Would a bunch of economists and sustainability researchers have to redo their calculations for how sustainable the electric vehicle future just became?
CATL has announced a new “condensed” battery with 500 Wh/kg
581–590 of 919 posts
Re: CATL has announced a new “condensed” battery with 500 Wh/kg
#582Earlier quoted context omitted.
> EVs in current state are not so good Well then, good thing the world's largest battery maker is starting to mass-produce batteries with twice the energy density.
It solves only one of multiple problems new generations of cars (EVs especially) are facing
As an EV owner, I'm not sure what problems you're referring to.
Sure the infrastructure has a bit to catch up, but even without infrastructure, we're completely fine to use our EV for 90% of our commute (and our ICE car the other 10%).
But if density -- thus range -- were to double, infrastructure becomes even less of a dependency.
Re: CATL has announced a new “condensed” battery with 500 Wh/kg
#583Earlier quoted context omitted.
It's more like once it's established it's hard to change - if you started listing 'miles per litre' that would be like it was 'designed to hide the cost of driving', because I would have no idea how that compared. (Quite normally for my age in the UK I think, I'm familiar with both metric & Imperial measurements, but generally fairly bad at converting. Except I know 568ml = 1 (UK! Not US!) pint - for which I can than…
> It's more like once it's established it's hard to change - if you started listing 'miles per litre' that would be like it was 'designed to hide the cost of driving', because I would have no idea how that compared. 1. I think with liters, people typically reverse the relationship so it's liters/100km. Which is a much more intuitive unit. 2. If you're buying gas in liters, I think it'd be a lot easier to switch over…
> a much more intuitive unit
I think it's the other way around. Distance per quantity of fuel is the intuitive measurement that humans understand and can relate directly to how much fuel they purchase. It could be argued that it is less intuitive when comparing two cars, however. Although better MPG is still strictly better, which is about the level of detail most non-nerds care about.
Re: CATL has announced a new “condensed” battery with 500 Wh/kg
#584Earlier quoted context omitted.
I have a fundamental question though. Will EVs (Li battery based) achieve the holy grail of IC engine replacement? Earth's Lithium deposits.................. 88,000,000,000 Kilograms [2], [3] @25% Viable for mining.................... 22,000,000,000 Kilograms [2], [3] Tesla S battery weight.................... 540 Kilograms per car [4] Lithium weight per Tesla S battery........ 63 Kilograms per battery [4] Max Tesla…
> Owing to continuing exploration, identified lithium resources have increased substantially ... Emphasis added from your [3]. Ever think maybe your 88,000,000,000 Kilograms number isn't actually all the lithium on the planet, and maybe there's more undiscovered under the ground? Or do you think all the lithium on the planet was discovered in 2023, and now there won't be any more reserves found? Strange how this maxi…
Yes, exploration and discovery of new deposits continues. Everything else remaining constant, the 88M tonnes (99M tonnes in the latest USGS report in [3]) will need to go up by orders of magnitude to get the 25% to 100% (if that is ever the goal).
Re: CATL has announced a new “condensed” battery with 500 Wh/kg
#585Earlier quoted context omitted.
ICE bans apply to sales of new cars. It will take another 20 years or so after a ban before most of the existing stock of ICE is actually replaced.
It will be faster than you think, mostly because gas stations will be closing and so the inconvenience of fueling you car will cut that tail of - except for niches where EVs are particularly bad.
If you're the only gas station in an area, raising prices should be a better strategy than closing.
Re: CATL has announced a new “condensed” battery with 500 Wh/kg
#586I do wonder sometimes if scraping the million plus of components, produced and assembled with great care into a ICE car and still relatively new, makes any sense. Re-powering seems no brainer to keep millions of new cars out of the scrapyard. And avoid the environmentally unsustainable production of slightly newer cars. Reusing them whole, engine included, is ideal. If battery re-powering, synthetic gasoline and hydr…
I believe that current car racing trends will paint a picture of the future of automobiles. The hybrid area is among us, and the technology used is so well thought out and advanced. Hybrid as in “go incredibly fast”, and not “save gas” like as with a Prius. Currently in F1 and the new prototype classes, they are using electrification in conjunction with the internal combustion engine to create more instantly availabl…
I think the age of Rube Goldberg dinosaur fumes fire machines is over and the age of Maxwells Equations is upon us. It’s sort of like college physics progression I just realized.
Re: CATL has announced a new “condensed” battery with 500 Wh/kg
#587"CATL has announced a new “condensed” battery with 500 Wh/kg which it says will go into mass production this year" This is a lot more credible than most of the battery stories, because CATL is already producing a ton of batteries, lending them some credibility. This is a little under 2x the density of current batteries.
My litmus test for battery/solar stories is: can you buy it? If not, consider it bullshit.
At least these guys are announcing production.
Re: CATL has announced a new “condensed” battery with 500 Wh/kg
#588Earlier quoted context omitted.
My plan to buy an EV in the next five years may be realistic after all. Happy!
Even if we get this high energy density, I'm skeptical about its utility/impact. Right now we are barely able to mine enough lithium for our current batteries, which are used for phones and a few (percent-wise) EVs. As far as I know, and please correct me, we need to increase production by at least 8x for 5-10 rare earth elements in order for everyone to use EVs. Where are these extra rare minerals going to come from…
lifepo4 doesn't require any fancy materials but lithium, less energy dense at the moment, but also doesn't degrade as fast. Panasonic is currently producing ~260Wh/kg batteries for Tesla, so much of the mass market EVs will likely end up with those types of batteries. Looks like lithium production needs to go about 3x at current demand growth, but if cell density goes up, maybe less? Unfortunately this article does seem to be about the li-ion battery tech, but at leas you will need less materials for the same energy.
Re: CATL has announced a new “condensed” battery with 500 Wh/kg
#589By what factor is it increasing?
Re: CATL has announced a new “condensed” battery with 500 Wh/kg
#590by what factor is it increasing?