Depends on who’s doing the judgement and toward what end goal. For EVs, SSBs seem pretty optimal. But you can ding them for using lithium (though it’s not as rare as detractors would suggest). If you’re trying to store power generated off peak until peak demand hours flow batteries using different technologies entirely probably make more sense. There are likely to be situations where even artificially generated chemical fuels make more sense than batteries. Then there’s the hydrogen option. Also no ones proven able to massively produce SSBs yet. Etc
There are no downsides 'per se', that is not really the question. The question is more 'what is the upside'.
Until these batteries are in mass production, unless Toyota is much, much further along then anybody think, it is questionable if 'traditional' batteries might not just be simply better. 'Traditional' lithium ion is also evolving very fast and is produced in numbers that will be incredibly hard to reach, and thus achieving cost parity will be difficult.
What Tesla interceded for example is just a further evolution of li-ion but as you add more silicon to the anode, the performance is not actually that different from lithium metal anode (ie what everybody is working on for solid state).
Confusingly pure lithium metal anode does not actually have less volume then a silicon anode that is full of lithium-ions. That is very everybody is going, current batteries have 10% silicon anode, Tesla is likely taking it to 20-30% or more in the next couple years (other working on the same probably). There are already companies selling pure silicon anode products that are on the same kind of timeline as solid state companies. They however generally have the advantage of being usable in a standard battery factory.
One of the claims to fame for solid-state is safety. That can be true and probably will be. However there are also developments in the traditional space that might make them just as safe, by introducing new seperators.
So its kind of race, between different paths of design and maybe even more importantly on how you can scale the technology. You have some startups QuantumScape (VW invested), SolidPower (Ford, BMW invested) and large companies like Toyota really pushing solid state as the future. You have some startups like Sila Nanotechnology (Daimler invested) and some large companies like Tesla push silicon.
One question is, really how much better does your car need to be then a current Tesla 3 or comparable. Practically speaking we are not so far away from where you will likely stop just boosting the specs. So it will generally come down to how cheap can you produce the batteries and how many can you actually produce.
This is why my bet is that by 2030 the waste majority of EV and even the EV sold will not be solid state.
He is finishing up a series on Tesla, and he will be doing a series on Solid state after that as well. He also has interviews with people form industry on his channel and his second
channel.
So, lithium-ion batteries are not "solid state" because they use a liquid electrolyte? (I've traditionally thought of my phone, for example, as being a solid state device.)
Correct. Liquid or gel electrolyte makes a battery non-solid state. The goal is to have a battery where you can't have "tin whiskers" grow between the two halves, which is both a safety hazard and puts a limit on how fast they can be charged.
The terminology is very confusing. Most 'solid state' batteries are lithium-ion batteries, specially all the commercial ones you hear about as being the next big thing.
In those batteries rather then having a graphite with some silicone mixed in, the anode is simply pure lithium metal and you do not have liquid electrolyte in the whole battery.
However some solid state batteries still have a liquid electrolyte on the cathode side.
Your phone is most likely using standard, 622-NCM (Nickel 60%, Cobalt 20%, Aluminum 20%) Cathode with graphite anode.
Reminds me of the time 16 year old me argued with my step father that 3.5 inch diskettes were ‘hard disks’ because they were not floppy! (And only the 5.25 disks were truly floppy.)
No single detail
Seems like they connected two events solid state batteries , all of them are far away from 2021 and producing first electric car from Toyota
Toyota already makes a hybrid which is more complicated than an electric car. You have an electric drive and a gas drive and you have to make them work together.
It is indeed challenging to make a hybrid. In an all-electric, though, one must have a larger battery that can supply the car's range. That's the challenge that Tesla's met and Toyota has not.
it's a false understanding of an electric car, despite the fact EV is simpler and and more robust, for a large battery, you have to do a lot of engineering. Termal management, hight voltage, safety etc... Toyota's bet was that EV will be slow or stuck in this hybrid world, Reality is pushing it towards different direction.
This is still just a laboratory phenomenon. The article states that they're still building facilities to manufacture enough of this material just to make prototypes. Actual commercial production of batteries is quite a ways off.
I'm really looking forward to these, but I wonder about the charge time. Even if/when batteries can take much higher charge input, the power source and underlying grid has to be able to provide that greatly increased output safely.
