[HN Gopher] 1k-cycle lithium-sulfur battery could increase elect...
___________________________________________________________________
1k-cycle lithium-sulfur battery could increase electric vehicle
ranges
Author : maeln
Score : 74 points
Date : 2022-01-31 11:20 UTC (11 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (news.umich.edu)
(TXT) w3m dump (news.umich.edu)
| reacharavindh wrote:
| Range anxiety is probably the only limiting factor for EVs to
| fully win over the oil guzzling cars. If we could use an EV with
| a range of about 200 KM as a daily driver with the ability to
| easily add on extra battery packs for the long trips, it should
| solve the problem nicely. Cheaper, and lighter daily driver with
| the flexibility to add juice when necessary.
|
| If such new battery tech makes it possible to deliver high
| capacity batteries with smaller lifecycles, they'd make great add
| on batteries. Imagine if there was a standard way to say place an
| extra battery pack in the trunk or the front trunk for the long
| trips to give an additional 400 KM range!
|
| For now, if I buy an electric car, I should simply account to pay
| for a rental gas car for those road trips for the sake of
| convenience. I'm sure many people do road trips with 45 min
| breaks every three hours or so, and not be anxious about
| availability of charging slots or even a functional charging
| point, but it is not for everyone.
| jfk13 wrote:
| > Imagine if there was a standard way to say place an extra
| battery pack in the trunk or the front trunk for the long trips
| to give an additional 400 KM range
|
| Unfortunately, the long trips are often the trips where you
| really want the full luggage capacity.
| have_faith wrote:
| > range anxiety is probably the only limiting factor for EVs to
| fully win over the oil guzzling cars
|
| For myself it's living in a 1st floor apartment, with price
| being secondary, and maybe concerns over the charging network
| in the UK at the fringes being third. I don't think range would
| be a big concern.
| mhandley wrote:
| The comment about recycling the aramid fibres from bulletproof
| vests amuses me. Bulletproof vests seem several orders of
| magnitude rarer around where I live than electric cars. Doesn't
| really make me want to move to Michigan...
| llampx wrote:
| Police, security and army are probably most of the demand for
| bulletproof vests, and the supply of used ones.
| throwaway0a5e wrote:
| Bullet proof vests, racing harnesses, etc, etc, all sorts of
| safety critical fiberous stuff like that ages out long before
| the fibers are degrading because the manufacturers make
| assumptions about the lifetime of the product in chemically
| harsh environments (for obvious ass covering reasons) and
| assign it an expiration date and users are not willing to say
| "well I use the product in a cool dry basement so I'm sure it's
| fine to go 2x the expiration" and accept the responsibility
| themselves so these products get replaced/recycled at a very
| high rate.
|
| As others have stated, kevlar is also used in all sorts of
| other applications. The material can come from wherever.
| maxerickson wrote:
| Kevlar is used for lots of things. Did they change the link to
| remove a statement about vests or did you read into the
| statement about kevlar?
| mhandley wrote:
| "Along with the higher capacity, lithium-sulfur batteries
| have sustainability advantages over other lithium-ion
| batteries. Sulfur is much more abundant than the cobalt of
| lithium-ion electrodes. In addition, the aramid fibers of the
| battery membrane can be recycled from old bulletproof vests."
| et2o wrote:
| Look at the third-to-final paragraph where it explicitly
| mentions recycling Kevlar vests.
| 1234letshaveatw wrote:
| Not a big believer in climate change huh?
| m348e912 wrote:
| As Elon would say. Send me a sample, then we'll talk.
| hobs wrote:
| Pretty sure Elon has promised insanely more powerful batteries
| multiple times and not delivered.
| shiftpgdn wrote:
| I'd like to see a citation for that claim.
| practice9 wrote:
| I'm not sure Elon ever claimed that.
|
| Unless poster is talking about 4680 batteries, which are
| going to be used in production cars in Q1 or Q2 2022. But
| those are 20-30% more efficient/cheap compared to the 2170
| form factor
| barney54 wrote:
| See Elon Musk's claims from Battery Day:
| https://www.cnet.com/roadshow/news/elon-musk-reveal-
| battery-...
| throwawaylinux wrote:
| What exactly were Musk's claims from Battery Day? That
| article didn't seem to make it clear.
| maxerickson wrote:
| A perfect task for your Tesla humanoid robot.
| mandmandam wrote:
| Musk just promised self driving cars _next year_ for the
| ninth year in a row. - https://futurism.com/video-elon-musk-
| promising-self-driving-...
| edhelas wrote:
| We're not in 2023 yet!
| teddyh wrote:
| " _The rule is, jam to-morrow and jam yesterday--but never
| jam to-day._ "
|
| -- The White Queen, _Through The Looking-Glass_ by Lewis
| Carroll (1871)
| sliken wrote:
| I'm aware of promises of improvements related to the 2170
| cells, which were delivered first in model 3 allowing lower
| prices and range of 300+ miles. Then a rev to the model S/X
| allowed for range and performance increases. Before the 3 the
| competition claimed sure the model S is an amazing car, but
| can Tesla actually produce an under $50k car to reach the
| wider luxury market.
|
| There's a pending 4680 improvements widely expect to ship in
| the Texas gigafactory model Y this quarter, time will tell. I
| believe this is generally on the announced schedule.
|
| Am I missing something? Tesla batteries seem to be delivering
| on promises and experts in the area seem impressed with the
| Tesla battery reliability, performance, longevity, and kwh/$.
| Some to the point of calling Tesla a hugely successful
| battery company that includes various packaging for their
| batteries in the form of power walls, and model 3/y/x/s.
| Gareth321 wrote:
| It's not such a problem right now thanks to the supply chain
| crunch, but there are a lot of us sitting on the sidelines
| waiting for EVs to achieve better mileage before making the move.
| Our family has only one car, and it needs to be able to do not
| just the daily commute (for which I acknowledge at least 90% of
| the kilometers on this car will be used), but also the road
| trips. I rented a Model 3 LR to test out how realistic these
| trips are in Europe, driving 1,200km to Austria for a ski trip.
|
| 1. The stated range goes down the toilet at motorway speeds.
| Expected range plummeted from 500km to 300km. Actual range was
| more like 250km, probably thanks to the cold temperatures. This
| was a *50%* reduction.
|
| 2. We had to plan the trip carefully around chargers. There were
| 10 minute detours to find chargers, traffic jams at the chargers,
| and slow charging speeds (probably due to said cold). We tried to
| charge from about 10% to 80%, but this was taking more than an
| hour, and shifted to 10% to 60%, which was around 40 mins. Each
| stop averaged 1+ hour, including the detour, waiting, and
| charging.
|
| 3. There were no chargers at the lodge, and this meant a final
| charge before ascending the mounting to near 100% to ensure that
| despite the extreme cold we could make it all the way up and back
| down. We also wanted to ensure we had extra power in case we got
| stuck on the road and had heat. This final stop was _another_
| hour.
|
| All up, the EV added more than *eight hours* to our round trip.
| _Some_ of this time might have been spent on toilet breaks and
| eating anyway, but nowhere _near_ *eight hours.* Bear in mind
| this was all on a near new Tesla with a near new battery and
| presumably the fasted possible charge rate and some of the best
| range available in an EV right now. This is just a huge fail for
| road trips, and I 'm so glad I rented one to find this out before
| buying.
