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It seems there's news of a battery breakthrough every week. I've learned to temper expectations, because so many "breakthroughs" turn out to be dead ends. Becau

It seems there's news of a battery breakthrough every week. I've learned to temper expectations, because so many "breakthroughs" turn out to be dead ends. Because it's not enough for a battery to be incredibly light, or made of abundant materials, or last for ten thousand cycles. It needs to be good at many things and at least okay at most things. E.g.— • How much capacity per dollar? • How much capacity per kilogram? • How much capacity per litre? • How quickly can it be charged? • How quickly can it be discharged? • How much energy is lost between charging and discharging? • How predisposed is it to catching fire? • How available are the materials needed to manufacture it? • How available are the tools/skills required to manufacture it? • How resilient is it to mechanical stress, e.g. vibration? • How much does performance degrade per cycle? • How much does performance degrade when stored at a high state of charge? • How much does performance degrade when stored at a low state of charge? • How much does performance drop at high temperatures? • How much does performance drop at low temperatures? • How well can it be recycled at end-of-life? A sufficiently bad answer for any one of these could utterly exclude it from contention as an EV battery. A battery which scores well on everything except mechanical resilience is a non-starter, for example. Though it might be great for stationary storage. I'm only a layperson and this list is what I came up with just a few minutes of layperson thought. I'm sure someone with more familiarity with battery technology could double the length of this list. But the point is, when you daydream about some hypothetical future battery tech, you need to appreciate just how well today's lithium chemistries score in so many areas.

