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Solid-state cells will cut EV charging time and increase volumetric density
- eterevsky 4y agoHow production-ready is that? When will a customer be able to buy their solid-state battery or some product that includes it?
- LoveMortuus 4y agoI think one of the biggest hurdles to overcome is actually being able to make produce a product. Because as many many have said before, prototypes are easy, mad production is where the problems lie.
- TedShiller 4y agoThe main question is not if you can do that, but how many times you can do that
- suby 4y agoQuoting the article, > The QuantumScape battery charges at blazing speeds, allowing a 0-80% charge in 15 minutes. It can retain more than 80% of its capacity after 800 cycles, which would represent about 240,000 miles (386,000 km) traveled in an electric car.
- sanxiyn 4y agoNote that it is extremely carefully worded. It retains 80% capacity after 800 cycles, but those cycles are not 15 minutes cycles! I am not making this up, QuantumScape themselves say this. If you check their presentation, 80% capacity after 800 cycles was measured at 1 hour cycles. Of course they don't highlight it, but it's there. Inquiring minds want to know what happens after 800 cycles of 15 minutes.
- franciscop 4y ago1h so it's "fully charged" (which would be the normal best way to measure it in a standard way, full to deplete number of cycles) or 1h for that 80% capacity instead of those 15 min, effectively slow charging and not full cycles (which would def count as fudging the metrics or at least the headline on my book)?
- sanxiyn 4y agoEffectively slow charging. Extremely sketchy in my opinion. They may not be technically lying, but they certainly intend to lead you to wrong conclusion.
- hulitu 4y agoHaha, 482 km range. Very credible.
- deleted 4y ago[deleted]
- judge2020 4y agoAnd pretty much every other aspect of the device also matters. Capacity? max power delivery/discharge rate? efficiency?
- jewel 4y agoA 50 kWh car battery charging to 80% in 15 minutes would be a 160 kW average load. That's going to need high voltage or a thick cable. Is that going to be practical? Also I wonder what the power connection to a busy all electric refueling station/convenience store by the highway would look like if it wanted to have 16 of these. At least there would be no fumes so it could be more enclosed than a gasoline pump, and presumably no safety reason why you'd need to pay attention to the refueling.
- omegalulw 4y agoCertainly on dedicated charging stations?
- hooloovoo_zoo 4y agoCurrent fast chargers already deliver ~300 kW so that itself shouldn’t be a major obstacle.
- hesdeadjim 4y agoThe newer Tesla superchargers can peak at 300 kW, but to your point I’ve been wondering how on earth the grid will handle one order of magnitude more EVs charging during peak hours.
- jay_kyburz 4y agoI bet they will price the power different throughout the day so, just like in my house, power is 3 times more expensive from 7am till 10pm. Although now that I think about it, There will be a big dip right in the middle of the day when the solar is blasting the grid. Might be cheapest of all at 2pm, and really expensive on cloudy days.
- Mountain_Skies 4y agoWhere I live, overnight charging at home cost $0.01 per kwh. During peak hours, the cost is $0.20 per kwh. That 20X difference should be enough to get most users to schedule most of their charging overnight, or at least during mid-peak, which is $0.07 per kwh.
- yarg 4y agoCool. Who owns the patents? (And don't show them to me or tell me what they are, 'cause then it's triple damages.)
- threeseed 4y agoToyota has the most solid state battery patents by far. But obviously not sure if this company infringes on any of them.
- robinsoh 4y ago> (And don't show them to me or tell me what they are, 'cause then it's triple damages.) I'm not sure that's an accurate description of the law. The patent laws authorize a court to increase the damages in patent infringement lawsuits up to three times the amount found or assessed. This is known as the “treble damages” award. A decision to increase damages is discretionary with the court, but is usually exercised only in cases of willful and wanton infringement or bad faith litigation. Fortunately, an increase in damages is inappropriate when an infringer mounts a good faith and substantial challenge to the validity of the patent or the existence of infringement. Can you show me the case that made you feel the triple damages were unfair? I kind of feel like you're trying to say X or Y battery patent is not fair or justified. But without specifics, I fear that's far too broad. If someone spent billions on lithium chemistry research, then I'd say they should have the monopoly right to monetize their achievements/discoveries (if any) for a reasonable period. If there's no payoff, then nobody will gamble on it and we'll all be worse off with a stagnant battery industry.
