The article contains too little information about the exact chemical composition and structure of the new cathode and of the new solid electrolyte to allow one to assess whether the company will be able to deliver real products soon.
On the other hand, all the claims are theoretically possible, sulfur could indeed replace the much more expensive cobalt or nickel oxides, if a cathode structure allowing good reversibility has been found.
If the claims of the company are true and their batteries will start qualification tests during this year and mass production next year, it would be a very important development, by allowing in a few years much cheaper batteries, produced in much larger quantities.
Of course, until further information, the claims could also be over-optimistic and the new batteries might have some undisclosed problems that will not be solved in time to permit the announced schedule.
One possible problem is that the batteries have a solid electrolyte, which is presumably necessary to avoid a degradation of the cathode after too few recharge cycles. A solid electrolyte might limit the density of current, which would lead to a low maximum power per volume. In that case the new batteries might be disadvantaged in high-power applications, like power tools or electric cars.
There is absolutely no information about how many charge-discharge cycles they have achieved with their completely new cathode structure. This is usually a major problem with most new promising cathodes. Their new battery might be twice cheaper than the current batteries, but it might have a lifetime of only a third of the lifetime of the current batteries.
The article mention about future trials in aerospace industry. So presumably the current is not a problem. But the number of recharging cycles can be the one. On the other hand if the new chemistry allows applications that were not possible before, quickly degrading but cheap batteries can be a useful option.
At your link about the research done at Drexel University there is much more information about the structure of the cathode and about the obtained results, so it is more credible than the parent article, but it also refers to a research that does not appear to be close to commercialization.
They have used a slightly different cathode structure, with carbon nanofibers instead of nanotubes, and with a different electrolyte.
So, as shown by other posters, during the last couple of months there have been at least 3 announcements, from 2 commercial startups and from an university, all claiming to have solved the reversibility problem of the cathode in lithium-sulfur batteries, using either carbon nanofibers, carbon nanotubes or boron-nitride nanotubes, and the 2 startups claim that in a year or so such batteries may become commercially available.
Having 3 such announcements instead of 1, makes it much more believable that at least 1 of them is not overly optimistic, so indeed the lithium-sulfur batteries might replace soon the lithium-cobalt and lithium-nickel batteries, making the batteries much more affordable.
I wouldn't count on those batteries being any cheaper for a long time. There's a reason they applied for so many patents - they intend to capture all the savings through licensing fees I'm sure.
Ironing out the issues around scaling can take years, and investors are skittish to back projects that might reach well into the 100’s of $millions, and there’s so much other development in the market that it’s hard to pick the winning horse. Innovations gained during R&D might also be picked up by competitors, or they might rely on some complementary licensing that makes the whole thing unprofitable.
I’d expect there to be more and more interest and investment in this space over the coming years, given the latest developments around energy security.
(Interestingly, the Back Bay Battery Company simulation maintained by Harvard is commonly used as a case study in MBA programs.)
Has the Biden team mentioned anything about battery tech research funding? Or are they staying away from it so as not to spook current startups and investors that are making progress?
Li-S Energy[0] is a company with Lithium-Sulphur battery tech that looks to be close to commercial production. They just announced today[1] that they're building a commercial plant that will produce 1000 cells/week (equivalent to 2MWh of batteries annually). Arguably still somewhat vapourware at this point, but much better than most others I've seen.
It appears that this other company uses a similar cathode structure, also based on nanotubes, but the nanotubes are made of boron nitride instead of carbon.
So presumably the patents of these 2 companies are non-overlapping.
In any case, having 2 companies with products based on very similar ideas, but still different, both claiming that are about a year away of starting production, is a good sign that this is something that might be real.
I like to hear about them so I have an idea of what could be in the future. Granted it might not happen, or take years longer than expected. But I do like to know that it could potentially mean that I have an electric vehicle to chose from when my current one dies in 10+ years.
Also, these sound great for ultralight planes. Even though the electric motor weight is much lower than the gas engine options, battery weight makes electric almost impossible without significantly sacrificing flight duration.
Different markets require different tradeoffs. Flying things can tolerate higher cost, if it comes with a higher energy density, ability to charge/discharge quickly and (in some cases) higher cycle life. In this respect, sulfur-ion batteries might be viable even at 10x price compared to cheapest batteries on the market.
Grid storage is all about the price per kWh. Sodium-ion batteries ([1]) might become a good fit, while they are absolutely useless for electric airplanes / drones.
They promis price of around 30-40 EUR/kWh, because of:
Sulfur is an industrial byproduct – no harmful mining required. This drives material cost down to 0.20 EUR/kg (compared to state of the art cathode material NMC811 at 20.00 EUR/kg).
It seems easier for a startup to use markets that can tolerate higher costs to bootstrap a production pipeline. Costs of the raw materials might be cheaper for this battery type, but competing with the huge factories for current battery tech is still difficult for a small company.
Maybe you chase that after proving the product in aerospace where the pockets are deep and standards high?
It's not like lithium-ion owns aerospace, economy of scale doesn't give it the required energy density for an electric 747. Though I'm unclear on if this development opens up that possibility either.
I would think flying RC devices is the place to start if you want to scale up quickly. Passenger aircraft is going to require years of testing with no guarantee the plane goes into production.
FYI, the name of the company, Theion, is the Latin transcription of the Greek name of sulfur.
("sulfur" is the preferred spelling instead of the pseudo-Greek spelling "sulphur", which is used in the article; in Old Latin the name of the element was "sulpur", and later it became "sulfur").
The element has traditionally been spelled sulphur in the United Kingdom, most of the Commonwealth including India, Malaysia, South Africa and Hong Kong, along with the rest of the Caribbean and Ireland, but sulfur in the United States, while both spellings are used in Australia, New Zealand and Canada
Well, this war has been won by the Americans, because IUPAC (International Union of Pure and Applied Chemistry) has adopted the historically-correct spelling "sulfur".
