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New battery chemistry tweak could double EV range
- ars 5y agoThe title is not supported by the article. The article says the new battery can handle more charge/discharge cycles. But energy storage and weight are in line with other batteries.
- ealexhudson 5y agoThe storage is at the high end and better than most other EV chemistries by 50%+. It's unusable because it doesn't survive long enough, but I think the point is if they can solve the cycle issue then this chemistry becomes available. It might not double the range of a Tesla or Kia, but it won't be too far off. FWIW, the 360 Wh/Kg number is not far off the 400 number where flight apparently becomes interesting.
- simonh 5y agoIn line with other batteries with much lower cycle endurance, but their energy storage is much higher than other batteries with similar charge cycle endurance. That's what matters.
- SV_BubbleTime 5y agoWhen you read COULD in a headline, replace it with PROBABLY WON'T and see if you still want to click it.
- jdhn 5y agoFor those who are wondering what makes these new batteries so special, here's what it says in the article: "What is new is the resilience of the battery. Historically, lithium-metal batteries have been plagued by premature death, with previous record holders accomplishing just 200 cycles before seeing significant drops in capacity. The chemistry developed by the PNNL team was able to maintain 76% of its initial capacity after 600 cycles, blowing the old record out of the water. There is still work to be done for sure, as currently used EV batteries typically last for around 1,000 cycles."
- TrainedMonkey 5y agoI was a bit surprised, but 80% degradation after 1,000 cycles numbers they provide as a baseline seem to be accurate: https://www.findmyelectric.com/blog/how-long-does-a-tesla-battery-last/ https://www.findmyelectric.com/blog/how-long-does-a-tesla-ba...
- SECProto 5y agoTo translate that "80% after 1000 cycles" into more practical numbers: with a 300-mile-range battery, that means you'd have a 240-mile-range after driving 300,000 miles.
- brianwawok 5y agoVery people are getting 1000 cycles Interesting graphs here https://electrek.co/2020/06/12/tesla-data-battery-degradation-limited-mileage-packs-equal/ https://electrek.co/2020/06/12/tesla-data-battery-degradatio...
- Jeff_Brown 5y agoYou meant to write "very few", right?
- Retric 5y agoDegradation is less important as range increase. Average 500 mile range * 600 cycles = 300,000 miles. At 350 watt-hours per kilogram a 200kWh battery is 570 kg + housing so feasible. Using a different battery chemistry for ultra high mileage models is probably a bad idea, but it is an option.
- brianwawok 5y agoDepends if you use more range to increase total car range, or you want to use less of the batteries to make the car "cheaper". Currently the market is taking any range over low 300 miles and just making the car "cheaper".
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- birdman3131 5y agoUntil it leaves a lab I am going to lump this with the other 10,000 battery improvements that never get anywhere.
- Consultant32452 5y agoSure, but before you do that could you approve our grant funding?
- soperj 5y agoWhy is that in every battery article, people come to be dismissive? If you don't care, why click on the article?
- legohead 5y agoBecause it's just noise that never gets anywhere. You get excited at the data/news, go check out the comments for discussion and find out 10 reasons why it's all bunk. As the old adage goes -- fool me once..
- soperj 5y agoBatteries have improved leaps and bounds over the last decade. Where do you think that came from?
- 542354234235 5y agoBatteries are better because of all those improvements. >In fact, gains in the amount of energy [lithium-ion batteries] can store have been on the order of five percent per year. That means that the capacity of your current batteries is over 1.5 times what they would have held a decade ago… A study may identify a way to significantly improve one characteristic, generating an exciting top-line conclusion. But the design may be impractically poor in some other way. While battery researchers learn from what does and doesn’t work, this means that a lot of laboratory batteries you may read about will never hit the market…A recent study noted that “the real price of lithium-ion cells, scaled by their energy capacity, has declined by about 97 percent since their commercial introduction in 1991.” The early lithium-ion cells in the 1990s were around $3,000 per kilowatt-hour. By the early 2000s, that was nearer to $500 per kilowatt-hour.[1] [1] https://arstechnica.com/science/2021/05/eternally-five-years-away-no-batteries-are-improving-under-your-nose/ https://arstechnica.com/science/2021/05/eternally-five-years...
- N1H1L 5y agoPNNL press release: https://www.pnnl.gov/news-media/longer-lived-lithium-metal-battery-marks-step-forward-electric-vehicles https://www.pnnl.gov/news-media/longer-lived-lithium-metal-b... Full paper: https://www.nature.com/articles/s41560-021-00852-3 https://www.nature.com/articles/s41560-021-00852-3 There are some heavy hitters as authors. Stan Wittingham is the co-inventor of the Li-ion battery and won the Nobel Prize, while Jun Liu is a legendary battery researcher in his own right.
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- twizod 5y agoMark my words - battery range has to increase once more functionality is built into it, e.g. running house in times of power outages or extreme cold/hot or 6 hour trips that don't require a break on the highway. It's inevitable that an option will eventually take place and a subset of buyers with more spending power will pay for it.
- scythe 5y agoHow much does it cost to make all these 20 micron strips of lithium? Is the resulting anode fragile?
- faeyanpiraat 5y agoWouldn't a quick battery replacement "gas station like" network make all these concerns obsolete? You drive into a "battery station", a robot switches batteries underneath the car, done.
- xvector 5y agoEven so, there is a clear benefit to not having to stop at said gas station so often.
- babesh 5y agoThere is a Chinese company doing this. Tesla unveiled the concept years ago but decided not to do it. There are multiple reasons that battery replacement is not as good as it seems. Charging stations can be built in more locations and more densely than battery swapping locations. This is because you need to store those batteries somewhere and there is more space and machinery involved in swapping. So you trade off queueing time for charging time. Charging stations are most likely cheaper to build and maintain because of the space and machinery requirements. A battery swapping station is more vulnerable to supply imbalances. Charging stations meet demand at charging rate. Charging stations can be more easily made universal. Unless you mandate a common battery form factor, that won’t be the case for battery replacement. This means that charging stations can scale with the whole EV industry. Swapping introduces inefficiencies to the car. You need at least a little additional structure which is weight. The below article does point to advantages but again not what may first expect: cheaper initial cost for car, off peak charging time. Also note the industry standards. https://www.cnet.com/roadshow/news/china-ev-swappable-battery-standards-approved/ https://www.cnet.com/roadshow/news/china-ev-swappable-batter...