|
| I'm hopeful battery technology like this makes it into production
| ASAP. There is so much R&D pouring into batteries right now.
| sandworm101 wrote:
| >> Expected range plummeted from 500km to 300km. Actual range
| was more like 250km, probably thanks to the cold temperatures.
|
| It is currently -17c where I am. Expected to go down to -28c in
| the next couple days. A 250km range in winter is simply
| unacceptable in my area (northern _ish_ canada). That is only a
| couple hours at highway speeds. But the real killer remains the
| absolute temperature limits on the batteries. If it cannot
| handle -45c without invalidating some warranty, then it just
| isn 't useable. I cannot afford to spend that sort of money on
| something that I cannot park outside.
| xxpor wrote:
| Where it can get that cold, are outlets near parking spots
| common for block heaters?
| sandworm101 wrote:
| Common? They are ubiquitous. You won't see them at the
| mall, but every job location has them. At my work there are
| 4-foot poles at the end of every parking stall (1-pole for
| 4 spots) with outlets for everyone. The reality is that
| most cars start easily down to about -20 without external
| heat.
|
| But those outlets mean nothing in term of whether I can buy
| an EV. If the power goes out then we loose those outlets.
| Or what if I need to park somewhere without outlets such as
| at the airport? It is one thing for a car to not start. You
| can always tow it and warm it up somewhere else. But a car
| that will _take damage_ if it gets cold is totally
| unacceptable.
| breytex wrote:
| Did the exact same trip with a Model 3 2021, 1200km ski trip
| from Germany to Austria. Came back yesterday. I experienced it
| way differently.
|
| - We were able to make 300km with 90% to 10% battery (to not
| hurt the battery longevity too much)
|
| - Outside temp was -4 to +2 degC
|
| - Inside temp set to 20degC, seat heating 2/3 for two
| passengers
|
| - So a we made a charging break every 300km, so approx every
| 2-3 hours
|
| - Recharging those 80% at a supercharger takes about 30-50min
| depending on the Supercharger-version.
|
| - We had 0 traffic/wait times at the super chargers (we drove
| both directions on a sunday)
|
| - We would do a 10-15min break anyway every 2-3 hours to grab a
| coffee or do magic pee, so the extension of the charging breaks
| over our normal breaks aren't event that long
|
| - All superchargers had a <5min detour from the Autobahn
|
| Overall we spent approx. 2hrs more on breaks as we would have
| with a conventional car. I think thats a fair trade-off for 2-3
| vacation trips a year, figuring in the time saved for normal
| refilling stops with a non-EV cars during commutes (when you
| are able to charge your EV at home).
|
| To me, the future of "driving into holiday fully electric" is
| already possible with a Tesla LR model. With other EVs without
| Supercharger-Access/smaller battery/slower charging speeds
| probably not so much.
|
| You can even save more time by using tools like ABRP[0]. This
| even gives you better charge-planning with shorter, time-
| optimized stops also figuring in detour times.
|
| [0]: https://abetterrouteplanner.com/
| hughrr wrote:
| The thing that gets me with the success stories is the issue
| with risks and planning for success only.
|
| When you're driving in the colder parts of Europe it's
| generally advisable to keep your tank at least 50% full all
| the time. If the shit hits the fan, like it did for me in
| Switzerland once, and you're stranded for 4 hours due to a
| crash out of your control, your car becomes a fairly
| important life support system until the road is cleared.
| There is no recovery option when there are a few hundred cars
| in the same shit.
|
| So you're 3 miles from a supercharger with 15% battery left
| and your car is a frozen brick in under an hour. You can't
| deliver more fuel to it and your efficient route plan is a
| liability and there's a queue of bricked EVs waiting for
| flatbed recovery.
|
| I'm not criticising the concept but the current execution and
| the perception of it.
| tcas wrote:
| Car and Driver did a test using an older Model 3 with a
| resistive heater (the newer models use a much more
| efficient heat pump), and found that it used around 2.2% an
| hour to keep the cabin warm.
|
| https://www.caranddriver.com/news/a38807463/tesla-
| model-3-cl...
|
| In your example with 15% left, you'll use ~9% battery while
| in traffic for 4 hours keeping the heat and car on, leaving
| 6% to get to the next charger. At ~300wh/mile you'll arrive
| with ~4-5% left. There's also buffer under 0%, but it's not
| guaranteed.
|
| 4-5% is not a comfortable number to be at, but I think it's
| acceptable in a worst case scenario like this. That being
| said I would definitely turn down the heat, and drive
| slower for the next few miles (and check for alternate
| chargers) to minimize power usage.
| cogman10 wrote:
| Man, the heat pump hvacs are impressive :). My 2018 model
| LR 3 has a resistance heater and a heat pump heater is
| the one thing I really wish I had.
| jhoechtl wrote:
| I really wonder how a heat pump can achieve so much
| efficiency gain. Heat of electric resistance is about 99%
| energy efficient: almost all energy is converted into
| heat, nothing else.
| withinboredom wrote:
| It can be that efficient when set to some point that
| would cook you. For low human temperatures that we call
| comfortable, it is not so efficient.
| laurencerowe wrote:
| What is the electrical energy converted into at lower
| temperatures if not heat?
| DeRock wrote:
| A resistive heater directly converts electricity to heat,
| whereas a heat pump instead moves heat, from the outside
| to inside of your car. The heat your car gains is
| reflected by the heat the outside loses. In that way,
| they can be 300-400% "efficient", because we do not care
| about the outside air around the car getting a little bit
| colder.
| cogman10 wrote:
| > So you're 3 miles from a supercharger with 15% battery
| left and your car is a frozen brick in under an hour. You
| can't deliver more fuel to it and your efficient route plan
| is a liability and there's a queue of bricked EVs waiting
| for flatbed recovery.
|
| There are a few things to consider.
|
| First up, if you want to optimize for energy efficiency
| then the best option in an EV is to carry a blanket and
| rely on the seat heaters as much as possible.
|
| Consider this scenario with a long range model 3. 80kwh,
| 15% means you have 12kWh available (Let's drop that to 8
| due to cold weather). The seat heater consumes 500W at low
| power. That gives you 16/people hours of heat.
|
| But let's say you just run the HVAC straight. You've still
| got 1 hour of heat (assuming it's using the 6kw restive
| heater. More if you are using the heat pump).
|
| In any event, the approach to "I'm in an EV and stuck in
| traffic" is exactly the same as if you were in an ICE with
| low fuel. Shut things off. Wait until you are freezing,
| turn it on again. Ration your fuel/energy until you are
| unstuck.
|
| To get to your charging destination in this scenario, you
| need roughly .9kwh of energy (300wh / mile, which is on the
| high end) or about 2% of your battery.
| aksss wrote:
| This is good practical advice for how to maximize EV
| energy use in an emergency.
