Patent Awarded for Technology to Extend Hybrid Battery Life

AFS Trinity Power Corporation in Bellevue, Washington says it received a patent from the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office that allows for the combination of ultracapacitors and other devices on a hybrid vehicle’s drive train. This innovation, says the company, will mean plug-in electric vehicles can run longer on smaller batteries.

The patent, says the company announcement, covers the use of ultracapacitors to extend the life of the vehicle’s battery pack, often the most expensive part of a plug-in vehicle. Most battery-only vehicles require oversized batteries or large internal-combustion engines — or both — to meet immediate demands for extra power, such as acceleration or hill-climbing.

Ultracapacitors, according to the National Renewable Energy Laboratory, polarizes an electrolytic solution to store energy electrostatically, with no chemical reactions involved in its energy storage mechanism. The mechanism is reversible, and allows the ultracapacitor to be charged and discharged hundreds of thousands of times.

AFS Trinity uses this capability of ultracapacitors to provide additional power for acceleration or climbing hills, with smaller batteries and smaller internal-combustion engines. Because ultracapacitors relieve the main lithium-ion battery of these peak loads, they extend the main battery life, which the company says can be as long as 10 years or 150,000 miles.

The company says its technology enables its prototype vehicle, a converted 2007 Saturn Vue SUV, to get 150 miles per gallon. The vehicle has an all-electric range of 40 miles and a top speed of 87 mph.