[HN Gopher] Tesla's new patent involves using table salt to mine...
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Tesla's new patent involves using table salt to mine lithium
Author : mardiyah
Score : 133 points
Date : 2021-07-16 08:06 UTC (14 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (electrek.co)
(TXT) w3m dump (electrek.co)
| DangerousPie wrote:
| > Tesla is once again at the forefront of electric car
| technology. Tesla's new patent incorporates new techniques that
| no one has seen before (or even really imagined). Tesla's new
| patent involves using table salt to mine lithium for use in its
| batteries. Although lithium is already in use, this new
| technology is supposed to make it easier and cheaper to get the
| lithium necessary for Tesla's batteries.
|
| Dose anybody else feel like this was written by a bot? The way
| that the same information is repeated several times and phrases
| like "Tesla's new patent" are reused seem very odd.
| rob74 wrote:
| SEO?
| DennisP wrote:
| There's also the long quote from Electrek, which they claim
| "sums up the most important parts," but the quote just
| describes previous methods. The full Electrek article follows
| that with Tesla's method. That part is shorter, so you'd think
| a human would have quoted that instead.
| kwertyoowiyop wrote:
| "Writing very quickly and publishing your first draft" - it's a
| popular new technique for increasing productivity.
| ryder9 wrote:
| sounds like me bullshitting on a high school essay to increase
| the word count
| notJim wrote:
| Whenever I see the pay rates for writing on the internet, I'm
| amazed more articles don't sound like this.
| jsight wrote:
| I've heard that Fred Lambert (the author) is not a native
| English speaker. I think this might be the cause.
| xkjkls wrote:
| It was written very lazily and quickly, by someone who knows
| that getting an article out first is going to be one of the
| most important things to driving clicks.
| MR4D wrote:
| Are mining lithium and refining lithium the same thing, or is it
| more like other metals?
| ortusdux wrote:
| I wonder if desalination plant effluent could be used for this
| process.
| nickik wrote:
| For those interested 'TheLimitingFactor', the best channel on
| youtube about batteries has just released a long video on this.
|
| https://www.patreon.com/thelimitingfactor/posts
|
| It will be like a week or so until it will come out.
|
| There is an older video on the topic as well. About Clay mining
| and potential processes:
|
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SdvE-UA-xw4
|
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YuCK1SJG5gc
|
| And an interview with somebody in the industry:
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xfffip_4C80
|
| There are certainty people in the industry skeptical of this. No
| commercial lithium is currently produce from Clay and not with
| DLE processes. Tesla process will likely require both. While the
| process Tesla outline is likely possible, if they can do it as
| cheaply as existing process is questionable.
|
| Other companies work on process along the same line, but
| generally use ACID instead.
|
| Joe Lowry from Global Lithium Podcast is very skeptical. He is a
| industry veteran having worked with Tesla in the past as well. If
| you want to learn about the lithium industry, I would suggest:
|
| https://www.globallithium.net/podcast
| ecpottinger wrote:
| You do realize that has been the standard response of the
| "experts" to industries the Elon starts to enter. And then
| "experts" find there are details they overlooked because they
| knew they were right.
|
| Can Elon be wrong? YES. But can the experts be wrong? Happens
| all the time.
| qeternity wrote:
| Elon does not have a long history of process/domain
| breakthroughs though. SpaceX is doing some very innovative
| things that ULA never had incentive to do. But otherwise,
| it's the same rocketry. Tesla largely same, bucking the
| expert opinion with Autopilot which seems to be going rather
| horribly. The Boring company has yet to prove his claims
| there.
| tigershark wrote:
| Ah ok, no history of breakthrough... Disrupting the entire
| aerospace and automotive industry doesn't count obviously.
| eightysixfour wrote:
| > But otherwise, it's the same rocketry.
|
| I get that Elon is a bullshitter who occasionally delivers
| which makes him insanely polarizing, but this feels like a
| bit of a ridiculous statement.
|
| Landing the first stage of the rocket isn't the same
| rocketry.
| FireBeyond wrote:
| You left out the first part, "doing innovative things
| that ULA never had the incentive to do", i.e. land/re-use
| the rocket.
| eightysixfour wrote:
| You say they never had the incentive to do, and then
| follow up with but otherwise it is the same rocketry.
| Those statements are contradictory - either there was
| market incentive for cheaper, reusable rockets, or there
| wasn't. ULA couldn't even imagine a world where SpaceX
| was successful at what they've done, which is a different
| type of rocketry, and as a result, SpaceX isn't doing
| "the same rocketry."
| Robotbeat wrote:
| Tesla bucked expert opinion on electric vehicles and
| lithium ion batteries and charging speed and vehicle speed
| and... on and on.
|
| And SpaceX bucked industry opinion hard on many other
| things as well. People dismissing SpaceX's rockets as "just
| the same rockets" have no idea what they're talking about.
|
| Industry experts dismissed Falcon 1/9, they dismissed
| Dragon, they dismissed Falcon Heavy, they dismissed landing
| rockets, they dismissed reusing rockets, they dismissed
| landing rockets on drone ships, they dismissed Starlink,
| Raptor, Starship, etc. there's almost nothing that SpaceX
| does that wasn't dismissed at some point by industry
| experts.
