6 ms·

The Battery Revolution Is Finally Here

47 points by xbmcuser 2y ago

throwaway81523 2y ago
This is pretty interesting. It's about battery tech advances (solid state batteries, and high-silicon anodes in li-ion batteries) that will supposedly give a significant jump to power and energy density in EV batteries. Nothing about cost per KWH. Solid state might not be so great in terms of cycle life. Right now I'm not in the EV market but am impressed by seeing LiFePO4 batteries at under $100 per KWH retail, for possible use at home with off-grid solar. See places like batteryhookup.com if you want some.
- tomooot 2y ago
  There's also potentially big advances to be made in single use but easily recondition-able aluminium-air batteries due to an expanding market. An anecdote I've heard is a lot of R&D is focused on these at the moment as they have a higher energy to weight ratio compared to lithium chemistries so are idea for "disposable" use cases such as suicide bomb drones. There's also the more pedestrian idea of automated battery swap stations. On a similar note, thermal imagers have got shockingly cheap recently, 50KPixel cube camera modules are available for <$200 and <$800 for the 0.33MPixel version. I recently picked up an integrated module with a 24x32 pixel sensor, LCD, uC and LiPo for £30n and it can "see" someone step out from behind a wall at a distance of 3 meters, ideal for my use case (airsoft!)
  - throwaway81523 2y ago
    > An anecdote I've heard is a lot of R&D is focused on these at the moment as they have a higher energy to weight ratio compared to lithium chemistries so are idea for "disposable" use cases such as suicide bomb drones. You could use normal fuel-burning engines for that, I'd suppose. Or rockets, depending. > , 50KPixel cube camera modules are available for <$200 and <$800 for the 0.33MPixel version The 50k case is not that recent (FLIR Lepton). Not sure about the 0.33MP. The 24x32 is very cheap and as you say, has enough res for some ok applications. I've been intrigued by it and wondered why FLIR seems to still have a monopoly over higher res detectors.
- empiricus 2y ago
  The normal price when buying locally or from china seems to be 200$/kwh.
  - fragmede 2y ago
    But with a higher estimated lifespan, an estimated a cycle count 2-5x that of traditional li-ion batteries, in paet due to it not having moving parts, $200/KwH seems reasonable vs $100/KwH if it lasts more than 2x as long as a product of similar other specs. Yoshino has a large portable one on the market, 4000W, 2511Wh, though it's a bit pricey as it's new technology.
    - dns_snek 2y ago
      > $200/KwH seems reasonable vs $100/KwH if it lasts more than 2x as long as a product of similar other specs I think that's highly dependent on the expected life of those cells in absolute terms. If I'm buying a consumer product and a $100/kWh battery cell will last 10 years, but a $200/kWh battery cell will last 20 years, I'll go with the $100 one every time. Why? Because in 10 years, with inflation and advancements in battery technology, I'll probably be able to buy a replacement 10 year battery for $40 in today's money, for a total of $140 instead of $200. I'm also lowering my risk exposure in case something happens to the battery, it only needs to survive 10 years instead of 20. *Exact figures made-up on the spot.
      - fragmede 2y ago
        Using actual numbers, if your cellphone battery lasts 2 years of nominal use before noticable degrading, you're looking at 4-10 years, but also contributing less e-waste to the world.
        throwaway81523 2y ago
        I doubt cell phone batteries are a significant part of the battery waste stream, compared to EV and utility scale batteries. If they only went back to phones with easily swappable batteries and used a commodity form factor, most users would probably prioritize energy density over cycle life.
- khafra 2y ago
  A recent AstralCodexTen article pointed out that lithium battery price is 40x lower per kwh than it was in 1992. A few headlines about revolutionary battery technology have turned out to be vaporware; but there really has been a continuous tech revolution going on in the space.
  - graemep 2y ago
    Lithium is problematic in many ways. Security of supply (one of the big disadvantages of ICE is how much of the fuel comes from an unstable part of the world), environmental impacts of mining, the use of child and otherwise exploited child labour. I have no doubt that electric engines are the future, but we desperately need something better to provide the electricity to them.
    - jdietrich 2y ago
      Most of the world's lithium is mined in Australia and Chile. If lithium is "problematic", then so is every raw material. https://pubs.usgs.gov/periodicals/mcs2023/mcs2023-lithium.pdf https://pubs.usgs.gov/periodicals/mcs2023/mcs2023-lithium.pd...
      - graemep 2y ago
        Thanks, it looks like I was fooled by scare stories on where it comes from. However there are still issues with who controls it: https://www.bbc.com/news/world-68896707 https://www.bbc.com/news/world-68896707 and environmental aspects of mining and disposal AFAIK?
        Writingdorky 2y ago
        [dead]
    - pintxo 2y ago
      Also, contrary to petrol, we have at least a realistic possibility to recycle batteries and thus eventually need less raw earth inputs over time. While with petrol, you need a stable continuous supply.
- huijzer 2y ago
