Joseph Kitchin
sounds about as non-vaporware as that thorium car a few years back. to put it another way, it's just a test mule with a 4cyl turbo until they actually set some lap times with this flow-cell powertrain in the actual car
Charlie Pluckhahn
Need more detail: Battery weight, cost/kWh, form factor, charging time, durability. I noticed that it needs two 200 liter tanks, i.e. 105 gallons, which itself would add roughly 400 pounds of weight.
If that's all the weight, it's great, but the volume of the water would be a big issue. And then there's the freezing point of sea water, 28 F. You'd need a full time tank heater for cold weather, no? What happens when you park it on a Chicago street during a "polar vortex?"
Gavin Roe
can you tell us what type of flow battery ie zinc or sodium and the power density please
mooseman
Sounds great!
Flowcell batteries show a huge amount of potential when compared to ordinary Li-ion batteries (or other batteries). Better range, (likely) lower cost and use of cheaper materials seem to clinch things for them.
bogdan
Don't know about the flowcell, but the video is pretty impressive!
duh3000
Sea water, gull wings, whale mouth grill... the car gets an A+ in design language consistency. But that haircut?! What's the Elvis look got to do with the future?
Alien
400 litres of salt water actually will equate to a little over 400kg weight in the electrolyte, which would seem to add a fair burden to be carrying around permanently compared, say, to a full tank of say 80 litres of gasoline at around 58kg. (And typically the fuel tank is half full on average.)
But, hey, with that weight sloshing around at the rear, enthusiastic cornering could produce some great drifting...or some scary wobbles!
I suspect this might make for an entertaining sports car but an unlikely candidate for mainstream motoring.
Neil Farbstein
where will all the salt water go? How will it be removed? They can recycle it. It seems like a great idea!
DiverMan
You can get a lot more information about flow cell batteries here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flow_battery