If the Tesla Model X 100D can charge to 170 miles range in 30 minutes with 480v 300A power source, the charging station for this Toyota would need to be ????v and ????A (many multiples of the Tesla). I don't think I want to be anywhere near that if something goes wrong. The solid state battery may not fail, but something else might... That's an electrical explosion with deadly power.
right every charger would be like a high voltage substation, of course people have complained about the safety potential of every new innovation and for the most part they're tamed. Seems likely that people dying from stupid drivers will far exceed deaths from the charging infrastructure even of hydrogen or this very high current.
I have been following Tesla for many years and have heard of lots of story about people getting hurt with Tesla. I have never heard of such a case during everyday operations of a supercharger.
Likely somewhere somebody has died during installation of these stations but I have never heard of it.
My guess would be the death rate are about as high as installing any electrical system with high current.
Yeah, I did a quick Google for supercharger electrical accidents, and I can’t really find any: I suspect you’re more likely to see a gas station fire than an accident at a fast charger.
there are around 200 times more gas stations currently than fast chargers so absolutely. The question that matters is if you replaced all of those with fast chargers would the accidents at fast chargers be worse than gas station accidents. I am not saying that is not the case and also like gas stations they will get safer over time.
Probably the larger concern (or at least as large) would be that the current electrical grid couldn't handle that kind of load if a significant number of people started driving these quick charge electric cars which require these large currents. Likely we'd need to slow down the charging anyway to accommodate the limitations of the power grid.
Assuming that people aren’t charging 10p% of the time, I would have thought that a charging station would itself be battery powered, dumping its energy at high speed into a car and charging more slowly from the grid?
That would reduce strain on the grid while providing high charging times to users.
I once had a discussion with my friends about this. We ended up concluding that liquid fuel is so power-dense that it would take building a new 110kV transmission line to replace three fuel tank trucks a day.
I suspect that swappable batteries are the future, at least partly, e.g. for big trucks. Not only do they help to refuel in minutes; transporting them to an installation with high-power electrical infrastructure could be the only way to efficiently recharge them.
This is something I've thought about as well. Someone's going to eventually build a big business with a power delivery company. They bring their battery-laden van to your location and charge your vehicle, either for emergency assistance or for scheduled charging.
Or, you have some special trains (not in the US of course, since trains are an evil liberal vehicle) where your car is parked for some journey and charged at the same time; you take a nice break, get some food, visit the WC, and then take your car at a stop at the next major city.
Lastly there's the battery swap option, which is probably the best overall solution. Batteries get mass transported, and a smart logistics system ensures that everyone has power when and where they need it.
The big question for the next 10 years in the automotive industry is: Will the main automakers catch Tesla? Or for you gambling kids: When will be the best time to short TSLA?
My hypothesis is that between GM, Toyota, VW, Ford and FCA, at least one of them will make amply attractive electric vehicles that are competitive in some sense with Tesla. (Also don't forget Nissan!) Tesla still competes on the higher end of the scale.
Yes, I know, "average" new car price and all - but for ICE vehicles, most expensive vehicles are trucks and they bring the average up. Sedans/hatchbacks tend to be below that average. SUVs are right around that average, but higher for electric versions.
So vehicles like the Mustang Mach-E and VW's ID.3, ID.4, etc. will get siblings and provide consumer choice. Vehicles like the Cybertruck, Ford F150 electric, whatever GM makes after the Hummer, etc. will compete in the electric pickup race.
And between all these traditional manufacturers and governments, enough alternative charging networks will exist to be reasonable competitors to Tesla.
Insane that I can buy a fuel-cell Toyota but not an electric. The Hummer is actually going to go electric before the Camry. I get the feeling that Toyota wrote off existing Li-Ion batteries as not good enough to make a marketable car, focused their resources on next-gen moonshots like fuel cells, and are now stubbornly refusing to admit their mistake after Tesla proved them wrong.
Then, can’t Tesla just buy their solid state battery from Toyota? Or from whoever Toyota’s battery manufacturer is?
The battery pack is not really the critical factor. It’s actually the limiting factor.
If Tesla can find a better battery technology, then I’m sure they would love to just license it, and slap on a new battery to their cars.