  Since we're on an engineering website here, I would like to be pedantic and point out that it's kWh. If you write KWH that would mean Kelvin Watt henry, see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/International_System_of_Units https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/International_System_of_Units. kWh means kilo Watt hours.
- Writingdorky 2y ago
  It could make sense for you to consider an EV with bi-directional charging. For off-grid solar, you can charge your truck/car/EV for free or/and extend your off-grid battery by using your car to de/uncharge it for your home. A 100kWh battery can help you out when you come back home if you know you can charge it the next day.
- Memphremagog 2y ago
  In response to some of the comments: For silicon-carbon composite anodes, the challenge in getting apples-to-apples cost per kWh is that while the anode material is more expensive per kg than graphite, it also is much more energy-dense, so you need much less of it. However, to take advantage of the energy density, you need to enlarge the cathode (which brings the lithium). A classic simultaneous equation.... Without giving away proprietary info, it's safe to say the ultimate "value" of the battery (read $ per kWh) is reasonably close to today's Li-ion - for much higher performance. Since LFP cathode technology is a topic, keep your eyes on LMFP. It is a bit more expensive than LFP, but also carries 15%-20% more energy - so its $ per kWh is lower. Then, if you marry it with a silicon anode, things start to get VERY interesting versus today's Li-ion performance and cost.
readthenotes1 2y ago
Well, not here. But it's really close. This time.
- Animats 2y ago
  Yes. The article quotes two US companies that don't actually ship batteries in quantity. The big players working on this are CATL, BYD, Samsung, and Toyota, all of which already make batteries in large quantities. The current situation seems to be that solid state batteries have been made as prototypes and work, but volume production is hard to do. Various approaches are being tried. One of the big players says the technology maturity is currently at 4 (technology validated in lab) on a scale of 1-9. Huge amounts of money are being spent on this. It's probably going to work, but it's not clear if it will be cheap.
  - jillesvangurp 2y ago
    It's simply early days. People think of this as a fashion industry where one product replaces the new product when it goes out of fashion in the blink of an eye. It simply doesn't work that way with batteries. Scaling up battery production to where it is today has taken decades. These new battery cells need factories that don't exist yet, new machines that are still being designed, they need to benefit from learning effects resulting from volume production that hasn't happened yet, etc. That's not going to happen overnight; it's going to take years/decades. Initial production volume will be low and the resulting products will be very expensive and scarce. There's nothing wrong with the current batteries. They work, they are cheap, they have decent energy density (plenty for essentially all road based use cases), they last thousands of cycles (i.e. 10-20 years at least), and they are being produced by the twh/year. These things aren't going away, they are just going to continue to get better and cheaper for decades to come. It's already a mass production market and the drops in prices is growing the market with new products. Solid state will grab market share very slowly in e.g. high end sports cars, pointlessly large trucks for socker mums and similar snobs (these aren't work vehicles, they are way too expensive for that), electrical planes and drones, and other use cases where price matters less and where energy density matters more. I expect several car companies will make a fair amount of money selling insanely large batteries to people who believe they need to buy those at a big premium. But that's not going to be a mass market any time soon. These will be niche products produced in small numbers and sold at a high price. Mass production won't be happening anytime soon. Most regular people will be driving lithium ion, LFP, sodium ion based cells, or similarly cheap/effective cells for a long time.
teekert 2y ago
[flagged]
- xbmcuser 2y ago
  Not really the question always is that when will see see the advancement in actual products and this article seems to answer here it is.
- Dilettante_ 2y ago
  Truly the Year Of The Linux Desktop
  - wiether 2y ago
    At least it is for me since all my PCs are now on Linux! /posted on my Windows 11 work laptop....
    - graemep 2y ago
      My laptop and my tablet are on Linux, and my daughter's PC (my other daughter's too, and she has a chromebook as well, but she is an adult and has her own household, and her work laptop is Windows). I might buy the teenager a Chromebook too. We have been a Linux household for over 20 years. That does not count our Android devices.
  - bryanlarsen 2y ago
    Great analogy, it illustrates the goal post moving that always occurs. The year of the Linux Desktop will never arrive if you always move the goalposts to massively remove successful Linux installs like servers, embedded, Android, Chromebook, Steam Deck, etc.
- ZeroGravitas 2y ago
  Yeah, we'll know the battery revolution has arrived when the US needs punitive 100% tariffs to stop imports of low cost, high performance EV cars from a developing nation. Until then it's all talk. Meanwhile we can talk about two US companies promising that their magic beans are the future.
