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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

#711

Post by Sugimot0 »

beaned wrote: post #63

How was this achieved? It seemed like battery energy density improvements were very marginal. I'd expect that this type of jump could only be achieved with a new significant insight, but the article seems to say it's just traditional process done better and newer. That's very vague: > the condensed battery integrates a range of innovative technologies, including the ultra-high energy density cathode materials, innova…

IANAE but from what I've seen, there's been a lot of different potentially "game-changing" breakthroughs in energy storage, but the bottleneck lies in manufacturing capabilities. "Undecided with Matt Ferrell" on Youtube has great content on recent energy storage developments.

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

#712

Post by bradeeoh »

throwaway22032 wrote: post #650
bluGill wrote: post #439

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> You can continue to use the ICE vehicle you bought in 2034 in the EU until infinity. Sure, if you can find fuel. By 2034 EVs will be enough of the market that gas stations are already closing (remember today new cars are 10 year old used cars, and there is every reason to think EVs will be half of all cars). There is still one on every corner, so you might not see this trend, but it will be in the statistics. By 20…

I mean, come on. Infinity might be a long time, but we had fuel stations when there were 25% of the cars on the road that there are now. There are around 25-50 petrol stations within 30 mins drive of me. There is no reason to believe that it will be impossible to fuel your car until ICE cars become collectors' items. In the very most remote areas, maybe.

And the very remote areas that may have just 1 gas station are also least likely to have high EV penetration until the absolutely tail-end of the ICE-era.

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

#713

Post by m463 »

yc-kraln wrote: post #529

500 Wh/kg means Sulphur cathode, which also explains the solid electrolyte. Roughly speaking, it'll be 3x as energy dense but only a 1/2 as volumetrically efficient (so, a given capacity battery will weigh 1/3 less but take up twice as much space). There are other approaches to Li-S (and Al-S and Mn-S) which will be less expensive. Grats to CATL for bringing this to market, but the race for sure isn't over yet.

Honestly it doesn't seem like that big a drawback. EVs for instance have reclaimed lots of space from under the hood, the gas tank, the exhaust system and more.

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

#714

Post by andrepd »

cultureswitch wrote: post #204
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…

The timelines for ICE bans within a decade are ridiculous from a technology and market standpoint and terrible for the environment. The best car technology is the one you don't use much. And we already have decades of cars in good enough condition to be driven weekly rather than daily. EVs will barely scratch the surface of environmental issues with transportation. And they will create a new range of supply problems…

Exactly. The answer to the problems of ICE cars are not EV cars. It's boring stuff like trains, public transportation, or walkable urbanism.

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

#716

Post by toast0 »

bluGill wrote: post #439
sveme wrote: post #243

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think you should read up on what ICE bans in countries where they are implemented actually means. Hint: You can continue to use the ICE vehicle you bought in 2034 in the EU until infinity.

> You can continue to use the ICE vehicle you bought in 2034 in the EU until infinity. Sure, if you can find fuel. By 2034 EVs will be enough of the market that gas stations are already closing (remember today new cars are 10 year old used cars, and there is every reason to think EVs will be half of all cars). There is still one on every corner, so you might not see this trend, but it will be in the statistics. By 20…

I'm sure this will happen. But I think your timeline is way faster than it will happen.

I highly doubt gasoline will be hard to find in most places by 2045; I'd expect a lot fewer fueling stations, but I think even at 10% of the station count, gasoline will still be convenient and easy. And, if gasoline is less convenient, you can always use gas cans to extend your range. They're not too expensive, and not too inconvenient (epa 'anti-spill' nozzles that make it hard to fill without spilling not withstanding); long term storage is problematic, but if you're regularly using it, no big deal. Most gasoline powered vehicles have at least a 300 mile range, and it's not hard to find vehicles with a larger range.

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

#717

Post by saltcured »

frosted-flakes wrote: post #554
ilyt wrote: post #548

Earlier quoted context omitted.

UAVs also have higher current requirement, and that means more weight "wasted" for chonkier electrodes Car batteries aren't pulling 50C worth of current

Don't car batteries also have very high current requirements? Turning over an engine takes an enormous amount of power.

Traditional ICE starter batteries are optimized for this cold-cranking power rating, but they only have to deliver this for a matter of seconds before being recharged. They are not designed to deliver this continuously nor to ever be operated at low states of charge.

Conversely, a BEV traction battery has to support a wider range of loads at any charge state between its minimum and maximum charge levels, in order to have decent driving range. Like a starter motor, the BEV is not going to sustain high power output for very long, since a car only takes seconds to accelerate to legal road speeds. After that, it requires continuous output at lower power levels to maintain a cruising speed.

Even with lead-acid batteries, there are regular starter batteries and then there are deep-cycle batteries which have far less cold cranking amps but more durability when depleted to low charge states before being recharged.

The low density of lead-acid batteries is what makes them unsuitable for mobile applications. They might have 30-50 Wh/kg while various lithium ions might be 100-300 Wh/kg. And now this announcement is talking about 500 Wh/kg so 10x the best lead-acid batteries...

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

#718

Post by iknowstuff »

rootusrootus wrote: post #542
msrenee wrote: post #471

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We're already looking at the human cost of some of the components needed for the batteries, like lithium and cobalt. That's what we'll be fighting wars over after we exhaust the supply of oil.

Lithium is considerably more ubiquitous than crude oil, however. And cobalt in batteries is already on the decline, we won't be using it much longer. Heck, most EVs sold today don't use any cobalt at all.

And its recyclable

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

#719

Post by cinntaile »

jpgvm wrote: post #366
j16sdiz wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Oh and of course they now want to build nuclear plants after they've shown for the last 30years that we have reached a state of more dysfunctional oligarchy than the Soviet Union ever was I can't express how much I hate this. In terms of technology and engineering, nuclear is now so mature that it should be used everywhere solar doesn't make sense. Yet , in terms of politics, society and governance, we are still st…

China is.going to have the largest fleet of nuclear reactors in the world, all within a decade or two. We can bitch and moan all we want about their governance system but when it counts they are always the ones doing the right thing while Western governments hold their dicks and piss into the wind.

You seem to imply this is a sign of a failing of the west. I'm not sure how you reached that conclusion based on your data point, they produce everything for everyone and they have 1.5 billion inhabitants. It doesn't exactly come as a surprise that they require a lot of energy. China already has the largest coal, solar, wind, hydro energy production in the world.

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

#720

Post by giobox »

theK wrote: post #688
tshaddox wrote: post #648

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

The recent announcement (also from CATL!) of sodium ion batteries that are competitive with typical vehicle grade Lithium cells (LFP chemistry) means Lithium is unlikely to be the blocker people argue either. Lithium Ion is already potentially no longer the only viable battery chemistry at scale.

> https://www.electrive.com/2023/04/21/catl-and-byd-to-use-sod...

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