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Not sure which forum to post this in. Feel free to move it.
Panasonic has created a promotional vehicle to demonstrate the power of their new batteries. The vehicle is similar in shape of solar-powered vehicles. This one is powered by 192 AA batteries, capable of 76mph. I saw a different version of this which ran off of 2 AAs - crazy:eek: Imagine the P&G possibilities. Obviously, this would never be a production vehicle, but still neat to see. Follow the link (http://www.techeblog.com/index.php/tech-gadget/video-panasonic-s-aa-battery-powered-vehicle-rockets-to-76mph) for more pictures and a short video.

http://media.techeblog.com/elephant//ul/1460-450x-vehicles_1.jpg
http://www.newlaunches.com/entry_images/0807/06/oxy_batteries-thumb.jpg
try doing that with your hybrid battery pack...

I agree that it's cool. I just wish those AA's weren't the disposable variety. I have a set of NiMH AA cells, does anybody know if you can get LiIon AA cells?

Totally agree, brick. I was kind of bummed about that too (non-rechargeable batts used) But then again it wouldn't promote Panasonics new battery lineup.

FYI, I have seen Li AA online. Used mostly by hobbyists due to their 3.6-3.7v nature. They have the same physical size of AA, but require different chargers.

AA's are pretty terrible. I you made that faring with a recumbent bike under it, you could pedal 40mph easily and use no toxic chemicals. It's never going to be road worthy, and we are obviously not going to start powering cars by dropping in 200 batteries for every run.

well I do not know. HOW FAR will it go on 192 AA's ? I can buy 200 AA's for around $20 maybe less. Thats only what ? 7 gallons of gasoline? and thats consumer quantities. How cheap can you get AA's in bulk? can it go more than 140 miles on a charge? :-)

Somebody should do the math and figure out ow many AA batteries would equal a 4 mile range. Then we may be able to add it to the current battery in the Prius. LOL

A good rule of thumb for a moderately efficient EV is 250Wh/mi. Those NiMH AA cells that I use are 1800mAh X 1.2V = 2.16Wh. 1000Wh/2.16Wh = 463 cells to go 4 miles. (We could probably milk them for 6. ;) )

ok when I do 1800x1.2 I get 2160 not 2.16 so why the 3 dec shift? (just curious ie it probably explained why a bunch of my math is goofy :-) Go with 12amp D cells and you only need 70 of them :-)

I am curious these numbers seem goofy? I read that EV1 owners were getting about 100 miles on $1 of juice thats about 7500 watts. but with your figures 7500 watts would only take me 30 miles ??

Where am I getting the math wrong? My E is .000136 cents a watt. which means $1 in E is about 7353 watts.

So according to GM and EV1 Owners they were getting 100 miles on seven to eight thousand watts of electricity?

Where am I goofing this all up. (so far thats the hardest part, figuring out the NUMBERS for this stuff Grrrr Very little reliable data.)

Even the tesla is rated at $2.50 per 100 miles (inefficient lithium charging cooling system hurts it badly) thats only 18,000 watts.

Thats 180 watts per mile on Lithium! still quite a bit lower than the 250w/m listed ?

SO HOW DO you guys figure this stuff out?

Nerys, it is 1800mAh. So 1.8Ah -- that's where the 3 decimal shift came from.

Yup, that's it. (I suppose it would have better to write it in Ah instead of mAh.)

The other thing is that you have to be careful about units of power vs. units of energy. The base unit of energy is the joule (J). The base unit of power is the watt (W), which is 1 joule per second. (Since this is a rate, you can not measure battery capacity in watts!) To get to watt-hours (another unit of energy) multiply one watt times the number of seconds in an hour.

I wonder sometimes about the possibility of just taking (from Staple's or other recyclers) people's throwaway batteries (no excuse for using them nowadays but anyway) and putting them all together to power a vehicle until they go dead and then just putting more in. There is always some charge left when people throw them away. Depending on the application I'd say they have between 30% and 80% of the original voltage and power left in them. They'd be cheap but it would take quite a while to amass them in one place and to change them though a quick-loading magazine with a flexible long multi-contact strip would make it much easier.

For a more feasible idea, how about just getting those throwaways and hooking them in series and using them (maybe 2 or 3 for every one you charge) to charge your rechargeables? I might try hooking this up, actuallly. It would be quite simple.

The problem is compensating for all the different outputs. There is a reason mixing batteries is not recommended -- you can get some trying to charge others and some not so nice thermal fluctuations with those errant charges. :(