|
| That said, these vehicles are clearly not made for a long
| haul cold weather existence. Can they be made to work for
| occasional use with some planning and prayer? Sure. But
| these stories and the counter-claims leave no doubt that
| people who park cars in -30F and do 300 mile one-way
| trips through mountain passes and deserted highways
| should stick to ICE vehicles. If you're doing some
| variant of this with regularity (say 0F and occasional
| 150mile trips), you should probably do the same for
| safety reasons, even though EV will probably be fine for
| all but the rarest disaster.
|
| Regardless of ICE or EV, people doing this kind of
| driving are well-advised to _prepare_ for having a non-
| functional vehicle. It 's always best to stay with the
| vehicle if it's habitable and if rescue is what you can
| count on, but having cold-weather gear, food, shelter,
| means to create/use external heat sources, and ability to
| "hike out" are some basic rules of the cold road that
| even 'tourists' should abide by. If you're doing remote
| winter driving, basically also pack for winter
| backpacking. This in addition to road flares, small
| shovel, tow strap, etc. to support the vehicle. It's less
| necessary now than it was in, say, the eighties when
| vehicles were far less reliable, but it's still practical
| advice: be prepared.
| cogman10 wrote:
| > That said, these vehicles are clearly not made for a
| long haul cold weather existence. Can they be made to
| work for occasional use with some planning and prayer?
| Sure. But these stories and the counter-claims leave no
| doubt that people who park cars in -30F and do 300 mile
| one-way trips through mountain passes and deserted
| highways should stick to ICE vehicles.
|
| I'm guessing this is hyperbole, but really, this is a
| scenario that does not exist pretty much anywhere outside
| of Alaska and Russia. And even still, you'd probably be
| shocked (heh) at how many fast EV chargers present in
| these locations.
|
| Every year, the situation with EV chargers has gotten
| better, by a lot. Consider the fact that John Day OR has
| a fast charger [1].
|
| There aren't many places in the continental US more than
| 100 miles from a fast charger. Very little prayer is
| needed, though a bit of planning is nice. It's hard to
| find a location that you can't comfortably reach with an
| EV that has 300+ miles of range.
|
| [1] https://www.plugshare.com/location/304770
| Gareth321 wrote:
| Thanks for sharing your experience. If I may ask, how long
| was each leg of the trip in total?
| pulse7 wrote:
| Not parent, but calculation from given data: 1200km,
| charging every 300km for about 30-50min -> 4x 30-50min ->
| 120-200min -> 2h-3.3h in one direction -> 4h-6.6h in both
| directions
| jhoechtl wrote:
| > - So a we made a charging break every 300km, so approx
| every 2-3 hours
|
| > - Recharging those 80% at a supercharger takes about
| 30-50min depending on the Supercharger-version.
|
| How is this so totally different to the above commenter? I
| also need brakes during my rides and after a three hour ride
| a break sounds totally reasonable. But nowhere between 30 to
| 50 minutes?
| kraftman wrote:
| What's a magic pee?
| Yaggo wrote:
| I do ~900 km trips with 2019 Model 3 SR+ multiple times per
| year in Scandinavia. -20degC winter temperatures are not
| unusual. Travelling with my family, including young kids. No
| problems. 2-3 hours driving, then 30-50 min charging. I
| actually like how EV forces you to have more breaks.
| bryanlarsen wrote:
| As a counter-anecdote, we did a 3000km one-way trip this summer
| in a Tesla. We spend a grand total of 15 minutes waiting for a
| charger. In other words, significantly less than we would have
| waited for gas pumps.
|
| YMMV, but what enabled this:
|
| - it takes a bunch of time to shuffle kids through bathrooms
|
| - overnight hotel charging
|
| - we didn't eat in the car
|
| With a gas pump, you need to stay with the car while it's
| filling. With an electric, you can eat/bathroom/sleep. If
| you're doing a long trip with a family and want to stay sane,
| you need to budget time for that stuff anyways.
| buran77 wrote:
| > With a gas pump, you need to stay with the car while it's
| charging.
|
| Is that a realistic concern for anyone? The "charging"
| process at a gas pump takes around 1 minute (in Europe gas
| pumps have ~50 l/min flow rate, in the US it's 10 gal/min).
| At best you can get a battery recharge in 20min but more
| realistically today over 30min for 80% charge if the charging
| station hasn't reached peak charging capacity and starts
| lowering charging speeds for everyone.
|
| Usually the longest wait is during holiday season where at
| the middle of the highway everyone needs to fill up around
| the same time/place and queues form. This is not something EV
| tech can help with intrinsically, if you don't wait today
| it's because there aren't enough EVs on the road.
|
| Once most cars on the road are EVs wouldn't you have the
| exact same issue with queuing at busy charging station in
| holiday season? This will be exacerbated by the fact that
| charging takes longer than 1min, and too many cars charging
| at the same time would most likely lead to a drop in the
| overall charging rate of all cars in the station (it's
| unlikely charging station will support high-speed on all
| chargers simultaneously).
|
| The way we drive and refuel now revolve around the concept of
| the quick refill gas pump. We need to adjust our
| expectations, driving style/planning/habits, and technology -
| induction charging roads, "third rails", things that address
| any shortcomings of EVs, not just adapting old solutions to
| new problems.
| SketchySeaBeast wrote:
| Are there penalties for staying on the charger longer than
| required? My concern with a half hour required time to
| charge is that people will go to "get a quick bite" and
| leave their car at the station. The 5 minute run in to pee
| at the gas station could become a half hour "the restaurant
| was busy" addition.
| buran77 wrote:
| I have seen chargers that tax you per kWh and per minute
| and for the parking spot and sometimes also another per
| charge fee. So I have plugged into a charger that taxed
| ~EUR1.5 for plugging in, EUR0.5/kWh for charging plus
| another EUR0.05/min after 2h, and EUR2/h for parking.
|
| It's up to the operator. When cars are smart enough they
| might even disconnect after a preprogrammed charge and
| move to a waiting area.
|
| Edit. Updated currency for clarity.
| SketchySeaBeast wrote:
| Is "2E" 2EUR? If so, isn't that basically just the charge
| for paid parking?
| bryanlarsen wrote:
| We were driving through Northern Ontario for most of the
| trip, so the busiest we ever saw a supercharger was 3/8
| stalls. Most of the time we were the only car using a
| charger. The car rarely got below 50% because the kids
| always asked to use the bathroom or get a snack before the
| car needed a charge.
|
| > We need to adjust our expectations, driving
| style/planning/habits
|
| Before I was married, I had a diesel car with a 1000km
| range. I made that 3000km trip in 36 hours total, which I
| never could have done with an EV car. Driving that far that
| quickly by myself without stopping to rest more was
| reckless and stupid, so not being able to do so is a
| significant side benefit.
| [deleted]
| vlangber wrote:
| Very strange. The Norwegian version of AAA just tested lots of
| different EVs in winter conditions. Most cars lost 10-25%.The
| link below is in Norwegian, but the results table should be
| easy to understand:
|
| https://www.motor.no/aktuelt/motors-store-vintertest-av-rekk...
| Gareth321 wrote:
| There is a lot of potential variation between their tests and
| my use.
|
| * Norway doesn't have speed limits which go anywhere near
| 160kph. I was on the Autobahn for most of my trip. How fast
| were they driving? 50-80kph appears to be a lot more
| efficient than 160kph.
