[HN Gopher] TDK claims solid state battery breakthrough
___________________________________________________________________
TDK claims solid state battery breakthrough
Author : bparsons
Score : 192 points
Date : 2024-06-17 14:50 UTC (8 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (arstechnica.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (arstechnica.com)
| alphabetting wrote:
| https://archive.is/wQw2X
| gnabgib wrote:
| "Apple supplier" doesn't seem like a fair description of a
| company founded in 1935, with a billboard in Piccadilly Circus
| for 25 years [0], a billboard in Times Square since 2000 [1], and
| a famous maker of cassettes, minidisc, VHS, CD, DVD, Blu-ray.
|
| [0]:
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TDK#Sponsorship_and_advertisin...
| [1]: https://www.tdk.com/en/news_center/press/aah33300.html
| dingaling wrote:
| They are a well-established company, but few people will have
| directly engaged with them outside supplier logistic chains. At
| least not in the past decade.
|
| Looking at their product directory, it's all B2B
|
| https://product.tdk.com/en/index.html
| Lio wrote:
| For me, TDK will always be synonymous the very best cassette
| tapes from my youth.
| consumer451 wrote:
| > The new material provides an energy density -- the amount that
| can be squeezed into a given space -- of 1,000 watt-hours per
| litre, which is about 100 times greater than TDK's current
| battery in mass production.
|
| > The battery technology is designed to be used in smaller-sized
| cells, replacing existing coin-shaped batteries found in watches
| and other small electronics.
|
| > The ceramic material used by TDK means that larger-sized
| batteries would be more fragile, meaning the technical challenge
| of making batteries for cars or even smartphones will not be
| surmounted in the foreseeable future, according to the company.
|
| Still extremely interesting.
| ChrisGranger wrote:
| I wonder if this scales up, to batteries much larger than a coin
| cell replacement.
| iszomer wrote:
| I would be content if this became a drop-in replacement for the
| cmos/bios battery or an enhanced suspension/hibernation
| feature.
| alt227 wrote:
| They specifically say in the article that it cannot be scaled
| up.
| ChrisGranger wrote:
| When I commented, the URL was a link to the press release. It
| was changed to the Ars Technica article later.
|
| Good to know.
| ExoticPearTree wrote:
| I really wish any of these companies creating super batteries
| that have a lot of capacity to actually market them.
|
| A laptop/phone that needs to be recharged every few weeks...
| heaven.
| Youden wrote:
| This isn't nearly ready for phones or laptops. Its nominal
| characteristics are 1.5V, 100uAh capacity, 20uA discharge:
| https://www.tdk-electronics.tdk.com/download/2427688/a88e3ae...
|
| They market it for use-cases like RTC backup batteries and
| solar powered BLE beacons.
| yetihehe wrote:
| > approximately 100 times greater than the energy density of
| TDK's conventional solid-state battery.
|
| So, not 100 times greater than lion, but 2-4x (250-693
| W[?]h/L [0]) is a lot.
|
| [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lithium-ion_battery
| huijzer wrote:
| CATL also announced 500 Wh/kg batteries [1] (but I haven't
| found real shipments yet).
|
| [1]: https://www.catl.com/en/news/6015.html
| everdrive wrote:
| This is one of the reasons why I'm not very optimistic for
| environmentalism. People's needs and wants are sort of like
| gasses: they expand to fill the space they're in. More
| efficient engines in cars often just mean they're a tiny bit
| more efficient and significantly faster than they actually need
| to be. (rather than significantly more efficient and relatively
| slow) Modern computers are incredibly fast, but we just keep
| making webpages heavier, and operating systems heavier. So
| although many modern computers are quite efficient when
| considering speed to power consumption, they could use
| significantly less power, except for the fact that people are
| always chasing the next thing.
|
| We eat up our new efficiencies the moment we invent them.
| longitudinal93 wrote:
| Aka Jevon's Paradox.
| https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jevons_paradox
| Euphorbium wrote:
| Eventually you will need an antimatter reactor to display a
| text website and run a messaging app slower than 40 years
| ago.
| bilsbie wrote:
| Sounds like a false dichotomy. There's no reason we can't
| have technology and luxury and a great environment.
| darby_nine wrote:
| Sadly, those who produce the technology (ie many on this
| forum) will happily sacrifice the environment to retain the
| power dynamic.
| everdrive wrote:
| There is a reason: human nature. We could have both in
| principle, but time and time again we just expand until we
| are unable to continue. (and then until a technological
| breakthrough takes things further) It feels a lot like the
| obesity problem; the solution in principle is fairly
| simple, (people just need to eat less) but in practice this
| isn't something that's very easy for people to do. The bulk
| of people are unsuccessful here.