chemmail 3y ago
I think you are missing the most important one. The one that killed Nissan essentially. Degradation from time. Testing for that is the hardest. You simply cannot just accelerate time. We can do all the calculations and maybe do brutal environments and tests, but at the end, we can only wait.
Tade0 3y ago
> I'm sure someone with more familiarity with battery technology could double the length of this list. Actually, not really. For one, no serious manufacturer currently even proposes a battery technology if it doesn't meet the most basic of the mentioned criteria. Secondly, some of these, like storing at a low/high state of charge or high/low temperature performance are nowadays managed by the BMS - models that don't have that are already not competitive. The reason is that energy density already crossed the threshold at which some of the capacity can be spared for this purpose. To me the more important question to ask than any of these is: is there a process in place to manufacture the batteries at scale? That is what ultimately makes or breaks an emerging battery technology.
- Beached 3y ago
  most battery tech dies at the "can it be manufactured en mass" stage.
  - pfdietz 3y ago
    Next you're going to tell me you don't believe in the carbon nanotube fairy. :)
- panick21_ 3y ago
  > like storing at a low/high state of charge or high/low temperature performance are nowadays managed by the BMS What a BMS can do, depends on what the underlying cell alows or doesn't.
- simondotau 3y ago
  > For one, no serious manufacturer currently even proposes a battery technology if it doesn't meet the most basic of the mentioned criteria. I don't think Toyota would qualify as a serious manufacturer of battery cells. Has Toyota ever manufactured battery cells before? Not battery packs, but battery cells.
  - fomine3 3y ago
    Toyota group company started making Ni-MH since 2021 https://www.toyota-industries.com/news/2022/08/30/005417/ https://www.toyota-industries.com/news/2022/08/30/005417/ https://www.toyota-industries.com/products/automobile/batteries/ https://www.toyota-industries.com/products/automobile/batter...
  - semi-extrinsic 3y ago
    AFAIU Toyota is the main owner of Primergy EV Energy, together with Panasonic. They have been manufacturing both battery cells and packs for the Prius and other hybrids. They used to mainly make NiMH cells, but I think nowadays mostly Li-ion. This new battery tech is done in another subsidiary that is also co-owned by Toyota and Panasonic.
the-dude 3y ago
It would be nice to mention you are recycling this comment.
- Rychard 3y ago
  Does recycling the comment make it any less relevant?
  - greyface- 3y ago
    It does contradict this part: > I'm only a layperson and this list is what I came up with just a few minutes of layperson thought. It seems like they've been stewing on the list for the greater part of a week, at least.
bell-cot 3y ago
> I'm sure someone with more familiarity with battery... I won't claim more familiarity, but... - How frequent/difficult is required maintenance? Recall that old lead-acid batteries often needed distilled water added to their cells. - Does it need access to air - either supplied to it, or to vent gasses? That introduces a whole host of issues, even if it's not venting (say) hydrogen gas. - How much does performance degrade when its only cycled through part of its charge/discharge range? Recall the NiCad batteries of yesteryear. - What are its waste, OSHA, HAZMAT, and other environmental & safety issues? Those apply all the way from the raw materials mines to the final disposal. Which includes accident scenarios - fire / flood / whatever in a facility with many batteries (or parts thereof), one-off car crashes, and things more interesting. "Disposal" includes cases such as "abandoned in a pole barn". (BTW - kudos for specifying "How available are ...", which covers a far longer list of real-world supply issues than "What is the (current) price of".)
JKCalhoun 3y ago
• How far can it be discharged and still be able to be recharged.
recycledmatt 3y ago
// How well can it be recycled at end-of-life? The fact that the chemistries are changing and diverse is the most difficult thing from an End-of-life perspective. A lot of businesses born around recycling todays battery (lots of lithium and cobalt relatively speaking) are not economical on some of the newer chemistries (looking at you Li-Fe) because they cheapened out the expensive elements.
lost_tourist 3y ago
All I really need to know is 1. What is the 1.0 for distance, and model of car doing it 2. What is the expected multiplier for said new technology 3. What is the life expectancy curve for the new tech 4. is it any worse/better than the old battery on safety. I'm just not that worried about battery fires other than if newer tech is more apt to do it. I've been riding around sitting on gasoline tanks for decades now and it can't be much worse for safety.
seltzered_ 3y ago
Indeed, these announcements about a solid state battery have been coming out for years, for example here's one from Toyota in 2017 claiming 2020 availability: https://techcrunch.com/2017/07/25/toyotas-new-solid-state-battery-could-make-its-way-to-cars-by-2020/ https://techcrunch.com/2017/07/25/toyotas-new-solid-state-ba... -> https://www.wsj.com/articles/toyota-nears-major-technological-breakthrough-in-electric-car-batteries-1500985883 https://www.wsj.com/articles/toyota-nears-major-technologica... Some of us remember prior generations of battery breakthrough claims like eestor: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/EEStor https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/EEStor
- pnw 3y ago
  I followed EESTOR closely for years. Someone should make a documentary about that saga. Amazing mix of inventor hubris, Canadian OTC pump and dump and a rabid online community of true believers mixed with speculators. Hard to believe that Kleiner Perkins invested in it. Amazingly they are still around although they have rebranded and are now chasing some other unlikely scheme. It seems there is a limitless supply of suckers for these OTC deals, regardless how borderline their claims or history.

chemmail 3y ago

I think you are missing the most important one. The one that killed Nissan essentially. Degradation from time. Testing for that is the hardest. You simply cannot just accelerate time. We can do all the calculations and maybe do brutal environments and tests, but at the end, we can only wait.

Tade0 3y ago

> I'm sure someone with more familiarity with battery technology could double the length of this list. Actually, not really. For one, no serious manufacturer currently even proposes a battery technology if it doesn't meet the most basic of the mentioned criteria. Secondly, some of these, like storing at a low/high state of charge or high/low temperature performance are nowadays managed by the BMS - models that don't have that are already not competitive. The reason is that energy density already crossed the threshold at which some of the capacity can be spared for this purpose. To me the more important question to ask than any of these is: is there a process in place to manufacture the batteries at scale? That is what ultimately makes or breaks an emerging battery technology.

