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

construction-physics.com

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

#291

Post by andruby »

fhn wrote: post #168
gabrielhidasy wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Depends, if you are turning that electricity into heat using a heat-pump you might win on most situations (maybe lose if the weather is really cold outside, unless you add geothermal loops, but then its a lot more expensive to make)

No it wouldn't depend. Electricity generation and electricity transfer has losses. Gas transfer has loss only if there is a leak.

Heat pumps have a COP value of around 4 to 5 (10 to 15C outdoor) and 3 (0C outdoor). The seasonal COP (or SCOP) measures the efficiency over a whole season, and that typically sits around 3 to 4. That means that for 1kWh of electricity a heat pump delivers 3 to 4kWh of heat to the house.

Burning gas to heat a home means "1kWh" of gas, delivers ~1kWh of heat.

Modern gas power plants are about 55 to 60% efficient, so "1kWh" of gas becomes ~0.57kWh of electricity, which after transport losses (-6%) arrives at the home as 0.52kWh, which gets turned into 1.5 to 2.0kWh of heat.

=> It's almost two times as efficient to turn gas into electricity and use heat pumps in the home

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

#292

Post by zuzululu »

seanmcdirmid wrote: post #241
zuzululu wrote: post #236

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

never seen an ICE catch fire on its own

but its rare you say ?

https://www.energytrend.com/news/20221018-30074.html

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

#293

Post by aeonik »

stronglikedan wrote: post #289
enslavedrobot wrote: post #5

Solid state batteries come in several flavours. Most of them don't stop dendrites. The flavour you want is polymer, single ion conducting solid state with an ion transport activation energy below 10kJ/mol at room temperature and no phase transitions from -40C to 80C. That is the holy grail of SS batteries.

I'll just take one that charges at ridiculous speeds and can't burn my house down. I wish BYD could bring their new infra to the US - it looks pretty ::ahem:: solid !

Lithium Titanate batteries can do this now, somewhat. I have some 35 Ah batteries that claim they can charge in 9 minutes (compared to traditional Lithium Ion, that would take hours).

I don't have a charger that can supply the necessary 350 Amps though.

They also have ridiculous amount of charge cycles. 10x higher than regular Lithium Ion IIRC.

They are more expensive and are larger and heavier for the same stored energy though.

And, while they CAN still catch fire, they are apparently way harder to do so.

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

#294

Post by toss1 »

thelastgallon wrote: post #94
toss1 wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It should be relatively straightforward to imagine — we already have that in gasoline-powered internal combustion engines. The Watt-hours per kilogram of good Lithium Ion batteries is around 250-280 Wh/Kg; for Lithium Iron Phosphate it's about 180 Wh/kg, and for Sodium-Ion about 170 Wh/Kg. The raw energy in gasoline is about 12,300 Wh/Kg but automobile internal combustion engines get only about 20-30% efficiency yiel…

An EV doesn't need to have 480 miles of range. Nobody is driving that distance daily. 98% of trips are under 50 miles. Only 0.8% of the trips are over 100 miles! Also, EVs use regenerative braking. That should help a little bit. EVs should be built with 100 - 150 mile range. All families with 2 cars can immediately switch one of their cars to a daily driver EV and the other vehicle is a minivan. There are lots and lo…

>> 98% of trips are under 50 miles. Only 0.8% of the trips are over 100 miles!

Sure, ubiquitous charging will be enormously helpful to adoption, and universal rapid charging also. But the reality is it doesn't yet exist.

Until then, just because long trips are lower frequency does not mean they are less important or can be ignored as a requirement, particularly if a person/family has only one vehicle.

The long trips may be the most important trips, maybe to see family only a few times a year...

Plus, even though you might be able to rationalized away the long range requirement, generations of people are accustomed to cars yielding 4-600 miles between fill-ups. It is not only the ability to drive on a long trip, but also the need to only fill up your car every 1-3 weeks instead of every day or two.

Desirable Range between fill-ups is also a human-factors issue. You want the range of the car to be at least, indeed around, the distance people can drive in a single stint. If you can drive 350 miles in 4.5 hours, and your car gets that distance, you're probably OK resting and filling up. If it goes 1000 miles between fill-ups, that isn't a big advantage. But if the car makes you stop before you feel you need to stop, that will feel like the car is not good enough for your needs.

So, sure, if we suddenly got 2500 Wh/kg batteries and could easily make cars with a 1000-mile range, and manufacturers offered 1000, 500, and 100-mile ranges, I'd expect the most sales to be in the 500-mile units.

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

#295

Post by SV_BubbleTime »

dzhiurgis wrote: post #252
umeshunni wrote: post #244

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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.

I suspect there's a big of cognitive dissonance here. My guess US has more emphasis on road trips, longer distances, vastly more wilderness areas, etc. Europe is mostly urbanized it's almost boring. Dunno about China, but I guess they cracked charging infrastructure.

