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CATL has announced a new “condensed” battery with 500 Wh/kg

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Re: CATL has announced a new “condensed” battery with 500 Wh/kg

#381
post #316

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Hybrids that emit carbon will still have a huge effect on global warming, simply because there are so many cars. There isn't a huge amount of headroom for efficiency increases, so you're only going to get anywhere near "net zero" by charging from a renewable grid nearly all the time.

According to this chart, road transport sector is responsible for 11.9 % of greenhouse emissions wordlwide.^1 Could you please expand upon how you define the huge effect it will have on global warming? Don't you think it's better to focus on other parts of that pie, where it's easier to implement widespread savings and change? ^1: https://ourworldindata.org/emissions-by-sector

11.9% is a pretty huge percentage. If it were like 0.1%, I might agree with you.

Imagine you were tight on money and then think about your grocery store bill. Wouldn't you try to save in all categories, even though, say meat, was "only" 11.9% of your total bill?

Carbon reductions need to be made in every sector.

Re: CATL has announced a new “condensed” battery with 500 Wh/kg

#382
post #319
post #178

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Wondering… Is it possible to make tiny refineries for say a town or area? So locally produced or is that a environmental nightmare?

It's not economic and it's both an environmental and safety nightmare. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Buncefield_fire "largest peacetime explosion in Europe" I live in Edinburgh, and there's regular complaints about flaring from the Mossmorran refinery, which lights up the night sky, produces smoke, and is incredibly loud.

Wow, that’s a gigantic fire right there. So it seems local refineries are not very interesting.

Re: CATL has announced a new “condensed” battery with 500 Wh/kg

#383

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Nope, the variable is cost per passenger. Large jets only exist because fuel is really expensive. The cost per passenger gets astronomical with smaller planes. That's why only rich people can afford that. Big planes are more economical. Because of the fuel. This is simply not true with electrical planes. A mega watt hour of power is about 60-100$. And much cheaper than that with renewables. Not at retail prices of co…

Airlines spend about 1/4 of their expenses of fuel alone. If they can reduce that, it will go a long way.

And more non trivial amounts of money on parts, maintenance and inspections. Lots of moving parts. Lots of complexity. Lots of engineering hours spent on keeping it all running smoothly. Electrical planes still need inspections but they are a lot more robust and the complexity of maintaining, inspecting, and operating them is at least an order of magnitude lower. And they break down in less and less expensive ways and probably less often too.

The third expensive component is staffing. Pilots are expensive and for complex aircraft they need lots of training. So, simple electrical airplanes lower the training cost and make it easier to train and find new pilots. And complexity is also a reason you often need two pilots. Smaller/simpler airplanes can be one pilot operations. And of course replacing pilots entirely when these things become autonomous brings further cost savings. The flip side is that lots of small planes require more pilots.

Finally, big airports are expensive. You have to pay landing fees in lots of places. And service fees. And missing your assigned slot because of delays is expensive. That too goes away if you start flying from less busy/cheaper airports.

So, there a few additional savings here beyond fuel. But that is the biggest one.

IMHO this is going to be a repeat of the EV revolution a decade ago. But minus a lot of the emotional bickering about range anxiety, etc. Most planes are operated by for profit businesses. The second something cheap becomes available, they'll be all over it. In the same way using electrical vans vs. ice vans is not a topic of debate in the industry. You get the electrical van if you can. They are cheaper to operate. There's zero uncertainty on that front so you see essentially all large fleets transitioning to electrical vans as soon as they can get it done.

With electrical flight, a lot of this stuff is bottle necked on product development (happening), certification (starting to happen), and volume production (not happening yet). Better batteries increase the demand further. But without volume production, demand is not the issue. Supply is. This is and will be supply constrained for a long time.

Re: CATL has announced a new “condensed” battery with 500 Wh/kg

#384
post #133

I just realized how much energy efficiency is being squeezed out of a Tesla. It's incredible. A normal diesel fueled sedan such as the Chevy Cruze diesel runs at about 31mpg, which is 13.2 km/l or 15.3 km/kg. Diesel has a mind-boggling 12700 Wh/kg energy density[1], which translates to an efficiency of ~827 Wh/km for the Chevy. By contrast, the Tesla Model S, has a ~540 kg battery[2]. At 272 Wh/kg (from the posted ar…

> and the Tesla Model S can do a rated 650km on a single charge

It's better to use real world highway range which is 300 miles (482 km) in a Model S:

https://insideevs.com/reviews/443791/ev-range-test-results/

Re: CATL has announced a new “condensed” battery with 500 Wh/kg

#385
post #133

I just realized how much energy efficiency is being squeezed out of a Tesla. It's incredible. A normal diesel fueled sedan such as the Chevy Cruze diesel runs at about 31mpg, which is 13.2 km/l or 15.3 km/kg. Diesel has a mind-boggling 12700 Wh/kg energy density[1], which translates to an efficiency of ~827 Wh/km for the Chevy. By contrast, the Tesla Model S, has a ~540 kg battery[2]. At 272 Wh/kg (from the posted ar…

The big reason for this is thermodynamics. A conventional internal combustion engine car has to convert chemical energy to kinetic energy - the absolute best theoretical efficiency of this might be 70%, but in practice it's more like 30%. Electric cars have to pay the same thermodynamic penalty, but they pay it at the power station (In practice, thanks to renewables, not all the electricity used to charge a car will…

Does regenerative braking count as renewable energy? It's clearly absent from internal combustion (diesel or not)

Re: CATL has announced a new “condensed” battery with 500 Wh/kg

#386
post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My plan to buy an EV in the next five years may be realistic after all. Happy!

