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New batteries could make phones, drones, and electric cars last twice as long
- deleted 10y ago[deleted]
- Retr0spectrum 10y agoIt seems like we're always hearing about the next big thing in battery technology, but they seem to stay in research forever, and never hit the consumer market. The most exciting part of this, is that they say the'll be in consumer devices early 2017. I'd love to have one in my quadcopter!
- bitJericho 10y agoProgress in batteries has come a long way in the last 20 years. It's one of the reasons your quadcopter is even possible.
- cheriot 10y agoDo you know of anywhere that charts improvements in commercially available batteries? I have a similar impression to OP, but only based on anecdotes.
- kristofferR 10y agohttps://www.reddit.com/r/teslamotors/comments/29mxnz/the_progression_of_the_18650_battery/ https://www.reddit.com/r/teslamotors/comments/29mxnz/the_pro... "2010 (early) Max. capacity 2600mAh (This has existed before) 2011 (early) Max. capacity 2900mAh/3000mAh 2012 (early) Max. capacity 3100mAh 2012 (mid) Max. capacity 3400mAh 2013 (late) Max. capacity 3600mAh (Are not yet common)" . 3600mAh is apparently still the max capacity available.
- imtringued 10y agoBattery capacity doubles every nine years. I'm not narcissistic enough to give this "law" a name. The opposite is also probably true. A battery technology that promises to double today's capacity is at least 9 years away from being commercially available.
- Retr0spectrum 10y agoUndoubtedly, but my impression is that it's been more of a gradual refinement of the same technology, rather than a sudden 2x improvement as claimed here.
- ptaipale 10y agoWell, there have been clear technological jumps. I remember the time when the mainstream technology for electronic gadgets was NiCd. Then came NiMH -> Li-ion -> Li-Po. The differences are quite significant.
- usrusr 10y agoLi-Ion is nearly as old as NiMH. They coexisted for a long time, on very different price levels. When people think of battery progress, they usually just think of how LiIon got cheap enough for a use case that was on NiMH before. That certainly is also progress, but of a very differed kind than what they think it was.
- ptaipale 10y agoI think it is clear progress if manufacturing becomes so much cheaper that the technology is actually available to more people.
- usrusr 10y agoIt is progress, but because of the price-enabled technology switch, there are many misconceptions the kind of progress and its expected continuation. Outside of fixed installations, price only translates to capacity when there is a next level technology available at a higher price point. I don't see that now. We might be left to forever squeeze out the last remaining bits of inefficiency from current technology (non-reacting mass fraction due to insufficient surface area per mass?)
- dozzie 10y agoSure, of course. It's not like the amateurs used combustion engines in their flying models for decades.
- wizzard0 10y agoNote that having a compressed energy ready for rapid release is exactly equal to handling an explosive in your laptop :) There are a lot of experimental batteries that have like 5x capacity of the current Li-ion ones, but melt and explode when heated or crushed, which makes them effectively useless. This is one of the hardest problems in high-capacity batteries - to avoid "rapid unscheduled heat dissipation" and the following "rapid unscheduled disassembly".
- Razengan 10y agoIn that case, maybe what's actually needed is not battery capacity, but quicker and more convenient recharging systems? Say solar, kinetic, or wireless charging stations spread throughout a city? Maybe incorporate some kind of "witricity" into the next WiFi proposal? If stuff can be recharged while it's being used, or within seconds, it shouldn't matter how much capacity the battery has.
- throwwit 10y ago..or an inherent groundstate failure mode?. I.e. the condition-based lowering of the activation energy of an endothermic crystalization. I don't know how feasible it would be though.
- fuzzy2 10y ago> but melt and explode when heated or crushed But that’s exactly what Li-ion batteries already do. x)
- semi-extrinsic 10y agoWhat you really want to avoid is destroying non-rechargeable lithium manganese batteries, like a CR123. There are some true horror stories out there, like this one: http://www.candlepowerforums.com/vb/showthread.php?120888-ROAR-of-the-Pelican-(CR123-Explosion-during-use-firsthand-account) http://www.candlepowerforums.com/vb/showthread.php?120888-RO... TL;DR: guy used stock flashlight with two stock CR123 batteries in series. One discharged faster than the other, so it got reverse charged from the one holding more charge, and promptly vented hydrogen gas that got ignited and blew up. Guy got glass and metal shrapnel damage to his foot, and hydrogen fluoride poisoning resulting in permanent lung damage and other bad symptoms. It's really horrible. Bad stuff starts at page 5.
