[HN Gopher] Solid-State Battery Has 2x the Energy-and No Anode
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Solid-State Battery Has 2x the Energy-and No Anode
Author : rbanffy
Score : 162 points
Date : 2023-03-31 09:38 UTC (13 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (spectrum.ieee.org)
(TXT) w3m dump (spectrum.ieee.org)
| mabbo wrote:
| Lithium ion batteries set the standard because they have an
| acceptable level of all the key metrics: energy storage by
| weight; energy storage by volume; discharge rate; charging rate;
| production costs.
|
| Every single one of these big breakthrough announcements touts
| how great this new tech is- in just one or two particular
| metrics.
|
| The problem is that Li-Ion batteries are just barely acceptable
| in all of those metrics. No new battery is going to replace them
| unless they can match Li-Ion in every metric and beat them in at
| least one.
| dheera wrote:
| Those are only a few metrics. Li-ion is not fantastic in (a)
| charging cycles and battery depletion or (b) fire safety.
|
| It also depends a lot on use case; for example, for home
| electricity storage (like a PowerWall) I would gladly give up
| energy density for safety. If there's some battery tech that
| can handle 50000 charge cycles and completely non-flammable but
| weighs 100 tons and has 10% of the energy density of Lithium,
| I'd gladly make that trade. Maybe build part of the building
| out of it.
| megaman821 wrote:
| How often will you fully cycle a home battery? At 100 cycles
| a year it would take 50 years to deplete a 5,000 cycle
| battery down to 80%. Another 50 years before it was 50%.
| There is no way the casing would be fully intact and the
| electronics even be functioning after that long.
|
| Current LFP batteries should last multiple decades as a home
| battery. The already have low flammability. The price is
| getting more affordable. They could just be part standard of
| a home electric system in a decade or two, like a whole-home
| surge protector.
| dheera wrote:
| > The already have low flammability.
|
| Low rates of spontaneous thermal runaway, sure, but they
| still are extremely flammable if externally ignited or
| physically damaged. A house fire that could otherwise be
| put out might turn into a full disaster. An earthquake that
| physically damages the battery pack could cause a fire that
| would have otherwise not happened. A flood or minor tsunami
| might allow for early evacuations and most lives saved, but
| now the entire town is on fire instead of just water
| damaged, if every house has a massive lithium pack in their
| basement.
| eknkc wrote:
| I guess LTO is right there at the moment. Even LiFePo4
| batteries are a lot more safer than Li-Ion ones. From what
| I've seen, I would gladly have a LTO pack in my house.
| phkahler wrote:
| Actually, energy storage by weight is not as big a deal for
| electric cars. Regenerative braking can recover most of a
| vehicles kinetic energy, which is where the weight dependent
| energy goes. This is why several hybrids get better fuel
| economy in city driving than highway, the biggest losses are
| due to aero which increases nonlinearly with speed.
|
| Otherwise yes, it's important to find something better without
| sacrificing on any of those metrics.
| subarctic wrote:
| >Regenerative braking can recover most of a vehicles kinetic
| energy
|
| I used to think that was the case, but then i think i read
| somewhere that it only recovers 20% of the kinetic energy.
| Can't find it anymore though
| satiric wrote:
| It depends a lot on how you drive. If you do a lot of hard
| braking, the car will have to use a lot of friction
| braking. If you slow down more gradually, the car can just
| use regen which is gonna be pretty efficient.
| magnuspaaske wrote:
| As with anything else it depends what you optimise for and
| at the most basic level the car uses the engines to
| accelerate at all speeds but might need to use break pads
| at slow speeds.
| feifan wrote:
| I've seen data showing ~70% recovery on a Model 3, but I
| also can't find the source :/
| hutzlibu wrote:
| It is basic physic.
|
| There is all the time friction of air and the road. You can
| never recover that.
|
| And in rare cases where you actually can recover energy, at
| non emergency slowing down, it is probably indeed in that
| ballpark, wich is something(especially in city with stop
| and go), but not very high or much. With very high tech,
| you can increase that number a bit, but not worth the
| effort. Electric cars need good batteries and every
| improvement there is good.
| mikeyouse wrote:
| Like OP mentioned, the efficiency of recovery varies by
| speed but is generally in the 65%-80% range for total
| round-trip (the system captures ~80% of the kinetic energy
| but with round-trip losses, you only get ~80% of that
| energy to propel the car).
|
| Maybe you're thinking of the total range boost provided by
| regen braking? That's often shown to be roughly 20% via
| studies;
|
| https://sci-hub.se/10.1109/vppc.2011.6043109
|
| > _Simulations show that the energy reduction of the
| vehicles under test can be more than 20% by applying
| regenerative braking._
|
| It's an older study, but they show the regen efficiency at
| 60% for the EcoTruck and 70% for the bus.
| [deleted]
| PragmaticPulp wrote:
| Heavier cars are more dangerous in collisions.
|
| The extra weight of a big battery requires a bigger frame to
| carry it, bigger suspension, wider tires, and so on.
|
| I'm not really happy that some of these monster EVs are
| approaching 10,000lbs with fast 0-60 times. It's like a
| kinetic missile that can reach a momentum capable of
| obliterating your average 3000lb compact car in under 5
| seconds.
| lazide wrote:
| That is pretty much the definition of moving the goal
| posts?
| TaylorAlexander wrote:
| Actually if I follow the conversation, the first person
| said "storage density matters". The second person said
| "actually it does not because the energy gets recovered".
| The follow up said "actually there are other reasons why
| weight is a problem."
|
| So the first person never set goal posts around
| efficiency, that was an assumption by the second person.
| The first person could always have meant that the
| collision risks from heavier vehicles are higher, while
| the second person misunderstood their meaning. No moving
| of goalposts here.
| jgtrosh wrote:
| There can be multiple reasons for heavy cars to be bad.
| Additionally, extra heavy cars wear roads much faster.
|
| It's nice to have a way of recuperating energy but it
| doesn't solve everything.
| _a_a_a_ wrote:
| They didn't say it solved everything
| DennisP wrote:
| Here are the specs on the Amprius silicon-anode battery,
| currently shipping in low volume:
|
| https://amprius.com/products/
|
| That's better on all the metrics you listed except cost, which
| it doesn't mention. Whatever their current cost is, it should
| drop significantly once they complete their factory in 2025.
|
| https://amprius.com/facility/
|
| Most of the battery is standard lithium-ion, the anode is a
| drop-in replacement.
| tromp wrote:
| It mentions lasting for 200-1200 cycles, which (besides a
| suspiciously large range compared to Li-ion's 500-1000
| cycles) is not better on all mentioned metrics.
| DennisP wrote:
| The above comment didn't mention cycles but I should have
| said "similar or better." Cycles are comparable, seems
| likely it's just more sensitive to poor management. With
| about twice the capacity, fewer cycles are more tolerable
| anyway.
|
| In any case, this looks like a very practical battery with
| serious advantages over lithium-ion.
| ksec wrote:
| If you have double the energy capacity and the same cycle.
| Your phone will also last roughly double the time at the
| same energy usage. That is probably good enough for most
| things.
| Kye wrote:
| If it's like Li-Ion, that's _full_ discharge and charge
| cycles, not every top off. So if these batteries are
| sufficiently higher capacity, it might make up for the
| difference. 200+ charges is enough if each charge lasts 2x
| longer or more.
| panick21_ wrote:
| Amprius technology will not magically drop in price as much
| as people think. Some manufacturing methods don't just scale
| and become cheap.