| whydoineedthis wrote:
| GM, Ford, and every other car company enter the chat. "It's
| impossible to make electric vehicles work. There is no charging
| network, it's too difficult to build, no one likes it". Blah
| blah blah. Boing enters the chat "rockets that land on their
| arse are impossible. it can't be done." blah blah blah blah.
|
| Excuse me if I could care less what old industry experts have
| to say - time and time and time and time and time again, he has
| proven them wrong.
| clomond wrote:
| This is directly related to their set of battery day
| announcements [1].
|
| Some of the key points from their battery day are:
|
| - focus on simplifying process from ore to EV in order to
| maintain cost declines per unit energy while enabling scale up
|
| - key to that is simplifying the lithium extraction process
| (noted patent for this thread), they spoke about the core of this
| patent before
|
| - getting enough factories constructed and dealing with expected
| limitations in raw material
|
| - reducing costs by simplifying manufacturing process / reducing
| parts
|
| - reduce parts by having bigger batteries (also more energy
| dense) and single casted sections of the vehicles
|
| - also interesting work on incorporating Si (which increases
| energy density) while solving the issue of cycle life when
| increasing Si ratio.
|
| Overall, for anyone even remotely interested in this space and
| this topic, I think it is an essential watch.
|
| [1] keynote starts at 33 mins
| https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=l6T9xIeZTds
| NegativeLatency wrote:
| Castings or forgings?
| reportingsjr wrote:
| Casting, a pretty impressive version of it too!
|
| https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Giga_Press
| misiti3780 wrote:
| There is an awesome youtube video about these:
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rsBbt3TxKGg
|
| Apparently Tesla order the largest one ever, to cast parts
| for the Cyber Truck
| mardiyah wrote:
| Anyone outright understand differences and/or similarities this
| and
|
| https://newatlas.com/materials/kaust-lithium-phosphate-llto-...
|
| (HN https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27444976)
| apendleton wrote:
| The main source of lithium now is extraction from subsurface
| brines, mostly in South America (e.g., under salt flats in
| Bolivia, which is a major producer). Demand is expected to
| outstrip what these countries can supply as the EV and grid
| storage markets grow, plus countries with no lithium brines
| want in on the action, so there are various efforts to find
| economically competitive approaches to extracting lithium from
| other sources. Both the story you linked and this new patent
| are attempts to do that, but harnessing from different sources
| (seawater and lithium-rich clay, respectively), and using what
| appear to be unrelated chemical processes.
| reportingsjr wrote:
| Just a nit about your first sentence: Australia produces
| about double what South America does, and most of their
| lithium comes from processing spodumene. I think a few years
| your statement would have been correct, but things have been
| changing very rapidly!
| gnfargbl wrote:
| The actual patent is at https://appft.uspto.gov/netacgi/nph-
| Parser?Sect1=PTO2&Sect2=....
| askl wrote:
| Take this report with a grain of salt.
| rpmisms wrote:
| This is a valuable comment that is also a pun. Tesla having a
| patent on a process does not mean that it's necessarily what
| they're going to do, simply an option they're exploring. Hence,
| take this article with a grain of salt.
| CyanBird wrote:
| HN does not welcome low value comments
| HellDunkel wrote:
| ,,humor is devisive" said some engineer mocking google
| recently.
| nottorp wrote:
| HN is afraid of attempts at humour, you mean.
| DoreenMichele wrote:
| It's okay to be funny here. It just has to do something for
| the audience and not waste their time.
| rPlayer6554 wrote:
| You seem a bit....salty.
| stupidcar wrote:
| This article they quote from seems like a better source for
| details : https://electrek.co/2021/07/09/tesla-patent-reveals-
| elon-mus...
| SEJeff wrote:
| Electrek is a glorified Tesla fanboi (Fredrick Lambert) blog
| which often skews reality. I'd never put "better source" and
| Electrek in the same sentence.
|
| I'm saying this as a Tesla owner mind you!
| relativ575 wrote:
| He is clearly a Tesla fan, and usually covers Tesla in favor
| light. He is far from the fanboy however, and even addressed
| fanboyism issue specifically:
|
| https://electrek.co/2021/04/05/tesla-toxic-superfans-
| giving-...
|
| Tesla still gets majority of coverage, understandably given
| that they were pretty much the only game in town until a few
| years ago (Nissan Leaf notwithstanding), but EV vehicles and
| motorbikes in general are very well presented.
| SEJeff wrote:
| If you've read Electrek for awhile, you'll note that he
| sensationalizes virtually everything. He also over
| simplifies or just blatantly takes things out of context.
| He does this while trying to make Electrek appear as an
| actual news website when it is literally just a fanboi
| blog. He misrepresents the news. This is why much of what
| he has to say should be taken with a grain of salt.
| nickik wrote:
| Lambert is often very competitive with Tesla and Elon doesn't
| like him for that reason. He is often very critical of Tesla.
| He never responds Electrek like he does some other blogs of
| that type.
|
| He far better sources on Tesla then most people. Certainty
| most other websites that run with this news. He has broken
| news on Tesla multiple times.
|
| Electrek has strongly moved in the direction of covering all
| EV launches and reporting on all of that while giving good
| press to all the other automakers. Accusing them of being
| just a Tesla fanblog is simply wrong.
|
| Maybe 5 years ago when Tesla was the only game in town this
| was more correct, but its not today.
| kovek wrote:
| Tesla is going to work on restaurants and also mining now. It's
| interesting that they are widening their scope. I wonder how can
| a company be so confident in their new pursuits?
