This horseshit again? Physical product available for independent analysis, or it didn’t happen.
It’s not like the Chinese are famous for lying about the specs on things they manufacture or anything. Every week we hear about some Chinese company poised to “revolutionize” the EV with pie-in-the-sky range figures and yet the market continues to remain resolutely un-revolutionized.
And as usual, this article harps on “range” as if that’s not an easily fudged figure. The real numbers we need to see are watts per volume, or watts per mass. And number of charge cycles tolerated, and how many before it loses what percentage of capacity. Any idiot can claim to make a 1,300 mile, 2,000 mile, 5,000 mile, 1,000,000 mile battery pack – just make the pack bigger, or the vehicle lighter, or both. That tells us nothing meaningful whatsoever about the battery chemistry itself. Advertising us what hypothetical ranges someone thinks a pack made of these “could” build is meaningless. We could build a 1300 mile battery pack right now with LiFePo cells if we wanted to, via the simple expedient of filling a dump truck with the things.
Well, Toyota seems to be promising something around 700-800 miles range with solid state lithium battery tech, but as you say, the proof is in the pudding, and the pudding isn’t ready yet.
Not Toyotas first time either Toyota has said their solid state batteries are just around the corner.
http://www.electric-vehiclenews.com/2010/12/toyota-announces-4-layer-all-solid.html?m=1
Exactly. It’s like an article I saw about some new internet tech that was “X times faster than broadband”. Broadband is a type of transmission using multiple frequency carrier waves to transmit data. It ain’t a speed.
Wh/kg or yes maybe volume Wh/cm^3…
The only other thing I’d care about it charge speed. Maybe it doesn’t last as long but I can fully charge in 10 seconds? Yeah I’m interested. Hell I’ve never had a car yet get the estimated miles per gallon on the sticker. It’s all bistromathics as far as I’m concerned.
The real numbers we need to see are watts per volume, or watts per mass
You have to chase it down, following the link to electrek.co, but then it says: “the prototype cells house an energy density of 720 Wh/kg”
(of course, I’m just stating what is claimed, no idea how true)
You’re right, I didn’t see it! I just saw a bunch of chinese writings, which I cannot read, so didn’t bother trying to read even the only thing I could 😅
If that’s true, 1300 mile range isn’t the big deal. Going much over 400mi is pointless if we build proper charging infrastructure. Use wh/kg advancements to reduce weight, nor increase range.
The big thing is that we can build fully electric airplanes with that kind of wh/kg.
Big if, though. Batteries have been improving by 5-8% per year, and while we’re not close to theoretical limits yet, this would represent an unprecedented leap all at once. That claim needs more to back it up than a press release.
Battery density has been improving steadily for the last three decades.
Battery costs keep falling while quality rises. As volumes increased, battery costs plummeted and energy density — a key metric of a battery’s quality — rose steadily. Over the past 30 years, battery costs have fallen by a dramatic 99 percent; meanwhile, the density of top-tier cells has risen fivefold
…
With regards to anodes, a number of chemistry changes have the potential to improve energy density (watt-hour per kilogram, or Wh/kg). For example, silicon can be used to replace all or some of the graphite in the anode in order to make it lighter and thus increase the energy density. Silicon-doped graphite already entered the market a few years ago, and now around 30% of anodes contain silicon. Another option is innovative lithium metal anodes, which could yield even greater energy density when they become commercially available.
What’s more, the Chinese market is both the leading producer and consumer of battery technology. So its weird to reflexively doubt that a Chinese firm would release a new higher-efficiency battery design.
Given that this is a prototype, its entirely unclear if the model is cost-efficient to mass manufacture or efficiently scalable based on available resources. But I’m hard pressed to discount the claim on its face simply because its got “China” in the headline.
Racist see China did something good and have to go out of their way to shit on China.
Never to be heard about again
If the company is able to scale this technology large enough for consumer vehicles while keeping prices down, it could easily double the range of the farthest-driving EVs on the road today.
That’s a big IF. TL;DR: They haven’t developed a means of making this scalable and able to be mass manufactured. Until they do, this is another “revolutionary” battery tech that may or may not actually be used due to cost of production. Most likely in the “not” category.
If you want to make EVs more popular, make them with Sodium-Ion batteries that are cheaper than ICE vehicles. They’ll sell better as a result.
Hardly anybody needs an EV with more than 200 miles of range if they’re plugging in each night. Most people’s commute is round-trip sub-50 miles. “Range anxiety” is 95%+ of the time a “problem” that stupid people have for their theoretical future that never actually happens. Most people are impractical idiots.
