| Sorry, but no. Most lithium chemistries have a nominal voltage near 3.3 - 3.7V per cell. When you stack lithium cells in series for any sort of high-performance application, you need additional balancing circuitry to bleed off energy from the cells individually (tiny variations between cells results in them having different capacities, which means some will charge up at different rates, resulting in them DISCHARGING at higher rates, which results in pretty serious negative effects for the life of the battery pack). The only exception here is extremely well matched cells, which is how Tesla is able to get away with not using much balancing circuitry (they are very picky about the cells they use, and have enough cells in stock to pick ones with very similar capacities). And the safety features include a lot more than fuses - there are over-voltage protection circuits (extremely important!), over-discharge protection circuits, temperature protection circuits (you can overheat a cell even without drawing too much power out of it). In short, large stacks of lithium cells are a difficult and dangerous beast to handle, and a lot of work goes into keeping them safe. These cells tend to have very low internal impedance, and as a result a chain of them can produce staggering amounts of power. Source: I work on the embedded protection systems for a company which makes specialty lithium-ion battery systems for industrial, aerospace, and defense customers. |
Why didn't they use them in the first cars? When they either over or undervolted, they tended to explode. We didn't have the electrical circuitry to handle lithiums.
Now we do, mostly. Bad "spray fire and death" style accidents still happen.