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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

#681

Post by mardifoufs »

weberer wrote: post #464
dahwolf wrote: post #388

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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,…

What's with these weird, grandiose generalizations I've been seeing about America on this site, based on single data points? Do you realize that other brands and models exist in the USA? Do you realize Tesla is and American company? Did you even check look into Chevy Cruze's mileage? Here's a guy getting 70mpg in a Chevy Cruze by driving 55mph on the highway. That's 30km/l. https://www.caranddriver.com/news/a15341744…

I'm not even american, but it is getting so tiring. Especially when it comes from europeans, something about throwing stones from glass houses I guess? Self loathing americans aren't much better since they usually have a completely laughable view of the outside world ("America is a third world country!!").

It's not even the fact that most of those generalizations are factually false, it's mostly just that it leads to every. single. discussion circling back to be about the USA.

(It reminds me of the super patriotic american circlejerk on the internet a decade+ ago, that had tons of europe bashing/america exceptionalism. But with the sides reversed and the delusional misplaced self-praise mostly coming from Europeans.)

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

#682

Post by breischl »

vivegi wrote: post #449
breischl wrote: post #423

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You didn't cite sources for the critical pieces of that (the first three numbers). You also assumed that the battery is 100% lithium, which is obviously wrong. A random Googling says closer to 62kg. And now I'm tired of bothering to fact check you. I'm also going to say that all the car companies, battery companies, and governments in the world probably took six seconds to do basic math before investing trillions of…

The 62kg is a valid point. I have revised the calculation and added the citations. The problem still remains (at the global level).

Sibling comment is a good point. Also there are lots of other battery chemistries available that use less, or no, lithium. Or approaches burning hydrogen, or ammonia, or methane.

More broadly, this is a class of complaint that you can't see every detail of path and the destination from the very beginning of the road. The solution to that isn't to stand around and complain about it, but _start moving towards the destination_.

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

#683

Post by klooney »

loeg wrote: post #671
Akronymus wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

Almost no one is banning existing ICE vehicles on the road; just sales of new ICE models.

Sure, but how long do the gas stations last?

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

#684

Post by baybal2 »

ejiblabahaba wrote: post #665
walrus01 wrote: post #254

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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...

Battery people keep comparing apples, and oranges.

Battery pack energy density, battery, single cell, cathode, and their rated, nominal, and absolute capacity are all different things.

A single cell will always have > absolute capacity than the capacity at which the safety limiter will cut-off charging, and that will be > than the capacity to which BMS will charge/discharge the cell in daily use.

It may well be possible for a cathode material to excel in a small pouch cell, but have terrible thermals preventing its use in larger cells.

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

#685

Post by CameronNemo »

ConcernedCoder wrote: post #263

so I worry a bit about energy density when it comes to accidents/battery breakage/fires/explosions/ect... anyone have any idea if these batteries are any safer than the currently used tech?

This is a different battery chemistry. It does have a different fire risk. Not sure about this chemistry, though.

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

#686

Post by bluGill »

kevstev wrote: post #666
bluGill wrote: post #440

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

some of them. I think most will drop fuel completely, some will turn into stores where local buy milk or something, but many will close completely as not needed since people charge at home.

In denser areas charging will move to mall like areas where people will get out of the car for longer. Gas stations are not generally not setup for people to hang out for 30 minutes, they don't have enough space for people to park that long. They are setup for use the bathroom, grab a snack and get out. Most people charging will want to get groceries or other supplies they are getting anyway (which is to say since they can't charge at their apartment they are going to look for places to shop where they can recharge)

In rural areas (truck stops) are more setup for spending more time. They often have small restaurants already so you can eat inside. They are more general purpose stores and often serve the locals as the place to buy things between trips to dollar general or the city. They have more parking (land is cheap so they will buy more if needed), so there is place to put in all the needed EV chargers. Plus they get a lot more customers who are on trip so long they couldn't charge at home.

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

#687

Post by bottlepalm »

kevstev wrote: post #666
bluGill wrote: post #440

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Probably not, people charge at home or apartment and start everyday with 300 miles of range. No need to ever visit a charger unless you're on a long trip.

That combined with bigger stores like 7-Eleven, CVS, Walmart, etc.. adding their own charging stations will kill most gas stations.

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

#688

Post by theK »

tshaddox wrote: post #648
theK wrote: post #110

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I’m afraid these bans get systematically sabotaged by well funded ice lobby groups. Just look at what happened to the EU’s ice ban for personal vehicles. Spoiler: while new gasoline burning cars are technically banned after 2035 it will be completely legal to sell new gasoline burning cars by labelling them e-fuel only…

They will definitely get “sabotaged” if they turn out to not be even remotely realistic, for example if lithium production is nowhere near what it needs to be to replace all new automobile production.

While this is true in theory I don't see how it is relevant. The battery industry is in overdrive right now, new chemistries are being put to the test daily and multiple manufacturers are already working on productizing energy storage that doesn't use rare earths at all. Also, breakthroughs like the main post mema that you need less and less rare earths for the same bang.

It becomes increasingly certain that we won't need as much lithium as the fossil lobby would like us to believe.

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

#689

Post by acyou »

For me, this signals CATL is either actually on the verge of a breakthrough, or desperate and in big trouble. If the technology is brand new, how can it have been thoroughly life and cycle tested already?

I will believe the batteries are truly ready for prime-time after approx. 5 years of real world service. That's enough time to see the creeping, unforeseen issues that tend to crop up with batteries. Dendrite growth, structural failure, etc etc. They could be shipping millions of cars in 2025 with these and I would, rightly, still have my doubts.

A breakthrough based on solid state electrolyte sounds very plausible. But look at the presentation graphic. They get the translation of "energy density" wrong.

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

#690

Post by philipkglass »

MuffinFlavored wrote: post #532
leoedin wrote: post #189

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

> Renewables change the picture though - once you have significant renewable generation the carbon intensity of electricity starts dropping, which means that remote powerplant vs local powerplant argument falls apart. That is when the real power of electric vehicles kicks in - they can take their energy from anywhere. How close/far would you say we are as a society on "having significant renewable generation"?

I don't know where you live, but in the United States renewables have recently surpassed nuclear and coal power as sources of electricity:

https://www.eia.gov/todayinenergy/detail.php?id=55960

They're still pretty close to each other right now. Renewables are at 21%, coal 20%, nuclear 19%. However, nuclear is flat and coal is declining. Renewables are still growing rapidly and will widen their lead significantly in a few more years. See the first embedded chart in the article, showing output trends since 2010. Also see the short term forecast at the end of the article:

"In our March Short-Term Energy Outlook, we forecast the wind share of the U.S. generation mix will increase from 11% last year to 12% this year. We forecast that the solar share will grow to 5% in 2023, up from 4% last year. The natural gas share of generation is forecast to remain unchanged from last year (39%); the coal share of generation is forecast to decline from 20% last year to 17% in 2023."

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