- Animats 10y agoYes, if we had all the "2x improvements" in batteries from press releases, batteries would be powering airliners by now. "Yet just as safe and long-lasting as the lithium ion batteries used in consumer electronics" is not happy-making as energy density increases. The existing lithium-ion technology just barely keeps from overheating and blowing itself up, and it takes about six safety devices to prevent that. (Latest major hoverboard explosion story: [1] All those safety devices really are needed.) Lithium metal batteries (available now as non-rechargeable batteries) are even more dangerous, and are currently prohibited on US passenger-carrying aircraft. Lithium metal battery fires require a class D (flammable metal) fire extinguisher. They're vague about the safety issue. "We're going to make the anode ultra-thin" is a concern. There are safer battery technologies, such as lithium iron phosphate. That won't run away thermally, and passes the "nail test", where a nail is driven through the battery. Less capacity than regular lithium ion, which is why it's not widely used, although you can buy such batteries commercially from A123. "Boosted" skateboards use them, because they don't blow up. Solid Energy Systems, submit your cell for UL testing. Otherwise, lithium metal is, literally, not going fly. Company website: [2]. Uses the common "all hype no info" template. [1] http://wsvn.com/news/local/hoverboard-explosion-causes-house-fire-in-dania-beach/ http://wsvn.com/news/local/hoverboard-explosion-causes-house... [2] http://www.solidenergysystems.com/ http://www.solidenergysystems.com/
- smanuel 10y agoLithium-sulfur batteries look like the most possible candidate as the next incremental evolution of the lithium ion batteries. Lithium metal... not so much. But I really hope for revolution in this space, rather than incremental changes. This will boost and give wings to so many other inventions.
- marcosdumay 10y agoLithium-sulfur only works hot. It may be a great option for huge batteries connected to the power grid, but plugging a 200°C inflammable battery to your laptop might not increase its safety.
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- supergreg 10y agoRelevant xkcd: https://xkcd.com/678/ https://xkcd.com/678/
- jp555 10y agoOnce production at scale comes into play most of these "breakthroughs" result in sub 10% gains annually. But 5%-10% yearly battery progress compounds over decades to be gargantuan improvements. Think of Rule 72, a 7.5% annual battery improvement rate compounds to a doubling every 9.6 years, which is amazing.
- sp332 10y agoThis one seems more plausible because it's not about making rechargeable batteries denser, it's making lithium-metal batteries rechargeable. We already know they can achieve this density.
- deleted 10y ago[deleted]
- matthewmorgan 10y agoIs it the case that the research was publicly-funded, but the profits are now being privatized?
- cheriot 10y agoAmerican government funded research that turns into a business creating jobs in America sounds like a reasonable outcome to me. After China stole solar, we need some other industry with growth potential. Edit: Do the down voters care to comment? Anti-nationalism, anti-capitalism, or what?
- EpicEng 10y agoI don't know why you're being down voted. It is in the public interest for businesses like these to prosper.
- cheriot 10y agoMy conspiracy theory is that the comment swung from -4 to +4 as China went to sleep and the US arrived at work.
- deleted 10y ago[deleted]
- touristtam 10y agoThe issue is publicly founded research aleviate the burden of the investment from the private sector, while selling the right to the new technology to a sole private entity. The whole thing could, unless the government blocked it, be sold to a private chinese company down the line.
- akiselev 10y agoThis is how the system has worked, quite well, for decades if not centuries. The short term profit motive prevents the vast majority of companies from carrying out basic research like this and without IP protections most won't risk investing into manufacturing infrastructure that will quickly be copied in lower cost jurisdictions. There is a lot wrong with our patent system but it does its job for the most part.
- Euphorbium 10y agoGreat, phones will be 2 times thinner /s
- dvh 10y agoUSB type C is identical from both sides, if we remove one side, it could be half thinner /s
- gonvaled 10y agoAnd then one of the biggest selling points of USB type C is moot - namely its longitudinal symmetry, which allows to plug it in without caring about orientation.
- okket 10y ago<meme>That's the joke.</meme>
- gonvaled 10y agoWell, that was a practical joke for over 5 years with USB 2, and I do not find it so funny when plugging in my phone to the charger half sleep at 3 o'clock in the morning.
