
Before the Electric Car Takes Over, Someone Needs to Reinvent the Battery - pdog
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2019-01-06/before-the-electric-car-takes-over-someone-needs-to-reinvent-the-battery
======
yholio
Maybe the solution is to have better business practices around the technology
that we do have. Why does the battery needs to be part of the car at all? It
clearly depreciates and is technologically disrupted on a different time frame
than the car itself. A Tesla Roadster is a fine car and will continue to be
for decades, if you can only refresh it's battery pack every 10 years or so.

I'm thinking of a modular battery that is hot swapable at the charge stations
and where you only pay it's depreciation based on what you actually use. This
would significantly lower ownership costs for light users and drastically
increase efficiency and flexibility for heavy users who are no longer
dependent on charge times. Since it's modular, you load the number of units
you need, say one battery unit for a Leaf, two for a Model S or 10 units for a
light truck, all in standardized format and with their own computing that
tracks things like life span, charge cycles performed by the user himself for
proper billing etc.

I know Tesla experimented with and later abandoned battery swap, but that's
predictable without the proper business structure in place, no one is going to
leave the most expensive part of their car back at the charge station. If you
were to purchase a Model 3 at $15 - $20K and have the option to pay for
"battery as service" at prices comparable to gasoline, people would flock to
buy electrics.

~~~
ip26
Same reason batteries in your phone or laptop are each a different shape and
non-removable. They are an integral part of the design, a significant part of
the weight & volume, with significant thermal concerns, etc... many electric
cars today even use the battery as a "stressed member", aka the battery
provides rigidity to the frame. How exactly will that be hotswappable in two
minutes by John Doe?

Basically, the point is a standardized, easily removable, hotswappable widget
makes a lot of sense when it's a minor item. But when it's half the weight,
value, volume, and engineering challenge, you have to sacrifice all of those
attributes to use the hotswap widget.

This originally made me think, if only we could pump fluid electrolyte in &
out of the car, and let the battery take whatever form it likes. Then I
realized that's called a flow battery, and then I realized that a hydrogen
fuel cell is a type of flow battery.

~~~
admax88q
Most laptop batteries are standard lithium ion cells in a specially molded
case.

~~~
dragontamer
While the 18650 Lithium Ion cell is a standardized shape, the chemistry
between Lithium Ion implementations is different from company to company.

A big reason for Tesla's design was that Panasonic's Cells (a partner of
Tesla) was superior on power-density / weight.

I expect that power-density / weight will continue to be an important factor
in electric cars, especially when you need thousands of these cells to power
an electric vehicle. As such, I don't expect lithium ion cells (even
"standard" 18650 ones) to become a commodity.

~~~
maxerickson
How are they not literally already a commodity?

I get that you said that they each have their own chemistry, but are the
owners of all of the chemistries choosing their customers?

~~~
kenhwang
My understanding is that there's very little demand for Tesla's chemistry (low
cobalt NCA). All other automakers prefer NCM, primary because:

* better sustained performance compared to NCA

* better peak/burst performance compared to NCA

* easy to adjust formula to show preference for capacity, performance, or longevity (most automakers skip on the 3rd)

Tesla prefers NCA battery because:

* it has more capacity / weight

* it's much cheaper due to lower cobalt requirements (main reason)

The main reason traditional automakers tend to shy away from NCA because:

* it is far less stable than NCM, which puts it a much higher risk for fire or explosions

* it costs more than NCM to make stable (I suspect Tesla chem is cutting corners in this area)

You can decide whether the trade off of safety for range is worthwhile for
you; traditional automakers err on the side of safety.

~~~
calvano915
I've encountered many reports of issues with safety regarding autopilot or
breakdown/less repairability of the vehicles due to lack of experience in
design, but what evidence is there for Tesla cutting corners regarding battery
safety specifically?

~~~
kenhwang
Just the choice of using NCA batteries over NCM could be viewed as a safety
cost cutting measure.

Here's a scientific paper about the safety of various battery chemistries
(warning, PDF):
[https://res.mdpi.com/wevj/wevj-06-00572/article_deploy/wevj-...](https://res.mdpi.com/wevj/wevj-06-00572/article_deploy/wevj-06-00572.pdf)

Summery is that, compared to NCM, NCA inhibits thermal runaway at much lower
temperatures, offers significantly less short circuit resistance, slightly
less overcharge buffer before thermal runaway, significantly faster thermal
runaway after overcharge buffer is exhausted.

The result of thermal runaway is fire or explosion.

------
martythemaniak
No they don't, everything is already in place. In a few years the industry
will catch up to Tesla and we'll see further price decreases across the board
and mass EV adoption using current tech.

The battery will have to be reinvented for large planes to become electric,
but that's a different discussion. Small planes will be able to ride off the
EV battery tech to start the electrification of that whole industry.