| soco wrote:
| I have so much trust in the patent system that first I thought
| they were granted a patent on table salt.
| sgdesign wrote:
| Me too! I actually thought maybe they did that as a way to
| prove the absurdity of the patent system.
| davrosthedalek wrote:
| I expected that Tesla got a patent on table salt and that some
| crazy Tesla fan (not every Tesla fan is crazy, but some are, as
| it happens with fans almost universally) is actually trying to
| sell it as a good thing.
| simonh wrote:
| It's fantastic because the revenue Tesla gets from everyone
| licensing table salt will be used to massively expand
| electric car production and shift us away from fossil fuels.
| davrosthedalek wrote:
| I saw a salt package recently which was labeled
| "Urmeersalz" = "primeval see salt". It was a bag of rock
| salt.
| simonh wrote:
| A lot of people who used to buy sea salt have switched to
| rock salt due to fear of micro plastics, so marketing it
| as related to sea salt is smart.
| gerikson wrote:
| Technically correct as rock salt was formed by the
| evaporation of ancient seas.
| rbanffy wrote:
| It's like sodium and chlorine atoms could have a
| pedigree... :-D
| ClumsyPilot wrote:
| Those were my first thoughts as well!
| deregulateMed wrote:
| "but Tesla gave away their patents to help humanity."
|
| I remember that marketing trick.
|
| "Change the world"
|
| I remember that one too.
|
| Now I'm a skeptic. I just can't get excited about Tesla claims
| anymore. My brain has developed defensive mechanisms against
| their propaganda/PR machine.
| rcMgD2BwE72F wrote:
| >their propaganda/PR machine
|
| You mean Elon's tweets?
|
| Because Tesla has, by far, the tiniest "propaganda/PR machine"
| in their industry. Do you have any idea how much their
| competitors spend on PR, advertising and lobbying? Also, how
| much their suppliers and partners (e.g oil and gas) bring to
| the table?
| eloff wrote:
| The money they don't spend on advertising is a huge part of
| their competitive advantage.
| TeMPOraL wrote:
| > _" but Tesla gave away their patents to help humanity." (...)
| "Change the world" (...)_
|
| They did, tho.
|
| They've pretty much forced the worldwide electrification of
| cars to happen, in spite of the market wanted. That's a huge
| help for humanity and a big change to the world.
|
| It's funny you should become skeptical over the rare case where
| pretentious slogans were actually true.
| foepys wrote:
| > They did, tho.
|
| They did give away their patents under the condition that
| everybody using them cannot sue Tesla. It's a bad deal for
| every other automaker because they either have far larger and
| far more specific patent pools or if they don't have patents,
| Tesla can steal every idea they will ever have.
|
| The whole thing was marketing bs from the very start. Tesla
| knew that nobody would take them up on the offer and in fact,
| literally nobody did.
| rcMgD2BwE72F wrote:
| >They did give away their patents under the condition that
| everybody using them cannot sue Tesla.
|
| Not true: they can still sue Tesla but, then, Tesla
| reserves the right to sue them too (if they believe the
| patent is being used as part of an initiative against
| electrification).
|
| The judge will be the one evaluating the "good faith"
| argument and Tesla can lose, of course.
| foepys wrote:
| There is no difference. You use Tesla's patents and Tesla
| can use yours. Nobody will take it to court to test this
| out. Tesla will always come out ahead anyways as Tesla's
| revenue and production numbers are just too small
| compared to other automakers. Tesla's patents also don't
| seem very relevant as there are plenty of other EV models
| on the market now, so why risk it?
| DoreenMichele wrote:
| More like a _lithium extraction patent_. Table salt is involved
| in the extraction process. This has nothing to do with what the
| title made me envision: _Tesla is diversifying into the food
| business or something?_
| sharken wrote:
| Yes, the title reads more like click bait, perhaps because the
| title "SELECTIVE EXTRACTION OF LITHIUM FROM CLAY MINERALS" from
| the patent application would not generate enough clicks.
|
| Apart from the semi-novel concept here, the word "about" is
| used frequently in the patent. It seems very hard to make
| something useful with the patent, with the uncertainty this
| introduces.
|
| Is that standard procedure ?
| tempodox wrote:
| Yep, my first thought was, I'll have to pay license fees now
| for putting salt on my meal.
| DoreenMichele wrote:
| But only for _table salt._ This could be a huge boon for
| kosher salt and sea salt.
| rob74 wrote:
| Table salt, kosher salt, sea salt... it's all NaCl to me!
| DoreenMichele wrote:
| Someone needs to read labels and find out what they are
| actually putting in their mouths. ;)
|
| (Kosher salt is probably the only one on that list that
| is just NaCl. Table salt has an anticaking ingredient
| added, thus the catch phrase "when it rains, it pours"
| (because untreated salt clumps), and usually also has
| iodine added. Sea salt typically has a mix of other
| minerals found naturally in sea water and may be as
| little as 86 percent NaCl.
|
| There is also _canning and pickling_ salt which is also
| possibly just NaCl. Pink Himalayan mountain salt contains
| iron, iirc, thus the pink coloring.)
|
| Edited to add winky and parantheses to try to signal
| "That first line was intended as lighthearded humor". I
| mostly suck at being funny. Droning on about things I
| know too much about is more my speed.
