College Inventing Material That Might Serve as Car Body and Rechargeable Battery
By Scott Doggett September 24, 2010Students at the Imperial College in London are developing a composite blend of carbon fibers and polymer resin that can store and charge more energy faster than conventional batteries can.
The materials development project has brought together nine European companies and institutes, but only one automaker to date - Volvo Cars.
Imagine a car whose body also serves as a rechargeable battery - a battery that stores energy when you brake and that also stores energy when you plug in the car to recharge. That's the idea.
"At the moment this is just a fascinating idea, but tests are currently under way to see if the vision can be transformed into reality," Volvo said in a statement today.
The material is said to be extremely strong and pliant, which means it can be shaped for use in building the car's body panels. According to calculations, the car's weight could be cut by as much as 15 percent if steel body panels were replaced with the new material.
That's remarkable, considering the heaviness of the batteries going into today's electric vehicles.
The project will continue for three years. In the first stage, work focuses both on developing the composite material so it can store more energy and on studying ways of producing the material on an industrial scale. Only in the final stage will the battery be fitted to a car.
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