~~~
eptcyka
Small planes will be able to ride off the EV battery tech for about 50 miles
max.

~~~
nickik
Yeah but you can use the potential energy of the plane to produce power, just
like car going down hill. Probably not gone work for small planes but it does
have interesting advantages and new ways of thinking about planes.

~~~
sokoloff
For an airplane, there's no particular reason to turn potential energy into
chemical energy for storage. Use the potential energy more directly to glide
down to your approach point.

Airplanes are typically "driven" (using positive power) all throughout the
flight regime, including descent and approach.

~~~
AshleyGrant
> Airplanes are typically "driven" (using positive power) all throughout the
> flight regime, including descent and approach.

No, not really. Descent in most aircraft is typically done at idle. In jet
powered aircraft, final approach will be done with the engines at some speed
above idle, but that is to minimize spool-up time during a go-around, rather
than because the aircraft needs the thrust.

~~~
ams6110
Even so, the aircraft still needs to make a comfortable gradual descent. It
must maintain lift as it descends, otherwise it will stall (aerodynamically)
and fall out of the sky. The controlled descent takes most of the energy that
you might think could be recovered by e.g. windmilling the electric fan motors
as generators.

~~~
AshleyGrant
I'm not sure what you're talking about with "must maintain lift as descends
otherwise it will stall and fall out of the sky"...

Wings stall when they exceed their critical angle of attack. A descent is
inherently a low AoA maneuver. Heck, in pretty much all aircraft of decent
performance, they have devices on the wings to help "spoil" the lift of the
wings to help the plane descend more quickly. They're sometimes called speed
brakes, sometimes called spoilers.

~~~
ams6110
Right, but you need a certain amount of forward speed relative to descent to
maintain that AoA (assuming you want to maintain a fairly gradual, level
descent; most passengers would find a steep nose-down descent alarming).

If you scrub off all your forward speed by turning your propeller/fan into a
generator to charge the batteries, you have to push the nose down to maintain
AoA.

------
spenrose
The article begins by contradicting itself: "To deliver an electric vehicle
that’s cheaper, safer and capable of traveling 500 miles on a single charge
..."

That's not a "car". A "car", as driven by a billion people every day, takes
trips whose distances have a power-law distribution falling off from ~2 miles
down to 150 miles, by which point you are looking at < 0.1% of trips. A large
fraction of cars have never been driven on a 500 mile trip.

~~~
prostoalex
> A large fraction of cars have never been driven on a 500 mile trip.

Consumers base buying decisions on the _longest_ trip they expect to take.

Even if 360 days a year they commute for 10 miles, and then for 4th of July /
Thanksgiving / winter holidays they take an extended 300+ mile road trip, they
will consider a car capable of traveling 300+ miles.

~~~
quasse
That makes it sound like a marketing / consumer optics problem then, not an
engineering one.

When I was a kid my dad drove and older classic car daily, and for any trip
longer than ~300 miles he would just get a rental and put the miles on that.

If people could get accustomed to that workflow, I think the need for 500
miles+ electric range is almost non-existent.

Daily drive the electric car, and spend ~$150 for a gas rental car once or
twice a year for the big trip to visit the in-laws.

~~~
ams6110
Yeah but rentals are extremely inconvenient. You need to arrange a ride to the
rental place. Most of them close at 5:00pm unless you're close to an airport.
So now you're also taking time off work. The paperwork takes at least 20-30
minutes for some ridiculous reason. They will try to upsell you on a larger
vehicle, extra insurance, etc. It's a pain.

Once or twice a year it's tolerable. If you get to doing it monthly or more,
it's becomes a major detractor.

~~~
outworlder
> The paperwork takes at least 20-30 minutes for some ridiculous reason.