|
| Their large facility planned is still tiny in terms of
| battery factories.
|
| This will remain an expensive niche product.
| DennisP wrote:
| No small company is going to suddenly build a gigafactory.
| But 5GWh, if they manage it, is not _that_ small. One of
| Tesla 's gigafactories is 37GWh.
| brightball wrote:
| The only one that I'm actively monitoring is this one because
| it handles the other metrics AND gives a path forward to rapid
| charging, which is the core requirement to displace liquid
| fuels. IMO any battery advance that doesn't address rapid
| charging is going to fall to the wayside for exactly the reason
| you stated.
|
| https://www.forbes.com/sites/michaeltaylor/2021/05/13/ev-ran...
| cryptoegorophy wrote:
| As well as battery charge cycles
| infogulch wrote:
| And shock tolerance, and temperature tolerance, and i/o
| efficiency
| scythe wrote:
| Particularly relevant for this particular battery, because
| the authors seem to think it's impressive that they had 80%
| capacity retention after 50 cycles. No, I didn't forget a
| zero. That's 50, not 500 or 5000. It may be an improvement on
| other Li-metal anodes, but it's still orders of magnitude
| away from being stable enough for practical use.
|
| I'm not sure if the paper is open access or if my library is
| automatically logging me in again, but the cycling behavior
| is shown in Figure S18 of the Supporting Information here,
| page 12:
|
| https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/action/downloadSupplement?do.
| ..
| Tagbert wrote:
| Lithium ion batteries are not a single technology and are not
| static. There are periodic changes that improve the batteries
| in various dimensions. They are constantly evolving. At the
| same time, it is perfectly feasible for EVs to switch to
| alternate chemistries a construction methods. Individual
| vehicles might not switch but a manufacturer could switch their
| product line to start using sodium or sulphur or whatever new
| chemistry comes along.
|
| This Ars story talks about the ongoing improvements to battery
| tech... https://arstechnica.com/science/2021/05/eternally-five-
| years...
| cptskippy wrote:
| You're right and so is the OP.
|
| Lithium based batteries of varying chemistries collectively
| in space that few other battery chemistries overlap.
| uoaei wrote:
| Different battery designs and chemistries are appropriate for
| different applications. I don't care about how much a battery
| weighs if it never moves, for example.
| bluGill wrote:
| True (within limits), but the largest use of batteries is
| batteries that move. Utility scale power storage is the only
| significant use of battery that doesn't move. (there are
| others, but they are not probably large enough to develop a
| battery for, and so will be stuck with whatever they can get
| from the other markets)
| sanderjd wrote:
| Yes, but stationary energy storage is itself a large use
| case.
|
| There are also different performance profiles within EVs,
| where different tradeoffs might make sense. Though, like
| you, I'm somewhat skeptical that any non-lithium
| chemistries will break through in that space.
| mabbo wrote:
| I'm of two minds on this.
|
| On the one hand, you're right that for different applications
| having different metrics can be acceptable. Sure, a battery
| for your home that never moves can be heavy and large and
| that's okay.
|
| But then you have to consider the economics of production.
| How many of those batteries will you make? What will the
| factory for them cost to build? And what would it cost
| instead to just make a bunch more Li-Ion batteries at the
| existing factory instead?
| tasty_freeze wrote:
| Your logic makes sense if there is only one battery
| factory. But there are and will be many.
| Retric wrote:
| Economies of scale still apply with multiple factories
| because you need someone to design and build the
| equipment used at each of them.
| alkonaut wrote:
| The powerwall use case will only grow when people get solar
| panels and when rural areas in countries lacking power
| infrastructure eletrify. But while that use case doesn't care
| as much about weight, bulk, charge rate and % capacity as car
| batteries, in return they are very sensitive to cost and the
| market will (depending on how cheaply recycling can be done)
| likely be filled with used car-batteries with degraded
| capacity.
|
| If you invent a battery that is 2x as large and heavy as
| current vehicle batteries but half the cost, then you might
| think you would be able to sell them for stationary storage,
| _but_ you are then competing with the price of second hand
| vehicle batteries which may well be half price already.
| sorenjan wrote:
| One drawback of using lots of lithium batteries in your
| home is that they might experience thermal runaway and burn
| your house down. Not having to worry about that should have
| some additional value.
| RRRA wrote:
| Most new solar installations now use LiFePO4 which
| apparently is much safer on that runaway side...
| BirAdam wrote:
| Also way better cycle life, but the density is slightly
| lower.
| sorenjan wrote:
| That's good, but is that what's used in "used car-
| batteries with degraded capacity"?
| samtho wrote:
| Used car batteries are conventional unsealed, lead-acid
| batteries. Lithium-iron-phosphate (aka LiFePO4, LFP)
| batteries is a different battery chemistry altogether. It
| is touted as the answer to a deep-cycle, lithium-based
| electrical storage that the traditional lead acid
| batteries occupy.
| xsmasher wrote:
| I think they mean used EV batteries - EV batteries that
| are at the end of their useful life in cars.
| samtho wrote:
| That makes more sense.
| Feloevo wrote:
| There is already a car which uses two battery technologies in
| parallel.
|
| This would also allow you to configure or offer cars optimized
| for the climate they are being used.
|
| I personally also see those news more in 'im 5-10 years' we
| will have something much better than now.
| kungito wrote:
| Which car? You cannot drop something like this without a
| source
| Feloevo wrote:
| Can't find it on the fly.
|
| I read about it a few month back but ev battery and types
| etc. Shows a lot of other topics.
|
| Might have been Tesla when they announced the other cell
| type.
| raddan wrote:
| I'm sure this is not what the poster meant, but in fact
| most EVs and hybrids use multiple battery technologies in
| parallel. For example, a Chevy Bolt has a lithium ion
| battery to power the drivetrain and a conventional lead-
| acid battery for the accessories. My old Prius had a NiMH
| battery for the drivetrain and a lead-acid battery for
| accessories.
| londons_explore wrote:
| A lead acid battery is just a holdover from the way every
| car used to have one for the accessories, and unless you
| want to redesign all the accessories, it's easier to have
| a 12v-14v circuit just for that.
|
| And before you say "oh, but they could just use a voltage
| converter from the high voltage battery", they need to
| consider that some accessories use hundreds of amps
| briefly (eg. the power steering - that makes for an
| expensive voltage converter), and the car still needs to
| operate lights and stuff while the high voltage battery
| is offline (eg. after an isolation fault).
|
| For all of the above reasons, the lead acid battery is
| still there, even though a clean sheet design would never
| have one.
| entropicdrifter wrote:
| My Hyundai Ioniq hybrid has a 12v section of the Li-ion
| battery that can be charged off of the hybrid battery
| while the car is off with the press of a button so that
| the car never needs to be jump-started unless the entire
| hybrid battery is dead.
| rbanffy wrote:
| > For example, a Chevy Bolt has a lithium ion battery to
| power the drivetrain and a conventional lead-acid battery
| for the accessories.
|
| This seems like an odd choice - unless you already bought
| a supply of lead-acid batteries for the next 50 years or
| so.
|
| I've read about a car using supercapacitors in the
| regenerative brakes to capture energy at high current
| and, then let it trickle back into the main batteries (or
| drivetrain) at levels that won't damage it.
| xxs wrote:
| The 12v lane is ubiquitous, and standardized. Supercaps
| are inefficient when it comes to storage per weight and
| volume, discharge rate too.