| aranw wrote:
| Is it just me or is everything that Tesla, SpaceX, <name of musk
| business>... is doing something that is "game changing" feel like
| everyone massively over hypes what there doing
| wongarsu wrote:
| Tesla did change the game in automotive, creating a viable
| market for pure electric cars. SpaceX did change the game for
| space launch providers, proving that it's a viable and
| profitable business for startups with reasonable funding. Today
| we have lots of startups in the market competing for different
| niches, before SpaceX there were only slow moving giants like
| Boeing and Northrop Grumman.
|
| Of course the press likes to pump up the hype and will
| subsequently call everything they do game-changing. But it
| could be justified in this case. This could be game changing
| for lithium mining. And that's a game we are all somewhat
| invested in because of how prevalent lithium batteries have
| become in the last two decades.
| leereeves wrote:
| > before SpaceX there were only slow moving giants like
| Boeing and Northrop Grumman.
|
| SpaceX gets all the media attention, but Blue Origin was
| actually founded before SpaceX.
| tigershark wrote:
| And what astonishing results did it produce in even more
| time than SpaceX? Exactly, none whatsoever.
| wongarsu wrote:
| Blue Origin gets little media attention because their list
| of accomplishments is rather short. The seem to make good
| engines, but in the time SpaceX has developed the Falcon 1,
| the Falcon 9 (and launched it 120 times), the Falcon 9
| heavy, and a human rated capsule that has made multiple
| crew launches to the ISS, Blue Origin has managed to
| develop one demonstrator that reached about 90 meters, and
| the suborbital New Shepard that is now finally about to
| have its first commercial launch.
|
| They certainly weren't involved in any game changing
| activities yet. They might play a significant role in
| bringing about space tourism, but that's yet to be seen.
| leereeves wrote:
| > They might play a significant role in bringing about
| space tourism, but that's yet to be seen.
|
| I hope so. SpaceX is launching a private spaceflight
| soon, for which each passenger is paying $55 million.[1]
| That's not really game changing, though, because Russia
| has been selling seats for similar prices for years, and
| it's space tourism only for billionaires. SpaceX is
| working on big, expensive rockets and talking about Mars.
|
| Blue Origin and Virgin Galactic seem to be our best hope
| of seeing space tourism for the masses. They both talk
| about selling short suborbital trips for less than $1
| million soon, and if that is popular, efficiency of scale
| should lead to further price decreases.
|
| 1: https://apnews.com/article/1st-private-space-crew-
| pay-55m-ea...
| kjksf wrote:
| best hope?
|
| SpaceX hopes that Starship will cost $200k per launch and
| that they'll be able to offer point-to-point transport on
| earth under an hour for a cost of business class airline
| ticket. You'll go to space as a side effect.
|
| Given that cost structure, eventually they should be able
| to offer a trip around the moon for tens of thousands of
| dollars.
| practice9 wrote:
| > The seem to make good engines,
|
| Their new BE-4 seems to be having some problems recently.
| But Blue Origin are not really public about their
| failures, compared to SpaceX
| blackoil wrote:
| You mean 90 km. As I have seen Diwali firecrackers going
| beyond 90m :D.
| wongarsu wrote:
| "The vehicle climbed for approximately 10 seconds,
| reaching a height of roughly 85 m (279 ft) before
| starting to descend, and making a controlled landing back
| on its landing legs approximately 25 seconds after take-
| off." [1]
|
| It did two other flights, but nobody seems to know how
| far up those went.
|
| New Shepard has undergone 15 test flights to around 100km
| (suborbital), so that's something I guess.
|
| 1: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blue_Origin_Goddard
| [deleted]
| detritus wrote:
| Implying that Blue origin is even slower-moving than those
| two incumbents?
| rcMgD2BwE72F wrote:
| There's been far more press coverage about "Tesla killers"
| than Tesla's "game-changing tech/products". These killers are
| now called "Tesla fighters", for some reasons
| https://www.thedetroitbureau.com/2021/07/mercedes-eqs-
| tesla-...
| whydoineedthis wrote:
| Well... no one could make electric cars work. He did. no one
| could get rockets to return to earth. He did. no one could
| build battery networks that actually contributed to an electric
| grid in a meaningful way. He did.
|
| So, I don't know. It does indeed seem alike quite a few games
| have indeed been changed.
| [deleted]
| whydoineedthis wrote:
| Thank you for the negative downvotes! I know that I'm 1000%
| correct when HN users downvote me without a response. Your
| little clicks on the down arrow give me confidence, so THANK
| YOU!
| SEJeff wrote:
| Improving the cost of lithium extraction, if this can be scaled
| up, is actually a really big deal for electric vehicles. The
| single largest cost of a modern EV is the battery. Tesla thinks
| this process reduces the cost of lithium extraction 30%.
| patrickk wrote:
| Whenever I hear "salt" and "battery" in the same sentence, I
| think of Sodium Ion batteries. Similar to lithium (neighbours on
| the periodic table), even cheaper and more abundant, and because
| sodium is heavier it should be strongly considered for stationary
| storage.
|
| I guess I'd need to consult that skeptical HN list on new battery
| tech to understand why it's not widely deployed yet!
| Symmetry wrote:
| Nifty. At first I thought you were talking about molten sodium
| batteries, which have been around for a while but
| inconveniently have to be kept at high temperatures to keep the
| sodium liquid and so haven't seen much adoption. But yeah,
| sodium ion batteries are now a thing and don't have that
| limitation.