- yarg 4y agoIt was flippant (and damned near off-topic), but it stems from my dismissive notion of the very idea of wilful infringement. What other legitimate form of infringement could there be? Accidental plagarism certainly exists, but I'd imagine that a fairer punishment there would be either an injunction of sale and distribution, or a fair and reasonable licensing fee. Not being sued into oblivion for something that at most caused minimal damage. But beyond that - I imagine rare case - the vast majority of non wilful infringements are the result of the independent derivation of ideas. And I simply don't see how a patent system can justify prohibiting someone from using their own ideas - regardless of whether or not someone else had them first.
- asperous 4y agoTwo thoughts: * First, although they are claiming every aspect of this battery is quite a bit better, the key variable missing is price. * Interesting that $1 billion investment, partially by Qatar Investment Authority. It seems the oil states may be realizing things are changing. It might also incentive them to get on board with electrification.
- aaaaaaaaata 4y agoMoney just makes money, there's no tradition, loyalty, etc.
- lazyier 4y agoThe price is set by the market, not by the manufacturer. This means that they won't really know the price until they find somebody willing to buy it. Before that it is just guesswork. If it costs more to produce then people are willing to spend then it won't last very long. Which means "First commercially viable" part of the title is a bit of marketing propaganda wank. It might be or might not be commercially viable. This isn't something that gets to be decided by the manufacturer.
- dev_tty01 4y ago>Which means "First commercially viable" part of the title is a bit of marketing propaganda wank. Not necessarily. If they are confident they can build it in volume at a cost equal to or less than existing batteries, then by definition they are justified in calling it commercially viable.
- kortilla 4y agoThis is incorrect. The manufacturer can set a high price and target a high margin part of the market in exchange for lower demand. It is not in the best interests of any business outside of a commodities producer to produce at absolute top volume and keep lowering price until demand absorbs it all.
- nine_k 4y agoThe price is set by the market, and that process may happen to be too low to make the whole enterprise profitable. That's the question.
- plaguepilled 4y agoHere's a direct link to the white paper: https://www.quantumscape.com/resources/blog/white-paper-a-deep-dive-into-quantumscapes-fast-charging-performance/ https://www.quantumscape.com/resources/blog/white-paper-a-de...
- cyral 4y agoHere's a better source that isn't some weird blogspam/SEO-scheme website: https://electrek.co/2022/04/26/quantumscape-updates-q1-2022-report-includes-new-16-layer-solid-state-cell-and-scaled-manufacturing/ https://electrek.co/2022/04/26/quantumscape-updates-q1-2022-...
- dang 4y agoChanged from https://www.thebrighterside.news/post/first-commercially-viable-lithium-metal-solid-state-battery-charges-to-80-in-just-15-minute https://www.thebrighterside.news/post/first-commercially-via.... Thanks!
- nindalf 4y agoAgree, this was much more readable.
- riffraff 4y agovery importantly, this mentions it's a "encouraging proof of concept", the original article made it seem as if this was going to hit the shelves next month.
- jillesvangurp 4y agoI've been following Quantumscape for a while. The reason they come up in conversations about solid state batteries a lot is because they regularly report on where they are as a company and because they are quite a bit further than a proof of concept. That's what they had a few years ago. At this point they are scaling the engineering of increasingly more complex battery samples and testing the hell out of those. Basically, they've been ramping up sample production for some time and have shipped battery samples to customers like Volkswagen who have independently verified their claims and are a major investor. In the last year they've upped the ambition level in terms of the number of layers in the battery, the number of charging cycles under conditions that would stress any battery, etc. They've been reporting steady progress every few months more or less on the previously announced schedule that they were planning to do so. Their near future plans involve a small test factory that is due to come online next year with small numbers of vehicles on the road by 2024/2025 time frame. Realistically volume production of this would not kick off until closer to the end of this decade. They've actually done a great job of managing expectations around what they do. Full disclosure: I bought some stock last year in this company and it dropped about 50% in value since then. So, not great. I'm holding onto the shares because I believe they are actually under valued currently. To me it looks like they have a high chance of getting to the market first with a working product that should deliver impressive safety, energy density, and charging speeds. I don't know of other solid state battery companies that are that close to having a market ready product. They have customers lining up (several major car brands). A healthy amount of liquidity to build factories and do more testing. And there's going to be a market for their batteries if they manage to ship working products. So far, everything I've heard about this company suggests that things are proceeding more or less as planned and that they remain on track to do hit their targets over the next few years. But I may have to wait a few years before that translates into the massive share price increase I'm expecting. It's a gamble and I don't recommend others to gamble. But I feel good about this one. Sandy Munro interviewed the CEO a few months ago on his Youtube channel. Worth a watch.