I am guessing you are not in the US. Over there, most big rental companies
will let you join their program, club, or whatever they want to call it, for
free(online, even). Which means you are pre-screened. You can pre-decline all
this stuff you are talking about.

Then, you just make a reservation online, walk to the parking lot, pick your
car, and just hand your id for them to check when leaving the parking lot. The
whole process takes a couple of minutes really. When you are back, you just
park at the dropoff location and walk away. At no point you have to bother
with going to the counter.

The business hours can be inconvenient, I agree.

------
cmiller1
People are trying, Tesla is investing HEAVILY into battery technology and
research.

CPUs 30 years ago were 8 bits and barely scratching 10s of mhz, we arrived at
our modern era through incremental improvements, not by saying "we need to
stop and wait for someone to invent something better!"

~~~
vbuwivbiu
this. Think of the absurd amount of wasted investment that's stupidly gone
into internal combustion engine research over the last century.

~~~
refurb
What? Cars today are _way_ more fuel efficient and have _way_ fewer emission
than they did even 10 years ago, let alone 50 years ago.

I'd say that investment turned out to be very valuable.

~~~
djaychela
That is true, but they are also immensely complex - I wouldn't say it was
'wasted' effort (as the above poster did), but modern ICE engines are
ludicrously complex electro-mechanical devices. If this much effort is
expended on improving battery technology (as I think it will be), then the
future is very bright for EVs because they are already much better than ICE in
many ways - simplicity and reliability as well as emissions.

I think it will be much like in F1 - remember when the limitation on gearbox
and engine replacements in a season were introduced and many commentators said
it would lead to there being no cars on the grid at the end of the season?
What actually happened was the engineers created hitherto undreamt of levels
of reliability. I'm sure the same will happen for EV batteries once they are
the only game in town and ICE is no longer any kind of option.

~~~
mavhc
Did they create that F1 rule to see if better engines could be developed?

------
CydeWeys
I disagree with the premise of the question. How many people really need a 500
mile range? How often does the average person do a long road trip? Is it
really such a hassle to stop and stretch your legs (and maybe eat) while
charging in the middle of a once-annual road trip?

Hell, even if you're doing that drive weekly, you might still prefer the
electric since it'd save you a lot on gas money, even though it enforces a
mid-trip break.

~~~
jdietrich
Most new EVs have more range than the average human bladder. After four hours
of driving, most people are going to need to pee. Current-generation EVs on
50kW fast-chargers can hit 80% charge in 30 minutes, which is only slightly
longer than the average dwell time at a freeway service plaza. 150kW chargers
are now commercially available, which (when connected to a vehicle with
suitable battery cooling) cut the time to 80% charge to about 15 minutes.

I'm sure that some people do drive for over four hours without taking a break,
but I don't think that it's a safe or healthy thing to do.

The technology is good enough already - we're just waiting for it to become
widely distributed.

~~~
dwighttk
30 minutes is close to the _average_?

Wow. I don't think I've ever spent more than 10 minutes at a gas station.

~~~
mikestew
Ever time yourself? I'm not doubting your estimate, but I wonder how close
your are. Out of idle curiosity (and for more purposeful reasons), I've timed
myself on the motorcycle. Pay-at-the-pump, and don't get off the bike, and I'm
out of there like a LeMans pit stop. But getting off, hitting the restroom,
and grabbing/paying for drink took longer than I would have guessed.

And as sibling comment points out, it all goes out the window if you have
passengers.

------
alistproducer2
I'm surprised there isn't a discussion of the Goodenough lithium glass battery
[0]. The fact that I haven't read about replication or a failure to replicate
is really weird to me given how world-changing such a technology would be if
it were proven to be viable.

0: [https://cleantechnica.com/2018/06/26/the-solid-state-
lithium...](https://cleantechnica.com/2018/06/26/the-solid-state-lithium-ion-
battery-has-john-goodenough-finally-done-it/)

------
sbradford26
This is coming from a person who would like to buy an electric car. But lets
say we get to batteries that can survive incredibly high charge rates, aka the
10 minute charge time.

Some quick math: 100kWh battery needs 100 kW to charge in an hour. To charge
in 10 minutes we need 100kW * 6 = 600kW.

Now that is a bit of an over simplification but it gives the magnitude of
instantaneous power needed.

From a grid perspective charging a lot of cars slowly is not terribly
difficult to handle because it appears mostly as base load, but if you have
ton of cars starting and stopping charging at 600kW you will get massive
fluctuations.

Thankfully a lot of cars will just slow charge overnight most of the time.
Then for a fast charging station they could have large batteries or super
capacitors to help offset the fluctuations.