biddendidden 2y ago
Again? This claim pops up every couple of years.
- SideburnsOfDoom 2y ago
  Yes, again. Battery technology is improving rapidly, so it's probably true every couple of years.
eth0up 2y ago
I'm excited by sodium ion batts, especially in the 18650 format. Everyone's aware the danger of lithium ion with this format - lots of burns, fires and a death[1] caused by the cap of a flashlight being propelled into the throat of the user while holding it in his mouth during auto work. Stab a lithium 18650 and watch out! Water makes it worse. Stab a sodium 18650 and it wants to boogy for sure, but sans flames. While sodiums can't yet compete with liths, I think they'll get close enough for the safety benefit and cost to make them viable. And there will be new tech too. Edit: ref for [1] https://www.reddit.com/r/flashlight/comments/zm5ead/olight_explosion/ https://www.reddit.com/r/flashlight/comments/zm5ead/olight_e...
huijzer 2y ago
The battery revolution is here. Each year the price declines while energy density goes up. Just a few minutes ago, for example, Xiaomi released a video of their SU7 Ultra on the Nordschleife. They got a time of 6:46:874 [1] which places them on position 6 of the overall leaderboard [2]. So a Chinese smartphone manufacturer is very close to being the fastest car on the Nordschleife. A decade of experience vs. a few years of experience. With this pace, my guess is that they'll beat the German manufacturers somewhere next year. [1]: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eWK6GcH0vqE https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eWK6GcH0vqE [2]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_N%C3%BCrburgring_Nordschleife_lap_times https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_N%C3%BCrburgring_Nords...
- multimoon 2y ago
  Beating a gasoline car with an electric car on the Nurburgring isn’t remotely in the same realm, as you mentioned decades vs years of experience - it’s significantly harder to build fast gasoline cars. This isn’t a knock of the gasoline cars, but a compliment to the engineering knowledge and prowess of the aforementioned German automakers. The fact that the records for real production cars are still held by Porsche is wild considering the power to weight ratios possible with EVs. When companies like Porsche feel they can be bothered to make an electric race car, they’ll probably blitz everyone else simply because of their decades of chassis and suspension design. They haven’t done so yet because they are acutely aware of their fan base and customers don’t want one. There is a lot of people who feel racing electric cars is just boring and too easy, and I am happily part of that population because as you mention, there’s very little engineering effort to compete against or with.
  - cr125rider 2y ago
    You need an electric car to race for several hours, which is still a challenge. Time attack hot laps are one thing, racing a series is a whole other beast. We’ll get there.
    - ASalazarMX 2y ago
      Eh, the pit stops would probably be a few seconds longer while they swap batteries too.
pmontra 2y ago
“The new cell that [Molicel is] coming out with, the X series, boy, they’re claiming they can charge that from zero to 100% in 90 seconds,” That's great but how do we push all that energy into the battery at home in just 90 seconds? OK, we can push it in maybe 9 hours at home and still be happy so another question: what kind of equipment would back a charging station on a highway to make it able to charge a few of those batteries at the same time?
- rcxdude 2y ago
  I think at that point you basically need to use one of these batteries as a buffer to charge it, and you're still gonna need one hell of a cable (already the really fast-charger cables are water cooled because the water cooling adds less weight than the copper you'd need to avoid the active cooling)
- Writingdorky 2y ago
  You don't have to, it makes it a lot easier that you can do it. You can also charge supercapacitors and uncharge it very fast if you like. You can use the whole capacity of a charging park for just one car (if not a lot of cars are there). You could also do a more classical gas station setup instead of a charging park. Cooled cable, 1-2 proper ports on the bottom etc.
- mongrelion 2y ago
  > how do we push all that energy into the battery at home in just 90 seconds? If they are talking about an individual cell with a nominal voltage of 3.7V, then "any" modern fast charger will do. I don't think they were talking about a full-blown EV power bank.
deleted 2y ago
[deleted]
oulipo 2y ago
On that theme if you're interested in a repairable eBike battery, We're engineers/designers from France, and we've built a DIY Battery that you can repair and refill :) It's launching as an IndieGogo and there is an offer for early-backers here https://get.gouach.com https://get.gouach.com for a 25% discount on the battery!
trhway 2y ago
the new [revolutionary] chemistries being developed by startups/universities are running against slow incremental, yet non-stop everyday, improvement in lithium batteries produced and used by huge industries. I.e. yesterday new chemistry was required to beat 170Wh/kg, $500/KWh of the yesterday's lithium batteries, and today the goal post has moved to the $270Wh/kg, $100/KWh of the todays' lithium batteries. I'm all for the new tech, yet the situation looks tougher and tougher for it.