Range anxiety isn’t about your daily commute, it’s about the few times a year road trip you make across multiple states to see family on holidays. Having to stop and charge every 150 miles (as I wouldn’t trust letting it go below 50) sucks if you’re trying to go 500+ miles. Owning a gas car taking up space in your garage and costing you taxes and registration just to use a handful of times a year is wasteful. Renting a car is an option, but it’s cumbersome and if you plan to stay a while, expensive. I would not want an EV with less than 300 miles range. You have to factor in worst case scenarios as well, sometimes it gets dreadfully cold and windy in the winter. When it’s -10F and the wind is howling you’re cranking the (usually resistive) heat and driving head first into the wind kills your efficiency. These are real scenarios I have had to drive in my current car (Volt, so plug in hybrid) and my battery range can be halved (from 35+ miles under 20) in these worst case scenarios, but at least I can fall back on gas. I want to go EV for my next car but if I can’t reliably make it to and from my parents’ house 300 miles away on a bad winter’s Christmas break then it’s just not a feasible option yet, even if my drive to work is maybe 15 miles round trip. Also, charging station density is an issue. I would need to go half way to their house, 150 miles, to reach a charging station. You can’t just stop anywhere to recharge if you have a low range EV.
id argue that renting a car might be less expensive. your argument doesnt consider the cost it takes to replace your tires often (the heavier your vehicle, the more often you have to replace the tires), which for some EVs already, is a pretty significant cost.
buying something for something youll use less than 1% of the time is a terrible monetary decision. its like the people who buy big trucks with high torque, when more than 60% of these truck buyers have never towed something.
These are real scenarios I have had to drive in my current car (Volt, so plug in hybrid) and my battery range can be halved (from 35+ miles under 20)
this is a problem specific to lithium ion batteries. salt ion batteries and some other batteries that are being considered do not have that problem.
How do sodium ion batteries help here? Driving into the wind and running your electric heater at full blast aren’t a battery issue, it’s just an unavoidable increase in power consumption that you need the extra capacity to deal with.
Hardly anybody needs an EV with more than 200 miles of range if they’re plugging in each night.
Speaking of big IFs. Not everybody lives where a charger is convenient or can have one installed in their residence.
Range anxiety is in the what if scenario, can I go from Los Angeles to Las Vegas on one charge, batteries need to last longer and be cheaper or charge quicker. being universal and swappable wouldalso work.
We’re considering a new car (current car is an old econobox that’s been to the moon), and range anxiety does factor in for the “weekend adventure” use case. We live in CA, and something like a trip to Yosemite or Tahoe requires refuelling/charging. But these places can get inundated with weekend warriors (like us!), who are all on the same schedule. We’ve had friends who have had stressful incidents e.g. charging in Yosemite valley, or on the way back from Tahoe. Add a toddler in the mix and it gets even less fun.
Not insurmountable, but infrastructure and timing are still not as good as for dinosaur blood.
For 95% of the time though yeah — commuting, single-day adventures, or bopping around the city would be no problem at all.
Exactly. Give me something with 150 miles range and a relatively inexpensive battery (like $3k?) and I’ll replace my commuter.
I need 500 miles range to replace our family car though since we do road trips with it, and frequently go 400 miles between stops.
Yup, I have a regular hybrid for my commuter and an ICE for our family car, but I’m hoping to switch the commuter to EV and the family car to a plug-in hybrid. That way we’d only really use gas when going on longer trips.
But PHEVs are expensive right now, so I’m watching the market. I do need to upgrade at least one of them though.
Takes deep breath
MmmmmmBULLSHIII
Ha, why was this downvoted? Sketchy website “reports” proprietary Chinese research firm’s accomplishment by rehashing the firm’s press release about an unbelievable claim with no other evidence. This got more red flags than the beach before a hurricane.
At best, this is something they actually did approximate in some kind of lab setting that might be years and years away from being some kind of marketable product.
The (translated) press release even has a stench all on its own:
It is expected to fundamentally solve the battery life and safety anxiety of traditional lithium-ion batteries.
FYI thecooldown.com is a solid site with consistently good info.
I haven’t dug into this particular story though.
There are plenty of petrobots here ready to cast shade.
For some reason this reminds me of a cheap Chinese knockoff rotary tool I got from Amazon which the instructions said: “use until loud bang and smoke. Then replace.”
