11 ms·

It is promising that a 5x increase is even theoretically possible. If one day even a 3x improvement became mass produceable that would be enough to make electr

It is promising that a 5x increase is even theoretically possible. If one day even a 3x improvement became mass produceable that would be enough to make electric vehicles viable for all the use cases it isn’t currently that I can think of. Long range towing, extreme cold, track days, road trips with bikes and luggage strapped to your car etc

codesnik 5y ago
and aviation beyond air-taxis
- gameswithgo 5y ago
  right!
Keyframe 5y ago
True, but improvement on what? There's, let's say, doubling capacity (without doubling mass), doubling performance (discharge, without fire hazard), doubling how long it can hold a charge (without doubling thermals), doubling longevity (without doubling down on hazard materials)... Just of top of my head. Chemistry is hard, looks like it. What's the average doubling of any of these factors we've seen over the years? 10-20 years?
- derriz 5y ago
  Energy density has at least doubled in the last 20 years. See figure 8 in [1]. And it's easy to overlook the most important factor for general applications - price - where the declines are much more dramatic. People complain about the lack of progress with batteries but we've observed that EV range has doubled in 8 years. I see no reason that range wouldn't double again in the next 8 years - and I see plenty of reasons for that to happen. [1] https://pubs.rsc.org/en/content/articlehtml/2021/ee/d0ee02681f https://pubs.rsc.org/en/content/articlehtml/2021/ee/d0ee0268...
  - jillesvangurp 5y ago
    Indeed. The first Nissan Leaf had a 20 kwh battery in 2010. The latest model you can get in a 40kwh and a 60kwh variant. And you can upgrade the battery in that original one with a 40kwh one that is a drop in replacement for the original one. The next ten years are going to be interesting. Assuming nothing will change seems more foolish than most other predictions. IMHO 2x capacity improvement is pretty much a done deal. There are multiple viable paths; it's just a matter of building and scaling production for this. 4x is very likely and 8x not unimaginable. More a question of when than if. 8x is probably going to take a while.
jqpabc123 5y ago
So with a capacity of 1k cycles and recharging on weekdays only, the battery should last about 4 years? Is that enough to make electric cars viable for all use cases? It depends on cost --- of the car initially and of a battery replacement. It would have to be less than the cost of current electric vehicles which have a much longer expected battery lifetime.
- deergomoo 5y ago
  You wouldn’t be charging from 0-100% every day though. For most people it would be more like 1-2 cycles per week, if not less.
  - jqpabc123 5y ago
    It's hard to say what "most people" will do. My wife plugs her phone in every night as a matter of habit --- just to be sure, whether it really needs charging or not. I know from experience that this degrades the battery lifetime.
    - ninkendo 5y ago
      Any battery that has an even moderately intelligent chip moderating its charge will round-robin the individual cells so that it’s not the same cells being charged/discharged all the time. If you’re always topping off the charge at night, the cells in the battery pack are still experiencing full discharge cycles eventually. (Cells will end up staying at 100% charge for a while though, which is probably ultimately bad for them, but they should still be fully discharged/charged eventually…)
      - deleted 5y ago
        [deleted]
    - CorrectHorseBat 5y ago
      A phone doesn't have a thermal management system that can cool and heat the battery if required. Charging your car every day is not an issue.
hashin 5y ago
An alternate line of thought - do we need Electric vehicles to do all that? If we could reliably transition mass of passenger transport and daily commute options to electricity, that alone could crack the deal. We needn't eliminate fossil fuel driven systems completely. It can still have some use cases, which on a planet scale could be made viable through a select oil extraction infrastructure across the globe. A scaled down fossil fuel economy with electric replacing mass of private and commercial vehicle use looks like the most likely scenario for the future, imho.
- qeternity 5y ago
  Absolutely the approach that is needed: net zero, not zero. We cannot completely decarbonize the long tail of fossil fuel uses - but we can create a mostly renewable energy mix. It is unlikely that air and space travel for instance will ever be decarbonized - but net emissions can be reduced or eliminated. The same goes for manufacturing processes and materials science. It's not an all or nothing proposition.
  - throwaway0a5e 5y ago
    I think fossil fuels are enough of an ideological rallying point that they're going to be targeted no matter how niche and justified their use is (see also: asbestos). We're likely to wind up with plat based synthetic fuels in those use cases to make the ideologues happy (see also: Brazil, though they use synthetic fuels for a different reason) even if that's not the best/cheapest way to make those use cases net zero.
    - nicoburns 5y ago
      > even if that's not the best/cheapest way to make those use cases net zero It's likely to be for the foreseeable future given that net zero otherwise requires carbon capture equal to the extracted fossil fuels, and we seem to be some way off effective carbon capture let alone cost effective carbon capture.
  - r00fus 5y ago
    Keep in mind that 10% of the worlds carbon emissions is tarmac/roads. Not building, just them being around. So mass transit does more lift than EVs in terms of carbon neutrality. Not to mention noise pollution and tire particulates causing asthma.
jliptzin 5y ago
5x energy density (is that what this article is about? Kind of unclear to me) would mean a whole lot more than just longer range EVs. Thinking electric personal jetpacks, VTOL aircraft, etc.

codesnik 5y ago

and aviation beyond air-taxis

gameswithgo 5y ago
right!

