Future battery replacement

[ncerna]

The Spark should give most owners at least a good 8 years of life. After that, there will be many used Bolts for sale.

[JPL]

Oh yeah I would prefer bolt cells!

[BEEMAN]

if you have a 2015 Spark EV you have the 2.6 chemistry which was a bridge between the cells uses in a Volt Gen 1 and a Volt Gen 2. If you have a 2016 Spark EV you have the same cells from a 2016 2nd Gen Volt. The Spark EV is my favorite EV of the first generation. I work with many EVs and the LG cells are excellent. They hold up well over time.

[SparkevBlogspot]

Oh yeah I would prefer bolt cells!

You may not like Bolt cells. Bolt at over 3X SparkEV battery tapers DCFC to only 36 kW (0.6C) at around 50% charge, and 25 kW (0.4C) at 70%. By comparison, SparkEV charges at 48 kW (2.7C, 300% to 650% quicker) all the way to 80%, and replacing SparkEV cells with Bolt cells will result in slower charging.

In addition, Bolt is only 200 kW power (150% more than SparkEV) using 60 kWh (320% more than SparkEV). It's not clear if the output power limit is the battery or the motor, but it is possible that Bolt cells can't provide as much power as SparkEV cells. If that's the case, SparkEV with Bolt cells will result in slower acceleration.

As far as EV's go, SparkEV is truly a revolutionary car unlike anything on the market in many metrics. There's no EV that can charge as quick as SparkEV and very tall gear ratio (huge torque). It's also the most efficient production car ever created (though IoniqEV may rival it; not enough data on Ioniq, yet). It will be some time before other EV catch up to SparkEV. In that regard, it's pretty hard to make SparkEV "better" by using parts from other EV.

[NORTON]

if you have a 2015 Spark EV you have the 2.6 chemistry which was a bridge between the cells uses in a Volt Gen 1 and a Volt Gen 2. If you have a 2016 Spark EV you have the same cells from a 2016 2nd Gen Volt. The Spark EV is my favorite EV of the first generation. I work with many EVs and the LG cells are excellent. They hold up well over time.

Glad to hear from you and your insider info !!!!! Seriously !

I plan on keeping my '14 until it's <30 mile EV, and then ????

It seems the '14 and the Bolt share the 'Plate' type of TMS for the cells. This should make MacGyvering in new, different cells easier, I would think.
Stack the replacement cells in the old pack, make the series power connections, attach the original BMS wires, strap it all down securely and Bob's your Uncle !!
Sounds easy to me...

[JPL]

https://electrek.co/2017/01/17/classic- ... tery-pack/

Looks like the kia soul EV have the best batteries of all

[NORTON]

https://electrek.co/2017/01/17/classic- ... tery-pack/

Looks like the kia soul EV have the best batteries of all

? Do you see that battery pack hanging there? Do you see those TMS coolant hoses to cool and heat the cells as required? NO. That's not very High Tech.


Cells are cells. Without some sort of BMS to limit current sucked out of a pack, you can flog any pack of cells really hard, if you want to and don't care about pack life.
Look at how the RC guys use, and use up, their Li-ion packs.

Kia talks about their "Heat Recovery" system. So low tech and seemingly unsafe to me. Look it up.

[CCIE]

if you have a 2015 Spark EV you have the 2.6 chemistry which was a bridge between the cells uses in a Volt Gen 1 and a Volt Gen 2. If you have a 2016 Spark EV you have the same cells from a 2016 2nd Gen Volt. The Spark EV is my favorite EV of the first generation. I work with many EVs and the LG cells are excellent. They hold up well over time.

How do you know that? Do you work for GM or LG Chem?

[67goat]

I am not counting on companies that will be able to produce aftermarket batteries, but I wouldn't be surprised at all. A small market won't necessarily be a problem either. 8-10 years is a very long time in technology.

A well built pack will not need any hacking of the software, even if it is bigger. All they would need to know is what control signals to send. As long as they have the right control signals, and output is within range of acceptable, the car can be fooled into believing it has nothing but a standard battery.

As for having a larger battery, as long as it was built in multiples of original spec, it could be set up to act as multiple independent battery packs, one turning off and the next coming online as the previous pack drains. You might need to add a custom BMS to the packs, but that would be very simple.

As for small market, we are not that far away from computers being able to design a cell holding pack on their own simply by putting in a set of variables (dimensions, etc...) and then having it printed out. In 8 years we may very well be there. The idea that a company needs to gear up and retool for something like that is going to be an obsolete idea in the very near future. Heck, even doing a one off won't be much more costly than the materials themselves.

[JPL]

Well this guys got1200 km in a single charge:

https://youtu.be/rbnvZlPZZQc