| vikramkr wrote:
| We don't really do that though, population growth is
| leveling off on its own. Industrial revolution pretty
| much broke the malthusian trap. Now growth of economies
| fuels growth in GDP per capita instead of growth of
| capita. We've also made a few rather significant
| technological breakthroughs against the obesity problem
| recently. Human nature's proven to be a bit more complex
| than that.
| everdrive wrote:
| I'll concede your argument once we stop building GPU
| farms just so I can ask google a semantic question.
| r00fus wrote:
| What is required is a worldview that isn't based on
| conspicuous consumption, but balanced growth. Left as an
| exercise for the reader if human nature can be compatible
| with this worldview.
| vikramkr wrote:
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Projections_of_population_g
| row...
|
| looks pretty compatible to me!
| vikramkr wrote:
| Honestly kinda surprised how quick people are with the old
| malthusian trap arguments - weird how they still hold that
| much sway when it hasn't really panned out.
| api wrote:
| We evolved in an environment of conflict and scarcity.
| Our brains don't know how to handle the idea that we are
| no longer subject to those kinds of constraints.
|
| Of course it's also possible that being perpetually on
| guard for limits and risks is part of how we avoid them.
| The catastrophes don't happen because people thought they
| would and took actions such as investing in next
| generation energy R&D to try to avoid them.
|
| It's probably some of both.
| agumonkey wrote:
| I wonder if there's no way to implement some control
| mechanism in culture. A human group staying stable for a few
| years by rule, and allow itself some changes, capped at some
| % of the system.
| vikramkr wrote:
| Without any control mechanisms, human population growth is
| already leveling out globally (correlated with increased
| material prosperity and opportunity basically). So, there's
| not really a case for needing a mechanism like that.
| chabons wrote:
| In general I agree, for instance an Apple Watch crams in so
| much hardware, that the battery frequently lasts less than a
| day. Compare that to my Garmin 245, which often lasts 2 weeks
| on a single charge if it's not using the GPS. It doesn't do
| as much, but that's fine. I'd love to see more "quiet" tech
| which eschews the pattern you describe above, and just
| focusses on doing the thing it's supposed to well so you
| don't have to think about it. EInk is another promising
| technology in this area.
| asoneth wrote:
| > A laptop/phone that needs to be recharged every few weeks...
| heaven.
|
| Agreed. Unfortunately it seems like increases in battery
| density are soaked up by either increased energy consumption
| (screen resolution/brightness, processor) or decreased battery
| volume to make a thinner device.
|
| I have a smartwatch that doesn't require wall charging (a
| Garmin Instinct with solar) and I really like the combination
| of solar cells, low-power processor, monochrome screen, and
| frugal radios.
|
| That got me curious about a low-powered laptop and I've been
| eyeing an e-ink tablet with keyboard (e.g. Boox Tab or
| Remarkable 2) but I think it'd be a little too limited for my
| laptop usecases. And all the super-energy-efficient phones
| (e.g. e-ink) I've seen simply shrink the battery volume to
| offset any efficiency gains.
| moffkalast wrote:
| > that needs to be recharged every few weeks
|
| "Yeah you're not getting that, you'll just get a smaller
| battery that'll give you the same 6 hours and you're gonna like
| it."
|
| - every laptop manufacturer ever
| ExoticPearTree wrote:
| I wonder what the economic reason for that would be, assuming
| that such a battery exists.
| miahi wrote:
| "But look how thin it is!"
| moffkalast wrote:
| "So think I think I can actually bend i- oh shit."
| nasmorn wrote:
| Laptop battery size has historically been limited in high
| performance machines by the FAA with 100Wh. I guess you could
| build a MacBook Air type device with insane battery life
| nowadays though.
| moffkalast wrote:
| Does the rest of the world have similar rules or is this a
| case of manufacturers aiming for the largest possible
| compatible market, as a sort of Brussels Effect but in a
| shitty least common denominator way?
| andrewstuart wrote:
| If there was a quantum leap in batteries it would revolutionize
| the world.
| ck2 wrote:
| https://m.xkcd.com/678/
| shermantanktop wrote:
| Release the HN battery naysayers in 3...2...1...
|
| For good reason, I think.
|
| I imagine the plight of a poor tech reporter. The upside of real
| advances in battery tech are huge, so a scoop would get a lot of
| clicks. But in the absence of step-change inventions, we have
| incremental improvements in boring areas like "recharge cycles"
| which make terrible news articles. So our intrepid tech reporter
| must ignore all that real but unsexy stuff.
