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Tell HN: I think I found Toyota's battery

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Re: Tell HN: I think I found Toyota's battery

#191

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What are you on? Having battery with 3x battery capacity will be an absolute game changer. This will do a lot of good, if it gets into production. For one thing, it will make EVs competitive with diesel, which will be s huge win for getting us of oil.

People will absolutely choose the longer battery span to rid themselves of range anxiety. I agree, it’s a terrible take.

IMO people mostly want longer battery span because current batteries take a long time to charge. Toyota has claimed that this battery will charge very fast, in which case range will not be as important as it is now.

Re: Tell HN: I think I found Toyota's battery

#192
post #187

Earlier quoted context omitted.

To me it all still comes down to charging infrastructure. The current state of batteries is good enough for me, but I live in an apartment and can't charge at home, and the availability/reliability local charging stations are a crap shoot, nevermind charging on a road trip. But when (if?) I own my own house and can charge at home, I'll be in even with the current state of batteries.

My primary concern with the charging infrastructure is how well it will handle a large number of people taking emergency trips at the same time. How do you evacuate south Florida with an incoming hurricane, for example, when most people have switched from gasoline to electric cars? That scenario pushes the existing fuel delivery infrastructure to its limit already, and electric chargers provide significantly fewer pa…

This is a good point and I think the answer is that solutions for in-place charging will need to be regulated or subsidized into existence in step with the shifting market share of electric cars.

The typical range of a fully charged electric car these days is sufficient to get out of the way of almost any predictable natural disaster. So the trick is just keeping them all fully charged at home. Any homeowner can in theory have a charger off their home power grid, but for folks in apartments and condos there will need to be a lot more than just a few chargers in the corner of the garage. There may even need to be street-side solutions. But it’s all doable and the engineering is straightforward.

People allow gas cars to sit with nearly empty tanks because it is so fast (and expensive) to fill them up. Electric cars are slow and cheap to “fill up” so the mindset and culture about it will change over time.

Re: Tell HN: I think I found Toyota's battery

#193

> it could release highly toxic hydrogen sulfide gas. How bad is it in real world conditions? Because from what I'm reading it's not the "it makes you sick" kind of toxic, but rather the "it kills you in seconds" kind of toxic.

There’s no way to concentrate energy without creating some danger. Gasoline is quite dangerous but we drive around with tanks full of it now. Natural gas and high-amp electricity are dangerous but we have them coming into many houses.

So I would propose the question shouldn’t necessarily be, “how bad is the worst-case scenario”—it’s pretty bad for all energy sources. I think a better question is “how reliably and efficiently can we prevent or mitigate the dangers.” That will go a long way toward determining its commercial viability.

Re: Tell HN: I think I found Toyota's battery

#194

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> This is further constrained by gear ratios, meaning not all power is available at all times. CVTs enter the chat. > At a 20% efficiency, that's 2600 Wh/kg. Hybrids do better, of course.

CVTs enter the chat, but it's mostly to ask when they'll be replaced so you can use them again. (I don't remember details, but we decided to specifically avoid cars with CVTs because of reliability issues. Sure enough, the only person I know with a CVT is having belt slipping issues. Seems like certain manufacturers were switching back to dual clutch arrangements)

My understanding is that the Nissan CVTs weren't outfitted with a large enough radiator, and that the resulting overheating is what tended to kill them. I don't think there's anything inherent about their design besides the insufficiently large radiator that would cause failures more frequently than non-CVTs.

Re: Tell HN: I think I found Toyota's battery

#195
post #122

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Current lead acid batteries can do this as well. Smells awful and pretty unsafe situation. H2S is quite dangerous but it’s rare that they’d create an IDLH situation as long as there’s a bit of breeze.

i'd be surprised if lead-acid batteries produce detectable quantities of hydrogen sulfide; isn't their sulfur bound up in an extremely stable oxoanion? still, https://web.archive.org/web/20161005164308/http://www.wesh.c... certainly doesn't sound like sulfuric acid

Humans are _very_ sensitive to the smell of H2S. Unless you meant that it might produce enough to kill your sense of smell, which is possible.

Re: Tell HN: I think I found Toyota's battery

#196

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's not what Peak Oil means, but I think you know this. The cost of oil will never return to pre-2000s levels because meeting demand necessitates more expensive extraction technologies like shale and offshore. In that sense (the correct one), the prediction of peak oil by 2000 was remarkably accurate.

If you adjust by inflation oil is now cheaper than it was between 1980 and 85.

As is food.

Re: Tell HN: I think I found Toyota's battery

#197

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's not what Peak Oil means, but I think you know this. The cost of oil will never return to pre-2000s levels because meeting demand necessitates more expensive extraction technologies like shale and offshore. In that sense (the correct one), the prediction of peak oil by 2000 was remarkably accurate.

If you adjust by inflation oil is now cheaper than it was between 1980 and 85.

Isn't that cherry-picking? That was the peak of the oil crisis

Re: Tell HN: I think I found Toyota's battery

#198

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I feel like that's quite a stretch of the word comparable. The Model 3 is 14% heavier than the Audi: https://www.edmunds.com/car-comparisons/?veh1=401999985&veh2... And the Ioniq5 is 35% heavier than the RAV4: https://www.edmunds.com/car-comparisons/?veh1=401958795&veh2...

You are comparing the heaviest Ioniq to a lighter trim of Rav 4. If you compare models more similar in price the difference is significantly less.

I went to Edmunds and went with "Most Popular" from the drop down when choosing the trim level.

Re: Tell HN: I think I found Toyota's battery

#199
post #187

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My primary concern with the charging infrastructure is how well it will handle a large number of people taking emergency trips at the same time. How do you evacuate south Florida with an incoming hurricane, for example, when most people have switched from gasoline to electric cars? That scenario pushes the existing fuel delivery infrastructure to its limit already, and electric chargers provide significantly fewer pa…

This is a good point and I think the answer is that solutions for in-place charging will need to be regulated or subsidized into existence in step with the shifting market share of electric cars. The typical range of a fully charged electric car these days is sufficient to get out of the way of almost any predictable natural disaster. So the trick is just keeping them all fully charged at home. Any homeowner can in t…

> The typical range of a fully charged electric car these days is sufficient to get out of the way of almost any predictable natural disaster.

Maybe, and maybe not. The one time I had to do this myself, I started with a full gas tank and still ended up stopping to fill a couple of times. An evacuation is hardly the ideal condition for range, with lots of stop-and-go traffic. You need to not only get out of immediate danger but also find some safe place to lodge overnight that doesn’t interfere with the people behind you that also need to get out.

Re: Tell HN: I think I found Toyota's battery

#200
post #187

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My primary concern with the charging infrastructure is how well it will handle a large number of people taking emergency trips at the same time. How do you evacuate south Florida with an incoming hurricane, for example, when most people have switched from gasoline to electric cars? That scenario pushes the existing fuel delivery infrastructure to its limit already, and electric chargers provide significantly fewer pa…

This is a good point and I think the answer is that solutions for in-place charging will need to be regulated or subsidized into existence in step with the shifting market share of electric cars. The typical range of a fully charged electric car these days is sufficient to get out of the way of almost any predictable natural disaster. So the trick is just keeping them all fully charged at home. Any homeowner can in t…

During Hurricane Rita in 2005, over 2 million Houstonians got on the road to avoid its wrath. It took anywhere from 12 to 36 hours to reach their destination.

Many ran out of gas but roadside assistance were able to fuel them up and get them going again.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hurricane_Rita_evacuation

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