Solid-State Battery Has 2x the Energy–and No Anode • Hacker News Board

Re: Solid-State Battery Has 2x the Energy–and No Anode

#151

Post by panick21_ » Fri, Mar 31, 2023, 4:59 PM UTC

raddan wrote: post #92

kungito wrote: post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Which car? You cannot drop something like this without a source

I’m sure this is not what the poster meant, but in fact most EVs and hybrids use multiple battery technologies in parallel. For example, a Chevy Bolt has a lithium ion battery to power the drivetrain and a conventional lead-acid battery for the accessories. My old Prius had a NiMH battery for the drivetrain and a lead-acid battery for accessories.

I don't think that is what this person is talking about. Yes having an extra lower voltage battery is totally normal and every EV either has a led acid or an additional smaller LiIon battery.

Having multiple chemistries in one battery pack is of course possible, but I don't any car who is actually doing that.

Re: Solid-State Battery Has 2x the Energy–and No Anode

#152

Post by panick21_ » Fri, Mar 31, 2023, 5:01 PM UTC

ngrilly wrote: post #20

Tade0 wrote: post #6

Solid state might share the fate of Betamax. There was a post a while ago about a small scale battery manufacturer named Amprius, which reported 500Wh/kg batteries: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35276709 Thing is, the company is producing 450Wh/kg batteries NOW and they're planning on scaling up their manufacturing capacity to 5GWh: https://www.convertingquarterly.com/ConvertingQuarterly/Indu... This solid sta…

Some applications still require higher energy densities than what LFP can provide. Are you saying silicon anodes are more promising than solid state for those applications?

LFP cathodes and silicon or 'solid state' aka lithium metal anodes are not incompatible.

Re: Solid-State Battery Has 2x the Energy–and No Anode

#153

Post by panick21_ » Fri, Mar 31, 2023, 5:10 PM UTC

gt565k wrote: post #11

I read an article somewhere that discusses how Toyota has the most battery patents out of any company and also owns most of the solid state patents and are actually working on commercializing solid state batteries for vehicles. The point I think the article was trying to make is that while everyone is focused on lithium ion, Toyota was biding it’s time and getting ready to one-up everyone with solid state batteries a…

Yeah so this is basically just repeating Toyota marketing. Yes they have lots of patents, because they studied lots of stuff, it does not mean they are in the lead of anything.

> while everyone is focused on lithium ion

Please remember that 'solid state' is just a marketing term. The actual meaning when talking in terms of automotive battery is 'lithium metal anodes'. So these are still lithium ion batteries.

And lots of people are working on lithium metal anodes, and have been for 50 years.

> Toyota was biding it’s time and getting ready to one-up everyone with solid state batteries and vehicles with double the range.

That is certainty what Toyota marketing has been telling people. But in reality scaling a new battery technology is incredibly difficult and if these claims were actually true we would see massive Toyota battery factory being build. When in reality its incredibly low volume production stuff that might show up in a few hybrids.

Also, 'solid state' isn't magically better then everything else. You can hit the same density with silicon. There are 100s of companies working on silicon and lithium metal anodes.

Toyota has announced some EVs but no actual product with these magical batteries that they have. The reality is, nobody, not Toyota best battery engineers know how difficult it will be to scale production of these things to a massive gigafactory. And if its not a massive gigafactory then its practically irrelevant in the EV market.

So unless we actually see a massive gigafactory somewhere that is dedicated to this type of battery, this is just marketing.

Re: Solid-State Battery Has 2x the Energy–and No Anode

#154

Post by panick21_ » Fri, Mar 31, 2023, 5:11 PM UTC

moogly wrote: post #58

gt565k wrote: post #11

I read an article somewhere that discusses how Toyota has the most battery patents out of any company and also owns most of the solid state patents and are actually working on commercializing solid state batteries for vehicles. The point I think the article was trying to make is that while everyone is focused on lithium ion, Toyota was biding it’s time and getting ready to one-up everyone with solid state batteries a…

So are you saying this long game is why the anti-EV CEO Toyoda Akio is stepping down tomorrow? (Read between the lines: being ousted by the board).

In realty his successor is just as anti-EV.

Re: Solid-State Battery Has 2x the Energy–and No Anode

#155

Post by panick21_ » Fri, Mar 31, 2023, 5:15 PM UTC

Aardwolf wrote: post #2

Nice, when can we use them for phones and laptops lasting 72% longer and without fire risk? Genuine question, because optimistic battery articles have been popping up for decades, but here we are still with lithium ion in practice.

Lithium ion is not one thing.

