‘Cambridge crude’ may charge up e-cars

“We take the solid compounds that are normally used in lithium-ion batteries for energy storage and turn them into a fluid suspension of particles that can be used in a flow architecture,’’ Chiang said.

That fluid suspension is a black slurry that resembles crude oil, and Chiang said it has the potential to change the way people drive. It could eventually produce batteries that provide 200 to 300 miles of driving range on a single charge, up from the 80 to 100 miles offered by existing batteries.

The new batteries are also projected to be far cheaper, potentially bringing the price of electric cars down to a level comparable to that of gasoline-operated cars.

“Our goal is to make it completely transformative and give the user no reason not to drive an electric car,’’ Chiang said.

The batteries would be rechargeable, but to save time, Chiang said, motorists could pump out the used “Cambridge crude’’ and replace it, or swap their batteries for fully charged ones at fuel stations.

Chiang has said the technology has potential applications for the electricity grid, too, because of its capacity to store renewable energy.

Solar and wind power cannot be produced 24 hours a day; batteries are necessary to store power produced during daylight hours or windy periods so it can be fed to the power grid during off hours.

The batteries would not be useful for small-scale technologies like cellphones and laptops, he said.

Jay Friedland, legislative director for Plug In America, the San Francisco electric car advocacy group, said such a system would be a Holy Grail of electric car innovation.

“The devil will be in the details in terms of what will be the infrastructure requirements,’’ Friedland said.

Consumer acceptance of cars powered with the battery technology will depend on whether enough facilities can be built to make charging or swapping out dead batteries convenient.