- maxpert 4y agoIsn’t this the company where some hedge fund published report on and they have a short position? Until there is no 3rd party testing and independent publications verifying their claims I am not buying anything. I know I sound skeptical but I’ve lost enough money on SPACs.
- sanxiyn 4y agoYes it is. It is on the front page of Scorpion Capital, "activist short selling focused on publicly traded frauds and promotes". You can download 188 pages report here. Decide for yourself. https://scorpioncapital.com/ https://scorpioncapital.com/
- ttul 4y agoReads like an episode of Billions
- gaze 4y agoI’m in no position to review the legitimacy of their report on this company, but their review of IonQ’s technology, a field I have a recent PhD in, is pretty bad. They might be right about the SPAC nonsense and the business aspects— I don’t know. However, it’s clear they’re talking out their asses about the technology.
- sanxiyn 4y agoCan you share some criticisms? Because I found IonQ report pretty convincing too.
- selimthegrim 4y agoI know the first author on their uptime report pretty well. He is an honest person. Most of the stuff in this report seems like reasonable concerns (the CEO, Bacon, Preskill, buying from Honeywell) but comparing to Rigetti seems out of place. Quoting from IBM and Google people (some of whom I probably know) seemed a bit much too.
- mrb 4y agoFor comparison, a Tesla Model S Plaid charges to 80% in 30 minutes, on a v3 supercharger. Reference (exactly 78% in 30 minutes): https://insideevs.com/news/544379/tesla-model-s-plaid-supercharging/ https://insideevs.com/news/544379/tesla-model-s-plaid-superc...
- petesergeant 4y agoVery curious about how much difference that 15m takes, and presumably there are at least some studies. A 15m charge to use the restroom, check Instagram, buy a coffee feels very doable in a way that 30m feels like a drag, and more than twice the effort.
- throwawayboise 4y ago15 minutes still sounds like a very long time to me, compared to fueling a gasoline vehicle (I rarely use the restroom, check Instagram, or buy a coffee, or do anything else when I do this). I'm typically back on the road in under 5 minutes.
- theshrike79 4y ago15mins of charging every 400-500km for a 80% reduction in travel costs seems fair to me. 10€/100km with diesel/gasoline and 2€/200km for electric is a complete no-brainer.
- cevn 4y agoYou also are forced to go to the gas station regardless of whether you go on road trips, so it's probably a wash. Can't remember the last time I went to one.
- mrb 4y agoThink about it this way: with a gas vehicle you wait 5 minutes to refuel maybe once a week, so that's 4+ hours wasted per year. But with an electric vehicle that charges primarily at home you would recharge outside home maybe once every 2 months, so at 15 minutes per charge that's only 1.5 hours wasted per year. 4 hours vs 1.5 hours.
- throwaway290 4y agoYou can charge a battery in 15 minutes, but tell me what its lifetime is going to be afterwards…
- laserbeam 4y agoThey claim 80% charge after 50 mins. And they claim over 80% capacity after 800 charge cycles and they estimate that at >350000 km. If true, 80% charge is still ~50% more range than a fully charged ev today. Now it remains to be seen if all of this is true.
- xxs 4y agoThey don't tell anything how fast were those 800 charges. No info on the weight (energy density) or the discharge rate, or if it has exotic materials used. No info on the capacity degradation (it won't be linear), either. One fishy quote: They also increase unwanted reactions between the ==electrolyte== and the lithium, speeding up battery failure. How is that solid state, or it's just general info
- sanxiyn 4y agoThey do say 800 cycles were each 1 hour, not 15 minutes.
- xxs 4y agoThe QuantumScape battery charges at blazing speeds, allowing a 0-80% charge in 15 minutes. It can retain more than 80% of its capacity after 800 cycles, which would represent about 240,000 miles (386,000 km) traveled in an electric car. This is the quote. If it's one hour charge, i.e. 1C, lifepo4 batteries do that already.
- sanxiyn 4y agoHave a look at "Battery Showcase" PDF at https://www.quantumscape.com/resources/ https://www.quantumscape.com/resources/ page 20. It clearly says 1C.
- haberman 4y agoSorry if this is a silly question, but what are the moving parts that make normal lithium ion batteries not solid state? Phones and laptops don't make any noticeable movement sounds when they charge, but I have noticed that my Tesla will produce some random knocking sounds when supercharging. Are these the kinds of moving parts that solid state batteries would remove?
