[HN Gopher] Tell HN: I think I found Toyota's battery
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Tell HN: I think I found Toyota's battery
Recently there was a thread about a "breakthrough" in battery
technology at Toyota.
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36585327 Toyota has been
putting out PR puff pieces about their "solid-state" (solid-
electrolyte) batteries for years, but this story was unique in that
it had a quote from Keiji Kaita, who holds some high-level role at
Toyota. Anyway, I didn't think much of it, because there was no
paper referenced in the _Guardian_ article, which seemed to be the
original source. But while reading about something else, I came
across the paper "A near dimensionally invariable high-capacity
positive electrode material", published in _Nature Materials_ last
December: https://www.nature.com/articles/s41563-022-01421-z This
paper, reporting a cathode that has very little (much less than
normal) change in size or shape when charged and discharged, claims
reversible storage with a solid electrolyte. It stands to reason
that dimensional stability of the cathode is necessary for
interfacing with a solid electrolyte, since if it swells and
shrinks, it will probably detach from the electrolyte, and possibly
damage it further. Looking at the affiliations of some of the
authors we see a number of contributors from the "Lithium Ion
Battery Technology and Evaluation Center (LIBTEC)". A web search
about LIBTEC leads to several articles from 2018:
https://www.cnet.com/roadshow/news/toyota-nissan-honda-libte...
which state that Toyota, along with Nissan, Honda and Panasonic
(Tesla's major collaborator), have established this consortium to
work on solid-electrolyte batteries as of five years ago. So what
does this thing look like? It's a vanadium-titanium cathode,
Li8Ti2V4O14. Titanium is common; vanadium technically has a higher
crustal abundance than nickel, but it tends to be spread across
low-quality deposits, so production is low right now. A review
considering the resource outlook for V-based batteries [1] was
guardedly optimistic. 750 Wh/kg is _great_. Vanadium cathodes
historically had a problem with high dimensional _instability_ ,
but it appears that cocrystallization with titanium may have fixed
that, and the weird properties of vanadium became an advantage in
compensating for Li+ influx/efflux. The use of a sulfide
electrolyte pours doubt on claims of safety, though. It's
reasonably likely that if water were to come into contact with the
electrolyte, it could release highly toxic hydrogen sulfide gas.
Also, since the battery was developed in collaboration with other
major automakers (and funded by the Japanese government), it's
somewhat questionable to think it would give Toyota a major
advantage in the EV race. But for the Japanese economy, which has
been rather slow lately, it could be a boost. 1:
https://chemistry-europe.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10....
Author : scythe
Score : 347 points
Date : 2023-08-03 02:25 UTC (20 hours ago)
| alex7734 wrote:
| > it could release highly toxic hydrogen sulfide gas.
|
| How bad is it in real world conditions? Because from what I'm
| reading it's not the "it makes you sick" kind of toxic, but
| rather the "it kills you in seconds" kind of toxic.
| _a_a_a_ wrote:
| HS is funny stuff. Does nothing then zap, ur dead.
|
| UK figures for safe working concentration in air, from memory,
| hydrogen cyanide 11ppm, hydrogen sulphide 10ppm
| runnerup wrote:
| Current lead acid batteries can do this as well. Smells awful
| and pretty unsafe situation. H2S is quite dangerous but it's
| rare that they'd create an IDLH situation as long as there's a
| bit of breeze.
| kragen wrote:
| i'd be surprised if lead-acid batteries produce detectable
| quantities of hydrogen sulfide; isn't their sulfur bound up
| in an extremely stable oxoanion? still, https://web.archive.o
| rg/web/20161005164308/http://www.wesh.c... certainly doesn't
| sound like sulfuric acid
| lstodd wrote:
| Rotten eggs smell is just about everything you can get from
| this kind of experiment.
|
| Now if they scale it up. but at any scale that makes sense
| economically you can get suffocated by just about any gas you
| can think of. Like helium or hydrogen.
| rzzzt wrote:
| H2S is also a byproduct of crude oil processing. The nose is
| easily overwhelmed by the smell even at low concentrations,
| and it becomes hard to notice before it strikes.
| jncfhnb wrote:
| Depending on concentrations required for consequences a smelly
| gas is much safer than something like CO
| arcticbull wrote:
| I believe you go noseblind to hydrogen sulfide very quickly.
| [1]
|
| [1] https://dodtec.com/news/the-potential-dangers-of-
| hydrogen-su...
| peterdsharpe wrote:
| Perhaps "safer than CO" is fair, but "much safer than CO" may
| be a bit of a stretch. H2S is the #2 cause of fatal chemical
| inhalations in the workplace, behind CO:
|
| https://www.bls.gov/opub/ted/2019/fatal-chemical-
| inhalations...
| hadlock wrote:
| Someone else pointed out LD50 is ~700ppm
|
| It's unlikely you'd be exposed to this level for any period of
| time unless the battery ruptured into the car, underwater, with
| the windows up, in which case you have bigger problems. You're
| unlikely to to see 700ppm in an outdoor situation like a car
| wreck or battery malfunction on the highway during a rainstorm.
| Atmospheric CO2 is about 450ppm for comparison.
|
| Ammonia is a superior refrigerant (widely used in industrial
| circles, and causes no ozone depletion, is biodegradable, etc)
| but not used in residential applications because it's highly
| toxic if there's a catastrophic seal failure and not vented
| outside, despite the fact that humans are very efficient at
| smelling even the slightest ammonia leak.
| peterdsharpe wrote:
| I think H2S is somewhat bigger of a safety risk than
| presented here.
