Comparison of NiMH and Li-ion batteries in automotive applications

The pressing need to decrease the greenhouse gases and to improve the efficiency of the existing fleet of vehicles it is imperative that they use some cleaner energy to run the vehicle. Electrical energy can be used in addition with gasoline used by the internal combustion engine of a conventional vehicle to supplement the incremental demand of power above the average power required by the vehicle. This requires for an on-board energy storage system and batteries like NiMH and Li-ion have proven to be efficient storage devices. This paper provides a comprehensive comparison of these batteries used in hybrid electric and plug-in hybrid electric vehicles.