Boeing 787 Batteries Same As Those In Electric Cars? Umm, No

The FAA has grounded all 787s after a string of fires in their lithium-ion battery packs. But these batteries are very different from the ones in electric cars.

By John Voelcker/ Green Car Reports Posted 01.17.2013 at 2:00 pm 8 Comments

Boeing 787 Dreamliner

Gird yourself: It's possible we're about to see a new wave of attacks on electric cars that ignore battery science.

This time the culprit is the troubled Boeing 787 Dreamliner aircraft. The FAA has grounded all 787s after a string of fires in their lithium-ion battery packs; other countries have done the same.

Which has led at least one supposedly authoritative commentator to say that Boeing is having the same battery problems as those "that have shown up in electric cars."

The problem is that the two types of batteries are, in fact, quite different.

Here's the offending quote, from Paul Czysz, professor emeritus of aeronautical engineering at St. Louis University, as cited in a Boston Herald article this morning:

"Unfortunately, what Boeing did to save weight is use the same batteries that are in the electric cars, and they are running into the same problems with the 787 as the problems that have shown up in electric cars."

The author of the Boston Herald piece then went on to describe a 2011 fire in a Chevy Volt crash-test car that occurred several days after it was wrecked and rotated through 360 degrees by the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration.

In January 2012, the NHTSA closed an investigation into Volt fires, concluding that "no discernible defect trend exists" and that "modifications recently developed by General Motors reduce the potential for battery intrusion resulting from side impacts."

Here's the problem: While the battery cells in Boeing 787s and, say, Chevrolet Volts are both in the lithium-ion family, they use very different chemistries.

You can think of lithium-ion cells rather like motor vehicles: They all do some variation of the same thing, but there are many different types, sizes, shapes, and different technologies to make that happen. Consider the difference between gasoline and diesel engines, for example.

The cells in the 787, from Japanese company GS Yuasa, use a cobalt oxide (CoO2) chemistry, just as mobile-phone and laptop batteries do.

That chemistry has the highest energy content, but it is also the most susceptible to overheating that can produce "thermal events" (which is to say, fires).

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Only one electric car has been built in volume using CoO2 cells, and that's the Tesla Roadster. Only 2,500 of those cars will ever exist.

The Chevrolet Volt range-extended electric car, on the other hand, uses LG Chem prismatic cells with manganese spinel (LiMn2O4) cathodes.

While chemistries based on manganese, nickel, and other metals carry less energy per volume, they are widely viewed as less susceptible to overheating and fires.

So if you see coverage of the Boeing 787 battery fires that says anything at all about electric cars, do consider dropping a friendly note to the reporter involved.

It may be unreasonable to expect every reporter in the world to know that "lithium-ion batteries" are a family of very different chemistries.

Science reporters, on the other hand--let alone engineering professors--really should know better.

You have been warned.

This article, written by John Voelcker, was originally published on GreenCarReports, a publishing partner of Popular Science. Follow Green Car Reports on Facebook and Twitter.

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8 Comments

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epynephrin

01/17/13 at 2:59 pm

For anyone who isn't from Boston, or familiar with our Herald, here's what you need to know: it's a hack rag.

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Robot

01/17/13 at 3:56 pm

Well, at least this rules out the next problem with the 787. The accelerator won't get stuck to the floor or run away acceleration of the plane, lol.

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DockScience

01/17/13 at 6:17 pm

In my days in R&D management, a lithium battery researcher once remarked that the better a lithium battery performed, the more it reminded him of a bomb.

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Robot

01/18/13 at 8:49 am

McDonnell Douglas Aircraft, always made better aircraft. They just lost out one years to a government bid\politics.

Their engineers and workers are AWESOME!

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/McDonnell_Douglas

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spark55155

01/18/13 at 7:48 pm

I would expect neither science reporters nor engineering professors to be aware of the niceties of lithium battery chemistry. That is a ridiculous expectation. Only chemical engineers who develop these batteries could possibly be accountable to know this. Just knowing that both electric cars and these jets use "lithium batteries" is amazing, but I consider the misinformation caused in the newspaper to be "insignificant". Newspapers aren't a primary source, and I usually disregard comments made in any newspaper - there's no need to slight the Boston Herald for this. In fact, there's no need for the general public to be aware of the science of these batteries at all, without there being just more and pointless information overload. If a product isn't safe, it shouldn't be marketed. The blame lies squarely on developers of this battery, for not realizing its limitations.

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African Rover

01/21/13 at 3:42 am

My guess is that the problem does not lie in the battery itself, but in the power management circuits

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nkfro

01/22/13 at 11:18 am

Spark, you are drawing too fine a line. The writer wasn't speaking about the efficacy of dihydro monoxide as a cleaning agent. The writer said that Boeing was using THE SAME battery as the Volt an that simply isn't true. There are plenty of easily read web pages that explain the different L-ion chemistries currently in use.
Here's a good example. Living out here in the AZ desert, 120+ degree days are common place during the summer. During the winter, it's not unusual to see temperatures down around 25 degrees f. Last week is a good example.
Batteries for desert use have a greater volume of electrolyte while those batteries in colder winter climate trade acid for additional plates to increase its cold-cranking amp capacity. My 1999 Camry with just shy of 39000
verified miles on the clock is garaged and the battery is three years old and has never been fully discharged under load. The garage still got cold enough to severely strain its battery when cranked to start and had to be put to the charger before the Camry could be started.
Nothing wrong with the battery or its charging circuitry. Our weather is rarely cold enough to cause cold start problems until last week. It's usually appox. 70 degrees during late December/early January. The battery in used is appropriate for our weather.

If a writer does not verify what evidence he believes to be 'factual', then there is no doubt that writer is out-of-his-league and should refrain from publishing on that subject. Battery chemistries are not so exotic that the manufacturers don't publish the details that allows the public - or a mechanic - the needed info to make the best battery choice for their application.

Finally, we do NOT yet know that the batteries were at fault. One may have caught fire, but one can not exclude the charging systems until they have been tested.

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gseattle

01/26/13 at 1:22 pm

No one yet has any answers regarding the batteries being used in the Dreamliner.
So go ahead, play connect the dots and see if it makes a picture or a mess:
There are many types of Lithium Ion batteries.
The Dreamliner batteries were said to be Lithium Cobalt Oxide (verifiable?).
Radiation affects some Li-Ion batteries (voltage, chemistry) to varying degrees.
Cosmic / x-ray radiation levels near the pole are far higher than elsewhere, especially following solar storms.
Solar activity is expected to peak in late 2013, it spikes from time to time.
The JAL Tokyo to Boston flight was near the north pole?
Did the ANA Dreamliner that made the emergency landing at Takamatsu fly near the pole on its previous flight?
What were the peak altitudes of both flights?
Battery damage looked maybe due to several hundred watts?
Internal currents? Breakdown of insulation?
Changes to electrolyte chemistry resulting from radiation?
How about internal electrical bleeding due to elevated voltages in some cells that did not translate to readable increases externally?
What test data does NASA possess that might tend to lend credence to or tend to discredit this?