|
| For example, check out this case where what you describe
| (battery rupture) happened, killing both occupants from H2S
| inhalation:
|
| https://web.archive.org/web/20161005164308/http://www.wesh.c.
| ..
|
| And this was only from a starter battery, not a battery sized
| for vehicle locomotion.
| dleeftink wrote:
| As excited as I am, there are some kinks in the supply chain
| that may need some extra taking care of [1]. Although this
| incident involved relatively few electric vehicles on open
| sea, it would be even more difficult to contain with larger
| shipments. Modular battery installations and separate
| fireproof(ed) shipping are options that need to be
| considered.
|
| [1]: https://apnews.com/article/cargo-ship-fire-netherlands-
| envir...
| bell-cot wrote:
| MSDS for H2S - https://www.airgas.com/msds/001029.pdf
|
| The Occupational Exposure limits are fairly low 'ppm' numbers,
| and LC50 is 712ppm for 1 hour. (That is the concentration at
| which 50% of the exposed rats died.)
| megaman821 wrote:
| This will be neat if it works but really there isn't going to be
| a huge market for 500+ mile cars vs the cost savings of getting a
| 300-400 mile car. The exception might be road-trippers and people
| who do a lot of towing but I suspect that is a much smaller
| population than people tend to think.
| canoebuilder wrote:
| Given an innovation of this sort, there is not a single area of
| application, extending the range of electric cars. You could
| also make lighter weight electric cars. Which would have their
| merits.
|
| Think of the whole spectrum of EVs, lighter weight e-bikes,
| scooters, skateboards, or long range e-bikes. Electric aircraft
| start to become feasible.
|
| Much more flight time out of your toy drone, multi-day battery
| life for your phone or laptop.
|
| Energy storage in off grid setups becomes simpler, or more
| capacity in the same space.
|
| Etc. etc.
|
| All that provided this new design could function as a more or
| less slot in replacement, or better, for current lithium
| batteries in terms of manufacturing, cost, and what not.
| molsongolden wrote:
| The additional capacity might be wanted in cold climates. The
| massive range drop when running the cabin heater plus slow
| charging in cold environments definitely makes me pause when
| considering an EV.
| Astronaut3315 wrote:
| I've found that the range of my EV is overkill in summer and
| about right in winter. I live in Minnesota, USA where the
| winters tend to be cold.
| nuancebydefault wrote:
| First time I encountered range and overkill in the same
| sentence. Does your car contain breakthrough battery
| technology? Solid state maybe? Also, is electricity plenty
| cheap where you charge?
| tomtheelder wrote:
| I agree with the previous commenter. If you level 2
| charge at home you have to drive a pretty preposterous
| distance to ever have range issues. Road trips are
| another story, but they are infrequent.
| [deleted]
| oblio wrote:
| Let's be real here.
|
| If you live in any kind of cold-ish climate (below 10C) and
| want comfort, imagine a super common scenario:
|
| - heating on
|
| - air temperature below 10C
|
| - highway speeds, so a steady speed of ~130kmph
|
| - car costing less than EUR30k
|
| Well, guess what, there are barely any EVs costing less than
| EUR30k in Europe, and even if there were, their range would
| be 200km or less under those conditions.
| myth2018 wrote:
| I believe that such additional capacity will also be very
| well received by the ongoing hybrid airplane projects.
| asdff wrote:
| People like having extra capacity even if they scarcely use
| that capacity. This is why the F150 is the best selling car in
| America. Not to mention its better in general to have extra
| battery capacity than you might reasonably need today, as it
| will degrade with age, or temperature.
| ninkendo wrote:
| It's also why the F150 lightning appears to be an absolute
| flop: Its range goes to crap when you're towing, and people
| who want F150's at least _think of themselves_ as people who
| want to be able to tow. (Actual towing with F150 's is likely
| low, but most people who buy one, want to have the option.)
| jsight wrote:
| > people who want F150's at least think of themselves as
| people who want to be able to tow
|
| I've only found this to be true on the internet. In the
| real world, it is much less common.
|
| Lots of people realize that their truck is just the
| commuter and home depot stuff hauler.
| chungy wrote:
| At least it still performs well at the "Home Depot stuff
| hauler" part. A sedan is absolutely impossible to work
| for that use case.
|
| (Ok: I'm a bit defensive. There's a concerted Internet
| effort over the past year to paint all pickups as a
| status symbol without justification, as if every empty
| bed or fresh-from-the-car-wash truck is proof that the
| owner doesn't need it. Even if you just move furniture
| every so often, I totally disagree with the sentiment. If
| I can afford two vehicles, a pickup and sedan would be a
| good combo; for now, just a pickup is good.)
| nuancebydefault wrote:
| The few times you tow, you typically need full range, or
| what do you try to say?
| coderenegade wrote:
| If your range is shot because you're towing, it's
| probably a lot worse to have to recharge at a public
| charger with your boat on the back than it is to stop at
| a gas station. Keeping in mind of course that the
| limitations of charging mean you're also having to do
| this dance more frequently.
| asdff wrote:
| I wouldn't be surprised if people had resale value in the
| back of their mind. Tacomas are another popular truck but
| the top trims with the largest engines certainly command a
| premium and hold their used value better than the perhaps
| more economical 2wd 4 cylinder tacomas.
| snoman wrote:
| I thought it was a flop because it was basically impossible
| to actually buy one due to availability?
| mrguyorama wrote:
| And they had battery issues early on that gave EV
| skeptical people an easy out to ignore them.