|
| * Did they drive to maximise efficiency of power or time? I
| have a heavy foot accelerating.
|
| * Were they using the heater liberally? We were. I'm told
| this uses a lot of power, especially on models which don't
| have a heat pump.
|
| * Was brake regen high or low?
|
| For the record, I'm not arguing that the Model 3 can achieve
| better efficiency than I achieved. I was simply explaining
| that in my case, it was poor.
| isoprophlex wrote:
| Isn't it true that in most of Norway you'd be hard pressed to
| find places where you can drive faster than 80-90 km/h?
|
| Meanwhile, in germany, you have the autobahn...
| merb wrote:
| in a few years the autobahn will be limited to 130 km/h
| aswell I guess.
| rad_gruchalski wrote:
| Yup. So the ev owners can feel better about their choice.
| 1234letshaveatw wrote:
| You can buy an EV for commuting and swap it with a friend for
| road trips. My experience has been that non-EV drivers are very
| excited for the opportunity to borrow one
| Gareth321 wrote:
| A cool idea but I'm the kind of person who would lose my cool
| if I found a scratch on my Tesla after friends borrowed it
| for a couple weeks. I would also feel decidedly uncool asking
| them to pay to fix it. We also have a strange law here in
| Denmark where if my friend is caught exceeding the speed
| limit by a significant margin, or driving dangerously, _I_
| lose the car.
| nicoburns wrote:
| My understanding is that solid-state lithium ion batteries
| (which should roughly double capacity while also being much
| less fire prone) are likely to be the next big thing with
| pretty much all major car manufacturers working on bringing
| them to market and the estimated timeframe being 2025-2030.
| jabl wrote:
| From what I've understood LFP (also much less fire prone) is
| poised to be the next big thing. But maybe that's more in the
| short term and for "budget" models.
| hvidgaard wrote:
| It's cheaper but with less capacity, so I guess it's
| alright for the second car that is strictly used for
| commuting.
| wbsss4412 wrote:
| Less energy density. Capacity is dependent on size of the
| pack.
|
| Notably it's lower energy density by weight, but not
| substantially by volume.
| nicoburns wrote:
| LFP is pretty much already here. It's mainstream enough
| that's it's shipping in Teslas. The catch is that while LFP
| is cheaper and less fire-prone than more traditional
| lithium ion batteries, it's _less_ energy dense. So it 's
| unlikely to be solving range issues any time soon.
| axiosgunnar wrote:
| does LFP stand for less fire prone?
| jabl wrote:
| LFP stands for LiFePO4, or lithium iron phosphate, a sort
| of battery chemistry. See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/L
| ithium_iron_phosphate_battery
| evandijk70 wrote:
| My brother and I made a very similar road trip (Skiing holiday
| to Austria ~ 1000 km.)
|
| I drove a 'normal' car and he drove a tesla Model 3. He left an
| hour earlier and arrived 30 minutes after me (with a relatively
| full battery to avoid the need of destination charging). He has
| the car for a little over a year so he probably optimized the
| charging schedule a bit better, but I still wonder why there
| was such a big difference between his and your experience (1.5
| extra hours vs 4 extra hours for a single trip). He did not
| have to wait at the chargers, so that could account for some of
| it..
|
| We only stopped for gas, toilet breaks, and took a 15 minute
| break for coffee and lunch.
| IgorPartola wrote:
| The person you are replying to says they rented the Tesla and
| your brother owns one. I wonder if the rented vehicle was
| somehow abused or poorly maintained.
| MisterTea wrote:
| > I wonder if the rented vehicle was somehow abused or
| poorly maintained.
|
| Very likely. Though more likely is the owner of a Tesla is
| more apt to the nuances of charging and planning ahead.
| izacus wrote:
| Or there were longer lines at the chargers. Or they chose
| different chargers. Or the chargers were broken/slow
| (common occurence). Or the car burned more power due to
| lower temperatures.
|
| There's a lot of variance that comes into driving an EV on
| a longer trip.
| situationista wrote:
| I own a Tesla and regularly make very long trips. Travel in
| an EV requires a completely different mindset from ICE and
| takes a little getting used to. I'm not surprised that a
| one-off road trip experience was less than smooth, but once
| you get into the habits of EV travel it's already a
| perfectly satisfactory experience.
| Gareth321 wrote:
| I'm not sure but to speculate:
|
| 1. I drove fast on the Autobahn. I'm usually cruising at
| 160kph+, and did the same with the Tesla. Doing some
| homework, this kills efficiency fast. I imagine your brother
| was driving slower. Probably more within the high efficiency
| band.
|
| 2. Temperature delta. It was -5C + wind chill for most of our
| trip, and much colder up the mountain.
|
| 3. I kept a healthy battery reserve when seeking chargers
| (10%+) Tesla owners seem to encourage letting the battery
| drop below even 5% as this means an even faster charge to
| 60%. I am told there is an optimal cadence to charging which
| I suppose one perfects over time.
|
| 4. I did not conserve heating, as I'm told many EV owners do
| on longer trips. My wife likes our car to be subtropical.
|
| 5. Our Tesla might have been abused, though I recall it
| having <20,000km.
|
| 6. 1,000km is 17% shorter than my trip, further compounding
| (reducing) these differences.
|
| 7. Maybe my regenerative braking was set to low. I didn't
| think or know to check.
|
| 8. My route took me to at least a few regular chargers
| instead of superchargers. Maybe if I had been smarter and
| spent more time planning I could have used only super
| chargers.
|
| 9. Perhaps you stopped for a lot of breaks, reducing the
| relative advantage you might have had in your car.
|
| 10. Perhaps he left more than an hour earlier than you.
|
| 11. Perhaps my charging lines were longer than his.
|
| I'm sure there are many other factors I'm not considering.
| breytex wrote:
| You should checkout https://abetterrouteplanner.com/ for
| your next trip :)
| Gareth321 wrote:
| Thanks, that's a cool site.
| marcosdumay wrote:
| Oh, internal combustion vehicles also get their mileage
| very reduced at 160km/h. A 50% drop is completely normal.
| It's even on the small side.
| r00fus wrote:
| You said motorway speeds, but then state you were on the
| Autobahn doing 100mph+. Most other jurisdictions/autoways
| this speed is illegal. I definitely see my battery going
| down massively at 80mph/130kph speeds+ on my non-Tesla EV.
|
| In fact, going such speeds is probably massively
| inefficient for ICE cars as well, just that they're already
| incredibly inefficient already that you don't see much of a
| loss.
| withinboredom wrote:
| I dated an vehicle design engineer once. She told me that
| cars create drag at a logarithmic rate at basically for
| every mph over 80, most people design them to use nearly
| double the fuel consumption to maintain. You can get some
| aerodynamic cars that are designed for 90mph, but it's
| pretty rare in the consumer space. This was also nearly
| 10 years ago and I could be remembering it wrong.
| r00fus wrote:
| Drag is the square of velocity, so not sure how your
| former date got logarithmic for that, sounds quadratic.
|
| Equation [1]: F(d) = 1/2v^2 _Cd_ A
|
| Lowering the Cd (drag coefficient) and area can
| significantly reduce your drag.
|
| [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Drag_(physics)
| withinboredom wrote:
| I think she was talking about fuel consumption and drag,
| not just drag. But like I said, it was a really long time
| ago.
