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Why is everyone trying to build a solid-state battery?

construction-physics.com

241–250 of 331 posts

Re: Why is everyone trying to build a solid-state battery?

#241

Earlier quoted context omitted.

China cold tests their EVs in Harbin and Mohe, where “cold” means -40 (F or C doesn’t matter, it’s the same). They lose some range, and indoor charging garages are more common (for better charging performance), but the tech has gotten good enough that even harbiners (a small city of 20 million people) are adopting EVs at a rapid clip.

so good that batteries are ejected when they catch fire

It is so rare for EVs to catch fire that it makes the news whenever one does, and these form the core of the anti-EV memes that are popular with boomers on Facebook.

Re: Why is everyone trying to build a solid-state battery?

#242
post #123

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A snickers bar has nearly 5× TNT’s energy per kilogram—TNT merely has the habit of being extremely impatient about releasing it.

I'm still surprised we haven't figured out a bioreactor you can feed your scrap food and turn it into energy, methane combustion notwithstanding. Like imagine feeding a roomba some sugar and it's set for a few days lol.

But only if said Roomba is unable to find enough sugar on the ground for a few days. Otherwise, it's completely self-sufficient, you just have to leave enough crumbs on the floor.

Re: Why is everyone trying to build a solid-state battery?

#243

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not an automotive EE, could you explain more about BYD? I'd love to hear more from an expert!

Things like crash, fire, egress, homologation and pedestrian impact, long term service… these are things western mfgs obsess over, and BYD doesn’t give a shit about. You can buy BYD vehicles without airbags. They’re Chinese market vehicles. It’s like DJI drones, they work, and they cheap, some are even decent performance on paper, but they aren’t “real” in a sense that serious users would demand. It’s OK if a BYD is…

BYD is selling millions of cars and will be #5 globally this year. They're doing fine whether or not racist westerners take them seriously.

At the same time, western manufacturers are closing factories and begging for EU bailouts.

Re: Why is everyone trying to build a solid-state battery?

#244

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Thats right, most families with 2 cars can immediately switch to an EV and use it as a daily driver.

This is the correct use for EV. A second car, around town. Perfect. The EV push back is because the MBAs decide to market them as replacement daily drivers. And despite the people that went all in being part of the same reality that has caused the massive pushback against EVs… they will defend their purchases to the death. I have had two EVs for around town. Love em. But not real for only car outside of California.

> But not real for only car outside of California.

Tell that to the millions of people in EU and China who have EVs as their only car. I swear Americans live in the 50s in 2026.

Re: Why is everyone trying to build a solid-state battery?

#245

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Tell that to my polestar 2 pls. and then come back again in the winter when it drops another 30% due to the battery heater energizing

Your Polestar 2 battery is based on battery technology that is 5+ years old. Right now you can buy a BYD car in China that charges at up to 1500kW - close to 10x the peak charging rate of a Polestar 2.

In NZ we have pretty good competition of Chinese EVs, but probably better would be looking at Australian market.

Anyway there's only 1 car with over 500kW charge rate, only 5 over 400kW you can buy here - https://evdb.nz/evs?dcCharging=350%2B&mega=true

So they are not as common as you think they are. They'll probably come tho. Fastest charging BYD you can get here is 150kW lol.

Re: Why is everyone trying to build a solid-state battery?

#246

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not an automotive EE, could you explain more about BYD? I'd love to hear more from an expert!

Things like crash, fire, egress, homologation and pedestrian impact, long term service… these are things western mfgs obsess over, and BYD doesn’t give a shit about. You can buy BYD vehicles without airbags. They’re Chinese market vehicles. It’s like DJI drones, they work, and they cheap, some are even decent performance on paper, but they aren’t “real” in a sense that serious users would demand. It’s OK if a BYD is…

DJI is bad example as they are pretty much only consumer drone you'd ever wanna buy. It absolutely decimates competition. It's more like Tesla.