| jackmott42 wrote:
| Just people who go on road trips with 2 or more mountain bikes
| need this. This is not theoretical, a Model Y has its range
| ruined with 2 or more mountain bikes attached to the exterior.
| Like ~140 miles max on our trip with 4 mountain bikes. And then
| you tend to go to more remote areas so that makes it even
| worse.
|
| So yes, our family is eagerly awaiting a 500 mile range ev
| jsight wrote:
| That's fair, but a truck with the same payload and rated
| range will do much better at hauling bikes.
| 7speter wrote:
| Even if there is no demand for 500 mile range cars, solid state
| batteries are supposed to be twice the density of current
| batteries so a 3-400 mile car would still be something like 25%
| lighter than they would be with current batteries.
| benrapscallion wrote:
| If I had asked people what they wanted, they would have said a
| faster horse. -Henry Ford
|
| This is analogous to how people thought nobody would need a 100
| GB hard disk on their personal computer when 1 GB hard disks
| were the norm.
| [deleted]
| lowbloodsugar wrote:
| More energy doesn't mean longer range for me. It means I can
| pass other cars and drive the speed I want when I'm up in the
| mountains, instead of having to eke out every last mile. If I
| get 8MPG in my mustang because I'm enjoying my drive, there are
| gas stations every few miles, even in state parks. EVs burn
| "gas" just as quick if you drive them the same way, but there's
| no charger for 60 miles. The KIA EV6 GT just can't make use of
| its 580hp in the places I'd like to enjoy it because it only
| has 200 mile range to start with.
| VanillaCafe wrote:
| There are a lot of real world caveats that go into those range
| estimates. I just took my long range Tesla Model Y with an
| advertised 326 mile range on a multi-day road trip and I was
| stopping to charge about every 100 miles. I would love to get
| something with 3x the advertised range.
| Hankenstein2 wrote:
| Agreed on the small market, what would move the needle is if it
| re-charged much more quickly than current batteries.
|
| EV owners really only want 500+ miles because charging the
| battery takes so long. Charging infrastructure is already
| changing and becoming more available so charging speed will be
| the real quest
| qball wrote:
| A gasoline car can charge from 0% to 100% of its range in 5
| minutes. It usually takes longer to take the slight detour and
| line the car up with the charge port than it does to fully
| charge the car. Recharging this kind of car does not damage its
| most expensive part nor does its fuel tank shrink.
|
| The newest electric cars take a half hour to do this (a non-
| trivial amount of time) _and_ only go about 2 /3rds as far
| (less on the highway), so if you actually want to go somewhere
| you're taking on about an extra hour of charging for 6 hours of
| driving. Recharging this kind of car damages its most expensive
| part- the fuel tank- and it shrinks every time you charge it
| (whether quickly or slowly).
|
| Now, if the car had 1600 miles of range, then a half-hour
| charge time and the slow shrinkage of its gas tank is more
| acceptable because you're getting approximately the same rate
| of recharge per minute (as it would be if the 200-mile range
| electric cars charged as fast as a gas car does). With a range
| or charge time like that, the other inherent disadvantages to
| electric cars are muted to a massive degree (a 20% range
| degradation isn't as big a deal for a car that can still go
| 1200 miles, and a 30% range reduction in cold months isn't as
| big a deal if the car could be charged in 3 minutes).
|
| But neither of those things are currently true, and that's in
| large part why these kinds of cars don't really sell unless
| they're known to be rolling gimmicks or transformative in other
| ways (the electric trucks that let you run power tools off
| their batteries are the best example of this). Which is why
| Tesla's cars are the way that they are, and why every other
| major manufacturer who doesn't have a good idea of how to sell
| their inferior cars take the "look, we can do a massive screen
| in our car too just like Tesla" approach (and fail specifically
| because they aren't Tesla), or they just keep developing really
| good gas cars (an approach currently favored by the Japanese
| companies).
| carabiner wrote:
| ? Range is how often you need to recharge. For people like in
| apartments without home charging, this is huge, especially
| since homes are so unaffordable now.
| MisterBastahrd wrote:
| I think you'll find that for many people, EVs are a non-starter
| unless they can mimic the same travel timelines you can get
| from a combustion engine. 500 miles is very close to what
| they'd be looking for.
| lostlogin wrote:
| > I suspect that is a much smaller population than people tend
| to think.
|
| Pickup truck owners will die on that hill.
| topper-123 wrote:
| What are you on? Having battery with 3x battery capacity will
| be an absolute game changer. This will do a lot of good, if it
| gets into production. For one thing, it will make EVs
| competitive with diesel, which will be s huge win for getting
| us of oil.
| spacemadness wrote:
| People will absolutely choose the longer battery span to rid
| themselves of range anxiety. I agree, it's a terrible take.
| Bud wrote:
| Americans don't buy cars anymore, though; not really. They buy
| ludicrous gigantic heavy pickups and SUVs. So what we're really
| talking about is getting decent range into oversized pickups
| that their owners want to accelerate like sports cars and still
| have a nice air-conditioned interior even when it's 150 degrees
| on the pavement due to climate change.
| fragmede wrote:
| https://www.goodcarbadcar.net/2023-us-vehicle-sales-
| figures-...
|
| The top 5 on that list are Ford F-series trucks by a large
| margin, followed by a Toyota small SUV and a Honda small SUV,
| before you get to the Toyota Camry, an actual car, followed
| by a Toyota truck.
|
| Americans just really like their F150's!
| Modified3019 wrote:
| You can thank the EPA for that. The gov mandates that
| vehicles achieve a certain calculated efficiency, or there's
| an extra fee/fine attached to the vehicle. Reasonable enough,
| right?
