By Marilyn Odendahl, Truth Staff
modendahl@etruth.com
Fishers -- Of Think City's estimated $30,000 price, nearly two-thirds comes from the cost of the 600-pound battery that sits under the hood.
It is a complex piece of equipment that takes almost a month to build and assemble in EnerDel plants in Fishers and Noblesville. The component which makes the EnerDel lithium-ion battery different is the slurry that coats the positively and negatively charged cells, explained a company spokesman. That goo can be chemically altered to suit the combination of power and energy the car needs whether it is a hybrid electric, a plug-in hybrid electric or a pure electric vehicle.
"The battery systems we're designing are the building blocks to an industry we are watching rise up before our eyes," said Charles Gassenheimer, chairman and chief executive officer of Ener1, parent company of EnerDel.
Adding to the weight are the built-in redundancies that allow the pack to continue powering the vehicle even if half of the eight batteries in the unit stops working and that shut off the electrical current if the vehicle is in an accident. The heaviness might be mitigated as the need for these multiple systems are reduced.
However, the lowering the cost calls for a unique solution.
EnerDel is focused on after market uses which, Gassenheimer said, could reduce the price of the battery by 50 percent in the next two or three years. As outlined by the manufacturer, once the battery could no longer power car, it would be used to run smaller vehicles such as fork lifts, then it would used to store the energy generated by wind turbines and solar panels. Consequently, car owners would only pay for the battery capacity they actually used.