The stumbling block to introducing all-electric vehicles on the road today is the fact that the batteries are not up to the task to mimic all of the conveniences that we have come to expect from vehicles powered by internal combustion engines. The issues with the commercially available batteries in the vehicle application are:

1. Battery energy and power densities need to improve. To match gasoline, energy and power densities of batteries have to increase significantly.
2. Batteries need to be charged in a time that is comparable to the refueling time of the gasoline tank. Therefore batteries must accept charge at high rates safely.
3. Battery life is an issue. Vehicle owners expect their batteries to last as long as the vehicle. Even though some batteries are able to last for thousands of cycles, when hundreds of batteries are put in a vehicle pack, in some cases, one failure makes the pack unusable.
4. Battery safety must be assured, especially during fast charging and in hot wheather.
5. Battery cost needs to be reduced.

ATEC research will attempt to address all of these issues. At the fundamental level, Dr. Zhang and his research team are developing lithium-ion batteries based on nanofiber electrodes. Dr. Zhang synthesizes these electrodes by using an inexpensive electrospinning process. When these nanofiber electrodes are used in lithium-ion batteries, the stable nanofiber structure elimates the existance of inactive materials such as polymer binders and carbon black conductors, so they can hold more energy for a longer time; this implies higher energy density and more stable capacity. In addition, the large surface area of the nanofibers implies better charge acceptance and therefore faster charging.

To improve the charging time of the pack, each battery will be managed at the individual level to insure safety during fast charging. Algorithms will be developed to charge the battery at the fastest rate at which the chemistry is able to absorb the charge safely. To improve the life of the pack to match that of a single battery, weak batteries will be taken out of the circuit electronically. Finally, as the vehicles retire, used PHEV batteries can be deployed to electric substations to support the grid.

ATEC research will also consider alternative energy sources other than batteries. For instance, supercapacitors exhibit very long life, great charge and discharge characteristics, and very high power density. On the other hand they typically have low energy density. Therefore, combining batteries and supercapacitors in one storage device will result in a superior system.