|
| Unfortunately the way this is calculated is absolutely
| fucking retarded. Basically, the larger the _wheelbase_ of
| vehicle, the lower fuel efficiency the vehicle can get away
| with.
|
| This is why these fucking things keep ballooning in size,
| have a dogshit turning radius, and are causing an epidemic of
| frontovers and backover accidents killing or injuring
| thousands of children every year because there's no up close
| visibility.
|
| Video explanation:
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=azI3nqrHEXM
|
| Old small trucks can actually command a _premium_ because of
| this bullshit. Very few people actually like these huge
| stupid boats, but there's just nothing else to buy when you
| need an actual work vehicle.
|
| Please consider contacting your legislators and putting this
| on their radar, and _keeping_ it there.
| rendang wrote:
| Americans also buy a lot of small to medium CUVs
| achiang wrote:
| Real world usage is you only get to use ~70% of the stated
| range on a road trip, so we're really talking about 350 miles
| of range, which is, as you say, what most people actually want.
|
| Why 70%? You obviously don't run the battery to zero, 10% is a
| common amount of buffer to leave. And then when you DC fast
| charge, the rate of charging drops dramatically around 80%, so
| people don't charge to full.
|
| These are for ideal conditions, add in any sort of weather and
| the range drops again as you run a heater, etc.
|
| Living in the Bay Area, driving to Tahoe in the winter without
| a mandatory recharge should be the gold standard.
|
| It's not an unusual use case, "only" about 180 miles, and yet
| there aren't any EVs that can do it confidently because going
| uphill in the cold with aerodynamic-destroying ski rack is
| really hard.
|
| A car with 500 miles of fair-weather range could probably do
| it?
| ytdytvhxgydvhh wrote:
| Well the Lucid Air with the big battery could probably make
| that drive no sweat, but that's out of reach to almost
| everyone.
| ru552 wrote:
| 500+ miles means I can just charge up on the weekend and not be
| bothered with it during the week. I'd pay for that convenience.
| ultrarunner wrote:
| If it could only reduce the weight of current EVs that would be
| a win. Most electric vehicles weight 1000 lbs or more than
| their ICE counterparts, and in the extreme case of the Hummer,
| the total weight is over 9000 lbs.
|
| Vehicles seem to be continuously ballooning in size, so whether
| that continues or eventual legislation forces more reasonable
| sizes, higher energy density would be very welcome.
| warble wrote:
| Yes this is the real win. Lighter smaller batteries. Better
| efficiency and easier to design around for safety and
| maintenance.
| hamandcheese wrote:
| When will this meme die? A Model 3 is very comparable in
| weight to an Audi S3. The Hyundai Ionic 5 is comparable
| weight and interior volume to a Toyota Rav 4.
|
| The Hummer is a monster either way and is not a good sample.
| kube-system wrote:
| Here's some vehicles it's much closer to in weight than the
| audi:
|
| https://www.edmunds.com/car-
| comparisons/?veh1=401999985&veh2...
| iamatworknow wrote:
| I always bought into this "meme", in part because just
| about every EV review I've seen mentions having to
| compensate for the extra weight which makes those cars less
| performant at times, so decided to look it up based on your
| quoted vehicles here, and figured I'd save anyone else the
| same search:
|
| A 2023 Rav 4 has a curb weight of between 3615 and 3775 lb
| [1]
|
| A 2023 Ioniq 5 has a curb weight of between 3968 and 4663
| lb [2]
|
| So a difference of between 193 and 1048 pounds between the
| two. That's actually a lot less than I expected, at least
| on the low end. 193 pounds is basically equivalent to just
| having one extra person in the car.
|
| As noted in replies, though, these _do_ take into account
| different drive trains, so the comparison is not not great
| from the start.
|
| [1] https://www.toyota.com/rav4/2023/features/mpg_other_pri
| ce/44...
|
| [2]
| https://www.hyundaiusa.com/us/en/vehicles/ioniq-5/compare-
| sp...
| oblio wrote:
| You don't have as many small cars in the US. Small EVs
| are MUCH heavier than small ICE cars. Think 30-40%
| heavier.
| ultrarunner wrote:
| Not to devolve into splitting hairs, but your minimum
| range is comparing the heaviest premium AWD ICE vehicle
| to the FWD-only standard model electric, and the electric
| is still heavier.
| iamatworknow wrote:
| Yeah, I missed that there were the two lines for the
| Ioniq 5 weight based on the drivetrain, and a column that
| was not obviously hidden with my window size, my bad.
| arh68 wrote:
| Your numbers seem off...
|
| Base models: 3,370 vs 3,968. Flagship models: 3,800 vs
| 4,663.
|
| So 600-850 lbs differential. Not 1,000, but not just an
| extra person.
|
| To be fair, the Hyundai does seem larger (12" longer
| wheelbase).
| iamatworknow wrote:
| Yeah...I messed up. Damn window size and two different
| drivetrains for the Ioniq. Side note, web design sucks.
| oblio wrote:
| The floor for EVs is very high.
|
| In Europe people frequently buy compact cars.
|
| Let's take VW Golf as an example. The lightest version of
| the current model weighs 1300kg, more or less.
|
| The EV equivalent, ID.3, weighs 1800kg. That's 500kg extra
| (!) which is almost 40% more.
|
| That's an insane amount of extra weight for a small car.
|
| The percentage difference becomes less for bigger cars, so
| I imagine that's why some Americans don't notice it as
| much.
|
| But for the rest of the world (95% of the world's
| population), that's a huge deal.