47 points by xbmcuser 2y ago

This is pretty interesting. It's about battery tech advances (solid state batteries, and high-silicon anodes in li-ion batteries) that will supposedly give a significant jump to power and energy density in EV batteries. Nothing about cost per KWH. Solid state might not be so great in terms of cycle life. Right now I'm not in the EV market but am impressed by seeing LiFePO4 batteries at under $100 per KWH retail, for possible use at home with off-grid solar. See places like batteryhookup.com if you want some.

tomooot 2y ago
There's also potentially big advances to be made in single use but easily recondition-able aluminium-air batteries due to an expanding market. An anecdote I've heard is a lot of R&D is focused on these at the moment as they have a higher energy to weight ratio compared to lithium chemistries so are idea for "disposable" use cases such as suicide bomb drones. There's also the more pedestrian idea of automated battery swap stations. On a similar note, thermal imagers have got shockingly cheap recently, 50KPixel cube camera modules are available for <$200 and <$800 for the 0.33MPixel version. I recently picked up an integrated module with a 24x32 pixel sensor, LCD, uC and LiPo for £30n and it can "see" someone step out from behind a wall at a distance of 3 meters, ideal for my use case (airsoft!)
- throwaway81523 2y ago
  > An anecdote I've heard is a lot of R&D is focused on these at the moment as they have a higher energy to weight ratio compared to lithium chemistries so are idea for "disposable" use cases such as suicide bomb drones. You could use normal fuel-burning engines for that, I'd suppose. Or rockets, depending. > , 50KPixel cube camera modules are available for <$200 and <$800 for the 0.33MPixel version The 50k case is not that recent (FLIR Lepton). Not sure about the 0.33MP. The 24x32 is very cheap and as you say, has enough res for some ok applications. I've been intrigued by it and wondered why FLIR seems to still have a monopoly over higher res detectors.
empiricus 2y ago
The normal price when buying locally or from china seems to be 200$/kwh.
- fragmede 2y ago
  But with a higher estimated lifespan, an estimated a cycle count 2-5x that of traditional li-ion batteries, in paet due to it not having moving parts, $200/KwH seems reasonable vs $100/KwH if it lasts more than 2x as long as a product of similar other specs. Yoshino has a large portable one on the market, 4000W, 2511Wh, though it's a bit pricey as it's new technology.
  - dns_snek 2y ago
    > $200/KwH seems reasonable vs $100/KwH if it lasts more than 2x as long as a product of similar other specs I think that's highly dependent on the expected life of those cells in absolute terms. If I'm buying a consumer product and a $100/kWh battery cell will last 10 years, but a $200/kWh battery cell will last 20 years, I'll go with the $100 one every time. Why? Because in 10 years, with inflation and advancements in battery technology, I'll probably be able to buy a replacement 10 year battery for $40 in today's money, for a total of $140 instead of $200. I'm also lowering my risk exposure in case something happens to the battery, it only needs to survive 10 years instead of 20. *Exact figures made-up on the spot.
    - fragmede 2y ago
      Using actual numbers, if your cellphone battery lasts 2 years of nominal use before noticable degrading, you're looking at 4-10 years, but also contributing less e-waste to the world.
      - throwaway81523 2y ago