~~~
arkh
There is already a way to manage that: remove the petrol from petrol stations
and add huge batteries / capacitors. Charge those at normal grid load when no
one is using the station then unload like crazy.

~~~
epanchin
This has the added advantage of levelling the grid load beyond just the
charging, like V2G without the car.

------
jpm_sd
This is ridiculous. Good-enough solutions are here already. Daimler just
issued purchase contracts for $20 BILLION worth of battery components!

[https://electrek.co/2018/12/11/daimler-billion-battery-
cells...](https://electrek.co/2018/12/11/daimler-billion-battery-cells-
electric-vehicle/)

------
mrep
Talk about moving the goal posts. Tesla's are way less flammable than gasoline
cars and some have more range (my dad's Ford has like 250 miles of range)

~~~
dsfyu404ed
>Tesla's are way less flammable than gasoline cars

This is false. Talk to any tow truck driver. A breached battery is almost a
guaranteed fire. A breached gas tank is nothing of the sort. A battery pack
provides its own ignition source. Gasoline needs external ignition. While
external ignition sources are available on cars they don't seem to ignite with
nearly the same frequency.

In theory the EV can be less flammable. In practice they seem to be about the
same (Volt, Leaf, etc) or worse (Model S) than your average ICE car. It all
comes down to the design. Pinto < Tesla < average ICE car.

~~~
jungturk
These FEMA stats suggest that only 1.6% of car fires are related to the fuel
tank or lines

[https://www.usfa.fema.gov/downloads/pdf/statistics/v19i2.pdf](https://www.usfa.fema.gov/downloads/pdf/statistics/v19i2.pdf)

"Mechanical failure or malfunction was the leading contributing factor of
highway vehicle fires (45 percent). These mechanical failures include a leak
or break in a component of the vehicle, automatic or manual control failures,
or the use of an improper type of fuel. An electrical failure or malfunction,
such as a short circuit, was a contributing factor in 21 percent of highway
vehicle fires. The misuse of a material or product, such as spilling flammable
liquid or gas too close to the vehicle, was the third leading factor
contributing to the ignition of the fires (13 percent)."

That same document goes into lots of detail about what heat source initiates
those fires and what materials are actually catching fire.

"Where the necessary data were available, the leading category of items first
ignited in fatal highway vehicle fires was “liquids, piping, filters” (65
percent). Flammable liquids and gases in general were, by far, the most deadly
(67 percent of deaths). Specifically, fuel in or from the engine area was the
second leading item first ignited in all highway vehicle fires (18 percent)
but was, by far, the leading item in both fatal fires (43 percent) and deaths
(45 percent). Additionally, insulation around electrical wiring or cables was
responsible for 29 percent of all highway vehicle fires, but only 2 percent of
fatal fires and 2 percent of deaths."

------
rb808
I really thought a Volt like car would be the answer. Electric for most of the
year, but a gas powered motor to go for those vacations away. I don't know why
that wasn't more popular.

~~~
sbradford26
So one of the major perks of electric cars are fewer moving parts. Once you
add a gas engine to the car, you increase the weight, remove space for
batteries, add cost, and finally add a lot more complexity and moving parts.
Now the gas engine added convenience but personally it doesn't add enough to
compensate for the downsides.

But I would not rule out plug in hybrids, from what I have read GM stopped
making it since it was a sedan which are not selling great for them. But also
because the newer bolt platform is a better base for an EV or PHEV, since it
was designed from the ground up to run on electric motors.

~~~
WorldMaker
Yeah, GM killing the Volt seems more a weird side effect of GM's manufacturing
plant shell game than an intentional strategy. The Volt was original intended
to be the "savior" of the venerable Hamtramck plant, as it was the future of
what was to be built there. The original goal was to make more of the cars
over time at Hamtramck resemble the Volt, which was closer to a cross-over in
G1. The short-sighted decision for cost cutting in the G2 Volt was to push it
more proper sedan-like to make it more like everything else that Hamtramck was
producing. So the Volt shutting down was further short-sighted side effect of
GM killing all sedans/Hamtramck.

Obvious rumors are that GM is already in the works on a new cross-over PHEV.
It's dumb that the sedan-ification of the Volt brand between G1 and G2
probably means that it will be yet another new brand instead of just the
obvious Volt G3. (It's also a dumb shame that GM didn't actually save
Hamtramck in what could have been a smart move of electrifying more of it and
moving it all more cross-over-esque according to the original Volt plan.)