Not sure what you trying to say about BYD. I don't like them as cars, my friends do indeed have reliability issues and early ones are super uncomfortable. Latest ones are tacky with crappy software. IMO there's a lot of hype about them for some unknown reason. You can get vastly better deals over here.

Re: Why is everyone trying to build a solid-state battery?

#247
post #48
post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> We can extract a lot more energy from fossil fuels in large scale plants This isn't true at all for natural gas. Burning it for heat in the home is much more efficient than burning it in a plant, converting it to electricity, transferring that electricity, then turning that electricity into heat.

The theoretical efficiency maximum for burning gas in a home is 100%. Most systems won't hit that because they need to vent waste gases, which carry some heat away. Heat pumps are significantly more efficient than 100%. They can get to 500% efficiency. So no, it's definitely not more efficient to burn gas in a home. (To say nothing of the safety of running gas lines to every house.)

Completely separate conversation. I was responding to the statement "We can extract a lot more energy from fossil fuels in large scale plants".

Re: Why is everyone trying to build a solid-state battery?

#248
post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> We can extract a lot more energy from fossil fuels in large scale plants This isn't true at all for natural gas. Burning it for heat in the home is much more efficient than burning it in a plant, converting it to electricity, transferring that electricity, then turning that electricity into heat.

That is false. Heat pumps are more efficient than burning gas in a home even when the electricity came from burning gas.

It does not follow that "We can extract a lot more energy from fossil fuels in large scale plants"

Re: Why is everyone trying to build a solid-state battery?

#249

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is the correct use for EV. A second car, around town. Perfect. The EV push back is because the MBAs decide to market them as replacement daily drivers. And despite the people that went all in being part of the same reality that has caused the massive pushback against EVs… they will defend their purchases to the death. I have had two EVs for around town. Love em. But not real for only car outside of California.

> But not real for only car outside of California. Tell that to the millions of people in EU and China who have EVs as their only car. I swear Americans live in the 50s in 2026.

Thats correct, but Americans are conditioned by fossil fuel shills that EVs are not for them, driven by irrational fear of range anxiety. To dispel a lie, we need to spend 100x effort[1]. Its hard to convince everyone to switch to EVs, perhaps we agree with the false premise, but break it down and focus on certain demographics that it will work for.

a) 37% of US households own two vehicles. This is the biggest demographic and they can definitely have one EV.

b) College students and professors/administrators who live close to campus. They drive a lot less, ~5K miles/year instead of 12 - 15K miles/year.

c) Retired people, very old people who only drive around town for shopping, doctor appointments.

As adoption increases, most Americans would have seen first hand that EVs work and they can charge anywhere, electricity is not scarce and every building has electricity (don't need to go somewhere special just to charge it), electricity is not the work of the devil, it is okay to use EVs.

[1] https://criticalfallibilism.com/brandolinis-law/

Re: Why is everyone trying to build a solid-state battery?

#250

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The latest battery chemistries perform incredibly well in cold and hot climates. Internal combustion is not clean, and is inherently significantly less efficient than an electric motor. Also, LFP chemistries are incredibly safe compared to NMC, which is what you're concerned about in terms of thermal runaway. ICE is mostly stagnant tech. Meanwhile EV tech is rapidly improving!

> The latest battery chemistries perform incredibly well in cold and hot climates. Oh? Show me a model of EV that has it is going to lower capacity battery heating and cooling systems. I’m an automotive EE… I can’t name any. I’m working on things that will go in 2032 vehicles. Surprise, most are ICE, but of the EV vehicles the battery protection systems are becoming more rugged, not less. Where does your supposition…

Sodium batteries loose only 10% or capacity and doesn't need pre-heating when charging. Latest Chinese LFPs perform well in cold too (I don't know exact deets and tbf they don't do great job publishing them other than marketing fluff). Also added ripple preheating that Tesla has.
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