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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

#691
post #317

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Furthermore, the energy needed for takeoff is significantly higher than the energy for cruising. For an hour's flight, it's close to 50/50. The impact is disproportionately skewed towards shorter fkights

Wondering if we could build devices that assist with takeoff - like it's done on aircraft carriers. Could save some energy that way.

No. It is not the takeoff as in "raising the wheels from the tarmac" part that is consuming most energy, but reaching the flight altitude. Real case, with smaller plane, I take off in 300 meters in less than 30 seconds at max power, than raise to 3000m in more than 10 minutes of 90% power. That makes the assisted takeoff less than 10% of the energy to get to cruise altitude.

I don't have the numbers for a jet fighter on a carrier, but I think it is in the same range. The takeoff assist is not for saving fuel, but to allow takeoff at the loadout of the plane that would require otherwise a longer runway or lighter loadout (less fuel and weapons).

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

#692
post #671

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

This is not responsive to my comment, which is about ICE bans.

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

#693

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The UK also does for some God awful reason (especially infuriating considering it's sold by the litre at the petrol station). In the United States and some other countries, a gallon is equal to 128 fluid ounces or 3.785 liters. Meanwhile, in the United Kingdom and some Commonwealth countries, a gallon is equal to 160 fluid ounces or 4.546 liters.

The UK also uses pints for dairy milk, but litres for plant-based milks. UK must be completely disregarded if you're looking to make sense about what units to use.

They're sold in pints but labelled in litres. My supermarket sells .568, 1.13 and 2.26L containers.

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

#694
post #584

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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).

The US went from 700,000 to over 12,000,000 from the 90s to today. In places where we've actually really started to look, we've found orders of magnitude more. I wonder how much more we'll find when we actually go looking for it elsewhere.

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

#695
post #317

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Wondering if we could build devices that assist with takeoff - like it's done on aircraft carriers. Could save some energy that way.

We could, but it would require new aircraft. Passenger aircraft are not designed for that kind of stress. I'm not sure that passengers would like that much acceleration either. I don't know that it would actually save anything though. Aircraft of carriers are held back while they throttle the engine to full throttle. Only after the pilot is convinced the engine will run long enough to take off do they release the bra…

You could save some energy by catapulting a plane at a reasonable acceleration, like a glider is launched with a ground tractor wire. I flied gliders this way and I think the acceleration was not worse than a regular airliner. Problem is, the saving is not worth the cost and complexity.

The carrier example is wrong, the planes stay on the catapult only a few seconds while they go full throttle (this takes time), even with the burn rate it is not a significant quantity of fuel. Regular planes can do the same on the runway, I did it myself several times for fun, but it rarely bring benefits - the only place where it helps is with very short runways. In any case, the fuel consumption is not significant.

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

#697
post #142

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's about the same efficiency as every modern EV. This is not Tesla specific. Electric motors are very efficient, regenerative braking helps, EVs are designed to be super aerodynamic, etc.

Any reason why non-EVs couldn't get the same aero improvements as EVs?

Physically, no, but practically there is little incentive. ICEVs are so inefficient to begin with that small improvements don't really move the needle much on fueling cost like they do with EVs. Combined with the fact that you necessarily have to carry a great deal more energy with you in an ICEV anyway.

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

#698
post #147

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Various theoretical energy densities of batteries and gasoline: lead acid 123 Wh/kg lithium ion 250 Wh/kg zinc-oxygen 1,084 Wh/kg sodium-oxygen 1,605 Wh/kg lithium-sulfur 2,600 Wh/kg magnesium-oxygen 6,800 Wh/kg aluminium-oxygen 8,100 Wh/kg lithium-air 11,140 Wh/kg gasoline 12,700 Wh/kg from 2022, Asad A. Naqvi et. al., Aprotic lithium air batteries with oxygen-selective membranes , Table 1, https://link.springer.com…

I wonder how close to mass production those intermediary technologies are. Bumping the energy density closer to something like lithium-sulfur would probably make 95% of ICE-based technology scrap heap tech.

its worse actually for ICE because you are probably only accounting for engine efficiency but there are also transmission losses to the wheel. Further all the 3000 or so component of ICE weight fair bit too. I have not seen any analysis on combine energy to the wheel/Kg comparison between ICE & EVs but I'd bet it gets significantly worse for IC cars even at 500wh/Kg.

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

#699

I 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…

Mass-producing IC engines, even complicated state-of-the-art ones, is exceedingly simple and cheap. Assembling an EV battery is actually pretty damned hard and energy-intensive. This is all reflected in the price. If it were easy to make an EV battery, they would cost less. If it was hard to make an IC engine, there would be no $4500 motorcycles.

To what degree do you think this reflects learning over time? My impression is that high precision manufacturing is something that we've gotten very good at, but that doesn't necessarily mean it's easy.

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

#700
post #142

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's about the same efficiency as every modern EV. This is not Tesla specific. Electric motors are very efficient, regenerative braking helps, EVs are designed to be super aerodynamic, etc.

Compare the mpge of different cars. Tesla tends to win even between EVs.

I would use something other than mpge. Tesla advertises numbers you won't see in the real world, more so than some other manufacturers (Porsche is an example that goes the opposite direction and under-promises). The EPA test isn't anywhere close to as objective as many people believe, there are ways to game it.

I do wish my Model 3 LR would actually go 358 miles on a charge, that's for sure, but it would have to get even lower Wh/mi than Tesla claims on the Monroney sticker. I suppose that's not the most egregious lie on Tesla's web site, however.

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