|
| There is a source of zingy articles though: pr releases about
| unproven tech which are likely meant to pump up investment
| activity.
| vikramkr wrote:
| They're saying an energy density of 1000 wh/l, not saying per
| kg in the headline. Looking it up, the 1000 wh/l seems to be a
| bit above what a bunch of random internet sources say lithium
| batteries do on average (300-700 wh/l). So, might be a step
| change in solid state (compared to their old version) but not
| sure how it stacks up in the bigger scheme of things. They
| aren't promising world changing impacts either, just better
| batteries for wearables and stuff. Will be interesting to see
| how they commercialize it for sure.
| akasakahakada wrote:
| If this thing can put into mass production, what is the excuse to
| not generate electricity only by solar panels?
| _joel wrote:
| The sun doesn't always shine.
| loudmax wrote:
| > TDK Corporation successfully developed a material for
| CeraCharge, a next-generation solid-state battery with an energy
| density of 1,000 Wh/L, approximately 100 times greater than the
| energy density of TDK's conventional solid-state battery.
|
| So, that energy density is 100 times greater than whatever TDK's
| previous solid-state battery was, not necessarily 100 times other
| battery technologies.
|
| Also, note that they're measuring the density in Wh/L, or Watt-
| hours per Liter. That is, they're measuring energy density by
| volume, not by weight. According to my Perplexity search,
| lithium-ion batteries have a "volumetric energy density ranging
| from 250 to 680 Wh/L". So these TDK solid state batteries will
| have maybe twice that energy density by volume.
|
| That press release doesn't say anything about the weight of these
| batteries, which is probably why they're not proposing these for
| vehicles. If these were lighter than lithium-ion batteries,
| electric car makers would be all over them, looking for ways to
| get volume production up to lower costs. The fact that they don't
| mention the energy density by mass suggests that they're no
| better than lithium-ion.
|
| So this is neat development, if not a major tectonic shift. The
| use cases TDK proposes, wireless earphones, hearing aids and
| smartwatches, are applications where size is a more important
| consideration than weight (below a certain threshold). Good for
| them! And if TDK can manufacture these cheaply and reliably, I'm
| sure engineers will come up with other clever uses for this
| technology.
|
| EDIT: Hearing aids were the first electronic products with
| transistors, so that is a historically auspicious precedent.
| Asianometry did a video on transistors in hearing aids here:
| https://youtu.be/3ykz4JAO91g
| gorkish wrote:
| From the available information I estimate they are about 2x the
| theoretical maximum energy density of lithium ion chemistry or
| about 4x better than current state of the art lithium ion
| batteries in mass production. The theoretical ceiling of
| chemical batteries overall is about 25x higher still,
| especially when you start including air-breathing chemistries,
| so their claims are not out of line with what should be
| possible.
| throwaway81523 wrote:
| Current zinc-air hearing aid batteries (e.g. #675) are 1500+
| WH/L. They are not rechargeable though. They are basically
| miniature fuel cells. They take in outside air to react with
| the chemistry inside, so they weigh a tiny bit more after
| they are used up. The energy density is impressive though.
| terribleperson wrote:
| 675 zinc-air batteries run a UP hearing aid for an
| impressively long time. Days to weeks, depending on age of
| the battery and how much use it see. I'm surprised the
| chemistry doesn't see much use outside of hearing aids. For
| something where long downtime is undesirable, replaceable
| batteries are a lot nicer than rechargeable.
| 1024core wrote:
| Can these Zinc-Air cells be recycled? Could you take a
| "used" Zinc-Air cell and process it somehow, to create a
| brand new Zinc-Air cell?
|
| If that works, then you could just equip cars with
| swappable Zinc-Air cells: you go to a "Zinc Air" station
| and in the time it takes to fill up a tank of gas, your car
| gets a new Zinc Air cell and you're good to go for 1500
| miles(?).
| rbanffy wrote:
| > So, that energy density is 100 times greater than whatever
| TDK's previous solid-state battery was, not necessarily 100
| times other battery technologies.
|
| Yes. 100x better density than current LiPo, LiMH, or something
| like that would immediately enable electric airliners. Like
| tomorrow.
| Carrok wrote:
| For coin sized batteries only.
|
| > The ceramic material used by TDK means that larger-sized
| batteries would be more fragile, meaning the technical challenge
| of making batteries for cars or even smartphones will not be
| surmounted in the foreseeable future, according to the company.
| nsxwolf wrote:
| Your original Legend of Zelda saves could last 300-400 years
| with this battery.
| Qwertious wrote:
| That's longer than an SSD can last.
