Posted By: roadrunninMark
Capacitor vs. battery, elec. engineer type of ? - 08/24/22 06:51 PM
This is a general question about using capacitors vs. batteries (in an EV, mainly) and is just for my curiosity to learn. Since Dodge is coming out with the Daytona Banshee and batteries are not really recyclable (at this time). They are also expense, heavy, use rare minerals, etc., etc., I was thinking why not the use of capacitors to store electrical energy? I briefly did some searching on what a capacitor is, looks like it takes DC energy and stores it as AC energy(?). It seems these are less complex and costly than a battery. I assume a lot cheaper and easier to make and sound like they could be more recyclable too? So why not use a bunch of capacitors in place of a large number of batteries? Do they not store nearly as much energy as a battery, even if using a high voltage unit? Would they charge slower or faster and would they last longer? Are they not as safe as a battery? I can understand not wanting to store a lot of AC for safety sake, so I am assuming that could be a good reason.