| maxerickson wrote:
| The huge investment in lithium-ion has stayed ahead of any
| materials cost advantage (so lithium-ion has been cheaper for
| all applications, in addition to being better for applications
| where density and weight matter).
| patrickk wrote:
| Indeed, good point. A shame really, as sodium could ease
| supply constraints and take up some of the burden instead of
| just lithium.
| SquibblesRedux wrote:
| My first reaction to this headline was, "Wait, how can he be
| awarded a patent so long after death?"
| sschueller wrote:
| "Tesla has filed a patent detailing a new way to mine for the
| lithium necessary for batteries. The concept isn't new; "
|
| So which is it?
| kenjackson wrote:
| The article seems to imply that it was disclosed last year. Not
| the details of it, but the high level idea.
|
| Hi think the author should have said instead "but we first
| heard about the concept last year from Tesla"
| SEJeff wrote:
| Elon mentioned it at their "battery day" event and everyone
| sort of laughed about it.
| xvector wrote:
| The rest of the sentence clarifies. Usually it's a good idea to
| read past the semicolon:
|
| "The concept isn't new; Tesla CEO Elon Musk first mentioned it
| at last year's battery day."
| mtgx wrote:
| Tesla pretends the concept is new to get the patent. The
| concept isn't actually new.
|
| Would be far from the first time patents were granted this
| way...
| NullPrefix wrote:
| >According to Electrek, which has gotten hold of Tesla's new
| patent
|
| Aren't patents supposed to be public?
| cjblomqvist wrote:
| Not necessarily before they're accepted I guess?
| totalZero wrote:
| They aren't typically published by the USPTO until 18 months
| after the priority date.
|
| https://www.uspto.gov/web/offices/pac/mpep/s1120.html
| omgwtfbyobbq wrote:
| IME, it's typical for news outlets large and small to mine
| public data sources and imply that their source is somehow
| exclusive/private/etc.
| rwbhn wrote:
| It is.
| https://patentscope.wipo.int/search/en/detail.jsf?docId=WO20...
| fouc wrote:
| "gotten hold of" aka "looked it up"
| justaguy88 wrote:
| To be fair, even doing that is a lot compared to some news
| sources
| xkjkls wrote:
| They are. Electrek just likes overstating their own importance.
| grumpy-de-sre wrote:
| Quite a lot of dismissive comments here but the patent actually
| sounds very promising. I'm not familiar with the state of the art
| in the space but according to the patent the conventional
| approach involves acid leaching lithium rich clay.
|
| Tesla's approach involves exchanging lithium cations from the
| clay using a sodium chloride brine solution, mechanical
| agitation, and heat.
|
| The end result is a lithium rich brine that can be processed
| using conventional approaches and doesn't involve consuming large
| amounts of acid. Brine is also a lot easier to manage from an
| environmental perspective than strong mineral acids.
| RosanaAnaDana wrote:
| Perhaps couple with de-salination?
| orwin wrote:
| and might use a lot less CO2.
| rpmisms wrote:
| Brine, if it's actually brine, is safe to dump into the sea,
| too. Kinda cool if waste dumping ends up being adding more
| seawater to seawater.
| aranw wrote:
| I'm still sceptical of batteries being the future of
| transportation. I believe Hydrogen is a much safer bet. It seems
| like battery production and materials is not getting much cheaper
| and only getting more expensive. The equivalent combustion engine
| cars versus a battery powered car is a lot cheaper
| dean177 wrote:
| I would take that bet. In 5, 10 or 20 years electric vehicles
| will still vastly outnumber hydrogen powered vehicles.
| davrosthedalek wrote:
| Hydrogen powered cars might be electric ;)
| aranw wrote:
| I'm betting for anything bigger than a family vehicle to end
| up being hydrogen just cause the recharge times, weight
| restrictions, and other factors such as costs
| rcMgD2BwE72F wrote:
| At 300Kw charging speed, EV charge fast enough to drink a
| coffee after 400 miles and continue the trip with 200+
| miles of range.
|
| We'll probably upgrade the charger to higher speed (Ionity
| already support 250+Kw) but what's the point?
|
| As for the weight, do you know a Model 3 weight roughly as
| much as the BMW Series 3 (closest competitor)?
| https://carbuzz.com/compare/bmw-3-series-vs-tesla-
| model-3#ca...
|
| It's cheaper, too:
| https://insideevs.com/features/517960/tesla-
| model3-bmw-3seri...
| thehappypm wrote:
| Hydrogen has lost and it's not coming back. Every home and
| business in America has power lines. Making hydrogen work
| would either involve new pipelines to homes (a MASSIVE
| undertaking) or replacing gas stations with hydrogen fill-
| up stations, which again needs either new pipelines or a
| fleet of new hydrogen carrying trucks. That infrastructure
| hurdle is huge compared to electric cars -- everyone has a
| plug at home, and adding chargers to places like gas
| stations is not some hard thing.
| SEJeff wrote:
| Tesla is going to start shipping their Semi next year. I
| think you're gonna lose that bet as I'm pretty sure a Semi
| is a tad bigger than a family vehicle. Granted, they're
| developing a new "mega charger" for it, but still. The
| higher torque allows them to pull the same loads up higher
| grades faster. Just because they might not (yet) be the
| best for longhaul trucking doesn't mean they won't be
| amazing for medium to shorter range heavy freight.