You may not have a choice in the matter as more and more countries are thinking of/implementing ICE bans in the near future.

It won't happen in USA until a majority of chips and EV batteries required can be reliably produced and sourced domestically. Until that point the continued production and sale of new ICEs will still be required as a matter of national security.

Re: CATL has announced a new “condensed” battery with 500 Wh/kg

#387
post #133

I just realized how much energy efficiency is being squeezed out of a Tesla. It's incredible. A normal diesel fueled sedan such as the Chevy Cruze diesel runs at about 31mpg, which is 13.2 km/l or 15.3 km/kg. Diesel has a mind-boggling 12700 Wh/kg energy density[1], which translates to an efficiency of ~827 Wh/km for the Chevy. By contrast, the Tesla Model S, has a ~540 kg battery[2]. At 272 Wh/kg (from the posted ar…

[deleted]

Re: CATL has announced a new “condensed” battery with 500 Wh/kg

#388
post #133

I just realized how much energy efficiency is being squeezed out of a Tesla. It's incredible. A normal diesel fueled sedan such as the Chevy Cruze diesel runs at about 31mpg, which is 13.2 km/l or 15.3 km/kg. Diesel has a mind-boggling 12700 Wh/kg energy density[1], which translates to an efficiency of ~827 Wh/km for the Chevy. By contrast, the Tesla Model S, has a ~540 kg battery[2]. At 272 Wh/kg (from the posted ar…

How the hell a Chevy Cruze gets 31mpg with a diesel??? A VW Passat TDI will easily get 60+ imperial MPG, I've had it get close to 70 on long runs(that's 50 and 58 American MPG respectively). Are American diesels this inefficient?? Looking at pictures online the Chevy cruze doesn't seem like a bigger/heavier car than a Passat, so what gives??

Here in the Netherlands, we'd translate 31mpg to "1 per 11". One can drive 11km on 1L of fuel. 1 per 11 is a joke. It's associated with heavy petrol cars from the 80s and 90s, before anybody even attempted efficiency.

Even my 15 year old diesel car had an efficiency of 1/22. Adjust you driving style and I'd get 1/25. Range: 1000km, with an ordinary sized tank.

It seems Americans haven't even started with efficiency, quite likely because there was no pressure to do so due to low fuel prices. Not in their homes, not in their cars, not anywhere.

Re: CATL has announced a new “condensed” battery with 500 Wh/kg

#389
post #133

I just realized how much energy efficiency is being squeezed out of a Tesla. It's incredible. A normal diesel fueled sedan such as the Chevy Cruze diesel runs at about 31mpg, which is 13.2 km/l or 15.3 km/kg. Diesel has a mind-boggling 12700 Wh/kg energy density[1], which translates to an efficiency of ~827 Wh/km for the Chevy. By contrast, the Tesla Model S, has a ~540 kg battery[2]. At 272 Wh/kg (from the posted ar…

> ~27% of the energy required to run a normal car

It would be slightly worse in colder climates. I wish car manufactures would allow for easy installation for range extenders in the front trunk. I'd be a great source of heat for the heat pump. Range anxiety would be gone. No carbon tax since it would be an aftermarket solution.

It seems Mazda MX-30 r-ev is the only thing you can buy.

Re: CATL has announced a new “condensed” battery with 500 Wh/kg

#390
post #316

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Hybrids that emit carbon will still have a huge effect on global warming, simply because there are so many cars. There isn't a huge amount of headroom for efficiency increases, so you're only going to get anywhere near "net zero" by charging from a renewable grid nearly all the time.

According to this chart, road transport sector is responsible for 11.9 % of greenhouse emissions wordlwide.^1 Could you please expand upon how you define the huge effect it will have on global warming? Don't you think it's better to focus on other parts of that pie, where it's easier to implement widespread savings and change? ^1: https://ourworldindata.org/emissions-by-sector

> Don't you think it's better to focus on other parts of that pie, where it's easier to implement widespread savings and change?

I looked at the link and to me transportation does indeed seem one of the larger sources of emissions. Everything else seems either very fragmented (lots of entries with around 2%) or similarly if not more complex - like energy use in buildings for all of the appliances.

What am I missing here, what would be easier to address than the abundance and types of cars and possibly the lack of proper public transportation?

I don't think that one can even make the argument that we should look for easy wins when change is necessary everywhere, unless we want climate catastrophe - because of people working against improvements due to their personal interests, inefficiencies in regulation and enforcement, as well as any number of other factors.

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