|
| Both lead acid and supercaps are not even remotely
| comparable to the main liion battery, they're
| suppliments, and not interesting ones
| briffle wrote:
| It could be great if you were a car manufacturer that
| already had an existing, very large supply chain for
| lights, dashboard, powered window motors, and other
| accessories, that were already 12 volt.
| sorenjan wrote:
| Tesla switched from lead-acid to 12V lithium ion their S
| and X models in 2021. James May had some issues with his
| Tesla when the 12V battery went flat.
|
| https://insideevs.com/news/546087/tesla-
| liion-12v-auxiliary-...
|
| https://youtu.be/NsKwMryKqRE
| jandrese wrote:
| Tesla is also switching to 48V for the accessories.
| dreamcompiler wrote:
| This was the best news I heard at Tesla investor day. It
| should simplify and cut the cost of the in-cabin wiring.
|
| When Sandy Munro interviewed Elon Musk a couple of years
| ago he said "Why are you still using 12v stuff in the
| cabin?"
|
| Musk's answer was that the automotive supply chain was
| entirely geared around 12v equipment and they had to take
| advantage of that to get to market quickly.
|
| I'm glad those days are almost over.
| robocat wrote:
| Isn't there a whole trucking supply chain geared around
| 24 Volts?
| Retric wrote:
| This is a classic, it isn't broken don't fix it
| situation.
|
| Many laptops had both a lithium ion battery and a watch
| battery used to keep the bios and an internal clock
| running after the battery died.
| https://www.makeuseof.com/tag/why-does-my-motherboard-
| have-a...
| Someone wrote:
| That was a bit of a necessity. Users wouldn't want their
| clock to reset when they swapped batteries, and you
| couldn't be sure the machine was connected to a time
| server to set the time at boot.
| JohnClark1337 wrote:
| [dead]
| panick21_ wrote:
| I don't think that is what this person is talking about.
| Yes having an extra lower voltage battery is totally
| normal and every EV either has a led acid or an
| additional smaller LiIon battery.
|
| Having multiple chemistries in one battery pack is of
| course possible, but I don't any car who is actually
| doing that.
| moron4hire wrote:
| I didn't see any mention of sustained discharge rate. I mean,
| pretty much any battery will put out about as much current as you
| ask of it. But that comes with heat scaling problems and heat
| dramatically effects capacity. So at what kind of discharge rate
| are they seeing "72% higher capacity by weight than Li-Ion," and
| how does it compare to _typical_ Li-Ion usage?
| 1970-01-01 wrote:
| >They explored coating its copper current collector with
| ultrathin lithium-activated tellurium. The aim was to control the
| way in which lithium metal spread across or "wetted" the copper.
| They found this new coating helped lithium metal deposit and
| dissolve from the copper current collector in a thin uniform
| layer.
|
| Wikipedia: With an abundance in the Earth's crust comparable to
| that of platinum (about 1 ug/kg), tellurium is one of the rarest
| stable solid elements.
| AtlasBarfed wrote:
| 2x the density of.... what? ? "commercial lithium ion batteries"?
|
| Watt-hours per kg, and watt-hours per liter.
|
| And with all solid state, have they solved scaling production
| beyond a small demonstration cell? It is now a known investment
| "con" to create a solid state cell that appears to kick the tar
| out of conventional cells and then try to get funded to "solve
| production". I lost count of how many companies were doing this.
|
| This is an embarrassing article from an engineering organization
| website.
|
| What appears to be happening is that solid state will simply be a
| distraction technology. Sulfur chemistries (medium/long term) and
| prosaic unsexy LFP and sodium ion (short term) will drive the
| true revolution in electrification of transportation and grid
| storage.
|
| Solid state may produce usable use cases around laptops / phones
| / etc at some point, and who knows, solid state sulfur may become
| a thing eventually, but what's really needed from batteries now
| is scale and cost.
|
| The 200 wh/kg LFP (230+ on the roadmap/12-24 months away!) and
| 150 wh/kg sodium ion (180-200 wh/kg on roadmap) going into mass
| production are the big revolution in batteries. That is a non-
| cobalt/nickel LFP battery that can do 400 mile cars, and a sodium
| ion battery that should drop to 40$/kwh costs that can do a 300
| mile car, and the roadmap should further upgrade/cheapen those
| chemistries.
|
| The 150 wh/kg sodium ion battery should mean 250-350 mile range
| city cars that are significantly cheaper than ICE drivetrains can
| achieve. It is tranportation for 3-4 billion people that won't
| use fossil fuels.
|
| LFP should eventually be able to do the medium range electric
| semi truck. Sulfur chemistries should enable or better a long
| haul semi, but sulfur chems are probably 8-12 years from mass
| production (I really hope I'm wrong and it is sooner though)
| RivieraKid wrote:
| I think the best measure of real-world battery improvement would
| be a chart of iPhone / Macbook battery densities over time. My
| guess is that there's been little improvement over the last 10
| years.
| xbmcuser wrote:
| This is according to CHATGPT so in terms of density you are
| probably correct though in terms of reliability speed of
| recharging there probably are improvements
|
| iPhone 5: Dimensions: 51 x 39 x 3.6 mm (2.01 x 1.54 x 0.14 in)
| Capacity: 1440 mAh Voltage: 3.8 V
|
| iPhone 5s: Dimensions: 51 x 39 x 3.8 mm (2.01 x 1.54 x 0.15 in)
| Capacity: 1560 mAh Voltage: 3.8 V
|
| iPhone SE (1st generation): Dimensions: 51 x 39 x 3.95 mm (2.01
| x 1.54 x 0.16 in) Capacity: 1624 mAh Voltage: 3.82 V
|
| iPhone 6: Dimensions: 66.4 x 51.8 x 3.8 mm (2.61 x 2.04 x 0.15
| in) Capacity: 1810 mAh Voltage: 3.82 V
|
| iPhone 6s: Dimensions: 65.6 x 51.7 x 3.8 mm (2.58 x 2.04 x 0.15
| in) Capacity: 1715 mAh Voltage: 3.82 V
|
| iPhone 7: Dimensions: 73.1 x 32.4 x 5.2 mm (2.88 x 1.28 x 0.20
| in) Capacity: 1960 mAh Voltage: 3.8 V
|
| iPhone 8: Dimensions: 74.5 x 26.6 x 6.9 mm (2.94 x 1.05 x 0.27
| in) Capacity: 1821 mAh Voltage: 3.82 V
|
| iPhone SE (2nd generation): Dimensions: 67.3 x 40.9 x 3.73 mm
| (2.65 x 1.61 x 0.15 in) Capacity: 1821 mAh Voltage: 3.82 V
|
| iPhone X: Dimensions: 88.9 x 32.5 x 3.25 mm (3.5 x 1.28 x 0.13
| in) Capacity: 2716 mAh Voltage: 3.81 V
|
| iPhone XS: Dimensions: 87.16 x 32.61 x 2.96 mm (3.43 x 1.28 x
| 0.12 in) Capacity: 2658 mAh Voltage: 3.81 V
|
| iPhone XR: Dimensions: 76.0 x 30.8 x 3.25 mm (2.99 x 1.21 x
| 0.13 in) Capacity: 2942 mAh Voltage: 3.81 V
|
| iPhone 11: Dimensions: 90.0 x 31.9 x 3.25 mm (3.54 x 1.26 x
| 0.13 in) Capacity: 3110 mAh Voltage: 3.83 V
|
| iPhone 12: Dimensions: 81.5 x 32.4 x 4.1 mm (3.21 x 1.28 x 0.16
| in) Capacity: 2815 mAh Voltage: 3.83 V
|
| iPhone 13: Dimensions: 84.5 x 30.9 x 5.7 mm (3.33 x 1.22 x 0.22
| in) Capacity: 3095 mAh Voltage: 3.83 V
| slaw wrote:
| from iPhone 13 to iPhone 5. volume increased 2.08 times and
| capacity increased 2.15 times.