- adgjlsfhk1 4y agoThe sound your car makes when charging are temperature control stuff (fans, valves, cooling pumps etc). "solid state" for batteries isn't opposed to moving stuff, but liquid stuff.
- deleted 4y ago[deleted]
- sanxiyn 4y agoIt's not about moving parts. All current lithium ion batteries use liquid electrolyte.
- jxramos 4y agoI'd suspect the knocking sounds are thermal expansion of some rigid parts shifting about.
- monocasa 4y agoIn this case solid state refers to replacing the electrolyte gel with a solid material. That gel can move out of the way as dendrites grow within the cell causing short circuits between the anode and cathode layers.
- panick21_ 4y agoThey still have liquid gel. The just have a solid separator and the gel is only on 1 side of the battery.
- trainsarebetter 4y agoFor one there’s the HV contactors opening and closing. The have a bit of a “think” to them
- olivermarks 4y agoThe big concern with fast charge lithium electricity storage is fire NFPA: Lithium-Ion Battery Fires in Electric Vehicles - Safety Risks to Emergency Responders https://youtu.be/J6eS6JzBn0k https://youtu.be/J6eS6JzBn0k As battery tech slowly improves and more batteries are put in service this is going to become an ever more urgent issue. https://insideevs.com/news/583324/paris-suspends-149-bollore-electric-buses-after-two-fires/ https://insideevs.com/news/583324/paris-suspends-149-bollore...
- andkenneth 4y agoI think the idea is that the state batteries are less prone to fires during charging and can therefore be charged faster. Not sure if that makes any difference if the damage is from impact i.e. car crash.
- olivermarks 4y agoI know it's wildly unpopular to challenge battery safety on Hacker News but I do recommend watching the NFPA video I linked to above.
- DennisP 4y agoDoes it cover solid state batteries?
- olivermarks 4y ago'short-circuited all-solid-state batteries can reach temperatures significantly higher than conventional Li-ion, which could lead to fire through flammable packaging and/or nearby materials.' https://www.cell.com/joule/pdf/S2542-4351(22)00088-5.pdf https://www.cell.com/joule/pdf/S2542-4351(22)00088-5.pdf All trapped energy has to escape when compromised...
- DennisP 4y agoWow that's interesting, and as they mention it's the opposite of what's commonly assumed. Thanks.
- simmo9000 4y ago"... increase the autonomy of an electric car" Just by changing battery technology sounds like an impressive feat.
- clouddrover 4y agoAutonomy in this context means range.
- Andrew_nenakhov 4y agoThis is a marketing fail. Should have claimed, 'charges to 100% in 15 minutes, and can be overcharged to 125% in further 2-3 hours'.
- Al-Khwarizmi 4y agoActually I'd be fine with that marketing if all claims on battery life and autonomy were based on what they call 100% (i.e., the actual 80%).
- rkangel 4y agoIf you do that, it skews all of your figures for "kwh per kg" and "kwh per m3". I'd suggest that those are far more important figures of merit for design of electric aircraft and vehicles.
- devoutsalsa 4y agoFirst commercially viable lithium metal solid state battery charges to 100% in just 15 minutes!* *using base 9
- brandmeyer 4y agoYou may have meant this ironically/sarcastically, but it is entirely true. I'm a very happy owner of a fast-charging EV6. For longevity, slow overnight charging almost always just goes to 80%. I only need about 25% of the pack for my daily commute, and lithium battery degradation is dominated by time at high state-of-charge and temperature. For road trips, the battery charges up to 80% capacity in about 18 minutes on a fast charger (with some caveats when its cold). Charging rate rapidly falls off with increasing state-of-charge, so you're almost always better off just hitting the road at that point. But since you don't actually discharge all the way down to zero, the fast charge cycle realistically only takes 12-15 minutes. The only times that I've taken it to 100% (125%!) were immediately prior to a road trip segment on the overnight slow charger, or for a quarterly balancing charge. That's all with today's technology on a commercially available product. So this technology can only offer an incremental decrease in weight and/or increase in range.
- teaearlgraycold 4y ago
- elihu 4y ago> By weight, it offers between 380-500 Wh/kg, as compared to 260 Wh/kg in packages currently used by Tesla. That's pretty huge if the company's claims hold up. That's in the ballpark where doing an EV conversion on an existing ICE car becomes a lot easier because you could theoretically just replace the original gas tank with 100-200 pounds of batteries and have a good-enough range to be useful for short/medium trips. And the car might end up lighter than stock. I wonder what the material inputs are? Does this battery use cobalt or nickel or anything else that's similarly expensive? Or can these things in theory be made super cheap once the manufacturing scales up?