The 'Lithium ion' from 10 years ago is very different from it now. 'Lithium ion' is an umbrella term that contains lots of things. Just as 'solid state' is not really what anybody is talking about. What actually matters about 'solid state' is lithium metal anodes. There are also companies who are doing lithium metal anodes without being solid state.

If 'solid state' ever make it into the market, they will just be the new 'Lithium ion'.

Re: Solid-State Battery Has 2x the Energy–and No Anode

#156

Post by panick21_ » Fri, Mar 31, 2023, 5:16 PM UTC

jillesvangurp wrote: post #47

akokanka wrote: post #3

Research Vs Reality are quite often decades behind in physical world.

Easy to forget that most car enthusiasts thought that Elon Musk was a lunatic that was obviously going to fail about a decade ago. And now he's basically dominating the car industry. Lithium batteries did not exist until the nineties and did not get practical for use in cars until about 15 years ago. Research on solid state batteries has been ongoing since then. E.g. Quantumscape founded in 2010. and is planning to s…

Solid state (actually we talking about lithium metal anodes) have been researched literally since 70s.

Re: Solid-State Battery Has 2x the Energy–and No Anode

#157

Post by panick21_ » Fri, Mar 31, 2023, 5:19 PM UTC

AtlasBarfed wrote: post #125

ashish10 wrote: post #9

Isn't this what Quantumscape is already betting on ?

Hey, remember them? They were right on the verge of production allegedly while the shorters were "outing" them? I've heard nothing about them for a solid 16 months, so I'm guessing the shorters were right. Solid State batteries appear pretty easy to crank out a demonstration cell with lots of density advantages over the production cells, and handwave away the scaling of production as a detail resolved in investment.…

The never even claimed to have their first medium scale production facility before 2024 and only then going into medium scale production. Their first real factory isn't planned until later this decade.

Not sure where people got the idea that they claimed they are on the verge of large scale production.

They were on a little bit more then lab scale production.

Re: Solid-State Battery Has 2x the Energy–and No Anode

#158

Post by samtho » Fri, Mar 31, 2023, 5:22 PM UTC

sorenjan wrote: post #124

RRRA wrote: post #113

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Most new solar installations now use LiFePO4 which apparently is much safer on that runaway side...

That's good, but is that what's used in "used car-batteries with degraded capacity"?

Used car batteries are conventional unsealed, lead-acid batteries. Lithium-iron-phosphate (aka LiFePO4, LFP) batteries is a different battery chemistry altogether. It is touted as the answer to a deep-cycle, lithium-based electrical storage that the traditional lead acid batteries occupy.

Re: Solid-State Battery Has 2x the Energy–and No Anode

#159

Post by slaw » Fri, Mar 31, 2023, 5:24 PM UTC

xbmcuser wrote: post #77

RivieraKid wrote: post #68

I think the best measure of real-world battery improvement would be a chart of iPhone / Macbook battery densities over time. My guess is that there's been little improvement over the last 10 years.

This is according to CHATGPT so in terms of density you are probably correct though in terms of reliability speed of recharging there probably are improvements iPhone 5: Dimensions: 51 x 39 x 3.6 mm (2.01 x 1.54 x 0.14 in) Capacity: 1440 mAh Voltage: 3.8 V iPhone 5s: Dimensions: 51 x 39 x 3.8 mm (2.01 x 1.54 x 0.15 in) Capacity: 1560 mAh Voltage: 3.8 V iPhone SE (1st generation): Dimensions: 51 x 39 x 3.95 mm (2.01 x…

from iPhone 13 to iPhone 5. volume increased 2.08 times and capacity increased 2.15 times.

Re: Solid-State Battery Has 2x the Energy–and No Anode

#160

Post by dheera » Fri, Mar 31, 2023, 5:27 PM UTC

mabbo wrote: post #63

Lithium ion batteries set the standard because they have an acceptable level of all the key metrics: energy storage by weight; energy storage by volume; discharge rate; charging rate; production costs. Every single one of these big breakthrough announcements touts how great this new tech is- in just one or two particular metrics. The problem is that Li-Ion batteries are just barely acceptable in all of those metrics.…

Those are only a few metrics. Li-ion is not fantastic in (a) charging cycles and battery depletion or (b) fire safety.

It also depends a lot on use case; for example, for home electricity storage (like a PowerWall) I would gladly give up energy density for safety. If there's some battery tech that can handle 50000 charge cycles and completely non-flammable but weighs 100 tons and has 10% of the energy density of Lithium, I'd gladly make that trade. Maybe build part of the building out of it.