| aldonius wrote:
| Maybe not in specs, but what about in specs per dollar? Surely
| there's been enough computer battery production over the last
| decade for Wright's Law to have an effect.
| ngrilly wrote:
| Why is it called anode-free when it still has a copper collector
| with a special coating? Yes, they removed the graphite, but they
| didn't remote the entire "anode". Or is it because the collector
| and the coating are not technically considered as an electrode?
| danbruc wrote:
| Technically speaking you can not get rid of the anode unless
| you also get rid of the cathode as anode and cathode switch
| places between charging and discharging. It is just by
| convention that in case of batteries the role while discharging
| is used, I would guess carried over from non-rechargeable
| batteries, but the anode would better be called the negative
| electrode.
| pbhjpbhj wrote:
| A battery with no poles would be a curious beast!
| _nalply wrote:
| I wondered about that too then I realized what an anodeless
| battery would really, literally mean: if you charge it, you
| pump electrons into it, so it gets somewhat electrically
| negative, and if you discharge it, you let the electrons flow
| out of it. To be pedantic, this is not really anodeless, this
| would be just a battery having only one electric contact
| switching roles between a cathode and an anode.
|
| Then I started to wonder: what if this really could be done? I
| am afraid not, because you need two contacts to create a
| potential difference, don't you?
| skupig wrote:
| I think (?) that would work as long as your circuit is more
| negatively charged than your battery and has enough
| capacitance to keep current flowing- you just have to
| discharge it later. Maybe with a second, negatively-charged
| battery...
| malfist wrote:
| Forgive me if my EE knowledge is old and rusty, but isn't an
| anode required for a battery to function? You have to be able
| to harvest a voltage differential, and to do that you must have
| an anode and a cathode.
|
| Perhaps they meant there wasn't an anode that gets degraded by
| use?
| ndsipa_pomu wrote:
| I initially thought this was an early April Fool's joke in a
| different time zone to me. It does sound to me like they're
| replacing the traditional anode with a different anode.
| eurekin wrote:
| They missed the opportunity to go "anodeless", like with the
| serverless
| ngrilly wrote:
| Sounds the same to me. A copper sheet coated with a thin
| layer of lithium-activated tellurium instead of a thicker
| layer of graphite. Not trying to diminish their achievement,
| but I don't understand the anode-less claim.
| chimen wrote:
| Surprised how "dead" this industry is. I remember having Lithium-
| Ion batteries since I was in high school which was more than 20
| years ago (and some Li-Po until then). Everything is leaps and
| bounds since then but not the batteries. Seems like a massive
| disconnect to me but I'm no chemist or researcher in this field.
| jackmott42 wrote:
| Lots of fields have run into fundamental physical limits that
| pause progress. Rocketry is another. In the 1950s we pretty
| much figured out how to throw gas out the back as fast as
| possible, and so not much has happened since that improves
| rocket performance. We did finally figure out how to reuse a
| bit of the rocket affordably though so that has been nice.
|
| similarly airplanes stopped getting faster because we hit the
| point where the atmosphere starts melting you to death, and not
| much can be done about that.
|
| battery chemistry is hardly dead though, since 20 years ago
| there have been all kinds of improvements in different
| directions. Just no big leaps. But the little improvements add
| up.
| reisse wrote:
| > similarly airplanes stopped getting faster because we hit
| the point where the atmosphere starts melting you to death,
| and not much can be done about that.
|
| While I agree with your point in general, have to nitpick
| here. Thermal protection is mostly solved problem by now
| (think Space Shuttles and other reentry vehicles). Commercial
| airplanes stopped getting faster because they hit a sweet
| spot between speed and fuel consumption. Military airplanes
| are stuck because hypersonic aerodynamics is very hard and
| different from subsonic/sonic/supersonic ones.
| londons_explore wrote:
| Rocketry progress stopped because world governments cut back
| funding dramatically in the 1960's, and private demand for
| rocket launches isn't much.
|
| Aeroplanes stopped developing because the whole industry is
| now highly regulated. The barrier to getting a new type of
| plane/engine design to market is beyond what pretty much all
| startups are capable of. That's why we still fly some planes
| like cessna designed in the 1960's, back when regulation was
| more lax.
|
| I don't think either rockets nor planes are anywhere near
| fundamental physical limits if we took away the 'human'
| limiting factors.
| ben-schaaf wrote:
| Energy density is ~8 times higher than in 2008 at 1/10th the
| price. That's more progress than we've made in single-core
| performance in the same timeframe.
|
| Sources:
|
| https://www.energy.gov/eere/vehicles/articles/fotw-1234-apri...
|
| https://www.iea.org/data-and-statistics/charts/evolution-of-...
|
| https://mlech26l.github.io/pages/2020/12/17/cpus.html
| eutectic wrote:
| Any idea why utiliy-scale is so much more expensive than
| automotive?
| Schroedingersat wrote:
| Fire control, temperature control, chemical safety systems,
| daily 2-3C (half hour to 20 minute) charge and discharge
| rates, industrial grid scale high voltage grid forming
| inverters. And finally, the auto-makers got to the front of
| the queue for raw materials before prices spiked (and the
| ones that do both just take the profit).
|
| Expect more consistent prices in Q3 2023 once the end of
| the lithium bubble works its way through the system.
| AtlasBarfed wrote:
| That has to be an astroturfer that posted that comment.
| leoc wrote:
| Did you mean 'more progress'?
| ben-schaaf wrote:
| Yes I did.
| lm28469 wrote:
| 2000 li ion batteries are the same as modern li ion batteries
| the same way a Volkswagen golf 4 is the same as a golf 8, aka
| they're not
| windowsrookie wrote:
| It's definitely not "dead". As commented above me, there have
| been massive improvements.
|
| 20 years ago laptops had two hours of battery life. Today a
| MacBook has 20+ hours of battery life. Obviously many
| components have become more efficient, but battery improvements
| have also contributed to that large increase in battery
| capacity.
| ben-schaaf wrote:
| The iBook G3 had a 45Wh battery which is only slightly less
| than a M2 air, and barely under half of the maximum you can
| take on a plane. Battery development has led to smaller,
| lighter and cheaper batteries in laptops but not really to an
| increase in capacity.
| Anarch157a wrote:
| Because Apple realised that a thin and small laptop sells
| better than a chunky one. Make a Mac Book the sane size as
| the iBook G3 and you could have a week's worth of battery.
|
| But then you wouldn't be allowed to carry it on a plane.
| The limitation is not tecnological, is regulatory.
| londons_explore wrote:
| Many laptops now are 99.6 Watt hours.
|
| The 100Wh battery limit means they have little incentive to
| further improve battery technology. Any increased storage
| capacity wouldn't be legal to fly with, so all it could do
| is make the laptop very slightly thinner or lighter.
| empyrrhicist wrote:
| Compare a power tool battery from any of the major brands from
| 20 years ago to the ones today. It's still lithium, but real
| performance is night and day.
