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This would be a real game changer for electric cars. Even a "mere" 3x enhancement would already make them really competitive with combustion engines ones, but with 10x they would just be better than our traditional cars. Let's hope this technology can be industrialized in an economic way.
This would be a real game changer for electric cars. Even a "mere" 3x enhancement would already make them really competitive with combustion engines ones, but with 10x they would just be better than our traditional cars. Let's hope this technology can be industrialized in an economic way.
There's always the whole "we haven't invented a good way to recycle the 20 thousand dollar toxic battery" problem still to deal with.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lithium-ion_battery#Variations_...
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lithium-sulfur_battery
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nanowire_battery
Just... one of these will probably catch on, yes, and that's awesome, but we've come up with so many different ideas that at this point, demonstrating a high-capacity lithium battery prototype is the Aristocrats joke of battery science.
So how long do you reckon we will have to wait for something like this? I'm still waiting for lithium-air batteries from MIT http://web.mit.edu/newsoffice/2011/better-battery-storage-07...
Earlier quoted context omitted.
I'd rather have 200 miles and lighter/cheaper(? at least in terms of environmental costs) batteries.
In environmental costs, I'd much rather have FeNi chemistry fully explored. Nickel iron batteries can be abused by under and over charging, short circuiting heat, cold, vibration, and other effects and still last decades. Jay Leno has an antique car that still has a working FeNi battery. I think it needs topped off with distilled water every so often. The electrolyte is KOH so it even acts as a preservative. The only…
It may have one benefit, but 30 seconds on wikipedia informs me that it requires 5 times the mass and 20 times the volume of lithium ion to give equal energy output. Which makes it a complete non starter for anything mobile.
Is there anything graphene can't do?
Seems to me that if this proves out, and can be made affordably, the most exciting application would be electric cars -- no more range penalty vs. gasoline. Anyone know enough to comment on the likely applicability?
mmmm electric cars... 10x the range of current cars... thats what... cross country in one charge? can anyone argue with that? Ok fine 10x is not cross country... but it is 2000 miles per f-ing charge!
Even at 220v/30amps it might take a few days,
Earlier quoted context omitted.
There's always the whole "we haven't invented a good way to recycle the 20 thousand dollar toxic battery" problem still to deal with.
Cars currently have $50 toxic batteries, in them and yet the recycling rate is near unity for them. If we can manage to recycle something worth $50, surely we can recycle something that is more valuable.
That doesn't follow.
Lead-acid car batteries are profitable to recycle because of the chemistry costs, not the unit cost of the battery.
So, what are the costs of recycling these batteries? (Note that the answer is in terms of $/pound.) How does that compare to the cost of using new materials? (Again, the answer is in terms of $/pound.)
While this could change the game for electric cars (Edit: as others have already been discussing), it would also be an amazing advance for cell phones and computers. Imagine a cell phone that had a lighter battery but still lasted through a week of use between charges. Or an incredibly thin and light battery (and a correspondingly thin and light phone) that still lasted a couple of days. Or a notebook that didn't nee…