- AtlasBarfed 4y agoLFP will hit 260 wh/kg, with superior cell-to-pack density, no cobalt/nickel/manganese AFAIK. That is the 350-500 mile range cars and anything shorter. Sodium Ion will hit 160 wh/kg so that's the 200-300 mile city cars, and no need to even source Lithium. And grid storage. I haven't done the napkin math, but the high-density LFP should also be the 100 mile range PHEV, which would solve the middle america / rural Africa/Siberia/etc range issues. That Li-S paper that went through HN about a month ago will probably do those densities, so that would supplant SSB, and would probably (speculating here) drop into existing battery factories more seamlessly. The drop-in conversions would be a huge boon though, I just don't think SSB will get there soon enough. SSBs would probably still be able to rule mobile/laptops though, still a big market. We'll see what happens!
- megaman821 4y agoTotally agree. There aren't even completed pilot plants for SSBs. There is nearly 0% chance they will be a majority of the market by 2030. LFP batteries are being made today and even small yearly improvements to energy density will be enough nearly all cars by 2030. Sodium Ion is just coming to market and they look great for grid storage. For transportation CATL is proposing hybrid lithium ion and sodium ion packs to solve some energy density and voltage problems with sodium ion alone.
- skykooler 4y agoThis would also be amazing for electric aircraft, as capacity to weight ratio is the main thing holding them back.
- Animats 4y ago"We continue to target delivery of A-sample cells to at least one customer in 2022. The A sample is planned to have dozens of layers and is intended to demonstrate the core functionality of the battery cells." That's moderately encouraging. It's better than the usual "we got this new surface chemistry result, huge revolution real soon now." As with too many battery articles, this is either a huge deal or total bullshit. (Electrek should have a monthly column: "1, 5 and 10 years ago in battery press releases.")
- jacquesm 4y agoThat column would make for pretty depressing reading.
- Reason077 4y ago80% charge in 15 minutes is not far off from some current commercially available EVs using conventional li-ion technology. For example, the Hyundai Ioniq 5 will charge to 80% in 18 minutes on a 350 kW charger.
- albatrosstrophy 4y agoHad no idea current EV batteries have progressed so far. How does this fare with Tesla?
- Cthulhu_ 4y agoWho can fill in the "revolutionary battery checklist" comment? https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28025930 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28025930
- Villodre 4y agoI chuckled audibly at this xD Saving that comment for later
- gameswithgo 4y ago
- audunw 4y agoFirst commercially viable lithium solid state battery? There are Mercedes buses with solid state batteries right on the road right now: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Om3uVW4lskE&t=11s https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Om3uVW4lskE&t=11s Okay, the battery needs to be heated significantly during use, so it's only applicable for larger vehicles. But still, seems to be further ahead in the product development cycle.
- panick21_ 4y agoWhen talking about solid state what they actually mean Lithium metal anode. Polymore batteries are a different thing. This is just confusing nameing for historical reasons.
- Multicomp 4y agoYet another revolutionary new battery. Graphene batteries, liquid salt batteries, etc etc. My dad has a popular mechanics do it yourself encyclopedia from the 1950s and it has several articles of new battery technologies in the works that will be available in a few months, just you wait and see. For my entire life, new batteries have been just around the corner to replace lithium ion, every 12 to 18 months, one of these articles come out. At this point, I will believe them when I see them on store shelves and not one second before.
- _fat_santa 4y agoI would say the big difference now is incentive. Lithium Ion batteries are the biggest bottleneck to mass EV adoption. With every car company going Electric, it's a very pertinent problem to solve. You can't really get "Gen2" Electric Vehicles without this tech.
- gameswithgo 4y agoSince the 1950s battery energy density has improved by orders of magnitude, it has been happening and is still happening. Hasn’t stopped these incessant cynical takes though.
- lostapathy 4y agoYou may be a little overly cynical. The first commercial lithium ion battery only went into production in 1991, we actually have made a hell of a lot of progress since the 1950’s.
- emteycz 4y agoYou must be very young, I remember when mobile phones had Ni-Cd batteries and it was very bad (you could even casually destroy your battery by charging it incorrectly!). Li-Ion felt like a huge revolution, and the improvements it had since its introduction on the smartphone market are incredible too. My slim and lightweight pocket supercomputer has a battery comparable to a huge power bank I had 10 years ago. If that's not revolutionary, I don't know what is.
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