~~~
ams6110
The Volt is dead? Hm. There are still some sitting at the lot at my local
Chevy dealer. Didn't know that it had been killed.

~~~
WorldMaker
GM shut down all sedan manufacturing including the Volt (and Cruze and
others), which described before the Volt was probably more of an accidental
bystander than an intentional part of GM's electric strategy. The whole thing
was a short term financial move that some Shareholders just about demanded
after Ford did similar and eliminated all their sedans. Americans "don't buy"
American sedans right now and so all American automotive manufacturing is
focusing solely on SUVs, Trucks, and Cross-Overs as of 2018, _again_.
Everything about this cycle is cynical and short-sighted, as Americans are
still buying European and Japanese sedans at basically the same rates as
always, and the SUV/Truck market (and maybe the Cross-Over market too) and its
gleefully (to Shareholder earnings) high margins rises and falls directly in
proportion to gasoline costs.

~~~
dragonwriter
> Americans "don't buy" American sedans right now and so all American
> automotive manufacturing is focusing solely on SUVs, Trucks, and Cross-Overs
> as of 2018, again.

GM is keeping the electric Bolt, which is not an SUV, Truck, or Crossover.

The Volt, as a hybrid, doesn't fit their long term strategy, so wasn't spared
the axe coming down due to the short-term situation with the sedan market.

~~~
WorldMaker
The Bolt is closer to a cross-over than a true sedan (which mostly just goes
to show the categories are dumb and another reason "no one buys sedans" is a
stupid statement because the distinctions are more gray than black-and-white),
but more importantly has never been manufactured in the sedan-mostly Hamtramck
plant.

GM turned around and admitted that PHEV hybrids are still in their current
long term strategy, to expect at least a "true" cross-over version in the near
future, if not also SUV and Truck plans. Like I said before, the problem with
the Volt seemed to be that G2 was nothing but a sedan made in the sedan plant
that GM wanted to drop, not that it was a hybrid or electric. I still think
that Volt G1's form factor would have been spared because it would have been
easier to retool it next to the Bolt or in another cross-over facility.

------
Animats
Now that's strange. Electric cars are working pretty well, and then this guy
comes along and says we have to wait for a new technology that doesn't work
yet. Who is "David Stringer", anyway? A pseudonym, perhaps? ("Stringer" in
journalism is a freelance journalist paid by the article.) There's a minor
Arizona politician by that name, but that's about all Google has to say.

~~~
clouddrover
> _Electric cars are working pretty well_

They could work better, be cheaper, be safer, charge faster, have better
range, and have longer cycle life for the battery, don't you think?

Better batteries are needed. Solid-state batteries have the potential to
outperform conventional batteries. We'll see who commercializes them first.

ICE cars are still more practical than EVs today. ICE cars are cheaper to buy
with better range and faster refuelling. If I want the most car for the least
dollars then I'm buying a sensible Toyota, not a Tesla.

We're at the beginning of the end of the ICE car. EVs with fast charging,
energy dense, highly durable solid-state batteries represent the genuine end
of ICE cars.

> _Who is "David Stringer", anyway? A pseudonym, perhaps?_

That's an odd criticism coming from "Animats". Who is "Animats" anyway? A
pseudonym, perhaps?

