American company Johnson Controls (JCI), a company that manufactures about a third of car batteries in the U.S, has taken the first step toward making conventional combustion engines more efficient, announcing they will start producing stop-start batteries, which will improve a car’s mpg by 5 percent. Stop-start batteries, a common feature in hybrid cars, were impractical for conventional engines – until now.
A regular car battery runs on a combination of lead-acid and water, corroding the internal electrodes of the battery until it theoretically dies. A stop-start battery in a hybrid car uses lithium-ion or nickel-metal hydride rechargeable battery, taking energy creating from braking or wheel rotations to recharge it.
Johnson Controls’ stop-start batteries aim to do exactly the same thing, except with a lead acid battery. The stop-start battery will employ an absorbed glass mat (AGM) to accumulate lead acid and bring it to the electrolyte in the battery. The AGM, which was first developed for fighter jets in the 1980s, limits the corrosion of the battery and makes the battery last longer.
The batteries come with a catch – about $500 worth of parts would be tacked on to the sticker price of cars using the battery, so the stop-start system may not become immediately profitable.
“I’m by no means a mechanic, but if I were to see some credible research on the batteries, I’d be interested in what they could do,” senior Phil Baldwin said about the stop-start batteries. “I think they sound like a good idea.”
Senior Dan Burns echoed this sentiment. “I think they’re a good idea, especially driving around here,” he said. “It seems like you stop at every light on Route 1, and there’s always traffic. If I could save gas while I’m idling around here, I’d be all for stop-start batteries.”
Johnson Controls is constructing two plants to handle the production of the stop-start batteries. In June, the company announced it was starting a $138.5 million overhaul of their battery plant in Toledo, Ohio, to produce the stop-start batteries. On Sept. 15, the company announced it was building a second factory in China to manufacture the batteries. The two factories won’t be ready until 2012. A Bloomberg Business report estimates that stop-start batteries will be used in 20 percent of all cars by 2017.