| RicoElectrico wrote:
| SRAM however won't be affected by electrons escaping from
| the floating gate as in Flash. It's two inverters back-to-
| back.
| tromp wrote:
| It's usually 6 transistors, 4 of which form 2 cross-
| coupled inverters [1].
|
| [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Static_random-
| access_memory#De...
| swiftcoder wrote:
| Coin-sized batteries are pretty usable for many current
| applications (wireless headphones, smart watches, ...) -
| presuming they can surmount the other challenges
| aporetics wrote:
| I'm thinking: minidisc players!
| stn_za wrote:
| Plus these would be coin sized, but 100X more dense as I
| understand.
| MBCook wrote:
| 100x their current solid state batteries, not Lithium Ion.
| Maybe only 2x.
|
| Still, doubling an Apple Watch's battery life or 1.5x but
| making it smaller would still be great.
| dylan604 wrote:
| Apple Watch's battery life is the biggest negative by far
| for the device in my books. Any thing to improve it would
| be welcomed by pretty much anyone. Extra points for being
| able to replace existing battery--yeah right
| r00fus wrote:
| Is it even rechargeable? Nothing indicates this is any
| replacement to e.g. LiPoFe batteries in devices like AirPods.
| dylan604 wrote:
| > Is it even rechargeable?
|
| From the TFA: "Solid-state batteries are safer, lighter and
| potentially cheaper and offer longer performance and faster
| charging than current batteries relying on liquid
| electrolytes."
|
| The article to me is worse than click bait. They keep
| mentioning Apple supplier TDK as if this battery is currently
| being used in Apple devices. The only link this battery has
| to Apple is that they use other batteries from the company.
| So, yes, you're correct in that nothing indicates this as a
| direct replacement. It is shitty journo looking for relevancy
| in SEO
| nkingsy wrote:
| Can't they just stack these into packs like they do with cells?
| practicemaths wrote:
| Battery technology starts at the cell. It's far easier to build
| a small cell and test it's chemistry than it is to build a
| large (in comparison) battery.
| jerlam wrote:
| What stops them from having huge arrays of these coin cell
| batteries? Can the "insane energy density" compensate for the
| overhead?
|
| Cars don't have one huge battery, and smartphones are starting
| to have multiple smaller ones to fit around the other
| components (and in folding phones).
| mcculley wrote:
| If the weight and volume of the packaging is a lot relative
| to the size of the cell, that would limit use cases.
| danudey wrote:
| Conversely, smartphones could have batteries 1/100th the size
| of their current batteries and still have the same battery
| life. Nothing says that if we want to use this tech in
| smartphones we have to have 100x the battery life (although
| that would be fantastic). Even 2x or 3x would be game-
| changing for power users, especially if battery performance
| degraded at only the same rate that current smartphone
| batteries do.
|
| You wouldn't need a huge array of coin cell batteries; one
| coin cell might well be enough.
| miahi wrote:
| The article says "100 times greater than TDK's current
| battery in mass production" but they are not referring to
| the current LiIon/LiPo batteries, but the current _solid
| state_ battery. The capacity per liter of the new solid
| state battery is less than 2x of the current phone
| batteries (1000Wh/liter vs 5-700Wh/liter for LiPo). So no,
| you cannot replace one phone battery with a coin cell with
| the same battery life.
| danudey wrote:
| Oh, good catch. Thanks for the correction!
| m3kw9 wrote:
| They always test first on coin batteries then scale up the
| tests
| macintux wrote:
| Duplicate:
|
| - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40701402 (3 comments)
|
| - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40703316 (19 comments)
| chrisbrandow wrote:
| This is very cool. Being able to produce commercial solid state
| batteries of any macroscopic size at commercial scale gives me
| hope that this tech will not remain vaporware. Even just
| increasing size a few percent per year would be transformative in
| a decade or two.
| chrisbrandow wrote:
| That being said, I'm looking forward to reading more thorough
| analysis, as I lack the expertise to evaluate how significant
| this is, given that it's a press release.
| csours wrote:
| > I will believe in Solid State batteries when iPhones come with
| them.
|
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23681778
| mjamesaustin wrote:
| Usually I would take any battery breakthrough claims with a huge
| grain of salt, but TDK is a very well established company, so
| this seems pretty exciting.
|
| The big open question is whether and how this can be scaled up to
| larger battery sizes in a safe and functional way. Still exciting
| to see!
| rezonant wrote:
| That would be great, but wireless earbuds and watches greatly
| need battery advances to overcome the current tedious ways to
| use them. Most smart watches need to be charged in a matter of
| 1-2 days, and wireless earbuds have to use extra batteries in
| their carrying cases to even hope to have enough charge
| available for when you need them. It's nice that we may
| substantially relieve these limitations.
