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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

#661

Why does 500wh/kg make electric aircraft possible? 6x less than kerosene. Is that the break even on cost if you can source very cheap electricity? Seems like it would still annihilate the payload/range.

Video[0] isn't a direct answer, but I found it helpful for understanding the trade offs that come when considering using electric power for a plane vs regular fuel. They show the math in an easy to follow diagram.

tl;dr for their small kit aircraft the weight of batteries they would need to match the stored energy of equivalent fuel (even with a battery at 500wh/kg) would be 5-10x heavier, and also not get lighter during the flight. They said for long range it doesn't make sense, but that there are lots of companies iterating in the short range electric space.

- [0] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LdSnHQtoVTI

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

#662

The Hyundai Kona EV battery has a energy density of 141.3 Wh/kg and range of 414 km, give or take. 500 / 141.3 * 414 km = 1,465 km. Is that around the expected range, presuming a new battery is a drop-in replacement? Lithium-air has an energy density of 11,140 Wh/kg, yielding 32,639 km, which doesn't seem possible.

Lithium-air and all other -air batteries have outsourced part of their mass to the atmosphere, which is also part of the reason why liquid motor fuel has such high apparent density. The joke with lithium-air batteries is they absorb oxygen when they discharge, so a dead battery is full of lithium peroxide and weighs significantly more than a charged one.

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

#663

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Do you believe that Saudi Aramco is just going throw their arms up and be like “well, the dinosaur fumes era is over everyone! Pack it up.” The two technologies of electric and combustion are going to coexist with each other. The rebirth of F1 into this new hybrid generation, as well as the new dPi hybrid prototype class will prove to you that Maxwells Equation is not close, and we breaking a new era of acceleration,…

The USA actually has more oil reserves than Saudi Arabia. Adding Canada, you have more than double. The production cost is higher, but technology adapts... SA can't really decide when this era is over.

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

#664

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's not populist to call things what they really are.

You know how I know you aren't poor? You think anyone in the bottom quartile will buy a new car. This is hardly a regressive policy. It directly targets the wealthier populations. That said, in the interest of honest debate, it will shift the used car market prices significantly initially until supply of used EVs spins up. Although this is very secondary.

Partly the use market exists in ICE because there isn't really a cheap new ICE, but with stuff like sodium ions and the fundamental simplicity of the EV drivetrain, what I think is going to happen is that you're going to get a much wider range of electric cars that will suit a lot more modes of transportation and people won't have to use old ICE Used cars to get around.

I think it's going to happen is essentially you're going to get like a $10,000 new EV you can buy that's going to be cheaper to use energywise/ fuel-wise than a clunker ice.

I think the driver this will be the Chinese / India markets where you have basically two to three billion people that will want cars at that price point and that stuff will eventually make its way into the US

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

#665
post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Current mass produced batteries, which tend to hover around 260-300 Wh/kg. Higher density (but still under 500) are available, but in far smaller quantities for a very high cost. The exciting part of this announcement is that if anyone can scale manufacturing, it is them.

What battery pack that I can buy right now is 300Wh/kg? Sincerely curious because that's 50Wh/kg above what people are using in some very expensive UAVs.

Based on Google's specs[0], the GMF5Z battery in the Pixel 7 pro is 18.96 Wh and 65 g, which is around 292 Wh/kg.

[0] https://support.google.com/product-documentation/answer/9682...

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

#666
post #224

Earlier 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.

It seems reasonable that most gas stations will add fast charging stations no? And then maybe add a coffee shop or quick food place that you can spend money at and be the real source of revenue for these locations.

Its not going to be a cheap or painless conversion, but there is absolutely a path forward for most gas stations I think.

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

#667
post #572

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Have they? Other than lithium based batteries getting cheaper per kilogram so that year by year, more battery use cases have switched over from inherently worse chemistries? Even just ten years ago, eneloop were still the hot thing for many applications outside of laptops, mobile phones and the odd Tesla (ten years ago was when Model S was still the fresh new successor to the converted Lotus)

Is eneloop not still very much a thing? Maybe not the brand, but the technology. The vast, vast majority of consumer devices using standardized battery sizes are AA or AAA, and that means NiMH. To go lithium means 18650, and I don't really see much of that happening outside flashlights and other niche products.

There are many companies making rechargeable lithium batteries in AA and AAA form factors. I have a few dozen I use for my door lock and Xbox controllers.

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

#668

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>EROI values for our most important fuels, liquid and gaseous petroleum, tend to be relatively high. World oil and gas has a mean EROI of about 20:1 (n of 36 from 4 publications) (Fig. 2) (see Lambert et al., 2012 and Dale, 2010 for references). The EROI for the production of oil and gas globally by publicly traded companies has declined from 30:1 in 1995 to about 18:1 in 2006 (Gagnon et al., 2009). The EROI for disc…

So the major difference between your numbers and the ones I cited, is that EROI is just "energy in versus energy out" and it does not change favorably if you do carbon capture or use renewables or whatnot. Whereas if you compare CO2 emissions, you can do these things and in theory get down to zero emissions from production and refining of gasoline.

you are right -- EROI and emissions are different. If you add in things like carbon capture, emissions go down but energy-in goes up. Would it make sense to extract and refine gasoline with net-0 emissions if it took more energy than you get out in gasoline? _maybe_, but I don't think its a clear yes!

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

#669

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do you believe that Saudi Aramco is just going throw their arms up and be like “well, the dinosaur fumes era is over everyone! Pack it up.” The two technologies of electric and combustion are going to coexist with each other. The rebirth of F1 into this new hybrid generation, as well as the new dPi hybrid prototype class will prove to you that Maxwells Equation is not close, and we breaking a new era of acceleration,…

I don’t think F1 is going to save Saudi Aramco. People don’t generally need a super racing machine. Maxwells equations delivers a simpler machine that satisfies all needs of any user beyond the most exotic. The Rube Goldberg machine is the actual death of ICE - as a manufacturer, who have much more influence on cars, why do I want to build and design these incredibly complex machines when I could dramatically simplif…

F1 is like a test bed for new vehicle technology. It's not that you'll buy a race car, or a race car engine, but those discoveries will filter down into consumer products, like they have in the past: paddle shifters, KERS, hybrid engines, rear diffusers, traction control, drive by wire, the dual clutch, plus probably a ton of improvements in tires, fuel injection, safety, suspensions etc.

So if a hybrid engine that significantly increases ICE efficiency (already the case, F1 engines are 40% more efficient than normal cars) can become mainstream and be a better fit for particular use cases, it could extend the life of gasoline-powered vehicles for a while.

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

#670

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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,…

That's why Tesla started in europe. Right?
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