| LinuxBender wrote:
| Perhaps this is off topic, but I am curious about the
| future of construction equipment. If all the ICE cars are
| removed from the picture, including ICE freight trucks,
| will diesel fuel become vastly more expensive or harder to
| get? I plan to get some construction equipment within a
| couple of years. I've never seen electric prototypes for
| this size equipment, nor hydrogen. Maybe this is already
| being worked on? I've seen mini-EV-excavators, but never
| seen an EV in the mid to full sized excavators.
|
| [Edit] Correcting myself, looks like Komatsu/Proterra are
| working on a bigger EV excavator. [1] I hope this becomes
| affordable because the noise reduction of electric would
| surely make my neighbors happy and I would love to not
| breath diesel exhaust.
|
| [1] - https://www.proterra.com/press-release/komatsu-
| electric-cons...
| pfdietz wrote:
| https://im-mining.com/2021/05/06/belaz-
| electric-90-t-7558e-p...
| MobileVet wrote:
| Over the last decade, the price of cells has dropped 85%. UBS
| predicts it will drop another ~60% over the coming decade.
|
| See chart at the bottom of the link.
|
| https://www.cnbc.com/2019/12/30/battery-developments-in-the-...
| DennisP wrote:
| The cost of lithium-ion batteries has dropped 97% over the past
| three decades. It's been a steady improvement and the trend is
| expected to continue.
|
| https://spectrum.ieee.org/energy/batteries-storage/chart-beh...
|
| It looks like cost parity with ICEs will happen around 2023.
|
| https://www.caranddriver.com/news/a34992832/battery-price-dr...
|
| Hydrogen is likely to be better for some applications though,
| like long-haul jets.
| pydry wrote:
| >It seems like battery production and materials is not getting
| much cheaper
|
| It might seem that way but they are.
| pjc50 wrote:
| Battery production is definitely getting cheaper per unit
| capacity? I haven't seen any evidence in the other direction.
|
| The hydrogen storage solution remains inadequate and does not
| seem to be improving at the same rate. There's also the
| "unclean hydrogen" problem: at the moment, if you go out and
| buy it, there's a very good chance it will have been made from
| natural gas with the CO2 dumped into the atmosphere. At that
| point you might as well use existing LNG/CNG cars.
| aranw wrote:
| Right now a Vauxhall Corsa starts at PS17k the exact same car
| but powered by batteries costs PS26k. So will the batteries
| become cheap enough that the battery powered cars match the
| same as combustion engine car?
| nickik wrote:
| Calculate the Lifetime difference in energy cost and
| compare the required cost of maintenance. Its much closer
| already then you think.
|
| Not to mention the EV version will give you a much better
| driving experience and not be unhealthy to people,
| specially in cities.
|
| We are just at the start of the S curve adoption, and most
| cars sold are not sold for PS17k but rather PS30-40k. For
| that cost EV are already better.
| anthonygd wrote:
| Routine maintenance on EVs does tend to be less, but non-
| routine damage tends to be much more expensive. That
| leads to insurance being 40% higher than comparably
| priced ICE cars. Essentially the median cost is a little
| lower but the mean cost is much higher.
|
| Here's a interesting Tesla specific take:
| https://www.nerdwallet.com/article/insurance/tesla-
| insurance
|
| Personally I prefer predictable slightly high costs vs
| random potential for exorbitantly high costs.
| pjc50 wrote:
| Maybe. But how much is a Vauxhall Corsa powered by
| hydrogen? Can you even buy one at all?
|
| For all comparisons you should probably price in an
| estimate for the first three years of running costs, too.
| sokoloff wrote:
| If you tax the ICE car enough, it could happen today.
| _ph_ wrote:
| Short answer: yes
|
| Long answer: on the one side, the price for combustion
| engined cars is going to raise, emission limits are harder
| to hit. Electric cars are going to get cheaper on several
| levels. First, batteries are getting cheaper all the time.
| Then, the production of electric cars is in the process of
| ramping up, with volume comes cost savings. Even just
| optimizing how batteries are being built has lots of cost
| saving potential. Then, the Corsa is an interesting
| example. It is a platform both for electric and combustion
| engined cars. That is not as efficient as a pure electric
| platform, so more cost savings here.
|
| Finally, most car manufacturers are in the process of
| transitioning to electric, which costs a whole lot of
| money. They are trying to get these costs back by pricing
| them into the price of the electric cars. This is going to
| go down over time too.
| rcMgD2BwE72F wrote:
| More than 95% of the hydrogen produced comes from coal and
| gas[0]. If we manage to switch to hydrolysis, we'll have to
| generate at least twice the energy we'd need for Li-Ion
| batteries to due energy loss in weel-to-wheels measurements[1].
|
| Also, there's no lack of materials for battery (NB: Tesla only
| uses LFP cells in China now, and achieve similar specs as their
| NMC chemistry used in the US).[2]
|
| There's no shortage of materials in sight and it's far cheaper
| than hydrogen. Hydrogen has very few use cases were it's more
| efficient than batteries (industry, agriculture and aviation,
| mostly)[3].
|
| [0](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hydrogen_production)
|
| [1](https://www.volkswagenag.com/en/news/stories/2019/08/hydrog
| e...)