| adamhp wrote:
| > "The ceramic material used by TDK means that larger-sized
| batteries would be more fragile, meaning the technical
| challenge of making batteries for cars or even smartphones will
| not be surmounted in the foreseeable future, according to the
| company."
| MBCook wrote:
| But the insanely small batteries in AirPods might be fine.
| Maybe even smart watch sided, let's face it those are close
| to coin cell sized.
|
| It could still end up making a major difference.
| terribleperson wrote:
| Would fragility really be a huge concern in more rigid
| flagship phones? Screens are already quite delicate It's not
| impossible to build a phone that doesn't flex meaningfully
| under normal conditions.
| limaoscarjuliet wrote:
| For reference, 1000wh/l is 10% energy density of Gas. Impressive
| indeed!
| vel0city wrote:
| I don't get many recharge cycles for that original liter of
| gasoline. It is cheaper per liter though!
| ghostbrainalpha wrote:
| Just for fun, I would love to power my Game Boy with a little
| tiny gas powered engine.
| moepstar wrote:
| like this? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9Q24UxF-6ns
| iknowstuff wrote:
| Nightmare https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=Nn__9hLJKAk
| sleepybrett wrote:
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B_Xl4PcB73A
| jacobp100 wrote:
| Take into account how inefficient internal combustion engines
| are, and it's going to be a lot closer
| k__ wrote:
| Don't know if I want so much energy right beside my ear, but it
| certainly sounds like an amazing achievement.
| gpm wrote:
| I'd rather have the energy beside my ear stored in a non-
| flammable battery compared to what I assume are currently
| flammable batteries in my earbuds. Also lasting twice as long
| between charges would be a nice bonus.
| ajb wrote:
| Solid state battery rules out some flammability failure
| modes, but introduces one: dendrite growth, creating a short.
| They need to prove that they've eliminated that before we can
| call it safe.
| xutopia wrote:
| I'll be a naysayer.
|
| This is not in production environment. We don't know how big
| these batteries can be, what temperature they can operate at, how
| much they cost to produce, if they can even be mass produced,
| what their output could be, etc...
|
| Every week we have a claim like this one made by some reporter.
| adtac wrote:
| virtually every battery technology in existence today got
| created in a non-production environment
|
| a less blunt critique would've specifically identified why this
| breakthrough is similar to the last one that didn't make it
| past the lab
|
| surely there's a large enough sample set of past failures to
| choose from since there are claims like this every week
| tootie wrote:
| The fact this report is coming from a commercial enterprise and
| not a university is pretty encouraging. Obviously it could
| still just be PR, but they likely wouldn't be touting this
| unless they expected to bring it to mass production.
| jshowa wrote:
| Companies lie and exaggerate all the time. It's called PR. It
| makes no difference whether it comes from a company or
| university, but companies have much more incentive to lie
| than universities, especially in technical fields, because
| they don't have to subject their claims to peer review unlike
| universities.
| kube-system wrote:
| I don't think anyone is accusing academics of lying --
| academics are just more likely to announce things no
| industrial relevance. Because industrial relevance is not
| required for academic relevance.
| layer8 wrote:
| Why not read the article?
|
| "Kevin Shang, senior research analyst at Wood Mackenzie, a
| data and analytics firm, said that "unfavorable mechanical
| properties," as well as the difficulty and cost of mass
| production, are challenges for moving the application of
| solid-state oxide-based batteries into smartphones."
|
| "The group plans to start shipping samples of its new battery
| prototype to clients from next year and hopes to be able to
| move into mass production after that."
|
| So they don't know yet if they'll be able to pull off mass
| production, and it'll be at least a couple years off.
| bawolff wrote:
| Its mostly just people getting too excited (including PR
| departments).
|
| Breakthroughs like these are an important step. They are not
| nothing but they are not the end of the journey either.
| bredren wrote:
| Airpods. This is relevant to Airpods and Apple Watch.
|
| Making these devices work charged for weeks, and a charging case
| for Airpods that can keep them charged for months (years?) would
| be extraordinary.
| nixass wrote:
| God forbid we call product by its name (earbuds and smart
| watch) and not its marketing name
| dstanko wrote:
| >AirGod AirForbid we AirCall AirProduct(s) by AirTheir
| AirNames (AirEarbuds and AirSmart AirWatch) and not its
| AirMarketing AirName
| bredren wrote:
| Apple defined the product category.
|
| The subtitle includes "Apple supplier" as does first
| paragraph.