| jacobgorm wrote:
| Meanwhile, the BMW i3 weights between 1245 kg to 1441 kg,
| depending on configuration, battery size, and presence of
| optional range extender engine, showing what is possible
| when companies bother to optimize for weight savings.
| moogly wrote:
| I doubt the i3 was profitable, which is probably why they
| discontinued it. It was basically a sort of production
| concept car.
| enragedcacti wrote:
| The i3 is a carbon finer tub design which is both
| extremely expensive and not uniquely applicable to EVs.
| It's a very cool design but its an extreme outlier and it
| isn't a realistic bar to compare against for companies
| trying to make money on mass market vehicles.
| ultrarunner wrote:
| The Audi is 3,527 lbs, where the Model 3 is 4,048 lbs. The
| Tesla is a bit longer and narrower, but they're both big
| cars.
|
| The Rav4 FWD is 3370 lbs, where the Ionic 5 standard range
| FWD is about 4,000 lbs (the SEL is 4,300).
|
| If the best examples are "only 500-700 lbs heavier" I think
| there is still room for progress. Rounded, that's the rough
| 1000 lbs I suggested above.
|
| Electric cars are, in aggregate, simply heavier right now--
| with implications for crash safety for everyone (especially
| those outside that vehicle). Any progress toward increasing
| energy density (and vehicle size) will confer a net benefit
| to society.
| t0mas88 wrote:
| They're not "comparable" at all. You're probably comparing
| the lightest model 3 (which you cannot buy anymore, the
| newer models are heavier) to the heaviest Audi A3 model on
| the market otherwise they aren't "very comparable"
|
| Same for the model S, it's on average about 200kg heavier
| than a BMW 5 series across the range from most basic model
| to heaviest on both.
|
| If a car has a 500kg battery, and tech improvements can
| make that 200-300kg for the same range that would be quite
| good. Handling improves, safety improves, the suspension
| can be simpler and in the end also range in stop&go traffic
| would improve with less weight.
| toddmorey wrote:
| It's not a meme. Battery electric powertrains are heavier
| than ICE + fuel equivalents.
| blinkingled wrote:
| Maybe the S3 can afford to add more insulation compared to
| the Model 3? I mean Teslas aren't known for good road noise
| isolation so if they do reduce battery weight they can add
| some more for the insulation for example.
| FireBeyond wrote:
| Whereas Audi are known for excellent noise isolation,
| road, engine, to the point that in some models they pipe
| in engine noise because it's almost too isolated.
| majormajor wrote:
| Are there any EVs with Honda Civic or Accord or BMW 2
| series weight? E.g. <3500lb? Even a Leaf seems to start at
| 3500lbs now.
| qdog wrote:
| The Mini Electric is down there. Weighs more than gas,
| and one of the reasons it isn't long range, would push up
| the weight too much.
|
| The current generation of battery tech is just a little
| heavier than would be competitive to ICE on weight.
| Gasoline holds a lot more energy than a battery can, but
| the engine is heavier. If/when battery density is able to
| double (and this solid state tech is 2x-3x current
| battery, so it would be a game-changer), you would have
| very similar car weights. This seems to be one of the
| reasons the big trucks are first, adding a thousand
| pounds to a 6000 lb. truck isn't as bad as adding that to
| a car half the weight. I expect we will eventually see
| vehicles that weight less than the ICE counterpart that
| get a reasonable range, but hard to say when battery tech
| advances that much.
| lastofthemojito wrote:
| I feel like that's quite a stretch of the word comparable.
|
| The Model 3 is 14% heavier than the Audi:
| https://www.edmunds.com/car-
| comparisons/?veh1=401999985&veh2...
|
| And the Ioniq5 is 35% heavier than the RAV4:
| https://www.edmunds.com/car-
| comparisons/?veh1=401958795&veh2...
| kube-system wrote:
| And the Audi is already on the heavier side for vehicles
| of that size. Mainstream non-'luxury' sedans of
| comparable size are often 3200-3300, like
| Accord/Camry/Altima, and the construction of these
| vehicles is a more equal comparison.
| disiplus wrote:
| S3 is heavy because it has 4wd and a bigger everything
| compared to a lower trim model. The same as the vw golf 8
| starts at 1300kg, but my R model is in the 1500 range
| because it has 4wd and other things like adaptive damping
| that make it heavy
| kube-system wrote:
| AWD is available on the Camry for an 86kg penalty. But
| yes, every part adds weight. That's why Teslas have
| spartan interiors and less noise deadening than other
| vehicles in the price range, they're spending as much
| weight as possible on the batteries and not the rest of
| the car.
| mohaine wrote:
| From Google: Model 3: 3,862 to 4,048 lbs Audi S3: 3,527
| lbs
|
| 9-14% seems comparable IMO and worst case roughly half he
| mentioned 1000 lbs.
| disiplus wrote:
| The difference is around 250kg. Witch is a lot for a
| small car. My source is adac. But if you don't go to a S3
| and are OK with regular A3 with smaller engine those
| start at 1300 kg.
| lelandbatey wrote:
| Since it's a bit more than a doubling of energy density, it's
| less that you can get a 500+ mile car and more that you can
| drop the price & weight of a 300-400 mile car. Imagine cutting
| the weight of an EV battery by 500 pounds while maintaining its
| current capacity. All that weight savings will probably get you
| some additional range, and save you on cost of materials,
| meaning you could cut the battery down a bit more to save even
| more on materials while saving a bit more weight. All told, you
| could have the exact same EV, but manufacturing the battery
| just got ~50% cheaper! That's what's exciting about this as a
| possibility, not 500+ mile cars.