> _There 's a minor Arizona politician by that name, but that's about all
> Google has to say._

DuckDuckGo says David Stringer is a senior reporter at Bloomberg:

[https://twitter.com/david_stringer](https://twitter.com/david_stringer)

[https://www.bloomberg.com/authors/ARMqcSMt218/david-
stringer](https://www.bloomberg.com/authors/ARMqcSMt218/david-stringer)

~~~
Animats
I hold "ANIMATS" as a US registered trademark. I own "animats.com". I'm not
anonymous. When I originally signed up for HN, I tried to use my own name, but
it was taken.

------
graycat
For an electric car, here is my summary: For a car, a 20 gallon tank of
gasoline is tough to compete with.

E.g., the US is dotted with high density with gas stations, can fill a 20
gallon tank in just a few minutes, and at 20 MPG that tank will fuel the car
for 400 miles.

For a battery, apparently so far the range is about 200 mile; for the readily
available charging sources the charging time is much longer, maybe hours; and
from a really powerful charging source the battery will get hot and need
cooling (e.g., see the Jay Leno piece on the new, all electric Mercedes which
does cool the battery while charging).

The weather is a significant issue: In hot weather, the battery needs more
cooling. In cold weather, the battery loses lots of its power.

So I agree with the OP: For a good electric car, need a better battery. IIRC
long ago a Ford executive stated "You build me a good battery, and I'll build
you a good electric car."

Actually, all electric cars are not new but old and go way back to the first
days of cars, e.g., before Ford's Model T. And as Leno mentioned, for all or
nearly all the time since then, battery technology hasn't made much progress.
Right: Battery technology is still based on basic chemistry, and that
chemistry was understood well enough in 1900.

Of course, people saw all this 100+ years ago and for one solution tried
_hybrids_ where a gasoline engine charged a battery. Apparently, net, that
meant that the car had two sources of power, gasoline and a battery, and could
get by with just one, the gasoline, which is just what has been done since
then. Still there is some hope for hybrids.

Yes, there are some uses for electric vehicles. Still:

Yup, a 20 gallon tank of gasoline is tough to compete with.

~~~
frogpelt
This page
([https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Energy_density](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Energy_density))
has a chart on energy density shows that gasoline contains roughyl 36
MegaJoules per Liter and 46 MJ per kg of energy density while a lithium-ion
battery has less than 3 by both measures.

~~~
graycat
WOW. Good way to put it.

Also, as I've done a few times, can take your 36 megaJoules per liter and ...:
Let's see, a Watt is a Joule per second. So the energy in 36 megaJoules would
be a million Watts for 36 seconds. A liter is ballpark a quart, and a gallon
is 4 quarts, so 20 gallons is 80 quarts or ballpark 80 liters, and even with a
megaWatt power source we're talking charging time 36 times 80 seconds, a bit
over 40 minutes.

So, drive up to a gas station, convenience store, plug in the mega Watt power
source, get some lunch, check the air in the tires, clean the floor mats, put
in a DVD for a movie, ....

Before you connect that megaWatt cable, let me step back about 50 feet and
look in a different direction.

Let's see: My house has 100 A at 240 V, that is 24,000 Watts. So a mega Watt
is ballpark 40 times that much. If use only half that power to charge the car
battery, a mega Watt is 80 times that much. So the 40 minutes becomes 3200
minutes, something over 50 hours, two days. "Sorry, Boss, I'll be charging my
battery on Monday and Tuesday and will be in on Wednesday. Since my commute is
100 miles a day, I'll need to do this two day charge once for each four
working days. Or, I'll be okay Wednesday through Friday, drive another 100
miles on the weekend, and will charge again Monday and Tuesday of next week,
too." Right, he could charge at work. Each day at work will need about six
hours of charging at the full 100 A at 240 V.

Uh, at 10 cents per KWh, the 40 minutes at one megaWatt would cost: A megaWatt
hour would be 1000 times a KWh and cost 1000 times 10 cents or $100. The 40
minutes would be 2/3rds of that or $66 or the same as gas at $3.30 a gallon.
Not a bargain.

And that $3.30 per gallon applies wherever have to pay 10 per KWh, at a
charging station, at home, at work, at a restaurant, etc. People don't give
away gasoline and won't give away electric power for charging. In particular,
a full charge like 20 gallons of gas at home, at 10 cents per KWh, will still
cost the $66. Right, the gasoline burns with maybe only 30% efficiency, but
there are efficiency losses from heat when charging the battery and again when
driving the car.

Yup, for powering a private car used as they commonly are, a 20 gallon tank of
gasoline is tough to compete with. For an electric, range is too short and
charging time is too long. With electric power at 10 cents per KWh and gas at
$2.75 a gallon, the cost will be ballpark much the same, no big savings either
way.

Ah, maybe it's just me: I want a Corvette or Dodge with 700 HP! :-)

------
devy
The article is written as if solid-state battery designs are going to be the
future. So my honest question is, is that really so? What about others, like
Graphene batteries and supercapacitors [1][2]?

[1]: [https://www.graphene-info.com/graphene-batteries](https://www.graphene-
info.com/graphene-batteries)

[2]: [https://www.graphene-info.com/graphene-
supercapacitors](https://www.graphene-info.com/graphene-supercapacitors)

