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Lithium-free sodium batteries exit the lab and enter US production

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Re: Lithium-free sodium batteries exit the lab and enter US production

#271

Post by margalabargala »

jvdvegt wrote: post #244
jvdvegt wrote: post #217

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Our panels produced a mere 60kWh in december. We've got 6 months where we use more than we produce. Storing 50% was a quick estimate as for what we'd need. Anybody got better numbers for that?

These numbers are easy to compute myself. For the 6 months my panels did not produce enough electricity, we used a total of 2.1MWh from the grid. So my 50% guestimate was actually spot on :)

Well there you go :)

If you have the land for it, you might find it mildly more cost effective to ground-mount solar panels at a steeper angle to optimize for wintertime production, which would allow you to shrink the battery. Installing 10000 kg of batteries in a home isn't something likely to ever be super easy.

Re: Lithium-free sodium batteries exit the lab and enter US production

#272

Post by mulmen »

hnav wrote: post #245
mulmen wrote: post #191

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Modern transmissions can’t be two orders of magnitude more complicated than a modern ICE. If they are then I need to get into transmission design. An automatic transmission is basically just a series of planetary gears anyway. I would expect the marginal complexity between an ICE transmission and a hybrid transmission to be within a multiple of 2, but closer to parity. They’re both extremely reliable but an EV transm…

The thing that mechanically totals modern crap cars (think cheap Nissans and Subarus) is often the CVT. Ford and GM have transmission problems pretty often. GP is totally right that the planetary eCVTs actually make cars way simpler. Look at Ford's (horrendous reputation with small cars) hybrids from the 2010s, lots of them running around with 300k on the clock.

A CVT is even simpler than an automatic. They may be less reliable but not necessarily more complicated.

Re: Lithium-free sodium batteries exit the lab and enter US production

#273

Post by TaylorAlexander »

ClassyJacket wrote: post #270
_yb2s wrote: post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I missed the 10x charge speed- that is a killer feature that more than makes up for the reduced range.

My Model 3 already charges at 180kw. Are they saying cars built with these batteries will charge at 1.8Mw? How are they going to build charging infrastructure at that level?

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40224937

Re: Lithium-free sodium batteries exit the lab and enter US production

#274

Post by jml78 »

jdewerd wrote: post #159
silisili wrote: post #133

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Compelling to me also, as a person who has shied away from EVs because of charging time annoyances. I'd gladly trade the mileage for charging speed every time. Getting excited for what's to come.

Is charge time important because you can't install a L2 charger at home / apartment to keep it "always charged" or because your usage pattern is too heavy duty for a 30 minute break every 200-300mi? If it's just the former, the slow steady march of EV mindshare might solve your needs before the "L4" super-fast-charging battery. I am starting to see L2 chargers pop up in apartment parking lots, for example. IMO, "alwa…

I also think the roadtrip inconvenience is vastly overblown. Had an EV since 2018. It is our roadtrip car. It turns 12 hour roadtrips to 14 hour trips but if you plan around eating, it doesn’t extend any trip by much.

I still have a gas vehicle but I never want to use it for long trips.

Re: Lithium-free sodium batteries exit the lab and enter US production

#276

Post by AustinDev »

genewitch wrote: post #190
AustinDev wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

One little point I want to clarify is that if your Apple Watch battery did indeed short and none of the protections against shorts worked, you'd likely just have a burn on your wrist. 309mAH isn't all that much energy assuming a full charge. I once bridged a ~2,500mAH 18650 battery that was in my bag when my keys created a circuit between the anode and the cathode. The result was a small fire inside my bag that was q…

most, and i do mean most 18650s have a circuit board in the endcap that manages the charging and discharging, so a dead short will generally cause that board to heat up and let out smoke. If you did manage to actually short an 18650 (it's not difficult, remove the plastic on the outside and jam a flathead in between the positive cap and the battery body, where the insulator is), it doesn't just "make a small fire, ea…

I didn't know this. I was wondering why it was such a tame event given the maximum discharge rate of those batteries.