Exactly this.

“Oh, but Norway uses EVs a ton!” … cool, Norway is the size of an average US state, the population of Connecticut, over an extremely thin area which optimizes one vector of infrastructure automatically. And makes the majority of its money on oil.

Geez, almost like EV ultra-success stories aren’t even remotely comparable the rest of the world.

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

#296

Post by rootusrootus »

toss1 wrote: post #84
rootusrootus wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> With a 130Lb/60kg battery instead, and saving the weight of the ICE engine and fuel system, the overall car design could go much more lightweight, regaining a lot of performance and range, all while gaining the huge torque of electric motors. I think you're underselling it, even. A typical like-for-like modern EV is only marginally heavier than the ICE equivalent. If we were able to drop the weight of the battery b…

Yes, underselling a bit for sure! I didn't even want to get into the optimizations available if cars were really designed for lightweight when the entire motors+battery is only 100-150kg, and the battery can be low and centered. We could go for performance, trading off some battery for four inboard motors (fully sprung weight) with half-shafts and CV joints, steel space-frame chassis and carbon fiber body — it could…

> 10-kilo swappable battery packs

I like the way you think. Putting a meaningful amount of capacity in something luggable by an average human would open up a lot of possibilities. Not just for cars, but everything. Our battery powered future looks bright already, but this would be incredible.

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

#297

Post by SV_BubbleTime »

dzhiurgis wrote: post #251
zuzululu wrote: post #199

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm surprised they didn't flag and downvote you. There seems to be a certain crowd that seems view EV as sort of a panacea without considering the true realities which involve experience and research to know they are far from replacing ICE

I finally met someone who plans to downgrade from EV to ICE. He does 100k km per year, running multiple businesses. Lives 120km outside Dublin. Biggest issue seems to be wait at public charge stations. IMO he needs to get long range EV and get better chargers at home/work. But oh well, I'm not going to stop him if he's going to get luxury sports cars instead lol.

> Biggest issue seems to be wait at public charge stations.

No one has ever said “man, I love this gas station and wish I could stay here for two hours”

… idk, I guess people like Buckeys for some reason.

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

#298

Post by alok-g »

Tuna-Fish wrote: post #258
alok-g wrote: post #210

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Cool! That seems to fit as the voltage build-up (assuming no current taken from the battery) is not reversed by the negative ions flowing backwards. I still have the question though. How does the electrolyte do that? :-)

Electrons require significant voltage to move through free space or insulators. They generally move between places by hopping between atoms with free outer electrons. Electrolytes are designed to not have any.

That sounds better. Still leads to some questions that I am missing the answers to:

A Lithium ion has the same charge in magnitude as an elecron. Electron is much lighter. Why and how is it that Li+ ions are able to, but electrons can't?

A same number of ions and electrons should be generating on the electrodes.

>> Generally move

When there no free electron space in atoms, instead of electrons being stuck, should still move the electrolyte as free particles just like ions.

Seems like they can't in this case. Why not?

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

#299

Post by dzhiurgis »

SV_BubbleTime wrote: post #297
dzhiurgis wrote: post #251

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I finally met someone who plans to downgrade from EV to ICE. He does 100k km per year, running multiple businesses. Lives 120km outside Dublin. Biggest issue seems to be wait at public charge stations. IMO he needs to get long range EV and get better chargers at home/work. But oh well, I'm not going to stop him if he's going to get luxury sports cars instead lol.

> Biggest issue seems to be wait at public charge stations. No one has ever said “man, I love this gas station and wish I could stay here for two hours” … idk, I guess people like Buckeys for some reason.

TBF Most of my stops aren’t enough to have quick meal with kids, let alone proper dinner.

If you live your life in a hurry it can def be a problem.

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

#300

Post by vablings »

SV_BubbleTime wrote: post #198
rogerrogerr wrote: post #172

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And you mostly aren’t charging to 80%, usually it’s closer to 40-60%.

heh, ok, that’s strange. So when you say it’s got a 350 mile range, but then make the point you only need to charge to 40% that you would be fine with a single vehicle that had a 140mile range? I swear buying an EV in 2026 breaks brains. The push back has been so bad because the mfgs pushed the single car lie… but the people that jumped in now need to defend their $60,000 purchases. I get it, but please don’t think y…

"I swear buying an EV in 2026 breaks brains. The push back has been so bad because the mfgs pushed the single car lie… but the people that jumped in now need to defend their $60,000 purchases."

Ev's are not 60,000 purchases anymore. They should be significantly cheaper than ICE cars since they are fundamentally simpler

"“5-10 minutes every two hours” … lol, that’s good when you’re going from LA to San Diego. If I had to stop every two hours on a road trip I’d get a train ticket, it would feel a lot faster."

I would be interested to know where you are located in the USA that a train is faster than driving on the highway, its very rare.

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