        I doubt cell phone batteries are a significant part of the battery waste stream, compared to EV and utility scale batteries. If they only went back to phones with easily swappable batteries and used a commodity form factor, most users would probably prioritize energy density over cycle life.
khafra 2y ago
A recent AstralCodexTen article pointed out that lithium battery price is 40x lower per kwh than it was in 1992. A few headlines about revolutionary battery technology have turned out to be vaporware; but there really has been a continuous tech revolution going on in the space.
- graemep 2y ago
  Lithium is problematic in many ways. Security of supply (one of the big disadvantages of ICE is how much of the fuel comes from an unstable part of the world), environmental impacts of mining, the use of child and otherwise exploited child labour. I have no doubt that electric engines are the future, but we desperately need something better to provide the electricity to them.
  - jdietrich 2y ago
    Most of the world's lithium is mined in Australia and Chile. If lithium is "problematic", then so is every raw material. https://pubs.usgs.gov/periodicals/mcs2023/mcs2023-lithium.pdf https://pubs.usgs.gov/periodicals/mcs2023/mcs2023-lithium.pd...
    - graemep 2y ago
      Thanks, it looks like I was fooled by scare stories on where it comes from. However there are still issues with who controls it: https://www.bbc.com/news/world-68896707 https://www.bbc.com/news/world-68896707 and environmental aspects of mining and disposal AFAIK?
      - Writingdorky 2y ago
        [dead]
  - pintxo 2y ago
    Also, contrary to petrol, we have at least a realistic possibility to recycle batteries and thus eventually need less raw earth inputs over time. While with petrol, you need a stable continuous supply.
huijzer 2y ago
Since we're on an engineering website here, I would like to be pedantic and point out that it's kWh. If you write KWH that would mean Kelvin Watt henry, see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/International_System_of_Units https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/International_System_of_Units. kWh means kilo Watt hours.
Writingdorky 2y ago
It could make sense for you to consider an EV with bi-directional charging. For off-grid solar, you can charge your truck/car/EV for free or/and extend your off-grid battery by using your car to de/uncharge it for your home. A 100kWh battery can help you out when you come back home if you know you can charge it the next day.
Memphremagog 2y ago
In response to some of the comments: For silicon-carbon composite anodes, the challenge in getting apples-to-apples cost per kWh is that while the anode material is more expensive per kg than graphite, it also is much more energy-dense, so you need much less of it. However, to take advantage of the energy density, you need to enlarge the cathode (which brings the lithium). A classic simultaneous equation.... Without giving away proprietary info, it's safe to say the ultimate "value" of the battery (read $ per kWh) is reasonably close to today's Li-ion - for much higher performance. Since LFP cathode technology is a topic, keep your eyes on LMFP. It is a bit more expensive than LFP, but also carries 15%-20% more energy - so its $ per kWh is lower. Then, if you marry it with a silicon anode, things start to get VERY interesting versus today's Li-ion performance and cost.

readthenotes1 2y ago

Well, not here. But it's really close. This time.