Beached 3y ago
most battery tech dies at the "can it be manufactured en mass" stage.
- pfdietz 3y ago
  Next you're going to tell me you don't believe in the carbon nanotube fairy. :)
panick21_ 3y ago
> like storing at a low/high state of charge or high/low temperature performance are nowadays managed by the BMS What a BMS can do, depends on what the underlying cell alows or doesn't.
simondotau 3y ago
> For one, no serious manufacturer currently even proposes a battery technology if it doesn't meet the most basic of the mentioned criteria. I don't think Toyota would qualify as a serious manufacturer of battery cells. Has Toyota ever manufactured battery cells before? Not battery packs, but battery cells.
- fomine3 3y ago
  Toyota group company started making Ni-MH since 2021 https://www.toyota-industries.com/news/2022/08/30/005417/ https://www.toyota-industries.com/news/2022/08/30/005417/ https://www.toyota-industries.com/products/automobile/batteries/ https://www.toyota-industries.com/products/automobile/batter...
- semi-extrinsic 3y ago
  AFAIU Toyota is the main owner of Primergy EV Energy, together with Panasonic. They have been manufacturing both battery cells and packs for the Prius and other hybrids. They used to mainly make NiMH cells, but I think nowadays mostly Li-ion. This new battery tech is done in another subsidiary that is also co-owned by Toyota and Panasonic.

the-dude 3y ago

It would be nice to mention you are recycling this comment.

Rychard 3y ago
Does recycling the comment make it any less relevant?
- greyface- 3y ago
  It does contradict this part: > I'm only a layperson and this list is what I came up with just a few minutes of layperson thought. It seems like they've been stewing on the list for the greater part of a week, at least.

bell-cot 3y ago

> I'm sure someone with more familiarity with battery... I won't claim more familiarity, but... - How frequent/difficult is required maintenance? Recall that old lead-acid batteries often needed distilled water added to their cells. - Does it need access to air - either supplied to it, or to vent gasses? That introduces a whole host of issues, even if it's not venting (say) hydrogen gas. - How much does performance degrade when its only cycled through part of its charge/discharge range? Recall the NiCad batteries of yesteryear. - What are its waste, OSHA, HAZMAT, and other environmental & safety issues? Those apply all the way from the raw materials mines to the final disposal. Which includes accident scenarios - fire / flood / whatever in a facility with many batteries (or parts thereof), one-off car crashes, and things more interesting. "Disposal" includes cases such as "abandoned in a pole barn". (BTW - kudos for specifying "How available are ...", which covers a far longer list of real-world supply issues than "What is the (current) price of".)

JKCalhoun 3y ago

• How far can it be discharged and still be able to be recharged.

recycledmatt 3y ago

// How well can it be recycled at end-of-life? The fact that the chemistries are changing and diverse is the most difficult thing from an End-of-life perspective. A lot of businesses born around recycling todays battery (lots of lithium and cobalt relatively speaking) are not economical on some of the newer chemistries (looking at you Li-Fe) because they cheapened out the expensive elements.

lost_tourist 3y ago

All I really need to know is 1. What is the 1.0 for distance, and model of car doing it 2. What is the expected multiplier for said new technology 3. What is the life expectancy curve for the new tech 4. is it any worse/better than the old battery on safety. I'm just not that worried about battery fires other than if newer tech is more apt to do it. I've been riding around sitting on gasoline tanks for decades now and it can't be much worse for safety.

seltzered_ 3y ago

Indeed, these announcements about a solid state battery have been coming out for years, for example here's one from Toyota in 2017 claiming 2020 availability: https://techcrunch.com/2017/07/25/toyotas-new-solid-state-battery-could-make-its-way-to-cars-by-2020/ https://techcrunch.com/2017/07/25/toyotas-new-solid-state-ba... -> https://www.wsj.com/articles/toyota-nears-major-technological-breakthrough-in-electric-car-batteries-1500985883 https://www.wsj.com/articles/toyota-nears-major-technologica... Some of us remember prior generations of battery breakthrough claims like eestor: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/EEStor https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/EEStor

pnw 3y ago
I followed EESTOR closely for years. Someone should make a documentary about that saga. Amazing mix of inventor hubris, Canadian OTC pump and dump and a rabid online community of true believers mixed with speculators. Hard to believe that Kleiner Perkins invested in it. Amazingly they are still around although they have rebranded and are now chasing some other unlikely scheme. It seems there is a limitless supply of suckers for these OTC deals, regardless how borderline their claims or history.