4 ms·

Oh. And here from the headline, I thought this might be about a new battery breakthrough.

by a_e_k 4y ago

AtlasBarfed 4y ago
Dumb clickbait aside, here's the scoop on lithium-free batteries. It's a big one. 150 wh/kg sodium ion is going into mass production this year. That's right, no cobalt, no lithium, no nickel (I think.. I might be wrong on that). So, your 400 mile model S tesla, best I can tell, uses NMC chemisty cells that are about 240-260 wh/kg AT THE CELL LEVEL. Problem is, runaway lithium fires. They need safety and a lot of cooling. So by the time they get packaged to a battery pack with safety and cooling management, they are about 160-180 wh/kg (based on what I've read). Now that's for the FOUR HUNDRED MILE car. Really you need a three hundred mile car for most things. Sodium Ion batteries don't have the runaway problem. So, per CATL and gotion, you can cell-to-pack integrate them with only a 5-10% loss over density at pack level. So sodium ion can be reduced to 135 wh/kg at pack level. So if 170 wh/kg <--> 400 miles for a big model S, then ... 135 wh/kg should be about 300 miles. No Lithium, No Cobalt, No Nickel. Now, the other big development is 200-230 wh/kg LFP / LMFP going into mass production with CATL and gotion this year. While needing lithium they DON'T need cobalt or nickel. And like sodium ion, LFP is much safer (and much more durable cycle-wise), so it can do cell to pack at 90-95% efficiency. So that means 180-205 wh/kg at pack level. That's the 400-500 mile car. The production roadmaps for CATL and Gotion in china have 260 wh/kg LFP and 200 wh/kg sodium ion in 1-5 years. Go ahead and do the math now, but what eventually starts happening isn't that you keep adding range, you just make the same car with a smaller / cheaper battery pack. The drivetrain costs, already low from the no-nickel, no-cobalt, (or no-lithium), will drop that much more, by 15-30% (less weight, more range, rocket equation). So the EV drivetrain is poised to drop from current levels (I believe Tesla is at parity with ICE right now) to possibly as low as half as an ICE drivetrain with its radiators, six speed transmissions, alternators, fuel injectors, etc etc, while an EV drivetrain is a battery and 1-4 compact motors. Now, what is in the pipeline. I've seen LOTS of papers on lithium-sulfur and sodium sulfur chemistries. I'm guessing lithium-sulfur is about 5 years away, and sodium sulfur is 7. Somewhere in there are ongoing solid state batteries and lithium metal, but whatever. What matters is that lithium sulfur will probably be like LFP: no cobalt/nickel, just need lithium (which is more scarce due to lack of development than actual scarcity) and sulfur (a REALLY abundant thing) and the densities are theoretically 2-3x higher. Even if that waters out to a 50% improvement, still massive. Sodium Sulfur is just sodium (aka salt) and sulfur, it is a bit more volatile it appears, the papers are using graphene (which isn't in mass production), but the densities are about the same. So I'm guessing based on the multiple papers that by 2030 we'll see these sulfur chemistries hit the market in volume production. If they hit 400-500 wh/kg (theoretical is 760 wh/kg, doubt that is possible), then christ, you're possibly talking about EV drivetrain costs ... man, 1/3? 1/4 of an ICE? The motors are just going to get cheaper as they go into mass production too. So, there you go.
- bsder 4y ago
  > Dumb clickbait aside, here's the scoop on lithium-free batteries. It's a big one. As much as I'd love to see it, "New Battery Tech(tm) Will Revolutionize <X>" has been going on for 20+ years. Something always gets in the way when they try to put these things in cars. Just putting Lithium batteries into cars took an enormous amount of engineering effort. And, as we are currently talking about, not without a bunch of engineering tradeoffs. Until one of these new technologies are in cars rolling down the road, I'm not going to hold my breath.

Oh. And here from the headline, I thought this might be about a new battery breakthrough.

by a_e_k 4y ago

Oh. And here from the headline, I thought this might be about a new battery breakthrough.

Dumb clickbait aside, here's the scoop on lithium-free batteries. It's a big one. 150 wh/kg sodium ion is going into mass production this year. That's right, no cobalt, no lithium, no nickel (I think.. I might be wrong on that). So, your 400 mile model S tesla, best I can tell, uses NMC chemisty cells that are about 240-260 wh/kg AT THE CELL LEVEL. Problem is, runaway lithium fires. They need safety and a lot of cooling. So by the time they get packaged to a battery pack with safety and cooling management, they are about 160-180 wh/kg (based on what I've read). Now that's for the FOUR HUNDRED MILE car. Really you need a three hundred mile car for most things. Sodium Ion batteries don't have the runaway problem. So, per CATL and gotion, you can cell-to-pack integrate them with only a 5-10% loss over density at pack level. So sodium ion can be reduced to 135 wh/kg at pack level. So if 170 wh/kg <--> 400 miles for a big model S, then ... 135 wh/kg should be about 300 miles. No Lithium, No Cobalt, No Nickel. Now, the other big development is 200-230 wh/kg LFP / LMFP going into mass production with CATL and gotion this year. While needing lithium they DON'T need cobalt or nickel. And like sodium ion, LFP is much safer (and much more durable cycle-wise), so it can do cell to pack at 90-95% efficiency. So that means 180-205 wh/kg at pack level. That's the 400-500 mile car. The production roadmaps for CATL and Gotion in china have 260 wh/kg LFP and 200 wh/kg sodium ion in 1-5 years. Go ahead and do the math now, but what eventually starts happening isn't that you keep adding range, you just make the same car with a smaller / cheaper battery pack. The drivetrain costs, already low from the no-nickel, no-cobalt, (or no-lithium), will drop that much more, by 15-30% (less weight, more range, rocket equation). So the EV drivetrain is poised to drop from current levels (I believe Tesla is at parity with ICE right now) to possibly as low as half as an ICE drivetrain with its radiators, six speed transmissions, alternators, fuel injectors, etc etc, while an EV drivetrain is a battery and 1-4 compact motors. Now, what is in the pipeline. I've seen LOTS of papers on lithium-sulfur and sodium sulfur chemistries. I'm guessing lithium-sulfur is about 5 years away, and sodium sulfur is 7. Somewhere in there are ongoing solid state batteries and lithium metal, but whatever. What matters is that lithium sulfur will probably be like LFP: no cobalt/nickel, just need lithium (which is more scarce due to lack of development than actual scarcity) and sulfur (a REALLY abundant thing) and the densities are theoretically 2-3x higher. Even if that waters out to a 50% improvement, still massive. Sodium Sulfur is just sodium (aka salt) and sulfur, it is a bit more volatile it appears, the papers are using graphene (which isn't in mass production), but the densities are about the same. So I'm guessing based on the multiple papers that by 2030 we'll see these sulfur chemistries hit the market in volume production. If they hit 400-500 wh/kg (theoretical is 760 wh/kg, doubt that is possible), then christ, you're possibly talking about EV drivetrain costs ... man, 1/3? 1/4 of an ICE? The motors are just going to get cheaper as they go into mass production too. So, there you go.

bsder 4y ago
> Dumb clickbait aside, here's the scoop on lithium-free batteries. It's a big one. As much as I'd love to see it, "New Battery Tech(tm) Will Revolutionize <X>" has been going on for 20+ years. Something always gets in the way when they try to put these things in cars. Just putting Lithium batteries into cars took an enormous amount of engineering effort. And, as we are currently talking about, not without a bunch of engineering tradeoffs. Until one of these new technologies are in cars rolling down the road, I'm not going to hold my breath.