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Volkswagen-backed Gotion unveils new EV battery with 1k km range
- zendaven 3y agoGreat to see competition and improvements in this field.
- chrsw 3y agoWhy does the innovation in this space appear to be mostly from China?
- manuelabeledo 3y agoManufacture happens primarily there. Battery chemistry breakthroughs don’t come that usually from China, though.
- ZeroGravitas 3y agoChina became dependant on oil imports in the mid 1990s even as further massive economic growth was planned. Being weak on oil and strong on manufacturing led them to take a less insane approach to climate change than in more oil dominated economies.
- all2 3y agoThis is a hysterical take given that China, next to India, is the single largest polluter on the planet and continually refuses to have anything to do with the West's obsession with climate change.
- ZeroGravitas 3y ago> China has been the world's largest and fastest-growing producer of renewable energy for more than a decade, but has widened its lead over international rivals through a steep acceleration in the roll out of wind capacity since 2021. > China added more wind generation capacity in the past two years than over the previous seven, and in 2022 generated 46% more wind power than all of Europe, the second largest wind generation market, according to data from think tank Ember. https://www.reuters.com/markets/commodities/china-widens-renewable-energy-supply-lead-with-wind-power-push-2023-03-01/ https://www.reuters.com/markets/commodities/china-widens-ren...
- blacksmith_tb 3y agoUnfortunately, both can be true simultaneously[1]. 1: https://climateactiontracker.org/countries/china/ https://climateactiontracker.org/countries/china/
- ZeroGravitas 3y agoIf you are implying that rating separates China from the West: https://climateactiontracker.org/countries/new-zealand/ https://climateactiontracker.org/countries/new-zealand/ https://climateactiontracker.org/countries/canada/ https://climateactiontracker.org/countries/canada/
- blacksmith_tb 3y agoNot at all, I would say pretty much all major industrial economies are failing to meet the necessary environmental targets, but that doesn't mean they aren't also deploying lots of renewables. China does seem to score a little worse, even than the US[1], but clearly lots needs to be done, everywhere. https://climateactiontracker.org/countries/usa/ https://climateactiontracker.org/countries/usa/
- officialjunk 3y agonot if you compare per capita. those countries you name have a significant sized populations that should be taken into account to normalize comparisons to other counties with much smaller populations.
- otabdeveloper4 3y agoWhen people say "climate change" they really mean "internal combustion cars". Ignore it, they don't know any better and don't want to.
- tregtebrevre 3y agoIt's pretty simple. China strategically took over a huge percentage of the world's manufacturing ability, and access to essential minerals. They are now reaping the rewards of other countries' mandated switch to renewable tech.
- ZeroGravitas 3y agoThe primary selling point of the battery discussed in the story is that it doesn't use certain "essential" minerals.
- tregtebrevre 3y agoThere's still a whole bunch of other stuff, other than nickel and cobalt, that's needed for batteries (and battery controllers). Global production and manufacture of all parts of an EV battery is dominated by China - of course all of the research will happen there.
- imtringued 3y agoBecause they are in the process of building a new generation of car companies that don't have legacy products.
- crote 3y agoThat's just getting ridiculous. Sure, there are edge cases where this makes sense, but the average daily commute is well under 100km. A 500km battery is quite useful for family trips once a month, but beyond that you are getting into silly territory. For a "mainstream model", a 1000km range is just wasteful. Using their numbers, you are carrying an extra 75kg with you all the time for each extra 100km in range - or 375kg for those extra 500km of range. It's like hauling a trailer 24/7, just because you might need it one day.
- rippercushions 3y agoThis hasn't stopped America from adopting massive SUVs wholesale, even though they're only used to haul kids to soccer practice.
- yurishimo 3y agoThe market here is Americans with massive vehicles or towing needs. You can provide many of these people all of the data that says they don't need that much range, but unless they can tow their boat 300 miles "on one tank of gas" then getting them to switch to an EV is impossible. I'd imagine as more people buy EV's they will understand personally why they don't need 1,000km of range and then more of these batteries will go to use in large over the road trucks or planes.
- tyingq 3y agoPerhaps it's handy for apartment dwellers who aren't able to get charged up daily?
- pornel 3y agoExisting BEVs already need to be charged only once a week. e.g. US median commute is 35 miles, and you can get 350-mile EVs. EVs are most efficient at low speeds, so in city driving they can reach their advertised range.
- tyingq 3y agoOk, some apartment dwellers. There's several popular metro areas where a long commute is pretty common.
- rippercushions 3y agoMeanwhile, Zeekr (Geely/Polestar/Volvo's new upmarket brand) is already delivering cars with a 1k+ km range. https://thedriven.io/2023/05/19/zeekr-begins-deliveries-of-its-001-ev-with-world-leading-1000-km-range/ https://thedriven.io/2023/05/19/zeekr-begins-deliveries-of-i...
- ZeroGravitas 3y agoThat uses the Qilin pack mentioned (as a rival) in this story. Which points to the real good news: that multiple, credible, (very) high volume manufacturers seem to be simultaneously announcing breakthroughs on density, cost, weight and materials so it's not just one company's PR getting a little excited.
- lttlrck 3y agoThe keyword appears to be "affordable" not "first"
- Tradent 3y ago[dead]
- ThrowawayTestr 3y agoPerfect opportunity to use megameter wasted.
- Kirby64 3y agoIs this... actually anything meaningfully impressive? The article says they're doing it with a 140kWh battery. It just sounds like they packed a much larger battery into a normal sedan and got 1000km/620mi of range. The Lucid Air, for comparison, already gets 520mi of range on a 118kWh battery. Seems well within reason that if they packed another 22kWh of battery in then they, too could get that same range. And if you didn't actually need all the fancy performance that a Lucid Air gets, it seems like you could easily get well beyond that.