The critical factors in the electric car are all the other components, or the lack of, which makes the electric car more reliable than traditional gasoline cars.
36 comments
[ 4.5 ms ] story [ 89.7 ms ] threadUntil these batteries are in mass production, unless Toyota is much, much further along then anybody think, it is questionable if 'traditional' batteries might not just be simply better. 'Traditional' lithium ion is also evolving very fast and is produced in numbers that will be incredibly hard to reach, and thus achieving cost parity will be difficult.
What Tesla interceded for example is just a further evolution of li-ion but as you add more silicon to the anode, the performance is not actually that different from lithium metal anode (ie what everybody is working on for solid state).
Confusingly pure lithium metal anode does not actually have less volume then a silicon anode that is full of lithium-ions. That is very everybody is going, current batteries have 10% silicon anode, Tesla is likely taking it to 20-30% or more in the next couple years (other working on the same probably). There are already companies selling pure silicon anode products that are on the same kind of timeline as solid state companies. They however generally have the advantage of being usable in a standard battery factory.
One of the claims to fame for solid-state is safety. That can be true and probably will be. However there are also developments in the traditional space that might make them just as safe, by introducing new seperators.
So its kind of race, between different paths of design and maybe even more importantly on how you can scale the technology. You have some startups QuantumScape (VW invested), SolidPower (Ford, BMW invested) and large companies like Toyota really pushing solid state as the future. You have some startups like Sila Nanotechnology (Daimler invested) and some large companies like Tesla push silicon.
One question is, really how much better does your car need to be then a current Tesla 3 or comparable. Practically speaking we are not so far away from where you will likely stop just boosting the specs. So it will generally come down to how cheap can you produce the batteries and how many can you actually produce.
This is why my bet is that by 2030 the waste majority of EV and even the EV sold will not be solid state.
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCIFn7ONIJHyC-lMnb7Fm_jw
He is finishing up a series on Tesla, and he will be doing a series on Solid state after that as well. He also has interviews with people form industry on his channel and his second channel.
In those batteries rather then having a graphite with some silicone mixed in, the anode is simply pure lithium metal and you do not have liquid electrolyte in the whole battery.
However some solid state batteries still have a liquid electrolyte on the cathode side.
Your phone is most likely using standard, 622-NCM (Nickel 60%, Cobalt 20%, Aluminum 20%) Cathode with graphite anode.
If the Tesla Model X 100D can charge to 170 miles range in 30 minutes with 480v 300A power source, the charging station for this Toyota would need to be ????v and ????A (many multiples of the Tesla). I don't think I want to be anywhere near that if something goes wrong. The solid state battery may not fail, but something else might... That's an electrical explosion with deadly power.
Likely somewhere somebody has died during installation of these stations but I have never heard of it.
My guess would be the death rate are about as high as installing any electrical system with high current.
That would reduce strain on the grid while providing high charging times to users.
I suspect that swappable batteries are the future, at least partly, e.g. for big trucks. Not only do they help to refuel in minutes; transporting them to an installation with high-power electrical infrastructure could be the only way to efficiently recharge them.
Or, you have some special trains (not in the US of course, since trains are an evil liberal vehicle) where your car is parked for some journey and charged at the same time; you take a nice break, get some food, visit the WC, and then take your car at a stop at the next major city.
Lastly there's the battery swap option, which is probably the best overall solution. Batteries get mass transported, and a smart logistics system ensures that everyone has power when and where they need it.
Yes, I know, "average" new car price and all - but for ICE vehicles, most expensive vehicles are trucks and they bring the average up. Sedans/hatchbacks tend to be below that average. SUVs are right around that average, but higher for electric versions.
So vehicles like the Mustang Mach-E and VW's ID.3, ID.4, etc. will get siblings and provide consumer choice. Vehicles like the Cybertruck, Ford F150 electric, whatever GM makes after the Hummer, etc. will compete in the electric pickup race.
And between all these traditional manufacturers and governments, enough alternative charging networks will exist to be reasonable competitors to Tesla.
The battery pack is not really the critical factor. It’s actually the limiting factor.
If Tesla can find a better battery technology, then I’m sure they would love to just license it, and slap on a new battery to their cars.
The critical factors in the electric car are all the other components, or the lack of, which makes the electric car more reliable than traditional gasoline cars.