| Tade0 wrote:
| Solid state might share the fate of Betamax.
|
| There was a post a while ago about a small scale battery
| manufacturer named Amprius, which reported 500Wh/kg batteries:
|
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35276709
|
| Thing is, the company is producing 450Wh/kg batteries NOW and
| they're planning on scaling up their manufacturing capacity to
| 5GWh:
|
| https://www.convertingquarterly.com/ConvertingQuarterly/Indu...
|
| This solid state news piece is exiting, but the real revolution
| is happening in the background, with LFP achieving decent
| densities without sacrificing cost or longevity and silicon anode
| batteries reaching large-scale commercialization as we speak.
| ngrilly wrote:
| Some applications still require higher energy densities than
| what LFP can provide. Are you saying silicon anodes are more
| promising than solid state for those applications?
| panick21_ wrote:
| LFP cathodes and silicon or 'solid state' aka lithium metal
| anodes are not incompatible.
| Tade0 wrote:
| My position is as follows:
|
| -LFP wins on price where it fits the use case, so grid
| storage, current-gen EVs.
|
| -Silicon anode competes for market share with solid-state in
| areas where LFP can't, namely aerospace and next-gen EVs or
| even aviation, should they ever reach 1kWh/kg. The former has
| easily a decade lead considering that they're already selling
| packs and the latter exists largely in the lab or on paper.
|
| I also believe even 400Wh/kg at pack level is already good
| enough to be a serious proposition as replacement for
| internal combustion in land transportation, provided pricing
| is adequate.
| ngrilly wrote:
| I totally agree with your position on LFP, and about 400
| Wh/kg being enough to unlock some applications.
|
| But I'm not fully convinced on silicon anodes versus solid
| state. Yes, energy density is very promising, but I
| understand capacity fade is still a huge problem due to
| silicon volume expansion/reduction while
| charging/discharging?
| Tade0 wrote:
| That's the problem they've solved here using nanowires -
| the cells have a 200-1200 cycle life depending on
| operating conditions - I suppose the range is so wide
| because of the temperature range - -30degC - 55degC. It's
| not surprising to see cells degrade fast at the hotter
| end of this spectrum.
|
| For EVs they advertise cells with no less than 410Wh/L,
| 4C rate of discharge.
| naasking wrote:
| Is there still a fire risk with LFP? From my
| understanding, solid state batteries have a large safety
| advantage here because of this.
| Tade0 wrote:
| Yes - LFP still uses a flammable, liquid electrolyte -
| usually ethylene carbonate.
|
| That being said LFP survives the nail penetration test
| without causing a fire, so it's considerably safer than
| the usual alternatives.
| danbruc wrote:
| 5 GWh in what time? Gigafactory 1 was at 30 GWh per year in
| 2019 and they planned to ramp up to 54 GWh, according to
| Wikipedia. So probably per year? Which would make their
| production capacity 570 kW. Also according to Wikipedia, a
| production of 35 GWh per year which is 4 MW was estimated to
| require 300 MW of energy input.
| Feloevo wrote:
| Energy input can be green.
|
| If not now, at least doable.
| seszett wrote:
| What is the point of comparing 300 MW energy use for
| production with 35 GWh/year (which is technically 4MW indeed)
| new battery capacity though?
|
| These are technically the same units, but they don't measure
| the same things.
| danbruc wrote:
| I find that comparison quite interesting with respect to
| the energy intensity of producing lithium ion batteries. A
| factory that can produce two oil barrels per hour or seven
| 60 liter gasoline tanks per hour or will also produce 35
| GWh storage capacity per year and would probably not
| consume anywhere close to 300 MW in the process.
| IshKebab wrote:
| They measure comparable things. The ratio is how many times
| you would have to discharge the battery to output enough
| energy to manufacture the battery. It's the capacity
| independent measure of embodied energy. An important
| metric.
| Tade0 wrote:
| > Which would make their production capacity 570 kW.
|
| I understand where you got this number, but I would rather
| stick to units which are easy to interpret.
|
| Yes, 5GWh per year or 570kW - in a sense.
| jillesvangurp wrote:
| You are right. The company you mention is focusing on the
| aviation industry. Drones and light airplanes. Weight matters a
| lot there. To the point where saving weight is worth a lot to
| manufacturers.
|
| Basically every kilo you save is more useful load and range.
| It's also a very conservative market. Most of the planes in the
| process of being certified, or already certified (like the
| Pipistrel trainer) are using batteries that are quite
| unimpressive in terms of wh/kg. That's because the technology
| is typically at least half a decade old by the time a plane
| gets through the certification process.
|
| Manufacturers can't just switch battery supplier without
| triggering a lot of re-certification activity and most of them
| would have locked in their supplier many years ago; long before
| even starting the certification process.. It's their next
| models that are being designed now that would get something
| that is state of the art now. Like this battery. We won't see
| those in the market until 6-7 years from now.
|
| The exception to this is probably going to be experimental
| aircraft. I think that should become a growth market pretty
| soon. A 500wh/kg battery of say 100kwh would weigh about 200
| kilos, give or take. That should get you some usable range and
| be light enough to put in a small plane. And it would put a
| nice little dent in the cost of what used to be a 100$
| hamburger flight. Fuel cost is high and planes use a lot of it.
| 5-10 gallons per hour typically. And combustion engine
| maintenance on planes is very expensive. All that goes away
| with battery electric. Servicing becomes a lot simpler, less
| moving parts that can break and the few remaining ones last a
| lot longer.
|
| Irresistible for a lot of private pilots, I would imagine. This
| is a market that doesn't currently exist but I don't think it
| should take long for people to start experimenting with battery
| electric.
| gpm wrote:
| Manned airplanes are a conservative market, I would imagine
| that unmanned drones are not? Especially cheap consumer ones?
| MrsPeaches wrote:
| Who's the current market leader on EV private pilot planes?
| jillesvangurp wrote:
| Cessna I guess.They bought Pipistrel recently. There are a
| few companies getting closer to production with various
| planes and drones. But realistically, I think volume sales
| is still a few years out.
|
| Companies like Amprius scaling their high end battery
| production (like they announced recently) is interesting
| though.
| darksaints wrote:
| Cessna didn't buy Pipistrel, Textron did. Maybe that's
| being pedantic, but Cessna has zero development going on
| in the electric plane space, and Pipistrel still runs
| almost completely independent of the other brands in
| Textron's portfolio.
| rch wrote:
| No idea who the technology leader might be, but I hear
| about Joby most frequently.
| jackmott42 wrote:
| EVs are already very heavy, and when the model 3 switched to
| LFP it got even heavier. This mass has lots of subtle
| consequences that aren't always appreciated. Like accelerated
| tire wear (which Tesla owners notice after they buy) and
| increased particulate pollution from that, increased road wear,
| increased danger to pedestrians and cyclists, etc.
|
| So, I'm less excited about LFP. There are a number of ideas in
| the works that might double the energy density over the current
| leading lithium ion chemistries and if any of them work out its
| going to unlock a lot a things that don't quite work yet like:
|
| 1. light weight sports car EVs (like a miata) 2. EVs that can
| tow things or carry 4 mountain bikes on road trips 3. Some
| aircraft 4. EVs that can do a track day for a reasonable amount
| of time 5. EVs that are lighter than ICE counterparts rather
| than heavier
| Feloevo wrote:
| Independent of this, this also gives more and.better options
| for the energy grid in general.