Animats 2y ago
Yes. The article quotes two US companies that don't actually ship batteries in quantity. The big players working on this are CATL, BYD, Samsung, and Toyota, all of which already make batteries in large quantities. The current situation seems to be that solid state batteries have been made as prototypes and work, but volume production is hard to do. Various approaches are being tried. One of the big players says the technology maturity is currently at 4 (technology validated in lab) on a scale of 1-9. Huge amounts of money are being spent on this. It's probably going to work, but it's not clear if it will be cheap.
- jillesvangurp 2y ago
  It's simply early days. People think of this as a fashion industry where one product replaces the new product when it goes out of fashion in the blink of an eye. It simply doesn't work that way with batteries. Scaling up battery production to where it is today has taken decades. These new battery cells need factories that don't exist yet, new machines that are still being designed, they need to benefit from learning effects resulting from volume production that hasn't happened yet, etc. That's not going to happen overnight; it's going to take years/decades. Initial production volume will be low and the resulting products will be very expensive and scarce. There's nothing wrong with the current batteries. They work, they are cheap, they have decent energy density (plenty for essentially all road based use cases), they last thousands of cycles (i.e. 10-20 years at least), and they are being produced by the twh/year. These things aren't going away, they are just going to continue to get better and cheaper for decades to come. It's already a mass production market and the drops in prices is growing the market with new products. Solid state will grab market share very slowly in e.g. high end sports cars, pointlessly large trucks for socker mums and similar snobs (these aren't work vehicles, they are way too expensive for that), electrical planes and drones, and other use cases where price matters less and where energy density matters more. I expect several car companies will make a fair amount of money selling insanely large batteries to people who believe they need to buy those at a big premium. But that's not going to be a mass market any time soon. These will be niche products produced in small numbers and sold at a high price. Mass production won't be happening anytime soon. Most regular people will be driving lithium ion, LFP, sodium ion based cells, or similarly cheap/effective cells for a long time.

teekert 2y ago

[flagged]

xbmcuser 2y ago
Not really the question always is that when will see see the advancement in actual products and this article seems to answer here it is.
Dilettante_ 2y ago
Truly the Year Of The Linux Desktop
- wiether 2y ago
  At least it is for me since all my PCs are now on Linux! /posted on my Windows 11 work laptop....
  - graemep 2y ago
    My laptop and my tablet are on Linux, and my daughter's PC (my other daughter's too, and she has a chromebook as well, but she is an adult and has her own household, and her work laptop is Windows). I might buy the teenager a Chromebook too. We have been a Linux household for over 20 years. That does not count our Android devices.
- bryanlarsen 2y ago
  Great analogy, it illustrates the goal post moving that always occurs. The year of the Linux Desktop will never arrive if you always move the goalposts to massively remove successful Linux installs like servers, embedded, Android, Chromebook, Steam Deck, etc.
ZeroGravitas 2y ago
Yeah, we'll know the battery revolution has arrived when the US needs punitive 100% tariffs to stop imports of low cost, high performance EV cars from a developing nation. Until then it's all talk. Meanwhile we can talk about two US companies promising that their magic beans are the future.

biddendidden 2y ago

Again? This claim pops up every couple of years.

