Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

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

newatlas.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

241–250 of 396 posts

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

#241

Post by brnt »

pnw wrote: post #122
_yb2s wrote: post #67

I had an early EV with only 80 miles of range, and found it extremely useful for most in town travel and commuting. Now that EVs are pushing ~400 miles range at about 300Wh/kg, assuming sodium is about half that (from what I've seen), you'd still get a respectable 100-200 miles in a car. For me, and I imagine a lot of people, that would be totally acceptable if it means lower cost, and batteries that effectively last…

My first EV was a Volt which had only ~30 miles of EV range before it switched to gas. I bought it because I was EV curious but worried about range and I got a crazy cheap lease from GM. I drove it for three years and did a few short road trips. When I returned it, my total driving stats: 99% on electrons.

Hybrids get a bad rep. It makes for such a difference: knowing that you don't need to worry about that 1%.

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

#242

Post by happyopossum »

adverbly wrote: post #171
gpm wrote: post #101

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Just have the same batteries in the charging station to smooth out power usage? Seems a lot cheaper and operationally less complex than a gas station.

Those would need to get cycled a lot(many times per day). You might want one for your house if you wanted to charge quickly at home, but for charging stations, I think more realistically they'd have 10x less charging spots if each person was only there 1/10th the time. So the peak would be the same, but if there were too many customers then sort of like at a busy gas station people would be waiting for a spot rather…

> Those would need to get cycled a lot(many times per day).

Fortunately these batteries have "an estimated lifespan of 50,000 cycles". Also, since there aren't super-dangerous elements in them, they should be much easier and cleaner to recycle/renew - especially with the giant recharge-station-scale ones' we're talking about, which could be designed specifically for that.

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

#243

Post by brnt »

stevetodd wrote: post #82
jwagenet wrote: post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This falls in line with a plug in hybrid being an excellent alternative to evs for most people. 30-50 miles of driving around town for work an errands, with an ICE for the occasional longer trip. Almost all driving will be electric without the charge anxiety.

My hesitation with hybrids is that I keep all the associated maintenance costs of an ICE engine. Now I have two power trains and energy systems to maintain instead of just one.

Some hybrids don't, they just have a very small engine that charges the battery.

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

#244

Post by jvdvegt »

jvdvegt wrote: post #217
margalabargala wrote: post #194

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why would you need storage for half of your annual electricity usage to be self-sufficient? It seems like you could achieve that with far, far less battery, perhaps combined with slightly more solar.

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 :)

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

#245

Post by hnav »

mulmen wrote: post #191
pkulak wrote: post #108

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well, hybrids sometimes get to replace the transmission with EV bits, like Toyota's system. Imagine an engine and exhaust system; now multiply the complexity by 100 and you have a modern transmission. Toyota hybrids (and GM/Chrystler/Honda) replace all that with a single planetary gearset, or with Honda, one clutch. Other systems, think Volvo, pop the EV bits in the back of the car and replace where the drive shaft u…

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.

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

#246

Post by CorrectHorseBat »

crote wrote: post #214
mschuster91 wrote: post #188

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not that much, grids can and do deal with highly variable loads all the time, as all the heavy machinery involved in traditional power generation (=generators, gearboxes, axles, turbines) has a lot of inertia that buffers sudden changes. However, as more and more generation capacity shifts to renewable sources that by design have very small (wind) to zero (solar) inertia, there will be a requirement to build out freq…

Aren't batteries quite limited in their ability to provide synthetic inertia? Sure, they can respond on a second or tenth-of-second scale, but they don't provide the kind of instantaneous inertia you get from spinning rust. Inverters aren't exactly designed to just eat power surges, they'll instantly disconnect instead. That's why the UK grid has been building some "high-inertia synchronous compensators", and a 2019…

Can't you make them behave however you want with sub millisecond reaction time?

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

#247

Post by antisthenes »

_yb2s wrote: post #67

I had an early EV with only 80 miles of range, and found it extremely useful for most in town travel and commuting. Now that EVs are pushing ~400 miles range at about 300Wh/kg, assuming sodium is about half that (from what I've seen), you'd still get a respectable 100-200 miles in a car. For me, and I imagine a lot of people, that would be totally acceptable if it means lower cost, and batteries that effectively last…

> I imagine a lot of people, that would be totally acceptable if it means lower cost, and batteries that effectively last forever without replacement.

MBAs at car manufacturing companies will ensure that battery pack cost savings are NOT passed on to the consumer, don't worry about that.

We were supposed to hit $100/KWh on battery packs several years ago, but EV prices skyrocketed instead, despite literally being in the same plastic/aluminum shitbox where every car looks alike.

Cheap battery packs = higher margins for companies.

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

#248

Post by karmajunkie »

brnt wrote: post #241
pnw wrote: post #122

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My first EV was a Volt which had only ~30 miles of EV range before it switched to gas. I bought it because I was EV curious but worried about range and I got a crazy cheap lease from GM. I drove it for three years and did a few short road trips. When I returned it, my total driving stats: 99% on electrons.

Hybrids get a bad rep. It makes for such a difference: knowing that you don't need to worry about that 1%.

The argument against hybrids that's always resonated with me is that you get the maintenance costs of a gasoline engine with the upfront costs of a battery. I've owned a Leaf and found it relatively trouble-free but never a hybrid. Am I just buying into FUD there?

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

#249

Post by BenjiWiebe »

rini17 wrote: post #56
rich_sasha wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Are they safer? Sodium is also very highly reactive. Otherwise agreed, I'm very happy with form factor of 5-10 year old phones.

Since na-ion cells are available on aliexpress, youtubers already did puncture tests, and indeed they did not catch fire. Seems like sodium is better "hidden" in the cathode/anode so it won't react witth the air so quickly as lithium when battery innards are exposed.

Were they actually sodium batteries? Maybe they were fraudulently labeled Li-ion.

Also it's my understanding that neither sodium batteries nor li-ion batteries have metallic sodium/lithium in them (besides small amounts which build up in heavily used li-ion cells or something).

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

#250

Post by hnav »

stevetodd wrote: post #82
jwagenet wrote: post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This falls in line with a plug in hybrid being an excellent alternative to evs for most people. 30-50 miles of driving around town for work an errands, with an ICE for the occasional longer trip. Almost all driving will be electric without the charge anxiety.

My hesitation with hybrids is that I keep all the associated maintenance costs of an ICE engine. Now I have two power trains and energy systems to maintain instead of just one.

A lot of maintenance items simply don't exist in a modern full hybrid. Typically there is no accessory belt, no alternator, no starter. Filters, coils, spark plugs and engine oil will last longer since the engine doesn't run nearly as hot (usually it's "atkinson" cycle) and isn't used constantly.
Post reply on HN