|
| And economy of scale: if we can produce it, the chance that
| we can scale it might only be a question of few years.
| wffurr wrote:
| Wh/Kg is the relevant metric to optimize though. Whether it's
| LFP or solid state doesn't matter. If that company is
| building higher density LFP batteries, that addresses every
| concern you mention.
| jackmott wrote:
| [dead]
| ericpauley wrote:
| I'll know we've made it when you can buy a 1000kg EV Miata.
| newZWhoDis wrote:
| > increased danger to pedestrians and cyclists, etc.
|
| Why do seemingly so people here understand clipping
| functions?
|
| The lethality of a pedestrian-vehicle collision with a
| 4,000lb vehicle at 60MPH and a 400,000lb vehicle at 60MPH are
| both 1
|
| In practical terms, the additional weight of an EV has zero
| effect on pedestrian collision lethality, whereas something
| like bumper design would.
| AlotOfReading wrote:
| I'm not sure why clipping functions are relevant, because
| the probability of death isn't 100% even for semis hitting
| pedestrians at highway speeds. It's actually more like
| 80-90%. There's still quite a bit of long tail for higher
| speeds beyond that as well. SUVs and other "heavy" consumer
| vehicles are somewhere in the 75% range at comparable
| speeds, while sedans are down around 65% mortality. Feel
| free to find your own numbers, but I'm using [1]. Vehicle
| weight and size clearly have a significant effect on
| mortality even at high speeds.
|
| However, not all collisions are at highway speed. Most
| collisions are at relatively low speed, where weight is an
| even more significant factor in the energy involved. There
| are tradeoffs you can make between weight contributed by
| safety equipment (e.g. bumpers), but to a large extent
| those tradeoffs are mandated by regulations rather than
| consumers or OEM engineers.
|
| [1] https://www.moneygeek.com/insurance/auto/analysis/pedes
| trian... [2] https://www.nber.org/digest/nov11/vehicle-
| weight-and-automot...
| meatmanek wrote:
| Vehicle mass matters a lot in vehicle-to-vehicle
| collisions, where the energy and momentum of each vehicle
| is going to change a lot, but when a car collides with a
| person, the car's momentum is barely affected, because
| the car is already significantly more massive than the
| person. A 20x mass ratio is already practically infinite.
|
| In a direct collision between a moving 1000kg car going
| 10 m/s and a stationary 50kg person, the person will end
| up moving somewhere between 9.5 m/s (perfectly inelastic
| collision) and 19.05 m/s (perfectly elastic). The car
| will end up moving 9.5 m/s (perfectly inelastic) and 9.05
| m/s (perfectly elastic).
|
| In a direct collision between a moving 10000kg car going
| 10 m/s and a stationary 50kg person, the person will end
| up moving 9.95 m/s (perfectly inelastic) and 19.90 m/s
| (perfectly elastic). The car will end up moving somewhere
| between 9.95 m/s (perfectly inelastic) and 9.90 m/s
| (perfectly elastic).
|
| Even though we 10x'd the weight of the car, we only
| increased the velocity of the person after impact by
| about 5%, and energy imparted on the person by about 10%.
|
| I suspect vehicle size (or rather, the size/shape of the
| front of the vehicle) has way more effect on pedestrian
| survivability than the weight of the vehicle. SUVs and
| trucks will impart the force of impact directly to your
| torso and head, and then subsequently run you over.
| Sedans hit you in the legs and then roll you over the top
| of the vehicle.
| GaryNumanVevo wrote:
| Higher curb weight correlates with longer breaking
| distances
| seppler wrote:
| Before my Model 3, I had a BMW M3. Curb weights were the same
| (2009 BMW M3 vs 2018 Model 3 LR RWD). Even comparing a 2020
| Model 3 AWD vs. a 2020 BMW M3, curb weights are about the
| same (~4000lbs).
| Heston wrote:
| "...the problem they face going through cycles of discharging and
| recharging in a stable way."
|
| They suffer from poor wearing like almost all new battery
| technologies. Until that's solved they aren't useful.
| lonk11 wrote:
| The article is about a solution to make lithium metal anode
| more stable. They discovered a coating that prevents the
| formation of dendrites, which are the cause of short cycle life
| of previous attempts at lithium metal anodes.
| [deleted]
| ashish10 wrote:
| Isn't this what Quantumscape is already betting on ?
| Phurist wrote:
| Yeah, Isn't that what engineers in the Skunksworks at Mutual
| Polydynamics were already working on in scope of the SANS ICS
| HyperEncabulator?
| AtlasBarfed wrote:
| Hey, remember them? They were right on the verge of production
| allegedly while the shorters were "outing" them?
|
| I've heard nothing about them for a solid 16 months, so I'm
| guessing the shorters were right.
|
| Solid State batteries appear pretty easy to crank out a
| demonstration cell with lots of density advantages over the
| production cells, and handwave away the scaling of production
| as a detail resolved in investment. There are a solid dozen
| companies I've seen with that basic approach.
|
| None of the solid state companies appear close to scaling
| production.
|
| Likely the sulfur chemistries will beat them to market with far
| superior material cost and density and scalability. Solid state
| still has a good opportunity in cell phones / laptops / etc,
| which is a big market, but the real play in batteries is grid
| storange and tranportation, which will dwarf phones/laptops by
| several orders of magnitude in volume.
| panick21_ wrote:
| The never even claimed to have their first medium scale
| production facility before 2024 and only then going into
| medium scale production. Their first real factory isn't
| planned until later this decade.
|
| Not sure where people got the idea that they claimed they are
| on the verge of large scale production.
|
| They were on a little bit more then lab scale production.
| solarkraft wrote:
| > Still, although this research may solve one critical problem
| with anode-free all-solid-state lithium batteries, a great deal
| of development is needed to actually bring them to market
|
| Always.
|
| I'm happy they found something that might perhaps some day become
| real, but it's going to stay irrelevant for years and may never
| happen. Unless you _really_ care about minor scientific
| discoveries (rather than things that are directly going to
| influence industies related to energy storage), there 's not much
| to see here.
|
| No, we're not all going to have Aluminium-Air batteries in our
| cars next year. The hype around this stuff reminds me of the one
| around fusion reactors. Just around the corner. Sure, dude.
| amelius wrote:
| How do you get the energy out when it has no anode?
|
| Title seems a bit weird for an IEEE audience ...
| gt565k wrote:
| I read an article somewhere that discusses how Toyota has the
| most battery patents out of any company and also owns most of the
| solid state patents and are actually working on commercializing
| solid state batteries for vehicles.
|
| The point I think the article was trying to make is that while
| everyone is focused on lithium ion, Toyota was biding it's time
| and getting ready to one-up everyone with solid state batteries
| and vehicles with double the range.
| _trackno5 wrote:
| Please share that article if you can find it. Sounds like an
| interesting take!
|
| I honestly don't get the criticism Toyota has been getting
| recently. I think their decision to not go all in on just
| electric vehicles makes sense, especially for countries where
| it is highly unlikely that full EV will be a reality in the
| next decade.
| MontyCarloHall wrote:
| >I honestly don't get the criticism [Toyota] has been getting
| recently. I think their decision to not go all in on just
| electric vehicles makes sense
|
| Because for a while it seemed they were going all-in on
| hydrogen fuel cell vehicles, a technology that makes little
| technological (and even less practical) sense.