| dreamcompiler wrote:
| ...provided the number of useful recharges is at least as
| high as Li-Ion, and preferably more like LiFePo or even
| better.
| barrkel wrote:
| I doubt range is increased much by reduced weight. Only
| rolling resistance is reduced, but most resistance at speed
| is from air resistance. Since energy is reclaimed from
| braking, the extra mass for acceleration is balanced by the
| extra mass for stopping, so it doesn't help much with stop
| start traffic.
|
| That's how I mentally model it anyhow.
| causi wrote:
| Also people who don't do all their driving in the city. That
| 250-mile battery shrinks a lot when your whole trip is at
| 80mph.
| coffeebeqn wrote:
| Plus it's not always 70deg in most places so the estimate is
| almost always optimistic to begin with
| causi wrote:
| Yeah there's about three months of the year when I can set
| my AC to anything but maximum cold.
| richardw wrote:
| Trucks, buses, planes, boats (eg ferries), smaller lighter
| cars, bikes, drones. Everything can benefit from smaller and
| lighter, or longer charge.
| canoebuilder wrote:
| > _750 Wh /kg is great._
|
| To put it mildly.
|
| Energy density in the current leaders in that category, lithium
| ion batteries, 250-270 wh/kg. So, provided a similar or better
| ratio of watt-hours to unit of volume, we're basically looking at
| tripling the energy storage of EVs or significant weight
| reduction, in the ideal scenario of this design being a safe and
| cost effective replacement for current batteries.
| condour75 wrote:
| According to a quick googling, this would be enough density for
| for short range commuter aircraft to become viable.
|
| https://theicct.org/aviation-global-expecting-electric-jul22...
| oblio wrote:
| At that energy density, can't they just wrap the entire smaller
| battery in 2 layers of ceramic and steel or something and just
| side-step the entire safety discussion OP is mentioning?
|
| Yes, I know it's probably a silly solution :-)
| roomey wrote:
| If they could coat, or layer it, in a reactant or catalyst
| that made the hydrogen sulphide has less harmful or toxic it
| may work, so if the battery is damaged some of the toxic gas
| will be reduced to something less harmful.
|
| Maybe a chemist would know if this is possible
| sheepshear wrote:
| The premise is that the enclosure is already somehow
| breeched. Squeezing a battery is bad and it makes bad
| situations worse.
| oblio wrote:
| The thing is, batteries can weight half a ton. At triple
| the energy density they could almost armor plate it to tank
| levels. I imagine most of us aren't under Javelin attack
| during road trips :-p
| jackmott42 wrote:
| Not silly at all, and that might be exactly what they do!
| alostpuppy wrote:
| Out of curiosity, What is the wh/kg for petrol?
| lkajslkjdd wrote:
| Obligatory XKCD: https://xkcd.com/1162/
| lkajslkjdd wrote:
| Which works out at ~21,111,111,111 Wh/kg
| ultrarunner wrote:
| Wikipedia says 13000 Wh/kg, but you have to keep in mind that
| due to physics, wear considerations, and emissions
| regulation, most cars are only 20-40% efficient. At a 20%
| efficiency, that's 2600 Wh/kg. This is further constrained by
| gear ratios, meaning not all power is available at all times.
| dreamcompiler wrote:
| Exactly. Gasoline is much, _much_ more energy dense than
| Li-Ion batteries, but in terms of dollars per mile, an
| electric car is 2x-4x _cheaper_ to drive than an ICE car.
| That 's because an internal combustion engine wastes the
| majority of gasoline's energy as heat, while electric
| motors use most of the battery's energy to move the car.
| Detrytus wrote:
| > an electric car is 2x-4x cheaper to drive than an ICE
| car
|
| It hugely depends on the cost of electricity. Last year
| some European countries (Netherlands IIRC) had those so
| high, that it was actually more expensive to drive EV
| than ICE.
| tomp wrote:
| _> That 's because an internal combustion engine wastes
| the majority of gasoline's energy as heat, while electric
| motors use most of the battery's energy to move the car._
|
| I guess that depends on your perspective and/or where you
| live.
|
| I rented a Tesla in December once and was freezing the
| whole drive. A gasoline engine generates extra heat you
| can use to heat the cabin, whereas an electric car needs
| extra heaters (which IME weren't working that well in
| that old Model S)
| lesuorac wrote:
| https://www.google.com/search?q=Wh%2Fkg%20of%20gasoline
|
| Fuel Energy by mass (Wh/kg) Energy by volume (Wh/l)
|
| Diesel fuel 12,700 10,700
|
| Gasoline 12,200 9,700
|
| Natural gas (250 bar) 12,100 3,100
|
| Body fat 10,500 9,700
| [deleted]
| jjcm wrote:
| About 12,000
|
| https://batteryuniversity.com/article/bu-1007-net-
| calorific-...
| hinkley wrote:
| For mobile applications wh/kg and wh/liter both matter, and
| they can vary independently. With the titanium electrode you've
| got a lighter battery per unit of volume. That said, a vehicle
| battery has to propel itself, so a lighter battery requires
| less capacity and thus a bit less volume.
| dangus wrote:
| I think for the EV skeptics it's easy to forget how fast
| battery chemistry has been evolving. There's an common
| assumption that the EV status quo of 300 mile range at barely-
| affordable prices will continue forever, and therefore with all
| the woes surrounding charging and bad weather affecting range,
| EVs are dead in the water.
|
| Ten years ago $30k got you 75 miles of range out of a Nissan
| Leaf. Fast forward to present day and you will spend less money
| before adjusting for inflation and get 259 miles of range in
| the same class of vehicle (Chevy Bolt EV).