~~~
MentallyRetired
No mention of graphene in the article and this is the only mention of it here.
We can't have the battery discussion without graphene. It's the future, imo.
Soon as we learn how to charge it and maintain stability while doing so.

------
reacharavindh
What we really need is a standardisation to cover for the improvements in the
background. Kind of like a USB interface for batteries.

Imagine, you could buy a car, that has slots for you to attach standard
batteries. You could leave the batteries charging at home, office, shops that
lease you charged batteries(like gas stations) etc. It would also take care of
"I live in an apartment and park my car by the side of the road, so no home
charging.. problem".

Also, gets rid of the range anxiety if you know you could get batteries
everywhere or at-least charge yours everywhere.

Now, when technology genuinely improves by a magnitude, replace the cells, but
keep the interface for a decade or so.

Bonus if that standard catches on for other uses. Imagine same batteries being
used for power tools at home, emergency power supply at home, camping stuff,
plug those boxes into the edges of solar panels while they are not in the car
etc.

Leave it to the competing business that are "battery suppliers" to figure out
how to make them more efficient, cheaper, and do further R&D.

Car companies can stay at making cars that are essentially safe, aerodynamic
shells with electric motors waiting to be powered up by customer supplied
batteries.

~~~
nradov
The batteries are too heavy and bulky for most people to physically carry and
install. The only way regular battery replacement can work is with a large
automated system, which means it would have to be in a dedicated service
station rather than an apartment complex.

------
woodandsteel
This is a good article on solid state batteries. But I think it is all wrong
in claiming that we will have to wait for them before BEV autos will take
over.

The fact is that BEV's are already better than ICE's in many ways, and the
best, Tesla's, are so good they are busy taking away market share. And lithium
ion batteries are steadily improving in characteristics and also getting
cheaper. Furthermore, China, the world's largest auto market, is putting a
very big push behind BEV autos, and many other governments are also making
efforts.

From what I have read a tipping point is coming around 2023-25 when consumers
will start flooding to BEV's, and ICE sales will start dropping rapidly. And
then in another half decade or so solid state batteries will be ready and the
trend will accelerate.

The basic message is that the century-long dominance of ICE cars is coming to
an end and in the not-so-distant future, it's just a matter of time.

------
all2
There is no mention of Robert Murray Smith here, so I will add him as someone
who has already reinvented the battery:

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N1jusadHkmM](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N1jusadHkmM)

This is only one example of what he's done.

------
kabouseng
Half of the problem is solved, we only need the engineers to solve the last
little part...:

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DkGMY63FF3Q](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DkGMY63FF3Q)

------
DeonPenny
It's fine now, but if anyone gets close to the mythical solid state battery it
would change everything. Trucks, trains, and bigger vehicle have no chance
without them they'd weigh to much.

------
village-idiot
My big fear is weight. Road damage scales with the per-axle weight raised to
the 4th power. EVs are quite heavy to compensate for the lower energy density
of lithium ion batteries.

~~~
sokoloff
Taking a 4000 pound car (typical mid-sized sedan) and ballooning the weight to
5000 pounds (Tesla S) is 2.5x the road damage. (Tesla 3 is ~4000 pounds vs the
3600 of a comparable A4, so a factor of ~1.5x.)

