Energy storage system technology challenges facing strong hybrid, plug-in and battery electric vehicles

Energy storage systems have been the bane of utomotive products since the time of Thomas Edison and his ime and investment spent in nickel-iron as the technology hought to be superior to lead-acid batteries of his day. Now, ver a century later, the automotive industry is still caught up in his catch 22 situation and is looking at lithium-ion as the echnology considered superior to nickel-metal-hydride and ertainly of lead-acid. In all this time there hasn't been an lectrochemical technology sufficiently superior to completely eplace the existing solution, nor is there likely to be if history eaches us anything. In this paper the proposition is made that it s time the industry considers combination technologies, in articular, those combinations of electrochemical storage that ompliment each other through the incorporation of our era's uperiority in power electronics. With power electronics it is now ossible to truly decouple the vehicle application requirements or energy and power and to optimize the energy storage system ccordingly and with advanced energy management systems. his paper discusses the challenges facing designers and anufactures of hybrid and electric vehicles and why a power lectronic enabled combination of existing electrochemical torage mediums does present a viable value proposition.