| jhoechtl wrote:
| You are aware that on the German Autobahn, outside
| designated speed limits, there is no speed limit? Believe
| it or not ...
|
| On Austrian highways its nominally 130km.
| Teknoman117 wrote:
| The US interstate speed limits are at most 120 kph (75 mph)
| and are 105 kph on average (65 mph), and can be as low as
| 90 kph (55 mph), so that's almost certainly what Tesla
| bases their "highway" estimates off of.
|
| 160 kph+ (100 mph+) is way past the efficiency sweet spot
| :)
|
| US interstate speed limits have their roots in fuel
| conservation for WW2 (or noise control in wealthier spots),
| safety was just a side effect at least at first.
| SECProto wrote:
| > The US interstate speed limits are at most 120 kph (75
| mph)
|
| Minor nitpick: there are 80 and 85mph
| interstates/sections.
| jliptzin wrote:
| Wow, 160 kph! That's why. That extra drag really kills the
| battery. In the US I have never driven above about 130kph,
| anything higher is pretty much illegal everywhere.
| TremendousJudge wrote:
| It's a normal speed in Germany. And yes, driving that
| fast also drains a gas tank very quickly. Not sure why GP
| is surprised -- an ICE car will also perform much worse
| than advertised at those speeds.
| Sharlin wrote:
| But it's also pretty much _only_ normal in Germany, and
| only on Autobahns. Almost everywhere in Europe the
| highway speed limit is 110 to 130 km /h, similar to the
| US.
| rad_gruchalski wrote:
| 140kph in Poland.
| breytex wrote:
| 1.5 extra hours would be my expectation as well. If we
| consider a long trip for vacation 3 times a year, the 4.5hrs
| invested into charging is offset by less day-to-day charging
| stops with an EV (if you can charge at home), the reduced
| costs of electricity vs gas and the reduced costs of
| maintenance.
|
| I would optimize the car choice for the 90% use of daily
| commute instead of optimizing for the 3-times-a-year vacation
| trips.
| easton wrote:
| Maybe the temperatures on the drive were higher in your case?
| That seems to be a downside of EVs at the moment, low
| temperature means bad range.
| izacus wrote:
| > 1. The stated range goes down the toilet at motorway speeds.
| Expected range plummeted from 500km to 300km. Actual range was
| more like 250km, probably thanks to the cold temperatures. This
| was a _50%_ reduction.
|
| This, to me, is the worst part of buying an EV right now - the
| marketing does the Apple "30 hours of battery***" lie and it
| varies so horribly that it's hard to trust anything about it.
|
| I guess it would be easy if you're just a daily commuter, but I
| regularly do 800km trips and all projections show that it'll
| prolong an already long trip for hours.
| jaclaz wrote:
| The 30 hours of battery life lie can be worked around with a
| (common enough nowadays) external battery pack/power bank,
| it's a lot of time I wonder how there isn't a market for
| "power bank trailers" for EV's, something that you can rent
| for the times you need the extra range (or actually buy if
| you need it often).
|
| Driving a car with a (low, not prone to lateral wind effects)
| trailer is inconvenient but doable when needed.
| izacus wrote:
| BMW gave out an ICE "range extender" for their i3s - so I
| guess that's the "power bank" approach to these.
| anovikov wrote:
| Absolutely so does the gas mileage of normal cars. Whatever
| number you see on the sticker (in Europe) is a laughable lie,
| real life mileage is about 1.5x worse, and no one makes a
| fuss about it - it's just one of life's lies everyone adapted
| to ignore.
| izacus wrote:
| The difference between the number stated for my ICE car and
| the number actually achieved is a drop from about 750 to
| 650km at worst. It doesn't suddenly run out of gas when
| it's cold outside halfway through Germany.
| smarx007 wrote:
| > motorway speeds
|
| Do you mean 110..130 km/h EU speeds or 150+ km/h Autobahn
| speeds?
| dagw wrote:
| Driving 130 km/h can knock ~30% off your range compared to
| driving 90 km/h according to various sources[1]. Add cold on
| top of that and losing 50% over advertised range seems
| reasonable.
|
| If you want to optimize for range you should apparently aim
| for holding a constant 50-55 km/h.
|
| [1] https://teslike.com/
|
| https://cleantechnica.com/2018/07/15/tesla-range-plotted-
| rel...
| smarx007 wrote:
| > If you want to optimize for range you should apparently
| aim for holding a constant 50-55 km/h.
|
| I think rather 80-90 km/h, at least for Nissan Leaf, as
| well as from the table you linked (55 mph ~~ 89 km/h)
| dagw wrote:
| _from the table you linked (55 mph ~~ 89 km /h)_
|
| The table doesn't show any data below 55 mph. This site:
| https://cleantechnica.com/2018/07/15/tesla-range-plotted-
| rel... has a graph that plots range vs speed all the way
| to 0 (for the Model S) and it shows the 'optimal' speed
| to be around 35 mph.
| smarx007 wrote:
| My bad, didn't check the second link, thank you. The data
| looks too smooth. Is there raw data somewhere? Or
| analysis without too much regression applied?
| gehen88 wrote:
| I own a Nissan Leaf and can confirm 90km/h is about the
| sweet spot for trip duration. Above it, you're draining
| battery faster than you can recharge it. Below it is
| unsafe on motorways. I usually set it at 104km/h, which
| makes the estimated range pretty much exactly match
| reality.
|
| However, for newer EVs the sweet spot will be at higher
| speeds, because those cars are able to recharge at much
| higher speed (at least 2 times faster).
| bryanlarsen wrote:
| 50% loss in the cold is pretty darn high. You can mostly
| eliminate the cold range loss by:
|
| - preconditioning the battery & cabin while the car is
| parked and plugged in
|
| - using one of the newer models with a heat pump
|
| - turn the cabin heat down and the seat heating up
|
| The first point is the most important. We often have little
| range loss on our way to the destination but significant on
| the trip home because we couldn't plug in at our
| destination and the car got cold.
| cmrdporcupine wrote:
| It is indeed unrealistically high, and I say this as a
| Canadian driving my Volt in a Canadian winter. I only see
| about 30% reduction even in -20C.
|
| That said, the Volt will warm the system with the ICE if
| it gets below -10C. But I've heard similar numbers from
| pure-BEV owners.
| rad_gruchalski wrote:
| And draft behind a truck! I know a guy who's skoda has
| something silly like 3.6l average consumption over 250km.
| Gareth321 wrote:
| I was doing 160km on (most of) the Autobahn from basically
| the top of Germany to the bottom.
| belter wrote:
| Sounds incredibly dangerous. You mentioned you had most of
| the voyage at -5C. Were you worried about road ice?
|
| Lived in Germany several years and it was not unusual to
| get wild game cross the street at the worst times. Most
| Authobahn have protections against, but some parts are
| badly maintained and I have seen some crossings...
|
| "Wild Boar Crash Test Highlights Growing Accident Risk"
| https://www.spiegel.de/international/zeitgeist/road-
| carnage-...
|
| In 2010 for example... "...A total of 27 people died and
| 3,000 were injured in a quarter of a million collisions
| with wild animals on German roads in 2009, not to mention
| the hundreds of thousands of animals that perished in the
| process..."
