hyu@eng.umd.edu (Henry K. Yu) (06/22/91)
Question: Anyone knows the spec of the zinc-air battery? e.g. nominal voltage,
charge/dis-charge ratio, charge/dis-charge time?
FYI: "Zinc-air battery powers best car", 'The Institute', IEEE, Vol 15:6
Four zinc-air battery stacks containing 33 cells each powered the winning electric vehicle at the First Annual Solar and Electric 500 auto race, held in
April Phonenix, Ariz.
During qualification runs on the first day of the event, the vehicle set a new record for electric vehicles by maintaining an average speed of 111.75 km/h (69.436 mi/h) for a one-mile run, as claimed by the Solar and Electric Racing Association (SERA) -- the race's sponsors. On the second day, the car set another record by traveling one mil (1.609 km) in 51.846 seconds, before completing 174km in 2 hours to easily win the race by four laps.
The winning vehicle, a 1991 Honda CRX, was sponsored by Southern California Edison Co. (SCE), Rosemead, Calif., and Arizona Public Service (APS), Phoenix, Ariz., and was designed by Dreisbach ElectroMotive Inc. (DEMI) of Santa Barbara, Calif. It was the ony one of the 13 cars in the race with a zinc-air battery.
...Each zinc-air battery carries up to eight times the energy of these others [lead-acid, lithium-air, and silver-zinc] of comparable weight (approx. 340 kg) and has the highest energy density per volume or weight of any battery.
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