Michigan Chevrolet Dealers Hear Batteries May be Reusable; GM Strives for Efficiency

Aug. 1, 2011 - PRLog -- DETROIT, M.I. – Michigan Chevrolet dealers know there may be some concern about what will happen to the batteries within electronic vehicles once they have degraded to less than 100 percent. General Motors is working with companies to find a solution for the reusability of the batteries. The main worry is an E.V. battery leaking chemicals into a landfill, causing damage to the environment.
General Motors has taken the initiative to find better solutions than E.V. batteries wasting away.
Michigan Chevrolet dealers may know that the Chevrolet Volt is expected to have 70 percent of the battery life remaining after 10 years, which has General Motors looking into new ways to continue using the batteries that are still useful and powered. In conjunction with ABB Group, which specializes in power and automation technologies, General Motors is searching for the most practical and economic way to reuse E.V. batteries.
“The Volt customer is very focused on the whole life cycle of the battery and, because the cells were designed to be very robust, there’s still very significant battery life after 10 years in the car, added Pablo Valencia, G.M.’s senior manager for battery life management, during a teleconference on July 20. “Working with ABB, we want to provide leadership in secondary use,” he said.
One idea that is currently being looked into by GM and ABB is building a power unit that would consist of 33 Volt battery packs. This unit could store enough energy to be able to supply 50 homes for about four hours during times like a blackout or other shortages.
The good news about used E.V. battery packs is that the predictability rises substantially after longer periods of use whereas new batteries are less predictable. This may give GM and ABB a wider scope of possibilities knowing they may have strong levels of stability.
Michigan Chevrolet dealers may want to help with the move toward more reusable parts such as E.V. batteries, and it may only take education from the dealers to their customers about the alternatives as they are created. Hopefully General Motors will find the best solutions before the 10 year mark is reached for the E.V. batteries.
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[Source(s): The New York Times]