| sojuz151 wrote:
| This will have same energy density as TNT. I have a feelings that
| fully chargred battery of this type might explode
| malfist wrote:
| How do you feel about gasoline?
| audunw wrote:
| If you take into account fusion then the energy density of
| water is insanely high. Doesn't mean you need to worry about
| it.
|
| It's a myth that energy density is a reason to worry about
| batteries or any other form of energy storage. How much energy
| is stored doesn't say anything about how easy it is to release
| that energy in an uncontrolled way.
|
| For Li-ion batteries it's not really the electric energy stored
| you need to worry about at all. It's the flammable electrolyte.
|
| Solid state batteries are often very safe since they usually
| don't have a flammable electrolyte. And when the electrolyte
| doesn't burn it's much harder to get a short and thermal
| runaway as well
| EncomLab wrote:
| That hand that rocks the better battery is the hand that will
| rule the world...
| Animats wrote:
| Actual TDK press release.[1]
|
| Older TDK story from 2020.[2]
|
| TDK claims "a next-generation solid-state battery with an energy
| density of 1,000 Wh/L, approximately 100 times greater than the
| energy density of TDK's conventional solid-state battery." Their
| "conventional solid state battery" is a tiny thing used in meat
| thermometers, a ceramic device with, like most ceramic devices,
| good high temperature tolerance.
|
| Lithium-ion batteries are around 250-693 W[?]h/L. So this is
| maybe 2x existing lithium-ion technology. That's about what
| everybody else is claiming for next-generation solid state
| batteries.
|
| Incidentally, gasoline is around 9,500 Wh/L, although only about
| half of that reaches the driveshaft.
|
| End result: longer cell phone battery life, and an end to
| "bulging" battery failures.
|
| [1] https://www.tdk.com/en/news_center/press/20240617_01.html
|
| [2] https://www.tdk.com/en/featured_stories/entry_024.html
| topspin wrote:
| > although only about half of that reaches the driveshaft.
|
| Isn't that more like around 35% on a good day? There are some
| pure ICE systems that can approach 50%, but those aren't in
| common passenger cars. Hybrid cars do considerably better, but
| even then 50% is an achievement.
| wredue wrote:
| Took me a while to find an estimate of the actual average
| efficiency of ICE cars, and the number I found was "about
| 20%".
|
| Some places claim the most fuel efficient vehicles are about
| 40% (again, on a good day in testing conditions).
|
| EVs on the other hand are up around 87% or higher.
| KennyBlanken wrote:
| They're very high especially if power is coming from solar
| panels on your roof or excess power from neighbors because
| there are virtually no transmission losses. Also, most
| power plants aren't that much better than car engines.
|
| Coal plants are about 33% efficient and natural gas plants
| are about 45%.
| akoboldfrying wrote:
| Commercially available solar panels are below 30% in
| efficiency. If the energy going into the EV battery
| instead came from a gas turbine, the efficiency drop
| would be similar, I expect.
|
| If you want to say that this factor doesn't count: In
| what sense _should_ the oft-quoted factor in the final
| step count? (That is, the loss in converting from petrol
| to rotational motion in an ICE, or from electric
| potential to rotational motion in an EV.) I think the
| only real utility that number has is in estimating the
| total amount of stored energy in a typical car of each
| type -- this could be used to estimate the amount of
| damage that would be caused by the vehicle catching on
| fire.
|
| Other claims strike me as meaningless.
| malfist wrote:
| Those 40% numbers, if you actually read how they got that,
| it's almost always that they were running the engine in a
| fixed point operation with a constant RPM.
|
| You can make it a bit more efficient by optimizing an
| engine for a specific singular output, sometimes up to 50%
| I think is what nissan claims. One automaker, I forget who,
| was researching doing a hybrid drive train like the volt
| had, but where the engine could run in that one single
| speed and charge a battery.
|
| Seems a lot more complicated than just electrifying the
| system, but I'm not a auto researcher.
|
| Nissan's PR about it: https://www.nissan-
| global.com/EN/INNOVATION/TECHNOLOGY/ARCHI...
| AdrianB1 wrote:
| I think this is how some Diesel-electric locomotives are
| built, with Diesel engines creating electricity for
| electric motors, running the ICE at constant speed and
| minimum transmission (not sure a reduction is needed,
| probably not). Looks like solid engineering for the cases
| when electrification is not possible for various reasons.
| jandrese wrote:
| Sadly, the efficiency gained from being able to run the
| engine at a fixed RPM is lost in the conversion to
| electricity and back. This technique has been tried a few
| times but it never works out in the end. The only time it
| makes sense is if you have a turbine engine, but since
| turbines have fairly lousy efficiency to start with this
| only helps get them back up to the baseline.