|
| When many automakers say they will only sell EVs by ~2035, it
| sounds a bit far-fetched, but in the context of the past 10
| years it's hard to deny the high probability that gasoline
| vehicles will make basically no sense by the 2030s on the basis
| of value.
|
| Gasoline cars will simply cost more to own, end of story.
| gorjusborg wrote:
| Are there EV skeptics? I don't think so.
|
| There are average people and EV fanboys. It's just that
| fanboys call the other people skeptics.
|
| EVs are in early adoption still, from my point of view. Try
| to pump it all you want, but EVs offer far less utility for a
| higher price, and they are more inconvenient.
|
| Until the industry standardizes on batteries and stations
| offer pre-charged battery swaps, I'll hang on to my ICE
| machine.
| iamatworknow wrote:
| To me it all still comes down to charging infrastructure. The
| current state of batteries is good enough for me, but I live
| in an apartment and can't charge at home, and the
| availability/reliability local charging stations are a crap
| shoot, nevermind charging on a road trip.
|
| But when (if?) I own my own house and can charge at home,
| I'll be in even with the current state of batteries.
| linuxftw wrote:
| I remain skeptical until the products are real and
| affordable. No reason to buy an electric car now if they'll
| have potentially double the range in a few years.
| xsmasher wrote:
| By that logic it never makes sense to buy a computer. It'll
| be obsolete in 18 months!
|
| Electric cars are cheaper to operate that gas RIGHT NOW,
| with less maintenance. No reason to hold off just because
| they're going to get better.
| lostlogin wrote:
| For a Leaf the dealers response to 'where do I go to get
| it serviced?' was 'don't bother, nothing to service.
|
| That's a slight exaggeration but not by much (diff oil
| needs changing and the tyres need rotating).
|
| It's amazing.
| linuxftw wrote:
| Companies literally made this calculus decades ago during
| the boom years of Moore's law when it came to purchasing
| computer hardware.
|
| > Electric cars are cheaper to operate that gas RIGHT
| NOW, with less maintenance.
|
| My timeline for owning a vehicle is 15+ years. I'm not
| going to buy something that is instantly obsolete. I'm
| also not going to buy all this vendor lock-in nonsense
| all these EVs come with. If they were basic rides with an
| electric drivetrain, sure, but they try to make
| everything the millennium falcon.
|
| You should look up how much fun it is getting service and
| parts on a new vehicle nowadays. You're rolling the dice
| that you won't burn down your home and/or have a lawn
| ornament because you can't get parts.
| CamperBob2 wrote:
| Yet another problem that could have been avoided if
| government had had the foresight to enforce a technology-
| agnostic swappable battery standard.
| gorjusborg wrote:
| You got it, swappable batteries is the key to EV mass-
| adoption.
|
| Do people care about range with internal combustion
| vehicles? Not really, if they can get between gas
| stations. It takes very little time to refill, and each
| vehicle (regardless of manufacturer) uses the same stuff.
|
| The trouble is that standardizing when there is hot
| competition is very political. Things need to cool down a
| little before it can be done, and you don't want to
| standardize until designs naturally converge.
|
| You don't want government to get involved early when
| engineering is involved.
|
| EVs will be a pain until a standard emerges though. I
| can't wait until I can drive up to a station and get a
| pre-charged battery.
| CamperBob2 wrote:
| My thinking was always that the physical packages should
| be standardized -- think two 'AA's for a Miata and twenty
| 'D's for a Peterbilt -- along with the connectors. Also a
| rudimentary bus protocol to communicate the battery's
| parameters to chargers and loads, store usage history,
| keep track of expected remaining life, and such. But
| literally nothing else other than basic environmental and
| safety considerations. A battery must be recyclable in
| some form or fashion, will not usually set your house on
| fire, cannot explode under normal operating conditions,
| cannot emit more than X milliroentgens per hour,
| whatever. Other than that, no rules.
|
| Don't standardize the chemistry, or the voltage, or the
| current limit, or the charging rate, or anything else...
| _just make it fit_. Then require the industry to adopt
| standardized power converters and chargers under similar
| auspices. For the hardware, don 't specify voltage, don't
| specify cost, don't specify charging time, don't mandate
| anything except the ability to charge a particular class
| of battery.
|
| Simply mandating the form factor, connector, and
| handshaking could have made all the difference. We would
| have manufacturers competing to see who could build the
| most economical and/or performant batteries, chargers and
| converters. Charging could take place at times and places
| that optimize efficiency. Filling up an EV could take
| _less_ time than getting gas, not more. And there would
| be no chicken-and-egg problem to impede adoption, as we
| 're seeing now. You would not be stuck with the batteries
| or the charger that your car came with.
|
| We will kick ourselves for the next 50 years for not
| doing this.
| linuxftw wrote:
| We don't need the government for this. Consumers could
| refuse to buy proprietary solutions.
| CamperBob2 wrote:
| Your sense of optimism is, well, inspirational.
|
| Meanwhile, on _this_ planet, the necessary standard didn
| 't emerge from government _or_ industry.
| hinkley wrote:
| Are batteries still on a roughly 3-4% annual rate of
| improvement? Or has that shifted? So,e of that will have been
| aerodynamics (the industry is slowly boiling the frog on
| styling vs aerodynamics) and motor efficiency, which has
| climbed a lot in the last 15 years.
| acover wrote:
| In 8 years costs per kWh dropped from $732 to $151 usd-2022
| [0]. Halving every few years but it's been slowing down.