- semi-extrinsic 10y agoActually, USB 2 is nice in one way, it makes it easier to explain half-spin particles in quantum mechanics. "Just like plugging in USB, you have to rotate more than 360° to get back to where you started."
- chriswarbo 10y agoAfter the umpteenth time of hearing that joke, it's still not funny, and it still makes half-integer spin seem more mysterious. A much better analogy https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QJRtxTyROOU https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QJRtxTyROOU
- astannard 10y agoThis looks great and with such an early release date it does seem the tech is not far away. Interesting that they are making the batteries and not licensing the tech considering it works with existing manufacturing technologies. I wonder how much extra cost if any for this increased energy density
- mangecoeur 10y agoOf all the great leaps in battery tech that keep on coming, this seems like one of the most promising because they were forced to learn to manufacture on real industrial equipment. Most of the time these great battery breakthroughs go nowhere because they only manage to demonstrate with a tiny hand-built cell (often as not only presenting the result of the one cell that did finally work out of dozens of attempts), but there's no path to commercialisation. If they really do ship usable batteries by november this could be huge.
- Dowwie 10y agoMore about SolidEnergy, who is manufacturing these batteries: http://www.solidenergysystems.com/ http://www.solidenergysystems.com/
- SethMurphy 10y agoIf we can double battery life, hardware makers will double power usage. Phones are designed to last about a day on a full charge, and incremental battery improvement won't change that.
- mtgx 10y agoGood thing we have VR phones and 4k displays right around the corner to "take advantage" of this increase in battery capacity! Oh, and all the Pokemon Go-like games.
- FooBarWidget 10y agoIf battery life is really what people care about, even over features, then everbody would be using dumbphones instead of smartphones. So as much as people cynically complain about companies, battery life isn't what people value after all.
- marcosdumay 10y agoI don't see many people claiming they want battery life over features, generalized like that. There are plenty of people claiming to want battery life over thickness. And I don't even think a 1 cm thick phone will sell - there's a limit in that.
- TillE 10y agoRight. If you look at the sales of battery cases, you have an absolute minimum number of people who are willing to pay more and accept much more thickness for more battery life. I'd be happy to buy a 50% thicker iPhone if it could handle a whole day of hard usage.
- CaptSpify 10y agoI don't think this is true. I've never been given a true option about batteries. It's not like I get to choose two different versions of the same model of phone, where $a has a bigger battery, and $b has $feature. It's usually a funky mismatch between two different models, with different specs, some of which make it faster, and some of which have a bigger battery. But I've never seen phones with a 1-to-1 comparison for batteries.
- mtgx 10y agoI remember SolidEnergy. We discussed it here on HN before. It was one of the, if not the most promising companies to have made "battery breakthroughs", a few years ago. And they also seem to be launching right on time (I believe they promised a 2016-2017 release date a few years ago). What's strange though is that Tesla always brags about how it has a list with "hundreds" of such battery breakthroughs, and that they know everyone in the industry working on new tech, but none was anywhere close to coming to market, which is why they chose to go with normal Li-Ion batteries for Gigafactory. And now we have this announcement? Was SolidEnergy that secretive with their battery tech evolution or why would Musk keep saying that then? I would imagine SolidEnergy would kill for a deal with Tesla. So I wonder what else is going on. Perhaps the battery is 2x as dense, but 4x as expensive, making it not useful for Tesla cars anytime soon?
- xbmcuser 10y agoThis tech will take at least a few years to reach the point where they can start supplying enough batteries that Tesla would need for its cars.
- JoeAltmaier 10y ago...or Musk saying "Lets make those in our Gigafactory instead".
- codecamper 10y agoYou realize that Tesla is not making the batteries in the gigafactory. That'd be Panasonic. It may have something to do with patents? Or maybe Tesla realizes making the cars is enough, leave the batteries up to others? Or, they have the market momentum now, so lets go for it, the world will bend to our will.
- mtgx 10y agoSolidEnergy is going to make its own batteries, so I meant why isn't Tesla buying their batteries instead of Panasonic's batteries? But my best guess is it has something to do with price per Kwh being much higher or simply not being confident in SE's ability to scale up to 50GWh per year in the next 2-3 years, which is what Tesla is going to need for the Model 3.