|
| [2](https://www.reuters.com/article/us-tesla-china-
| idUSKBN26L26S)
|
| [3](https://twitter.com/MLiebreich/status/1397267000196534283)
| robbiep wrote:
| Just because hydrogen is mostly produced from carbon sources
| right now doesn't mean it would be with significant scaling
| of hydrogen as a fuel source, it could be easily produced
| from electrolysis of water from renewable sources if the
| investment was there, but you still have the energy costs to
| produce it
| ecpottinger wrote:
| But still cost 2-3 times more energy, and energy costs
| money.
| robbiep wrote:
| We're talking about a situation where big investments in
| lithium batteries have lead to a possible massive
| increase in the cost of lithium production, and you're
| assuming we wouldn't see similar enhancements in hydrogen
| production - electrolysis is one route but some of the
| catalytic pathways are showing some outrageous
| experimental efficiencies. Dream a little, that's the
| subthread I started and the thread you're necessitated to
| respond to if you want to have a productive discussion
| yobbo wrote:
| The lack of smell and explosiveness of hydrogen gas/air mixture
| is pretty terrifying. Consider an underground garage full of
| (possibly ageing) cars with hydrogen on board. There might be
| ways of storing hydrogen more safely than a pressure tube, but
| I encourage hydrogen enthusiasts to experience what the air/gas
| mixture smells like and how it burns.
| thehappypm wrote:
| They solved this with natural gas pretty easily by adding an
| odorous gas.
| wongarsu wrote:
| It seems like we are set for much slower price decline, only
| halfling the battery price every ten years or so. But honestly
| that's fine, today's EVs have batteries that are large enough
| for most people in most places. Better charging infrastructure,
| and maybe faster charge times are what's missing most.
|
| Hydrogen fuel cells are a fine technology, but it has no
| momentum. It has a chance to win long-distance trucking, but I
| doubt it will be the future of personal transportation.
| aranw wrote:
| > Hydrogen fuel cells are a fine technology, but it has no
| momentum. It has a chance to win long-distance trucking, but
| I doubt it will be the future of personal transportation.
|
| Yeah I'm betting on anything bigger than van will become
| hydrogen, anything that needs long distance or perhaps remote
| environments will be hydrogen based. Smaller city based
| vehicles likely to be battery based
| _ph_ wrote:
| No, hydrogen isn't a much safer bet, all Hindenburg jokes
| aside. Quite the contrary, I think hydrogen already has lost
| out in the car space and might even so in the truck space.
| Battery costs are still falling a lot. With the changes
| outlined at the Tesla battery day, production costs for battery
| electric vehicles might be cheaper than combustion engined
| cars. If you compare a Tesla with a BMW, the Tesla already
| might be cheaper, it certainly is if you consider the TCO.
|
| Meanwhile, hydrogen cars are much more expensive than battery
| electric cars, there are only a few models available at all and
| there are few filling stations - they are really expensive to
| build. On top of that, distribution of the hydrogen is much
| more complex than using the power grid for electricity. And you
| can charge an electric car at basically any outlet, if need
| requires.
|
| But the largest problem is, that for renewable hydrogen, we
| need about 3x as much as electricity than using a battery
| electric vehicle. Not counting anything else, this is 3x the
| cost.
| sumtechguy wrote:
| > If you compare a Tesla with a BMW, the Tesla already might
| be cheaper, it certainly is if you consider the TCO
|
| Having owned a few BMW's I do not doubt that assertion at
| all.
|
| Hydrogen has a storage problem. As in the stuff is wickedly
| hard to keep from 'evaporating'. Electric has a charge
| time/range problem. I can fill an ICE car in 10 mins and
| drive 400 miles. The same thing with electric takes an hour.
| For 'day to day' use electric is like _almost_ there (up
| front cost being one of the bigger issues). For long range
| drivers, not yet.
| cogman10 wrote:
| Because of the distribution problem, my assumption is that
| hydrogen will be confined to easy to distribute
| transportation if at all. That's shipping, airlines, maybe
| trains (though trains really should be made electric)
| davrosthedalek wrote:
| Looking at inner cities, where most cars are, I don't see the
| opportunity to put enough charger stations in for everybody.
| Most cars are parked on the street. It works now at
| comparatively low penetration, but I can't imagine it work
| close when almost every car needs charging.
|
| If you have to drive to a dedicated spot to do all your
| charging, all the time, >30 min for charging is /long/. Filling
| up a car is what, 5 min? And it lasts longer. Don't see this
| scaling, and people will not like it.
|
| How much power can you realistically get to an European inner-
| city parking garage without major infrastructure changes?
| Comparing the timeline for all-electric to the timeline of
| major construction projects in Germany, I'm not optimistic....
|
| I think we need a "fluid"-refillable e-car. Hydrogen is an
| option, or maybe build a battery with a replaceable fluid as
| the energy store. But we might be in a trap: Right now, battery
| cars are clearly better -- better availability, range, price,
| choice. And now, charging is not a big problem in most areas,
| with dedicated spots for charging, it is sometimes easier to
| park than a gas car! But at some point, these spots will be
| saturated, and I don't see the capacity ramp up fast up with
| demand. (Same for green energy production, at least in Germany,
| without nuclear as an option). Part of that is "not in my
| neighborhood" initiatives against ugly charging ports running
| along every street, against construction for more cables,
| transformer stations etc.