SideburnsOfDoom 2y ago
Yes, again. Battery technology is improving rapidly, so it's probably true every couple of years.

eth0up 2y ago

I'm excited by sodium ion batts, especially in the 18650 format. Everyone's aware the danger of lithium ion with this format - lots of burns, fires and a death[1] caused by the cap of a flashlight being propelled into the throat of the user while holding it in his mouth during auto work. Stab a lithium 18650 and watch out! Water makes it worse. Stab a sodium 18650 and it wants to boogy for sure, but sans flames. While sodiums can't yet compete with liths, I think they'll get close enough for the safety benefit and cost to make them viable. And there will be new tech too. Edit: ref for [1] https://www.reddit.com/r/flashlight/comments/zm5ead/olight_explosion/ https://www.reddit.com/r/flashlight/comments/zm5ead/olight_e...

huijzer 2y ago

The battery revolution is here. Each year the price declines while energy density goes up. Just a few minutes ago, for example, Xiaomi released a video of their SU7 Ultra on the Nordschleife. They got a time of 6:46:874 [1] which places them on position 6 of the overall leaderboard [2]. So a Chinese smartphone manufacturer is very close to being the fastest car on the Nordschleife. A decade of experience vs. a few years of experience. With this pace, my guess is that they'll beat the German manufacturers somewhere next year. [1]: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eWK6GcH0vqE https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eWK6GcH0vqE [2]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_N%C3%BCrburgring_Nordschleife_lap_times https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_N%C3%BCrburgring_Nords...

multimoon 2y ago
Beating a gasoline car with an electric car on the Nurburgring isn’t remotely in the same realm, as you mentioned decades vs years of experience - it’s significantly harder to build fast gasoline cars. This isn’t a knock of the gasoline cars, but a compliment to the engineering knowledge and prowess of the aforementioned German automakers. The fact that the records for real production cars are still held by Porsche is wild considering the power to weight ratios possible with EVs. When companies like Porsche feel they can be bothered to make an electric race car, they’ll probably blitz everyone else simply because of their decades of chassis and suspension design. They haven’t done so yet because they are acutely aware of their fan base and customers don’t want one. There is a lot of people who feel racing electric cars is just boring and too easy, and I am happily part of that population because as you mention, there’s very little engineering effort to compete against or with.
- cr125rider 2y ago
  You need an electric car to race for several hours, which is still a challenge. Time attack hot laps are one thing, racing a series is a whole other beast. We’ll get there.
  - ASalazarMX 2y ago
    Eh, the pit stops would probably be a few seconds longer while they swap batteries too.

pmontra 2y ago

“The new cell that [Molicel is] coming out with, the X series, boy, they’re claiming they can charge that from zero to 100% in 90 seconds,” That's great but how do we push all that energy into the battery at home in just 90 seconds? OK, we can push it in maybe 9 hours at home and still be happy so another question: what kind of equipment would back a charging station on a highway to make it able to charge a few of those batteries at the same time?

rcxdude 2y ago
I think at that point you basically need to use one of these batteries as a buffer to charge it, and you're still gonna need one hell of a cable (already the really fast-charger cables are water cooled because the water cooling adds less weight than the copper you'd need to avoid the active cooling)
Writingdorky 2y ago
You don't have to, it makes it a lot easier that you can do it. You can also charge supercapacitors and uncharge it very fast if you like. You can use the whole capacity of a charging park for just one car (if not a lot of cars are there). You could also do a more classical gas station setup instead of a charging park. Cooled cable, 1-2 proper ports on the bottom etc.
mongrelion 2y ago
> how do we push all that energy into the battery at home in just 90 seconds? If they are talking about an individual cell with a nominal voltage of 3.7V, then "any" modern fast charger will do. I don't think they were talking about a full-blown EV power bank.

deleted 2y ago

[deleted]

oulipo 2y ago

On that theme if you're interested in a repairable eBike battery, We're engineers/designers from France, and we've built a DIY Battery that you can repair and refill :) It's launching as an IndieGogo and there is an offer for early-backers here https://get.gouach.com https://get.gouach.com for a 25% discount on the battery!

trhway 2y ago

the new [revolutionary] chemistries being developed by startups/universities are running against slow incremental, yet non-stop everyday, improvement in lithium batteries produced and used by huge industries. I.e. yesterday new chemistry was required to beat 170Wh/kg, $500/KWh of the yesterday's lithium batteries, and today the goal post has moved to the $270Wh/kg, $100/KWh of the todays' lithium batteries. I'm all for the new tech, yet the situation looks tougher and tougher for it.