- jimcavoli 10y agoYeah..."A novel electrolyte also keeps the battery from heating up and catching fire." We'll see how novel it is. I'll need a few cells, about 20min and a hammer as a literal smoke test at least
- bobajeff 10y agoDo this mean we can start making standalone smartwatches (that have GPS/LTE/Wifi) and go back to making 4" phones again?
- gm-conspiracy 10y agoiPhone 4s FTW.
- GarrisonPrime 10y agoCall me cynical, but I doubt the benefits of any such dramatic breakthrough would last long. As soon as the battery ability expands, the hardware and software will begin to expand their battery demands as well.
- omtose 10y agoMaybe in software, but I doubt that the efficiency of motors in drones or cars would change. It's not like there are abstractions to chase in hardware, are there?
- venomsnake 10y agoIt will decrease. Making 99% efficient engine is order of magnitude more expensive than 90%. Double the battery density and suddenly the case for lighter and expensive parts disappears.
- omtose 10y agoThat wouldn't be decreasing, just increasing at a slower rate.
- tombert 10y agoI'm not in any way trying to undermine the research here, but I feel like it's a bit disingenuous to use the term "could" in your description. Batteries are a difficult thing to engineer, and all this does is provide fodder for the 24-hour-news-cycle to give false hope.
- branchly2 10y agoThe answer here isn't batteries with more capacity. The answer is: * more areas to lock your bike/scooter/moped (electric or otherwise) * coin-/card-operated charging stations (as in, "plug in while you shop") * charging stations where you work (to charge your EV during the day) I don't think swappable battery stations would be useful, since batteries are damaged by deep-discharging them, and swap-stations would end up with too many damaged batteries that way. As more people start using EVs, it will be a no-brainer for companies (or even local electric utility companies) to start placing EV charging stations all over town.
- deelowe 10y agoWhat's your market? If it's the US, there's certainly a need for longer travel distances between charging cycles. Most EV's don't have enough charge to allow for commuting to and from work yet. Especially when you factor in grabbing groceries, taking errands, or other things. I'm not sure what the right amount of range should be, but it feels like it needs to be around 150 miles or so to allow for a comfortable buffer. Here's the census data from 2009 where they did a study on commuting in the US: https://www.census.gov/prod/2011pubs/acs-15.pdf https://www.census.gov/prod/2011pubs/acs-15.pdf It's pretty thorough.
- branchly2 10y agoYes, the US. My point is, you can either increase range by having better batteries, or you can do so by charging up while at your destination (ex., in your parking lot at work). It gets even better if you're running errands and you've got a charging station at the grocery store, library, city hall, etc.
- deelowe 10y agoHaving to rely on others to ensure you can get around causes a lot of anxiety. Also, it's probably a lot easier to get consumers to add chargers to their homes and automakers to extend the range of cars than to convince uninvested third parties to build out infrastructure.
- transfire 10y agohttp://www.johnsonbatterytech.com/ http://www.johnsonbatterytech.com/
- dailo10 10y agoWhat I find exciting about this is: 1. They were "forced to prototype on existing lithium ion manufacturing equipment". This brings them much closer to actual, scalable manufacturing. 2. Hu's ability to develop solutions when challenges arise. He figured out how to get the battery working at room temperature. He was able to adapt his approach to work on existing manufacturing equipment. Hu sounds like a world class talent, and I admire his ability to overcome challenges. Here's hoping SolidEngergy succeeds!
- ryanmarsh 10y agoI can't wait until I can start downvoting stories on HN. Haven't we had this conversation here, over and over? "Amazing New Battery will..." Well actually...
- lutusp 10y agoQuote: "That shrunk the battery size by half." Nit-pick. To "shrink by half" would have the effect of doubling the size. Maybe he meant "to half the original", but surely not "by half." This reminds me of the commonly heard "torn in half" when either "torn into halves" or "torn in two" is what's meant.
- jbmorgado 10y agoI can already see Apple putting a battery 50% smaller and keep the same bad (according to my opinion) battery life of their iPhones in order to claim they have the thinner handset on the market. Seriously, device thickness is for 2016 like camera megapixels was for 2006, it's totally unnecessary to keep pushing it and it hurts usability, yet, it looks good in the numbers you show the consumer, so companies keep doing it.
- lostlogin 10y agoI'm glad that isn't the actual title, as that is truely bad.