| yholio wrote:
| Charging rails alongside major roads is the obvious solution to
| this problem. It will enable much more than vacationing in
| urban EVs, also things like electric semis, long range buses
| etc.
|
| Since it is a fixed capital expenditure, you need suficient EVs
| on the road for it to make economic sense, but from that point
| forwards it's a no-brainer compared to stuffing every vehicle
| chock-full of rare minerals for the unlikely case of a ski trip
| to Austria.
| bmicraft wrote:
| At that point you should probably make use of the preexisting
| "charging rails" and take the train (in central europe)
| yholio wrote:
| Because trains are known to split into family sized units
| that continue the journey on roads using battery power?
|
| The public transport trope is tiresome and unlikely to
| prevent the warming of the planet with a single fraction of
| a degree.
| Ourgon wrote:
| Car trains (or "Motorails") do. Park your car on the
| train at the head station, drive it off the train at the
| destination after having spent the night in a sleeper
| cabin and drive on to where you want to go. Since trains
| are electric it would be easy to retrofit the car
| carriers with charging infrastructure to make sure EVs
| are topped up for the "fan-out". Everything but the
| charging infrastructure is already in place and in use,
| at least in Europe - from the Netherlands [1] you can
| take such trains to Switzerland, Germany, Italy, Austria,
| Finland, Croatia, Slovakia and Turkey (via Austria).
|
| [1] https://www.treinreiswinkel.nl/reizen/autotrein
| rad_gruchalski wrote:
| Recent headline from Handelsblatt: 1 in 4 trains does not
| arrive on time. No, thanks.
| elihu wrote:
| That's the approach I've been advocating. Electrified roads
| (even if it's only short, regularly spaced intervals on major
| highways) make so much more sense than expecting everyone who
| wants to drive more than an hour or two from home to haul 800
| pounds of batteries with them. No having to stop to charge.
| Less wear on the roads (from reduced vehicle weight). No need
| for diesel long-haul trucks. EVs can be cheaper, with more
| cargo room. Less dependence on cobalt or nickel (or you could
| use LFP batteries to get away from that entirely). Energy
| usage is shifted to the daytime (when solar power is
| available) when most people drive rather than charging
| overnight.
|
| I think the thing that's lacking right now (despite political
| will) is standards for electrified roads. I like the general
| approach that Sweden is using, with rails embedded in the
| road surface: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VZNHZnyxCm8
| markvdb wrote:
| If this also entails a 5x improvement in weight, let's see if
| that potentially enables hand luggable car batteries.
|
| - Nissan Leaf 62 kWh battery: 410 kg= 6.61 kg/kWh
|
| - order of magnitude for this type of battery: 1.32 kg/kWh
|
| - power consumption: @15 kWh/100 km
|
| - 100 km requires 15 kWh, or ~19.80 kg
|
| If something like this in order of magnitude comes true, hand
| luggable batteries will be able to cover non-trivial distances.
| Some potential consequences:
|
| - I imagine something like this could help enable a low-end, more
| maintainable second hand market in a not-so-distance future.
|
| - For inhabitants of terraced town houses, this could enable them
| to charge their batteries at home too. Hand luggable batteries
| could simplify _a lot_ in terms of charging infrastructure.
|
| - Exceptionally far trip? Throw in a few extra modules.
| zemvpferreira wrote:
| That would make swapping batteries at a (previously-) gas
| station much more imaginable as well, and comparable to filling
| up a tank.
| alias_neo wrote:
| This was the electric car future I always envisioned. Some
| sort of twist-lock cylinder that one fits into one of several
| slots in the vehicle depending on the range they require.
|
| I'm not your how safe that would be, nor would I really want
| to be charging a 15kWh+ battery inside my home if I lived in
| a terraced house as GP suggests.
| markvdb wrote:
| You'd be 100% right to be wary of charging this kind of
| battery inside your terraced home until it has thoroughly
| proven itself to be fire safe. The terrace or the garden
| shed might provide a safe alternative though.
| jcims wrote:
| in mice.
| gameswithgo wrote:
| It is promising that a 5x increase is even theoretically
| possible. If one day even a 3x improvement became mass
| produceable that would be enough to make electric vehicles viable
| for all the use cases it isn't currently that I can think of.
| Long range towing, extreme cold, track days, road trips with
| bikes and luggage strapped to your car etc
| jqpabc123 wrote:
| So with a capacity of 1k cycles and recharging on weekdays
| only, the battery should last about 4 years?
|
| Is that enough to make electric cars viable for all use cases?
| It depends on cost --- of the car initially and of a battery
| replacement. It would have to be less than the cost of current
| electric vehicles which have a much longer expected battery
| lifetime.
| deergomoo wrote:
| You wouldn't be charging from 0-100% every day though. For
| most people it would be more like 1-2 cycles per week, if not
| less.
| jqpabc123 wrote:
| It's hard to say what "most people" will do.
|
| My wife plugs her phone in every night as a matter of habit
| --- just to be sure, whether it really needs charging or
| not. I know from experience that this degrades the battery
| lifetime.
| moduspol wrote:
| iPhones do have logic in software now to hold off on
| charging above 80% until the user is expected to take it
| off the charger [1]. Probably still not as good as
| personally optimizing your charge time based on battery
| level, but it's at least not quite as bad to be plugging
| it in every night as it used to be.
|
| [1] https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT210512
| SketchySeaBeast wrote:
| Samsung phones on Android 12 have a toggle for "charge to
| 85%" now. Not as "smart", but a great way to extend
| battery life if that's your focus. That last 15-20%
| charge is apparently a killer.
| duffyjp wrote:
| I babied my iPhone 12 Pro by using an automation to turn
| off a smart-outlet at 76% charge. After a year I'm at 95%
| health, basically on par with everyone else.
|
| I've discontinued the automation and will just buy a new
| battery in another year or two instead. /shrug
| moduspol wrote:
| It'd work for me. I'd absolutely trade long battery life
| to only ever using 80% of the battery for pretty much all
| my electronics.
| SketchySeaBeast wrote:
| Yeah, I was happy to toggle that option on.
| MaxikCZ wrote:
| I would say its even smarter. I don't want to charge my
| phone to 100% every day, and I don't want to babysit it.
|
| Smart charging would be: "start charging now and finish
| at time my alarm is set, while reaching 80% battery."
| Slow charging to 80% and your battery can last multiple
| times what it would "normally". I don't understand the
| craze for 40-60-100 watt phone chargers...
| jacob019 wrote:
| Charging the phone from 60% to 100% is 0.4 cycles. So
| your wife is putting less than 3 cycles per week on the
| phone battery. Sitting at 100% does degrade the battery,
| especially since the phones all charge to 4.4V these
| days. I root my phones so I can set a 4.1V charge limit.
| ninkendo wrote:
| Any battery that has an even moderately intelligent chip
| moderating its charge will round-robin the individual
| cells so that it's not the same cells being
| charged/discharged all the time.
|
| If you're always topping off the charge at night, the
| cells in the battery pack are still experiencing full
| discharge cycles eventually. (Cells will end up staying
| at 100% charge for a while though, which is probably
| ultimately bad for them, but they should still be fully
| discharged/charged _eventually_ ...)
