can become rapid charge stations. Of course if you can slowly recharge at home overnight then the bulk of gas stations will have to find something else to do if they are to remain viable businesses. Maybe then can become bicycle storage and repair shops?
The press release does not mention what materials are being used in the battery so it remains a question of how sustainable these batteries will be if they are mass produced (or even if they can be mass produced). They also fail to mention if the batteries can eventually be recycled or safely disposed of. The devil is always in the details.
The SCiB could actually beat Tesla's roadster to market. If Toshiba has at least as good a product as Tesla then Tesla could eventually be left at the side of the road. The real payoff for Tesla would be licensing it's technologies to the big automakers. How long before the SCiB can be adapted to power a vehicle still in an unanswered question but I think it is now going to be a race between Tesla and Toshiba. Of course they aren't the only two companies in the race, just two of the more visible ones.
Notice that electric bicycles are mentioned first in the quote above. Now how much is one of these things going to cost? Doesn't matter much to me because I'm happy to keep pedaling for now. But once the knees go, I hope there's a battery that will do the job.
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