|
| [0] https://www.statista.com/statistics/883118/global-
| lithium-io...
| jackmott42 wrote:
| energy density hasn't really changed for 15 years, price
| dropped a lot though, but price drop has also paused
| recently. There is no telling if any progress will be made
| or not. Maybe! Maybe not.
| Detrytus wrote:
| Actually, when demand for EVs goes up, lithium mining
| won't be able to keep up, so in the next decade or so
| we'll see steep increase in battery prices.
| hinkley wrote:
| In the next decade you will see more reliance on
| technology that becomes cheaper than simply throwing
| lithium at the problem.
|
| It's the same thing with many techs. In the 70's we
| thought we would run out of oil by 2000, and a lot of
| asshats in the 80's and 90's crowed about how stupid
| those so-called experts were.
|
| What happened in the 80's and 90's was ground sensing
| radar found more oil, horizontal drilling found ways to
| access more of what was there, and zeolites saw
| widespread use as a catalyst to increase the amount of
| gas and diesel recovered from a barrel of oil. And over
| time production of zeolites made that process work better
| and better. It's very much like when Apple went to non-
| replaceable batteries. Battery life doubled in that model
| because 3 different parts of the problem got
| improvements. Density, volume, and power management all
| contributed almost 30% each.
|
| Between "Oh Shit" and "Told Ya", we could produce twice
| as much fossil fuel as we knew how to do at the time. The
| same will happen with Lithium. Reduce, Reuse, Recycle and
| Replace.
| hinkley wrote:
| That doesn't sound right, so since nobody else has piped
| up I decided to actually try to find the answer myself.
|
| Volumetric numbers from the DOE suggest it went from 55
| Wh/l in 2008 to 450 in 2020, which a compound interest
| calculator tells me is about 20% per year. Which is an
| awful lot.
|
| Physics world says 80Wh/kg when Sony introduced them in
| 1991, and 300 today (although someone above said 270 is
| what ships), which looks like about 5.1%. But the lab
| experiment numbers are substantially more than that
| https://physicsworld.com/a/lithium-ion-batteries-break-
| energ... and shows that the exponential curve was visible
| back in about 2014. These of course have little to do
| with production numbers. The bigger the breakthrough the
| longer it takes to commercialize (or the more watered
| down it becomes to be commercialized). That was the
| wisdom when Wall Street was interested in new battery
| companies.
|
| 5% means every 14 years power doubles. We've been
| flirting with electric vehicles at least that long.
| bee_rider wrote:
| This is because batteries are, of course, magical devices
| produced by chemE's and only begrudgingly handed over to
| the EE's, along with instructions like "do not puncture
| the pouch, or the magic spirits will get free and erupt
| into a vile flame which burns water."
|
| I am quite certain they are just doing alchemy and have
| tricked us all (it is of course well known that chemE's
| are actually the cleverest type of engineer).
| DiabloD3 wrote:
| Hey scythe, write a blog abut this.
|
| This seems like semi-decent conjecture that'd get a lot of pull
| with the electric car crowd on the Fediverse, and you'd get a
| fair number of eyeballs pointed in the same direction.
| skrebbel wrote:
| A Tell HN is basically a blog post right? Permalink, comments,
| it's got it all. There's even an RSS feed.
| ysavir wrote:
| I guess it can be. To me it's more for calling attention to a
| current event (api shutting down, breaking changes at a
| service, privacy concern, etc). Kind of like a PSA. Using it
| as a blog post feels inappropriate to me.
|
| But checking the guidelines and FAQ, there doesn't seem to be
| anything to actually imply that it can't be used that way.
| CaptainFever wrote:
| Not really, I treat it more like a forum.
| javajosh wrote:
| HN is like a blog, except that you don't have final cut.
| GhostWhisperer wrote:
| but here you can't blast readers with a newsletter signup
| modal
| gorjusborg wrote:
| Gah, I hate the internet on this timeline.
| badloginagain wrote:
| Make it a thread on X
| ForOldHack wrote:
| Who says that HN is not a great source of outrageous
| humor?
| jacquesm wrote:
| That's an interesting find and some nice sleuthing you did there.
| [deleted]
| DANmode wrote:
| [flagged]
| oasisaimlessly wrote:
| [flagged]
| tacostakohashi wrote:
| What is a "period of stability"? Sounds like a rather
| arbitrary and subjective designation, but it seems unlikely
| that an economy that has existed for thousands of years is
| yet to have its first "period of stability".
| DANmode wrote:
| Right, exactly.
|
| Did the Japanese print 80% of their money recently?
| kragen wrote:
| a solid sulfide electrolyte isn't necessarily fatal to claims of
| safety
|
| i can't tell which sulfide it is from the nature link, but many
| metal sulfides release hydrogen sulfide only very slowly in
| contact with water, sometimes over geological timescales. it only
| becomes a problem if you, say, grind them up and mix the finely
| divided powder (which is also often pyrophoric!) into sheetrock
|
| consider for example https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chalcocite
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Covellite
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pyrite
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Galena
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sphalerite
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mercury_sulfide
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Millerite
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Realgar
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Orpiment
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stibnite and
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Molybdenite are all relatively
| stable metal sulfide minerals which don't offgas hydrogen sulfide
| fast enough to pose a significant hazard (or at all; many oxidize
| to sulfates instead)
|
| even https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Calcium_sulfide is relatively
| innocuous aside from the bad smell, and
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sodium_sulfide is routinely handled
| by photographers and dyers despite the hazard. you have to get
| into the exotics like
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lithium_sulfide before metal
| sulfides really get scary
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