| [deleted]
| CorrectHorseBat wrote:
| A phone doesn't have a thermal management system that can
| cool and heat the battery if required. Charging your car
| every day is not an issue.
| gameswithgo wrote:
| That isn't usually how "cycles" works out, no, unless you
| deplete the battery completely every day.
| jqpabc123 wrote:
| I know from experience that a lot of people will recharge
| every day --- just to be sure.
|
| How this will impact their definition of "cycle" is unknown
| but again; based on my experience with batteries, it won't
| be good.
| alias_neo wrote:
| I think you may be misunderstanding the meaning of
| "cycle".
|
| Charging every night for a 5 day week, from 80% to 100%
| is 1 cycle (in this crude example).
|
| A cycle is not the number of times you plug in a battery
| to charge, it's a single charge/discharge full to empty
| and vice versa.
|
| There is more to it of course because you never really
| "empty" a lithium battery, and for longevity it may be
| configured to never be fully charged to 100%, but that's
| roughly the point.
| jqpabc123 wrote:
| _There is more to it of course ..._
|
| Yes, most rechargeable batteries will degrade over time
| just sitting there --- without any "cycling".
| DennisP wrote:
| The article says it's a ten-year lifespan. Which seems
| reasonable since ideally, if it's a thousand cycles and a
| thousand miles per cycle, that's a million mile battery.
| [deleted]
| parkingrift wrote:
| That would depend on the definition of a "cycle." If these
| truly enable 5x energy density there would be cars on the
| market with 1,200 - 1,500 mile range. The average American
| drives 40 miles per day.
|
| If I were an average American driving an average amount and I
| charged my car every night it would be topping the battery
| from 97% to 100%. Does that qualify as a cycle? I don't know,
| but I doubt it. Even if I recharged once per week that would
| be 80% to 100%, and I would also doubt that qualifies as a
| cycle.
|
| The authors estimated 10 year lifespan but I'm not sure how
| they came up with that number, either. If these batteries
| really do offer 5x density I would likely charge my car 30-40
| times per year.
| maxwell86 wrote:
| 99% of commutes are less than 200 miles. Current car
| batteries support large numbers of charge cycles and have a
| capacity that's high enough for these trips.
|
| However, many drivers do a bunch of 500+ miles drives per
| year; 1, 10, or 100, depends on the driver.
|
| At 500+ miles, battery anxiety starts to kick in.
|
| An electric car that combines current high-cycles-low-range
| batteries with a smaller low-cycle-very-large-range battery
| for those 10 500+ miles trips per year would be a killer
| product. We are talking here 1000+ miles without charging,
| which is kind of much farther than what most cars can get
| without re-fueling.
|
| I do maybe one 500+ miles trip per month. That'd be ~24
| cycles / year, such that these batteries would have a
| lifetime for my use of ~40+ years. That's more than enough
| for me.
|
| There are a bunch of companies working on hybrid battery
| designs that combine different technologies to serve
| different purposes. Some of them are already hitting 800+
| miles in real-world tests.
| jqpabc123 wrote:
| The tricky part is the recharging.
|
| The car can't possibly _know_ if the owner is planning a
| 500 mile trip the next day. The only "safe" approach is to
| assume they are and top up all batteries every time it is
| plugged in.
|
| If the owner plugs it in every day, how does this impact
| the usable life of this new battery?
| notreallyserio wrote:
| The car doesn't necessarily have to know that someone is
| planning a 500 mile trip, the car operator can tell it to
| top up overnight when necessary.
| nicoburns wrote:
| What could possibly require you to take an unexpected 500
| mile trip at short notice?
| jqpabc123 wrote:
| <i>...the car operator can tell it to top up overnight
| when necessary.</i>
|
| The car operator may not always _know_ when it 's
| necessary --- assuming he is not psychic. He may just top
| up to be on the safe side.
| gameswithgo wrote:
| * With lithium ion you don't want to sit at 100% all of
| the time, but it is fine to always keep it topped off to
| ~80% or so. Topping it off daily is good.
|
| * If you are someone who doesn't want to worry about not
| going to 100% all of the time the new iron based
| batteries (featured in base model 3 right now for
| instance) don't care, you can let those sit at 100%, and
| they are safer too. The downside is less total range
| range and/or more weight.
| jqpabc123 wrote:
| _With lithium ion you don 't want to sit at 100% all of
| the time ..._
|
| Someone who drives infrequently (a senior for example) or
| has multiple cars could easily leave a car plugged in for
| days.
| sliken wrote:
| Sure, but Tesla recommends charging to 90% for daily use
| (except for LFP batteries), personally I charge to 85% to
| help increase battery life.
|
| It also helps the battery when it gets cold, the car will
| use power to help keep battery warm, which also helps
| increase battery life.
| Tagbert wrote:
| GM in their Volt and Bolt holds back a percentage of the
| battery capacity so that at 100% of charge the battery
| pack is only charging to 85-90% and when it discharges to
| 0% the pack is actually not at zero. They do this to
| limit stress on the cells and to ensure longer service
| life for the battery pack.
| sliken wrote:
| > At 500+ miles, battery anxiety starts to kick in.
|
| I have a Tesla model 3, it's got a decent nav system, is
| aware of the battery state, current trip, average speed and
| the like. For me it makes range anxiety a non-issue. I had
| a 1200 mile road trip, did no preplanning, just filled the
| car with luggage and family, hit nav, and said "navigate to
| <1200 mile distant city>".
|
| The Tesla experience is pretty transparent and the
| superchargers are pretty frequent and reliable. I've yet
| (over 30k miles) expected to charge at a supercharger and
| not been able to.
|
| Generally I had more than one place I could stop and once
| charging it would give feedback like "charge x minutes to
| reach next charging station with 15% battery left".
| Sometimes we'd charge a bit extra waiting on someone and it
| would automatically pick a further charging station. While
| driving the car would helpfully say things like "You'll
| arrive at the next charging station with 15% battery left
| if you keep under 75 mph". Despite going through of some of
| the lowest density charging areas like eastern Nevada or
| southern Wyoming I had no issues.
|
| The charging stations I used were quite close to the major
| highways, and the strategy we used was to fill up to 50-75%
| and recharge when we had 10-20% left. This involves more
| stops, but also maximized charge speed, often 550
| miles/hour or more. Charging slows as the battery gets more
| full. With 3 people and a dog the car was generally ready
| for departure about as quickly as the rest of us.
|
| I did however carry power adapters for 120v, 220v, and the
| popular J1772 just in case, haven't used them, except when
| it's free like at some Universities (like Stanford) or
| businesses (like 2 hours free at Target).
| jliptzin wrote:
| 5x energy density (is that what this article is about? Kind of
| unclear to me) would mean a whole lot more than just longer
| range EVs. Thinking electric personal jetpacks, VTOL aircraft,
| etc.
| Keyframe wrote:
| True, but improvement on what? There's, let's say, doubling
| capacity (without doubling mass), doubling performance
| (discharge, without fire hazard), doubling how long it can hold
| a charge (without doubling thermals), doubling longevity
| (without doubling down on hazard materials)... Just of top of
| my head. Chemistry is hard, looks like it. What's the average
| doubling of any of these factors we've seen over the years?