| deergomoo wrote:
| > One automaker, I forget who, was researching doing a
| hybrid drive train like the volt had, but where the
| engine could run in that one single speed and charge a
| battery
|
| Not sure if this is what you're thinking of but Honda's
| eHEV platform drives the wheels with an electric motor
| and small battery+, with the engine kicking in as needed
| to generate current and to charge the battery (as well as
| regen).
|
| +Until you get to high speeds, at which point a clutch
| engages and the engine drives the wheels directly, via a
| single fixed gear.
| jbverschoor wrote:
| Where does the rest go to? Aren't the pipes and hoses leak
| free? Seems like an easy win
| smlacy wrote:
| Wasted heat.
| jbverschoor wrote:
| Ahh, I thought he was talking about the actual fuel
| instead of the watts
| KennyBlanken wrote:
| Joules (energy), not watts (power.)
| 1970-01-01 wrote:
| Don't forget sound!
| geertj wrote:
| Heat
| torpfactory wrote:
| Thermodynamics places limits on heat engine efficiency. For
| a gasoline engine it is about 35%.
|
| https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carnot%27s_theorem_(thermod
| y...
| KennyBlanken wrote:
| 38% in the Toyota atkinson cycle engines, which are the top
| of the industry. Typical is more like 28% for gasoline
| engines. Then you have automatic transmission efficiency,
| which is at best ~%80, so now you're down to 30% _at best_.
|
| More typical: 28% engine thermal efficiency, 75% transmission
| efficiency means 21% overall efficiency.
|
| So yes, gasoline energy equivalency is pretty meaningless
| unless you multiply it by 0.2 first.
|
| Gas mileage figures from the EPA and others don't account at
| all for the time a vehicle spends idling before/after a trip
| - or even in heavy traffic, just waiting at traffic lights.
| For example, time parents spend sitting in their cars idling
| waiting to pick up their kids, time spend idling in coffee
| and fast food drive-through lines, etc. Start-stop systems
| help, but a lot of people disable them.
| topspin wrote:
| Among conventional 4-cycle ICE designs there are some
| recent generator and marine applications near 50%. F1
| designed an amazing hybrid system that achieves 50%. Those
| are the best figures I've seen.
|
| The F1 hybrid design is pretty amazing. The motor-generator
| is driven by and drives the turbocharger. This allows the
| turbo to be optimized: When the turbo wants to spin too
| fast electricity is generated and when the turbo would
| otherwise not deliver enough pressure (lag) the motor-
| generator augments the turbo speed. Excess stored power
| goes to the drive train.
|
| This effectively solves turbo charging, recovering waste
| heat through all operation phases, eliminating lag and
| delivering high efficiency. F1 chose not to field it, and I
| don't know why. I don't know if it will ever be seen in
| normal applications.
| michpoch wrote:
| It's used in the Porsche 992.2 released this year
| KennyBlanken wrote:
| F1 engines cost seven figures _each_ and are only
| required to last roughly 20 hours of race time - 7-8
| races, each an hour and a half, plus a qualifying session
| or two per race (barely 15-20 minutes total session
| time.)
| te_chris wrote:
| Who the hell does coffee drive-through?
| ComputerGuru wrote:
| > Start-stop systems help, but a lot of people disable
| them.
|
| I haven't seen a modern car that let's you actually disable
| this versus turn it off for the current ride only, fwiw.
| jiveturkey wrote:
| 35% and then drivetrain losses on top. Those losses are fair
| to include since EV systems are often direct driven.
| bangaladore wrote:
| A 2x improvement in energy density would make EVs accessible to
| everyone without question. What remains to be seen is whether
| it can be produced at a competitive cost. My guess is not for a
| long while.
| alephnerd wrote:
| > My guess is not for a long while.
|
| Toyota and Idemitsu Kosan (part of the same METI grant that
| TDK got for SSB development 20 years ago) are going to
| commercialize Solid-State Batteries for EVs by 2028 [0][1]
|
| The new Toyota Battery factory in NC is part of that push [2]
|
| [0] - https://www.reuters.com/business/autos-
| transportation/toyota...
|
| [1] - https://www.reuters.com/business/autos-
| transportation/toyota...
|
| [2] - https://www.reuters.com/business/autos-
| transportation/toyota...
| KennyBlanken wrote:
| The problem isn't energy density, nor competitive cost.
| Multiple manufacturers make EVs that are price-competitive
| with ICEs and in some cases the same vehicle model with an
| ICE.
|
| The problem is mostly driver mindset.
