A lithium-ion breakthrough that could boost range and lower costs
techradar.com46 points by thelastgallon 4 hours ago
46 points by thelastgallon 4 hours ago
Jikes! How many ads can they squeeze in on news website… really distracting (I’m not using ad blocker).
Worth noting this is an anode-free design. Removing the anode matters more for commercialization than the energy density headline because it cuts material costs and simplifies manufacturing.
80% capacity retention is promising buuuuut.. "near-real-world conditions" is doing heavy lifting in that sentence.
> it cuts material costs and simplifies manufacturing
How much does it reduce material and manufacturing costs? I don't expect an exact number, but more like 5%? 50%?
Definitely double digit percentage. Ballpark of 20-30%.
The anode is typically made out of high purity graphite, so 99,9%+. Its production process is energy intensive and thus expensive.
What does it mean it doesn’t have an anode? How is the other pole connected to the battery?
I get that this can make it possible for greater range for the same price, but what about the same range for lower price? If it weren't for the batteries, EVs would be much cheaper than ICE vehicles. It stands to reason that if we can cut the battery cost while keeping range the same, we could greatly cut the cost of the EV in total.
Maybe car companies don't want to do this because they'd rather price discriminate and get every last penny. It would be too bad though, since some people would happily upgrade cars more frequently if they weren't so outrageously expensive ($50k avg price for new vehicle transactions, IIRC).
Car manufacturers already offer different sizes of battery packs, but that doesn't affect the price that much.
Car companies already alter fuel tank sizes to get a specific range, so it would stand to reason that they would do the same for batteries. It’s cheaper for them to use fewer materials.
Hope so! I have seen a few vehicles with higher capacity trims, so the real question is whether they'd shave $5k off the price of a vehicle and give it a quite-limited range (150 mile). Some people would be totally fine with that, especially as a second/third car.
But it would somewhat complicate manufacturing and make it a little more confusing for consumers to know what they're getting. Perhaps this corner of the market will continue to be served by sellers of years-old EVs, which can have lousy range but work well otherwise.
"If it weren't for the batteries, EVs would be much cheaper than ICE vehicles."
And yet I've watched as $/kWh for battery component prices is 1/3rd of what it was 8 years ago (when I got my Chevy Volt) but EV prices have not appreciably gone down.
Yeah I think this is a combination of greater range and the ceasing of EV subsidization.
It would be nice if there were some options that had much less range than is now possible, at a substantial discount.
I don’t want lithium-ion alternatives for better range. Quite the opposite, I’m actually okay having slightly less range if it means my car won’t spontaneously combust. This one apparently improves the safety of lithium-ion batteries too, so it’s great, but I hate when headlines focus on one thing that matters the least.
> Quite the opposite, I’m actually okay having slightly less range if it means my car won’t spontaneously combust.
Modern LFP LiIon (LiFePO4) batteries are pretty damn safe now, and is also the dominant chemistry in new EV batteries and energy storage systems. The fire risk is nothing like what it was, arguably your wish has already been granted.
The Chinese market is mandating this year that EV batteries prevent fire or explosion for a minimum of 2hrs after a cell enters thermal runaway, and LFP is the main driver to achieve it.
Do you worry about spontaneous combustion of ICE cars? They are far more likely to burst into flames than EVs.
Is this true when adjusting for vehicle age? The average age of an EV is quite a bit lower than the average age of an ICE vehicle, and I assume there is at least some correlation between a vehicle's age and how likely it is to explode (based on degradation, type of use, type of owner, etc.).
> They are far more likely to burst into flames than EVs.
There’s a substantial increased risk only with ICE cars that are at least 10 years old and poorly maintained. Li-ion EVs carry that risk from day one.
Neither EVs nor ICE cars spontaneously combust unless there's a design flaw. Even when this happens it tends to be very rare, but the Chevy Bolt fires for example were fixed with a recall. Similarly a Ford recall last year fixed a problem where fuel injectors could leak and cause an engine fire.
EVs and ICE cars can both catch on fire in a bad enough accident, but this is true regardless of the age of the vehicle, and tends to be more sudden and violent with gasoline explosions vs battery fires.