| 10-20 years?
| derriz wrote:
| Energy density has at least doubled in the last 20 years. See
| figure 8 in [1].
|
| And it's easy to overlook the most important factor for
| general applications - price - where the declines are much
| more dramatic.
|
| People complain about the lack of progress with batteries but
| we've observed that EV range has doubled in 8 years. I see no
| reason that range wouldn't double again in the next 8 years -
| and I see plenty of reasons for that to happen.
|
| [1] https://pubs.rsc.org/en/content/articlehtml/2021/ee/d0ee0
| 268...
| jillesvangurp wrote:
| Indeed. The first Nissan Leaf had a 20 kwh battery in 2010.
| The latest model you can get in a 40kwh and a 60kwh
| variant. And you can upgrade the battery in that original
| one with a 40kwh one that is a drop in replacement for the
| original one. The next ten years are going to be
| interesting. Assuming nothing will change seems more
| foolish than most other predictions. IMHO 2x capacity
| improvement is pretty much a done deal. There are multiple
| viable paths; it's just a matter of building and scaling
| production for this. 4x is very likely and 8x not
| unimaginable. More a question of when than if. 8x is
| probably going to take a while.
| hashin wrote:
| An alternate line of thought - do we need Electric vehicles to
| do all that? If we could reliably transition mass of passenger
| transport and daily commute options to electricity, that alone
| could crack the deal. We needn't eliminate fossil fuel driven
| systems completely. It can still have some use cases, which on
| a planet scale could be made viable through a select oil
| extraction infrastructure across the globe. A scaled down
| fossil fuel economy with electric replacing mass of private and
| commercial vehicle use looks like the most likely scenario for
| the future, imho.
| qeternity wrote:
| Absolutely the approach that is needed: net zero, not zero.
| We cannot completely decarbonize the long tail of fossil fuel
| uses - but we can create a mostly renewable energy mix. It is
| unlikely that air and space travel for instance will ever be
| decarbonized - but net emissions can be reduced or
| eliminated. The same goes for manufacturing processes and
| materials science. It's not an all or nothing proposition.
| throwaway0a5e wrote:
| I think fossil fuels are enough of an ideological rallying
| point that they're going to be targeted no matter how niche
| and justified their use is (see also: asbestos). We're
| likely to wind up with plat based synthetic fuels in those
| use cases to make the ideologues happy (see also: Brazil,
| though they use synthetic fuels for a different reason)
| even if that's not the best/cheapest way to make those use
| cases net zero.
| nicoburns wrote:
| > even if that's not the best/cheapest way to make those
| use cases net zero
|
| It's likely to be for the foreseeable future given that
| net zero otherwise requires carbon capture equal to the
| extracted fossil fuels, and we seem to be some way off
| effective carbon capture let alone cost effective carbon
| capture.
| codesnik wrote:
| and aviation beyond air-taxis
| gameswithgo wrote:
| right!
| kragen wrote:
| Kotov's lab has done a lot of brilliant stuff. It'll be
| interesting to see if this makes it to mass adoption; probably
| not this year or next, though. doi:10.1038/s41467-021-27861-w and
| seems to be open access cc-by.
|
| If you asked me if organic polymers could resist the growth of
| metal dendrites, I probably would have said no, because plastics
| creep like crazy, and metal dendrites are hard and sharp, so over
| time they will inevitably win unless they stop growing. But
| lithium is soft like cheese, and Kevlar's creep resistance is
| comparable to steel's. Maybe this is why Wang and Emre are
| publishing groundbreaking material science in Nature
| Communications and I'm not.
| foobarbecue wrote:
| I'm surprised that 1K cycles is seen as a lot.
| rthomas6 wrote:
| Well, if the range of the vehicle is 300 miles per charge,
| that's 300,000 miles before needing to replace the battery.
| have_faith wrote:
| Don't most people plug it in at home regardless of what
| battery is left? no one wants to leave the house on 40%
| battery just to run it down a "cycle". How does that effect
| the math?
| sbradford26 wrote:
| It depends on the each battery chemistry but most lithium
| based batteries that would count as like .6 of a cycle or
| less. Those 1000 cycles are usually determined by full
| discharge and recharge which is the most demanding on the
| battery. Usually in the data sheet for batteries you can
| see cycles for full discharges and partial discharges.
| sliken wrote:
| Range anxiety decreases with ownership. Once you adapt to a
| 300 mile range you figure out what your daily usage is, and
| typically it's a small fraction of the range. After all who
| drives 5 hours per day on average? So it's not a big deal
| to let you car go a few days, even 40% is 120 miles, or 2
| ish hours for most driving patterns.
|
| Additionally charge cycles generally means full charges, so
| 1000 full charges = 10,000 charge of 10%. Similar rules
| apply to any similar battery technology, like in an apple
| laptop or pretty much any cell phone.
|
| For more data points check out:
| https://electrek.co/2020/06/06/tesla-battery-degradation-
| rep...
|
| From what I can tell various improvements in battery
| management and chemistry things have improved things since
| the above post.
| fallingknife wrote:
| 300 miles per charge * 1000 cycles is 300k miles.
| rootusrootus wrote:
| I won't lie, I'm looking forward to greater range. I've had a
| Model 3 (Performance trim, though, for which range is not a
| feature to brag about). My wife drives a Bolt. Neither car is/was
| capable of making a trip to grandma's house and back without a
| stop at a DC fast charging station. It's a day trip for us, 315
| miles round trip, and setting aside 45-60 minutes for a pit stop
| has a significant impact.
|
| I want an EV that can pull off this 315 mile trip without dipping
| into reserves, even in the winter. I expect we'll get there in a
| few years, and I'm willing to pay a bit extra for that battery.
| sliken wrote:
| Can't plug in for a few hours are Grandama's? Even 3-4 hours @
| 4mph (120v) can make a difference.
|
| Do you set a departure time so the car and batteries are at the
| optimal temperature?
|
| If you charge under 25% I'd expect to charge at 550 miles per
| hour at a supercharger (again nav there so the car knows to
| arrive at optimal temperatures), so if you charge around 275
| miles I'd expect another 100 miles in 10-11 minutes. If it's
| bitterly cold I'd expect another 10 minutes or so.
|
| Shouldn't take anywhere near 45-60 minutes unless something is
| seriously wrong.
| chris_overseas wrote:
| There's an Australian company called Li-S Energy[0] that claims
| to have solved the same problem a different way, using boron
| nanotubes. They state the theoretical limit for a lithium-sulphur
| battery is 2,567Wh/kg, which is around 5x that of a standard
| lithium-ion.
|
| [0] https://www.lis.energy
| JulianMorrison wrote:
| I wonder if this will improve prospects for battery-electric
| aviation? (It might not, if it's let down by energy density, for
| example.)
| darksaints wrote:
| The theoretical limits of lithium sulfur batteries are about
| equivalent to methanol in terms of energy density, so if it is
| an application where methanol is out of the question (i.e. the
| vast majority of commercial aviation), then this is definitely
| too far away from practical. Looks like it could probably get
| close for commuter planes though.
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