|
| You just can't convince them that
|
| a)most of their charging will happen at home while the car
| sits in their garage / driveway
|
| b)When they do need to fast charge, the 20 minutes it takes
| for a number of current EVs to get to 80% charge isn't much
| longer than what you'd spend at a highway service area by the
| time you get done with fueling the car, going to the
| bathroom, chasing down everyone who was in the car, maybe
| buying a drink and snack, etc
|
| c)For the rare occasion they need a vehicle with more range
| or are going into an area without good charging
| infrastructure, they can rent a car. This is how things are
| done in Europe - you take public transit most of the time,
| but for a trip where public transit isn't convenient, you
| rent - often times after taking a train to get closer to the
| area you're going to be in.
|
| Drivers still buy giant 7-passenger SUVs and hulking pickups
| that spend most of their service life with one, maybe two
| people in them and little or no cargo.
|
| Making car rentals much less of a hassle would help, as would
| mandating maximum passenger vehicle heights, and tax
| penalties on noncommercial vehicles over a certain weight.
| bangaladore wrote:
| Sure, but as someone who has personally owned two EVs, and
| whose family owns more, 2x real range is a huge deal.
|
| Depending on where you live (speed limits, weather, driving
| habits, topology, etc...) impacts real-world range greatly.
| If you drive 80 mph on a flat freeway you might actually
| get 50-70% of the rated range. That brings a respectable
| 300 rated miles down to somewhere around 200 miles or less.
|
| If the rated range was 400 for a cheaper vehicle and
| 600-700 for premium vehicles, almost all range issues would
| be solved overnight.
|
| People buy cars thinking about the worst case, not the
| realistic or average one? What if I go on that trip across
| the US next year?
| ComputerGuru wrote:
| > If you drive 80 mph on a flat freeway
|
| In Chicago (Pareto optimal for flattest/biggest metro
| area in the USA), we have two "going speeds" on the
| highway: 5 mph and 85+ mph. I drive fast (not going to go
| on the record here, but use your imagination - I mainly
| buy German cars that excel on the Autobahn) and I'm
| routinely only in the top quartile if I'm not in an
| actual hurry.
|
| (I know EVs are much better in stop-and-go traffic than
| ICE but I can't imagine 5mph with five-to-ten second
| bursts of 30 mph is great for the range, either.)
| deergomoo wrote:
| > most of their charging will happen at home while the car
| sits in their garage / driveway
|
| This is a very different story around the world. Something
| like ~60%~ [it's actually 35%, I got it backwards] of UK
| homes have no off-street parking. You'd need streetside
| chargers or built into lampposts, which is being trialled
| in some areas but is very small scale and almost certainly
| would not be as cheap as charging via your home's
| electricity.
|
| > the 20 minutes it takes for a number of current EVs to
| get to 80% charge isn't much longer than what you'd spend
| at a highway service area by the time you get done with
| fueling the car, going to the bathroom, chasing down
| everyone who was in the car, maybe buying a drink and snack
|
| The problem with this is that it assumes the car will
| always need a break at the same I do. That works if I can
| charge easily at home and will only need to fast charge on
| long journeys, but as I said above it's just not practical
| for many people. It's also best case scenario insofar as it
| assumes both that your car can charge quickly, and that you
| have close-by access to a fully functioning fast charger.
|
| It's not a huge hurdle (and I do believe that by say 2034
| this stuff won't be a concern at all), but the additional
| planning required is more than a lot of people are willing
| to consider, and I don't think they're wrong in thinking
| that. Especially because even now electric cars are still
| very much out of price range for lots of people (again,
| going by UK prices and salaries).
| thebruce87m wrote:
| > Something like 60% of UK homes have no off-street
| parking.
|
| https://www.racfoundation.org/media-centre/cars-
| parked-23-ho...
|
| > However, with 18 million (65%) of Britain's 27.6
| million households having - or with the potential to have
| - enough off-street parking to accommodate at least one
| car or van there is a huge opportunity for charging
| electric vehicles at home.
| deergomoo wrote:
| Whoops, got that backwards, how embarrassing. 35% is
| still a lot though!
| 0cf8612b2e1e wrote:
| Sucks to be you if you live in an apartment and cannot
| charge at home.
| not_good_coder wrote:
| Enovix is putting next gen batteries into production. They've
| been through FAT and SAT... so you know it's real. I'm also an
| investor, but like the tech.
| unixhero wrote:
| Wait... TDK still exists???
|
| Edit: Holy shit yes they are
| https://product.tdk.com/en/index.html
| 1970-01-01 wrote:
| We need a counter showing X days since last battery breakthrough
| announcement. A single digit counter is enough.
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