I was walking out of my building with a group of folks after work and some woman said, 'Excuse me sir but there is smoke coming out of your bag'.

Re: Lithium-free sodium batteries exit the lab and enter US production

#277

Post by genewitch »

hoerensagen wrote: post #260
genewitch wrote: post #195

Earlier quoted context omitted.

i use between 1 and 2 MWh a month... Do you live underground and not have anything electronic? 1000KWh is 1MWh. I guess if one has all natural gas appliances and no need for air conditioning it's possible to get down to 333KWh a month. i have owned and ran computers that used more than that a month, for goodness' sake.

Between 1 and 2 MWh per year isnt that unusual. For example in Germany the average per person per year is 1.3MWh.

that's 100KWh per month, which is ~3KWh per day. that's the equivalent of leaving a 100W incandescent bulb and a 100W equivalent LED bulb on for 24 hours a day.

You're telling me that the AVERAGE usage in germany is 1.25 incandescent bulbs 24/7?

my LAPTOP uses more power than that!

Re: Lithium-free sodium batteries exit the lab and enter US production

#278

Post by [deleted] »

cogman10 wrote: post #255
sohamgovande wrote: post #110

Really excited to see that the battery is entering production. Feels like every year we hear about new batteries in the lab that are "2x-5x as efficient as Lithium ion" but they never seem to actually hit production. [1] https://www.yahoo.com/tech/engineers-created-revolutionary-b... [2] https://www.forbes.com/sites/michaeltaylor/2021/05/13/ev-ran... [3] https://news.mit.edu/2022/aluminum-sulfur-battery-0824

Na batteries are going to be a huge deal. Assuming everything pans out with manufacturing, this will be a game changer for grid storage. Natural gas likely won't be cheaper than doing a battery plant which will be a big deal for peaker plants.

[deleted]

Re: Lithium-free sodium batteries exit the lab and enter US production

#279

Post by sunshinesnacks »

pfdietz wrote: post #157
quitit wrote: post #146

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Let's unpack it then. You've stated: >"Mostly from Australia and Chile" seems like the opposite of baggage, that sounds like about the best you could hope for in a global commodity, so many of which come from unstable regions, conflict regions, or outright adversaries. So let's break it down with some facts (all easily searchable.) (1) The graph states that Australia is the largest producer of Lithium, and states tha…

> (3) Lithium ion batteries are currently reliant on Cobalt for their cathode. Some kinds are. Lithium Iron Phosphate (LFP) batteries are not.

Glad you mentioned this. Any conversation about batteries and minerals that mentions cobalt but not LFP is severely lacking.

Re: Lithium-free sodium batteries exit the lab and enter US production

#280

Post by DangitBobby »

jml78 wrote: post #274
jdewerd wrote: post #159

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is charge time important because you can't install a L2 charger at home / apartment to keep it "always charged" or because your usage pattern is too heavy duty for a 30 minute break every 200-300mi? If it's just the former, the slow steady march of EV mindshare might solve your needs before the "L4" super-fast-charging battery. I am starting to see L2 chargers pop up in apartment parking lots, for example. IMO, "alwa…

I also think the roadtrip inconvenience is vastly overblown. Had an EV since 2018. It is our roadtrip car. It turns 12 hour roadtrips to 14 hour trips but if you plan around eating, it doesn’t extend any trip by much. I still have a gas vehicle but I never want to use it for long trips.

In my only attempted road trip with my EV, the only charger available within any reasonable distance of our destination failed to charge the car due to a "firmware issue" that they had been aware of for quite some time but did not bother to fix. We were unable to charge there. Luckily, we had enough juice to make it back to the charging station at our halfway point by turning off the climate control.

So on a road trip that I only wanted to charge twice for, one of the stops didn't work. Oh, and on the way back we had to wait for access to the faster charger. Maybe not so overblown.

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