By comparison, four 16000# axles on a trailer are 8192 times the road damage
per mile (and likely drive a lot more miles) of the 4000# sedan.

~~~
village-idiot
I agree that semi trucks represent a massive amount of road damage, and iirc
the way we structure our road costs represents a $60B transfer of wealth to
the trucking industry. I wish we’d reverse that, as we could then start
seriously looking at trains as a more reasonable means of moving most of our
bulk goods.

Of course, it’s not like EV semitrucks won’t have the same weight issues as
passenger cars. The same issues with energy density apply there too. EV
semitrucks will either need to be heavier or more plentiful to compensate for
the loss of range or towing capacity compared to diesel.

As an aside, we need to revisit the 4,000lb standard for sedans. The heaviest
Honda Civic weighs 3,000lb, my Mazda 3 weighs under 3,000lb, and a Mazda 6
weighs at most 3,500lb. These days you need a luxury or performance sedan
before you start touching the 4,000lb mark.

~~~
sokoloff
> These days you need a luxury or performance sedan before you start touching
> the 4,000lb mark.

Agreed. I picked 4000# as the reference against a Model S (which clearly
competes more with an A6 or E-class than a Civic) and the Model 3 I compare
more to an A4.

~~~
village-idiot
None of those are "standard" sedans. Not by a long shot. It's perfectly
reasonable to compare an A3 to a Model 3, but it's not reasonable to say that
the standard sedan is 4000#, since Civics & similar outnumber Audis & similar
by an order of magnitude or so.

The point still remains that an EV is about 8-12% heavier than a sedan in its
same class (see sibling comment below). This will apply to semitrucks too as
those electrify, which'll be a bigger deal than sedans.

~~~
sokoloff
A Civic or an A3 is not a mid-sized sedan by any stretch of that category. I
used 4000# as a typical mid-size sedan as-driven weight with an allowance for
a person or two and fuel.

~~~
village-idiot
> A Civic or an A3 is not a mid-sized sedan by any stretch of that category.

The Civic sedan is only 2" smaller length wise and 2" narrower than a Tesla 3.
Size wise, this is a perfectly fair comparison, and the Civic weights 1,000lbs
less. That's a pretty close comparison from a size perspective.

You are correct about the A3, it is indeed much smaller than a Tesla 3. But
the A4 is 1" longer than the 3 (identical in other dimensions), and weighs
about 400lbs less.

> I used 4000# as a typical mid-size sedan as-driven weight with an allowance
> for a person or two and fuel.

Curb weight includes all necessary equipment, including oil and gasoline for
ICE vehicles. Given that there is no reason to expect that an EV driver is a
different weight than an ICE driver, it's completely fair to compare the two
by curb weight only.

------
exabrial
We neeed batteries that can charge at a rate faster than they can be
discharged.

And we also need continuing advances in conductors, magnets, and alternatives
batteries such as fuel cells.

~~~
checker
I would love to have such batteries but I'm not sure we _need_ them. Doesn't
hot-swapping effectively achieve net charge rates faster than discharge?

I can see why people might be less interested in hot-swapping for personal
vehicles, but why isn't hot-swap on the table for buses and cab fleets? Is it
because few people are willing to invest in R&D and infrastructure when
sufficient batteries seem to be just around the corner?

~~~
exabrial
Tesla tried to do the hot swap, and it presented a few problems.

First, the infrastructure cost is massive. You have to keep an inventory of
expensive parts (the battery) on hand. Tesla tried to fix this by having you
set an appointment, but that eliminated the whole point of hot swapping:
convenience.

It's also harder to put a warranty on a battery if you're swapping them all
the time. What if you get a dud swapped into your vehicle?

------
NoNameHaveI
Really? This is a problem? How is a battery any different from any other auto
part? Radiator, water pump, alternator, etc. Yours goes bad? You go to the
auto parts store and get a new one with a "core" fee. You return your broken
radiator, water pump, etc. and get your fee back and the re-manufacturer
rebuilds yours for someone else to use. We don't NEED to have the same mileage
as ICE vehicles. 80% of drivers are just fine on 100 miles a day. We don't
NEED just ONE battery pack for all vehicles. Just get er dun, and get me my
electric pickup!

------
xte
Oh, someone start to understand that... Many in the industrial sectors have
understood it well only in the sixties...........

------
modzu
um, no, it sure looks like the electric car is already taking over...

------
elsonrodriguez
The information in the article is good, but the premise is just a bunch of
goalpost moving.

------
solidr53
It may be an unpopular opinion, but what about radioisotope thermoelectric
generator? (Nuclear)

~~~
cpcallen
Also: extremely limited availability of the require isotopes. Even NASA has
had to redesign missions to use solar instead because their supply was running
out.