|
| So we could end up with many battery cars and a charging
| infrastructure which doesn't scale fast enough, and no hydrogen
| cars, where we could retool the gas infrastructure for filling
| up and scale quickly.
|
| Hydrogen has the advantage that it is rather cheap and
| efficient to transport it over large distances. You could do
| hydrogen production in Africa, for example, and ship it to
| Europe. Even less danger than oil-tankers. A ship accident is
| either a big fire, or nothing. No large oil spill. Production
| could be local to power/far away from people, so social
| acceptance is better. In-car storage and safe filling up seems
| to be the problem.
| rcMgD2BwE72F wrote:
| >So we could end up with many battery cars and a charging
| infrastructure which doesn't scale fast enough, and no
| hydrogen cars, where we could retool the gas infrastructure
| for filling up and scale quickly.
|
| Do you really believe it's easier/cheaper to retool the gas
| infrastructure for hydrogen than adding more chargers? All
| house have electric plugs (enough to charge overnight) and
| parking lots and most sidewalks too (cf
| https://thedriven.io/2020/03/24/siemens-converts-all-lamp-
| po...). Most EV don't need to be charged more than once a
| week, too.
| davrosthedalek wrote:
| Most cars are not parked at houses, and I don't see cities
| putting up chargers at every parking spot. They don't have
| the money to do it.
|
| Edit: Where I lived in Germany, most parking lamps are at
| the house-side of the sidewalk. Can't run charging cables
| across the sidewalk everywhere. Trip hazard.
| nickik wrote:
| If you think there is no money for EV infrastructure,
| Hydrogen infrastructure investment is about 100x more,
| maybe that is even an underestimation.
|
| Most people in cities don't use their cars much either.
| Tesla is already building super chargers in cities. If
| you only drive in cities and you really only park at spot
| where there is no charging, and you can't charge at work.
| You can just go charging at a super charger once a week
| or so.
|
| To suggest hydrogen is a better option because of this
| very limited single concern, public parking in cities, is
| crazy in my opinion. Also the city could let a company do
| it as long as they get part of the money, and in fact
| this is already what many companies are doing.
| etempleton wrote:
| It is a great opportunity for cities to charge money on
| top of the direct energy costs for street parking.
|
| And yes, the infrastructure roll out will be extensive
| and take time, but it can happen slowly over time as
| electric car adoption expands.
| tjpoutanen wrote:
| > Looking at inner cities, where most cars are, I don't see
| the opportunity to put enough charger stations in for
| everybody. Most cars are parked on the street.
|
| I see a future where autonomous EVs will drive themselves to
| charging stations, often in the middle of the night. Tesla
| will get there first.
| thehappypm wrote:
| In the USA at least, a very small portion of the population
| lives in environments without dedicated parking and also own
| cars. There are cities like New York and Boston where you'll
| have folks just slumming it on street parking with no
| dedicated parking spot, but that's such a small portion of
| the population compared to urbanites with no car, urbanites
| with dedicated parking, and suburbanites/rural folks with
| their own garage.
| elmo2you wrote:
| I'm puzzled as to how Tesla managed to get a patent (granted) on
| this. Maybe it's for a very specific implementation of the
| extraction process using table salt, but I'd swear this is not a
| new phenomenon. Nor can phenomenons themselves patented, only
| specific implementations (which can get practically hairy very
| quickly, hence the mess the patent system currently is).
|
| Sounds to me like yet another attempt, with enough spin to turn a
| planet, to again try "prove" how Tesla will be a game changer, by
| presenting something that's rather mediocre and mundane (at best)
| on closer inspection.
|
| Simply put, in all these years (ever since his PayPal days) I
| have not seen a single thing come from Elon Musk that didn't turn
| out to involve some kind of clever fraud, business trickery, or
| downright deception on closer inspection. But apparently a
| substantial part of today's (global) society just loves to be
| fooled, rather than pay attention and actually understand things.
| I guess it's similar to what they say about governments .. we all
| get the ones we (collectively) deserve.
| [deleted]
| DennisP wrote:
| Weird. I test-drove a Tesla a couple years ago and it seemed
| pretty real to me.
|
| Can you point to a previous implementation of lithium
| extraction using table salt?
| nickik wrote:
| > but I'd swear this is not a new phenomenon.
|
| Consider actually reading it, this is pointed out in the text.
|
| > by presenting something that's rather mediocre and mundane
|
| 0% of global lithium is produced from clay extraction. But I
| guess its so mediore and mundane that you could easily do it.
|
| > Elon Musk that didn't turn out to involve some kind of clever
| fraud
|
| Like when they delivered Astronauts to the Spacestation.
| Everybody know that that is actually filmed in a desert in
| Nevada.
|
| > But apparently a substantial part of today's (global) society
| just loves to be fooled
|
| Or you know, maybe you are not as smart as you think you are. I
| know witch one is more likely.
| qeternity wrote:
| > Or you know, maybe you are not as smart as you think you
| are. I know witch one is more likely.
|
| *which
| rcMgD2BwE72F wrote:
| >I have not seen a single thing come from Elon Musk that didn't
| turn out to involve some kind of clever fraud, business
| trickery, or downright deception on closer inspection.
|
| https://www.statista.com/statistics/502208/tesla-quarterly-v...
|
| https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Awarded_global_comme...
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