| _trackno5 wrote:
| For a while, but not the case anymore. They seem keen on
| having a diverse set of offerings, with some EV and hybrid
| cars. Yet the criticism continues
| thatwasunusual wrote:
| > Please share that article if you can find it. Sounds like
| an interesting take!
|
| I assume it's this one:
|
| https://asia.nikkei.com/Business/Technology/Toyota-
| secures-h...
|
| It seems to behind a soft paywall, so here's the archive.ph
| edition:
|
| https://archive.ph/UWFCH
| pjc50 wrote:
| I'm not sure about Toyota, because up till now they've been
| hydrogen evangelists and they don't have a great record on pure
| battery EVs.
| rowanG077 wrote:
| Isn't that a given since the invest in solid-state?
| speedgoose wrote:
| Solid-state isn't going to fix the crazy high consumption
| of their EVs.
| gonzo41 wrote:
| Well H2 is a hedge. It's a green-ish fuel and has potential
| as a replacement to lng for japan.
|
| but more power to toyota. can't wait to get an electric
| hilux. hopefully it's cheap.
| nordsieck wrote:
| > Well H2 is a hedge. It's a green-ish fuel and has
| potential as a replacement to lng for japan.
|
| Is it though? Can't be a hedge if it doesn't really work
| well fundamentally.
|
| Although I'll admit to being largely ignorant of the
| Japanese car market.
|
| IMO, it'd be much more practical to invest in automotive
| LNG tech and combine that with synthesizing LNG from the
| atmosphere (or at least developing the tech to do so).
|
| Practically, both H2 and LNG are both "dirty", since H2 is
| made though natural gas reforming these days.
| pbhjpbhj wrote:
| Strikes me that H2 made from excess solar panel output,
| at source, might become a thing. If you have enough solar
| for your needs then you're over-producing when the sun is
| at its peak. With feed in tariffs being low it makes
| sense to use this -- and hydrogen vehicles are an option.
| nordsieck wrote:
| > Strikes me that H2 made from excess solar panel output,
| at source, might become a thing.
|
| Why is that better than putting it back into the grid
| and/or putting it into a battery?
| pjc50 wrote:
| There's occasionally overproduction of renewables, which
| is normally just curtailed (discarded) because it exceeds
| grid demand.
|
| The H2 for medium-term tank storage idea is not bad ..
| except for the very high capital cost of electrolysis.
| Without some means of making H2 that doesn't involve
| tying up a chunk of platinum as a capital asset this is a
| non starter economically.
| Schroedingersat wrote:
| Batteries are as yet inappropriate for long duration
| swings over weeks or months that cycle only a few times a
| year.
|
| Better to compare it to thermal storage, PHES, simply
| curtailing it or even virtual storage via hydro or w2e
| (or hydrogen generation with no step where it is
| converted back to electricity or motion). All of which
| are more sensible than hydrogen for personal transport.
| greggsy wrote:
| H2 has the benefit of being much easier to store,
| transport and transfer than batteries. It's able to be
| stored in small containers and large vessels of any
| shape. Batteries manufacturing is much more complex.
| Electricity needs to be transferred from a power station
| over wires, while hydrogen can be pumped into a vehicle
| from a bulk source.
|
| Sure H2 is dangerous, but so is LNG, and petrol for that
| matter. 100+ years of accidents and safety controls means
| that even a drunk person smoking at the pump can
| (probably) fill their car up safely.
|
| Japan has very poor carbon security, so LNG reforming
| might come with its own challenges, but they could
| generate it via electrolysis using nuclear or wind power,
| or import ammonia from future mega producers like
| Australia.
|
| It's very likely that global demand in the transport
| sector will tend towards H2, so they need to gear their
| industry towards that market.
| pjc50 wrote:
| The bait-and-switch is that while green hydrogen _can_ be
| made, it very rarely is, and when it is, it 's less cost-
| effective than a battery electric solution. It's almost
| always a Trojan horse for shifting carbon emissions away
| from the tailpipe to a refinery where you can't see them
| quite as obviously.
| pbhjpbhj wrote:
| If battery material costs go high (it they're otherwise
| hard to come by) then it seems like hydrogen could find
| its niche?
| _hypx wrote:
| That is no different than a battery car. You are just
| shifting pollution to whatever is making your
| electricity. And if anyone comes in and says "I spent
| tens of thousands of dollars getting green electricity!"
| then it should be obvious that the same level of spending
| could make upstream hydrogen production vastly greener.
|
| And no, it is not "less cost effective" because batteries
| involve dramatically higher upfront production costs. The
| argument is really just a troll argument and virtually
| identical to the same arguments used against battery
| cars.
| greggsy wrote:
| I think it's important to frame it within the
| sociotechnical frameworks that nations are able to
| operate under.
|
| Introducing this technology will require incremental
| changes across industry, infrastructure and communities.
| Today, green hydrogen is out of reach for many economies.
| Building H2 ecosystems, will almost certainly require
| initial investment in brown/black hydrogen by burning
| fossils fuels, which is currently under development in
| Australia and Japan.
|
| The transition to blue (renewable>LNG>H2) and eventually
| towards green (renewables>H2O>H2) hydrogen will be slow
| and _will_ take decades to achieve. Purple (nuclear)
| hydrogen may be a next logical step for Japan.
|
| It's simply not possible to replace everything everywhere
| all at once. We should have gotten onto this two decades
| ago, so we unfortunately have to make compromises that
| seem cynical and small on the outset, but are still very
| difficult to implement and gain consensus.
| somewhat_drunk wrote:
| Nah.
|
| I worked as a project engineer in a hydrogen fuel cell
| test lab for a few years. H2 is EXTREMELY hazardous. It
| can be ignited by a miniscule amount of energy (i.e. a
| tiny static spark will do it), and it has a very fast
| flame front, which creates an extremely energetic
| explosion. It's also the smallest molecule, so it's very
| difficult to prevent leakage, and it embrittles and
| degrades most steels over time. Additionally, proton
| exchange membrane fuel cells (the most common kind) are
| poisoned by anything NOT H2, so you can't add odorous
| agents to H2 to easily detect leaks, like we do with
| natural gas. H2's only non-dangerous characteristic is
| its high buoyancy, which means it dissipates quickly in
| outdoor environments, but in my opinion that is not
| sufficient to offset all of its other dangerous
| characteristics.
|
| I would NEVER live in a building that had H2 stored
| inside (as in, inside a vehicle tank) or pumped in it,
| and I would definitely not trust the general public to
| use it safely.
|
| It also has to be stored at either incredibly high
| pressures (as a gas) or incredibly cold temperatures (as
| a liquid), neither of which are conducive to large-scale,
| long-range transport.
|
| But the worst part of H2 isn't how dangerous it is or how
| impractical it is; the worst part of H2 is how incredibly
| inefficient a hydrogen economy would be. See Paul
| Martin's excellent summary of H2 for a thorough debunking
| of the main H2 talking points.
|
| https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/distilled-thoughts-
| hydrogen-p...
| ezconnect wrote:
| They have always been conservative. They have the most reliable
| hybrid in the market.
| panick21_ wrote:
| Yeah so this is basically just repeating Toyota marketing. Yes
| they have lots of patents, because they studied lots of stuff,
| it does not mean they are in the lead of anything.
|
| > while everyone is focused on lithium ion
|
| Please remember that 'solid state' is just a marketing term.
| The actual meaning when talking in terms of automotive battery
| is 'lithium metal anodes'. So these are still lithium ion
| batteries.