Keyframe 5y ago

True, but improvement on what? There's, let's say, doubling capacity (without doubling mass), doubling performance (discharge, without fire hazard), doubling how long it can hold a charge (without doubling thermals), doubling longevity (without doubling down on hazard materials)... Just of top of my head. Chemistry is hard, looks like it. What's the average doubling of any of these factors we've seen over the years? 10-20 years?

derriz 5y ago
Energy density has at least doubled in the last 20 years. See figure 8 in [1]. And it's easy to overlook the most important factor for general applications - price - where the declines are much more dramatic. People complain about the lack of progress with batteries but we've observed that EV range has doubled in 8 years. I see no reason that range wouldn't double again in the next 8 years - and I see plenty of reasons for that to happen. [1] https://pubs.rsc.org/en/content/articlehtml/2021/ee/d0ee02681f https://pubs.rsc.org/en/content/articlehtml/2021/ee/d0ee0268...
- jillesvangurp 5y ago
  Indeed. The first Nissan Leaf had a 20 kwh battery in 2010. The latest model you can get in a 40kwh and a 60kwh variant. And you can upgrade the battery in that original one with a 40kwh one that is a drop in replacement for the original one. The next ten years are going to be interesting. Assuming nothing will change seems more foolish than most other predictions. IMHO 2x capacity improvement is pretty much a done deal. There are multiple viable paths; it's just a matter of building and scaling production for this. 4x is very likely and 8x not unimaginable. More a question of when than if. 8x is probably going to take a while.

jqpabc123 5y ago

So with a capacity of 1k cycles and recharging on weekdays only, the battery should last about 4 years? Is that enough to make electric cars viable for all use cases? It depends on cost --- of the car initially and of a battery replacement. It would have to be less than the cost of current electric vehicles which have a much longer expected battery lifetime.

deergomoo 5y ago
You wouldn’t be charging from 0-100% every day though. For most people it would be more like 1-2 cycles per week, if not less.
- jqpabc123 5y ago
  It's hard to say what "most people" will do. My wife plugs her phone in every night as a matter of habit --- just to be sure, whether it really needs charging or not. I know from experience that this degrades the battery lifetime.
  - ninkendo 5y ago
    Any battery that has an even moderately intelligent chip moderating its charge will round-robin the individual cells so that it’s not the same cells being charged/discharged all the time. If you’re always topping off the charge at night, the cells in the battery pack are still experiencing full discharge cycles eventually. (Cells will end up staying at 100% charge for a while though, which is probably ultimately bad for them, but they should still be fully discharged/charged eventually…)
    - deleted 5y ago
      [deleted]
  - CorrectHorseBat 5y ago
    A phone doesn't have a thermal management system that can cool and heat the battery if required. Charging your car every day is not an issue.

hashin 5y ago

An alternate line of thought - do we need Electric vehicles to do all that? If we could reliably transition mass of passenger transport and daily commute options to electricity, that alone could crack the deal. We needn't eliminate fossil fuel driven systems completely. It can still have some use cases, which on a planet scale could be made viable through a select oil extraction infrastructure across the globe. A scaled down fossil fuel economy with electric replacing mass of private and commercial vehicle use looks like the most likely scenario for the future, imho.

qeternity 5y ago
Absolutely the approach that is needed: net zero, not zero. We cannot completely decarbonize the long tail of fossil fuel uses - but we can create a mostly renewable energy mix. It is unlikely that air and space travel for instance will ever be decarbonized - but net emissions can be reduced or eliminated. The same goes for manufacturing processes and materials science. It's not an all or nothing proposition.
- throwaway0a5e 5y ago
  I think fossil fuels are enough of an ideological rallying point that they're going to be targeted no matter how niche and justified their use is (see also: asbestos). We're likely to wind up with plat based synthetic fuels in those use cases to make the ideologues happy (see also: Brazil, though they use synthetic fuels for a different reason) even if that's not the best/cheapest way to make those use cases net zero.
  - nicoburns 5y ago
    > even if that's not the best/cheapest way to make those use cases net zero It's likely to be for the foreseeable future given that net zero otherwise requires carbon capture equal to the extracted fossil fuels, and we seem to be some way off effective carbon capture let alone cost effective carbon capture.
- r00fus 5y ago
  Keep in mind that 10% of the worlds carbon emissions is tarmac/roads. Not building, just them being around. So mass transit does more lift than EVs in terms of carbon neutrality. Not to mention noise pollution and tire particulates causing asthma.

jliptzin 5y ago

5x energy density (is that what this article is about? Kind of unclear to me) would mean a whole lot more than just longer range EVs. Thinking electric personal jetpacks, VTOL aircraft, etc.