Posted on 02/27/2022 9:14:45 AM PST by DUMBGRUNT
In the superheated market for batteries, promising lab developments often get overhyped by startups. ‘Liar, liar, battery supplier.’
Given what’s at sake, it’s easy to chalk up exaggerated claims about new battery breakthroughs to the tech industry’s propensity for hyperbole and grandstanding. A typical example: Researchers invent a tweak to a type of battery that has long shown promise but has never come close to commercialization. That gets spun into claims that an electric car with a 2,000-mile range is within reach.
“People like a breakthrough, but when we write papers we try to avoid using these kinds of words,” says Xin Li, a researcher at Harvard University whose team recently published a paper on a new kind of higher-capacity solid-state battery in the scientific journal Nature. “There are too many battery ‘breakthroughs’ in my opinion in the past 5 years, and not many can be implemented in a commercial product.”.
“When we started Tesla in 2003, the batteries were just good enough, but what we had noticed was that they got better at about 7% to 8% a year, and had for a long time,” says Marc Tarpenning, a co-founder of the company. “It’s been 19 years, and we still haven’t had a step change in battery capacity—it just ticks along at 7% to 8% per year.”
At Harvard, Dr. Li’s team has worked out a new way to make solid-state batteries last longer. In theory, this could make the current combinations of elements that go into batteries yield a product with much higher capacity, and way down the road, it could be used in concert with other novel chemistries, like lithium-sulfur, to take auto- and gadget-makers to some sort of high-performance battery nirvana.
But Dr. Li cautions that commercializing his team’s technology will take years...
(Excerpt) Read more at wsj.com ...
If it bleeds it leads, if it is BS pump it up hard; and always left, left, left...
Oh those pesky laws of physics. EVs will never make real enviormental or economic sense.
Batteries do not create power, just store it.
The problem with batteries for EVs is very simple. They have to be relatively safe in a very, very, rough environment, as in down to -50F, up to +130F, and survive crashes at least as well as gasoline cars. And that’s not even getting into performance requirements.
Not easy to do, so most washout, but only after sucking some IPO type money first.
Many of these breakthroughs are just not cost effective because either the materials are too expensive or the process is.
The good thing is that these breakthroughs are on the books in the event we find a way to make the materials or processes economical.
An EV will require X amount of power to travel Y miles. A battery has to deliver that amount of power. That same amount of power must be put in to the battery to be stored for use. The issue is the rate at which the battery can absorb the power to store. It takes time. Also is the amount of power available to store. No matter how you spin it those numbers don’t change. The goal is to quickly cram enough power into a battery without it exploding.
And just the other day, Musk revealed that he was going old school due to soaring costs for materials.
Soaring battery metal costs are leading to a renewed interest in ithium iron phosphate (LFP) batteries.
Manufacturers are looking to cut cobalt use as they are looking to cut costs and improve their ESG(environmentally sound governance=social justice and liberals) profile.
Best part about the EV nerds/supporters/junkies is, as long as the “pollution” isn’t coming directly from the tailpipe of their car, it doesn’t matter. If it’s coming from a coal fired/natural gas plant or nuke plant, miles down the road, who cares...I’m Green everybody. Mandate that they all have to charge their EVs using solar or wind and they won’t be able to give the damn things away.
And if one is the type that has the extra cash around to buy one as a novelty, awesome-good for you-you da man/woman, but if you have any integrity you should be 100% opposed to any government/TAXPAYER money going to sales incentives and using government money to build charging stations. You want an EV, you pay for an EV and you pay for the place to keep your battery charged. If BP, Exxon, Sunoco, etc etc etc, want an charging station, let them build it on their own. But, I don’t see how having a something handling that much electricity being near gas pumps and fumes, being a good thing.
Exactly right. There are limits to inorganic & physical chemistry.
That 7% to 8% improvement per year is as good as it gets. It will diminish to 4-5%, then to 2-3% then to 1% per year.
Most EVs are being used in relatively warm, dry Southern California. How will they do when there is widespread use in winter states with much snow, cold and heavily salted roads. would you drive your two year old EV home in a snow storm, park in a garage attached to you house, attach the recharger, tuck your kids in for the night and then go to sleep?
hello, these companies are founded and or run by computer executives, thus the upcoming new and improved batteries are really just vaporware
I know, I was thinking about what I didn’t list - one being their cost and the other being things like road salt, rocks, etc.
I so wish this were the requirement.
To save the erf, EVs must be made only from naturally occurring material. Think Flintstone car. Hmmmm. No battery........ 🌋
Ping me when Elon Musk announces that Tesla is going to hybrid vehicles that do not require a government subsidy to be profitable. Until then, this is all scyfy, like the jetsons.
Come to think of it, didn’t the Jetson vehicle have visible exhaust?
“Soaring battery metal costs are leading to a renewed interest in Lithium iron phosphate (LFP) batteries.”
Good chemistry as they’re safer, but about 50% heavier for the same energy. Matters for EVs, but not much for fixed storage.
This one small trick will help you ignore media B.S.
When you realize that Democrats/liberals/greens/ globalists at their core are delusional and that reality is not perceived by them, their policies, attitudes and behavior becomes understandable.
I have a second vehicle that doesn’t get driven a lot. But when I want to, I throw the switch and drive off. I don’t have to top it up, or worry about the charge. Gasoline has millions of years of energy, and it’s stored in a safe and efficient delivery system. We’ve cut auto air pollution to nothing compared to 40 years ago. What’s the problem?
“Oh those pesky laws of physics. “
NG combined cycle generating stations producing electricity for EV’s most efficient use of fossil fuel.
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