|
| And lots of people are working on lithium metal anodes, and
| have been for 50 years.
|
| > Toyota was biding it's time and getting ready to one-up
| everyone with solid state batteries and vehicles with double
| the range.
|
| That is certainty what Toyota marketing has been telling
| people. But in reality scaling a new battery technology is
| incredibly difficult and if these claims were actually true we
| would see massive Toyota battery factory being build. When in
| reality its incredibly low volume production stuff that might
| show up in a few hybrids.
|
| Also, 'solid state' isn't magically better then everything
| else. You can hit the same density with silicon. There are 100s
| of companies working on silicon and lithium metal anodes.
|
| Toyota has announced some EVs but no actual product with these
| magical batteries that they have. The reality is, nobody, not
| Toyota best battery engineers know how difficult it will be to
| scale production of these things to a massive gigafactory. And
| if its not a massive gigafactory then its practically
| irrelevant in the EV market.
|
| So unless we actually see a massive gigafactory somewhere that
| is dedicated to this type of battery, this is just marketing.
| moogly wrote:
| So are you saying this long game is why the anti-EV CEO Toyoda
| Akio is stepping down tomorrow? (Read between the lines: being
| ousted by the board).
| panick21_ wrote:
| In realty his successor is just as anti-EV.
| datacruncher01 wrote:
| I think that Toyota won't really go heavy into EVs until
| batteries are more available. EV batteries are heavily
| dependent on lithium availability which is limited by world
| wide exploration limits. We are only able to mine enough to
| make about 2 million Tesla equivalent cars per year, and that's
| if none of it goes to phones other electronic devices. Toyota
| sells that many vehicles alone each year. Until there is
| something that can scale and still allow them to sell an
| economical model, they won't go heavy into EVs.
| dev_daftly wrote:
| I mean, Toyota has said this themselves. Their view is that
| making 1,000,000 hybrids is better than 1,000 evs because
| most of an evs battery capacity is wasted on a daily basis.
| horseRad wrote:
| I remember when people said Toyota would sweep in and crush
| EV:s with solid state batteries in 2020 (Even when they
| despised EV:s).
|
| https://techcrunch.com/2017/07/25/toyotas-new-solid-state-ba...
| vrglvrglvrgl wrote:
| [dead]
| jagtongue wrote:
| No fire risk? hmmm ... but still on lithium 25 years later. But
| then again the recent advancements in solid-state battery
| technology have led to twice the energy density of traditional
| lithium-ion batteries as stated in this read, as well as
| eliminate the need for a separate anode altogether. Think its
| because it uses a lithium metal foil both as the anode and the
| current collector. But i don't understand the science behind why
| that would result in a more compact design.
| Aardwolf wrote:
| Nice, when can we use them for phones and laptops lasting 72%
| longer and without fire risk?
|
| Genuine question, because optimistic battery articles have been
| popping up for decades, but here we are still with lithium ion in
| practice.
| jeffalyanak wrote:
| News about news battery chemistry is interesting, but it's not
| meaningfully correlated with our ability to produce practical
| batteries at scale.
|
| If there are existing manufacturing processes that can be
| leveraged to build cells with this chemistry--and do so
| economically--then commercialization could happen very rapidly.
|
| Otherwise, it's likely to be filled away until future
| manufacturing technology comes along, which may be "too late"
| if even better or more economical options exist at that point.
| jrockway wrote:
| > here we are still with lithium ion in practice
|
| Lithium ion batteries are actually amazing tech. I certainly
| remember the world without them; laptops had an hour of battery
| life, mobile phones were "car phones", everyone was running
| around paranoid about the "memory effect", and electric cars
| were an interesting curiosity always ten years away. Here we
| are today with pocket computers that last for days and electric
| cars buzzing around the city. In 30 years, some of this new
| tech we read about will be widely adopted, but in the meantime,
| it's not like things are that bad.
|
| I think that electric airplanes will be the thing that new
| battery technology unlocks.
| ezconnect wrote:
| It's not all batteries, the electronics got less power
| hungry.
| dougmwne wrote:
| Drones are a good example of something that couldn't exist
| with the old battery tech. Hobbyist RC aircraft always ran
| on small fuel engines. And the laws of physics around
| energy required to lift a craft are not changing anytime
| soon.
| ezconnect wrote:
| I agree Lithium batteries can't be beat on power density
| compared to other battery technology.
| panick21_ wrote:
| Lithium ion is not one thing.
|
| The 'Lithium ion' from 10 years ago is very different from it
| now. 'Lithium ion' is an umbrella term that contains lots of
| things. Just as 'solid state' is not really what anybody is
| talking about. What actually matters about 'solid state' is
| lithium metal anodes. There are also companies who are doing
| lithium metal anodes without being solid state.
|
| If 'solid state' ever make it into the market, they will just
| be the new 'Lithium ion'.
| hgomersall wrote:
| I have a genuine question too. I've never been worried about
| phone battery life; I charge once a day and I almost never run
| out, nor do I consciously conserve battery. Is worrying about
| phone battery life a problem relevant to certain phones, or is
| it a problem with usage styles?
| RivieraKid wrote:
| I have a Pixel 4a and it doesn't last a whole day if I use
| the phone a lot.
|
| So basically, if I wanted the freedom to have occasional
| heavy-usage days, I would have to buy a larger, heavier
| phone.
| ibejoeb wrote:
| It certainly depends on network quality. Do you stay mainly
| in one area, or do you move around all day? I use my phone
| for communication only--practically no browsing or app usage,
| no games--and in some places I can get away with a full day,
| others I need a recharge.
| tomxor wrote:
| If you read the article to the end it does actually offer
| reasonable perspective on this, pointing out that there are
| many other challenges left to solve before even getting to a
| prototype scale. TL;DR It's a promising step in the direction
| of solid state batteries.
| akokanka wrote:
| Research Vs Reality are quite often decades behind in physical
| world.
| jillesvangurp wrote:
| Easy to forget that most car enthusiasts thought that Elon Musk
| was a lunatic that was obviously going to fail about a decade
| ago. And now he's basically dominating the car industry.
| Lithium batteries did not exist until the nineties and did not
| get practical for use in cars until about 15 years ago.
|
| Research on solid state batteries has been ongoing since then.
| E.g. Quantumscape founded in 2010. and is planning to start
| small scale production next year. We'll see how successful they
| are of course. You are right that it takes quite long to take
| technology into production. But the counter argument is that
| there are a few decades behind us with stuff that is now slowly
| trickling into the market.
|
| Double the energy sounds amazing. Until you ask the question
| "double of what". Double of what's available in the market
| right now (450 wh/kg, Amprius sells these in low volumes) would
| be 900 wh/kg. That's perhaps not what they mean. The article is
| infuriatingly hand wavy on what is being compared to what. Or
| maybe they do. Hard to tell.
| solarkraft wrote:
| You're not wrong, but these articles keep selling it like the
| market introduction is just around the corner. It never is.
| They never mention that the battery almost always a huge
| downside making it inviable for most applications. So I (and
| probably many others) have grown disillusioned of news around
| battery technology. Wake me up when pre-production units
| reach independent testers. I don't care enough about this
| stuff to follow the dozens of leads that appear what feels
| like every week but never go anywhere.
| panick21_ wrote:
| Solid state (actually we talking about lithium metal anodes)
| have been researched literally since 70s.
| nmeofthestate wrote:
| * goes straight to the HN comments before reading TFA, to find
| out why this battery sucks *
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