While some fancier British spellings at least correspond with spellings which were correct for English some time in the past, there are also many examples of pseudo-Greek spellings of Latin words, which insert the Greek sounds "y", "ph", "th" or "ch" in Latin words where they do not belong, as no such sounds have existed in Latin.
There is no justification for the pseudo-Greek words, so they must be avoided when possible, by using the correct Latin spelling. That is not always possible, because for many words the tradition of pseudo-Greek spelling is entrenched on both sides of the Atlantic, e.g. the words "stylus" and "style".
That's an impressive level of bikeshedding. Do you really think it matters? I mean, really anything in the world but your mood going to get worse if it's spelt in a way you dislike?
“It is not a question of American or Oxford English spelling, it is a given name — and 'correcting' such a name to a different spelling is wholly inappropriate. What would Fred Flintstone say if we insisted on spelling his name Phred Phlintstone!”
There are english literature works from before the 19th century which use stile in this meaning, not just to refer to a gate through a fence.
"Stile Antico" from the Italian (?) for a form of music, but I think it was also used during a time spelling was more fluid.
the NGRAM page doesn't really help but it is interesting. Probably the changes in animal husbandry, and land enclosure account for some of this and have nothing to do with spelling
I just ordered Kia EV6, friends were laughing: “we get new battery technology in couple years and you car will be soon outdated”. The truth is that the new battery technology comes every couple months. Never makes to mass production and silently disappears. I must wait for my car almost a year. Volkswagen group delivers car in almost 2 years when I order today. Even if the new batteries will come out, my Kia EV6 will be absolutely fine for my weekly 300 miles.
The new battery tech is coming to market every few months, it's been improving regularly for decades in price/performance etc.
I always read these articles as having a subtext of "EVs are crap at the moment give 'em another decade" which I don't think resonates with me but is likely popular with certain segments and so gets clicks.
One key repeated talking point is "when our tech gets out the lab in a decade you can fill your EV just like your ICE". I don't want to do that. It was smelly, expensive and inconvenient then, it is even more so now I have a EV that's fully charged every morning when it doesn't even need to be. In 10 years time it'll be nostalgia like a fax machine or sending a telegram.
> I always read these articles as having a subtext of "EVs are crap at the moment give 'em another decade" which I don't think resonates with me but is likely popular with certain segments and so gets clicks.
You should introduce that certain segment to the Briggs & Stratton stock price :)
We see no "breakthrough", just incremental optimisation (fine in itself). The biggest drop happened between 2000 and 2005, and for the past 15 years the progress have slowed (even after accounting for the logarithmic axis !). The conclusion is that battery technologies are incrementally harder to optimise, that progress is slowing and we shouldn't expect anything major unless an actual breakthrough is made.
In other words: if your project isn't viable with the current price point, you may hope for a small discount in few years, but don't expect anything major.
That's a scale for the current champion, lithium-ion. All it tells us is that lithium ion is a mature technology, not that batteries in general are a mature technology.
There's plenty of scenarios where a more expensive alternative could take over easily. A more energy dense alternative that cost 2x as much would be a massive win for vehicles and especially aircraft where weight is a huge penalty. Alternatively, a technology with a much lower price even with a much lower energy density could enable a lot of green energy storage projects that are currently uneconomical with current battery technology.
> That's a scale for the current champion, lithium-ion.
They are all currently lithium-ion. What they are varying is the ion.
The ion makes a big difference LiFePO4 is very different to LiMn and its mates (higher cycles and lifetime, lower energy density).
A LiS is a different ion yet again. It's not a 3 fold improvement in energy density like the article says, more like twice the density in both volume and weight. And like LiFePO4, no rare earth minerals. It's downfall has been durability (50 cycles or so), but there are now multiple teams announcing 1000 cycles or better in the lab, all using different approaches. It seems inevitable that someone will figure out how to manufacture one of those chemistries at scale in time. Then you will see a step change by a change in chemistry.
Without a change in chemistry all you see is improvements in manufacturing which is a gradual thing.
For example my neighbor's job involves driving specialized supplies to a number of retail outlets every day. It's a very niche business that involves pickup truck and 8 or more hours of driving to do the deliveries.
If he was to try to use a EV it would result in unemployment.
The reason EVs haven't caught on more isn't because everybody but you is stupid.
Electic motor technology is fantastic. Battery technology is miserable.
And the reason we don't see "breakthroughs" every month, except those that involve press releases and nothing else, is because ideas and chemistry is cheap. It's easy to get patents. What is hard is actually manufacturing.
Taking an idea that works theoretically in a lab versus making it work in reality as a commercial product is similar to learning logging down the street the first time versus winning an olympic medal.
In terms of technology what we have now is really just a series of incremental improvements over technology released in the 1990's. The rare earth magnets, the computer control of motor phases, the lithium batteries are all stuff designed for portable Japanese consumer electronics. It's just been supersized and refined for EVs.
This is an example of "whatabout-ism." There's going to be a counter-example of someone for which EVs make little sense, but that doesn't mean that EVs make little sense for a large group of drivers or maybe even the majority of cases for which ICE vehicles are currently used. Can EVs 100% replace every single ICE vehicle in every single application? No - and they don't need to in order to be highly useful and provide aggregate benefits.
I think the most likely mid-tier outcome will be that in about 25 years or so, the grand majority of cars on the road will be EV, but that industrial companies will primarily use ICE vehicles, and for road trips and other such short term, long-distance, time essential driving events ICE vehicles will be typically available for rent.
I think that's a very realistic scenario. Thanks to the Russian war in the Ukraine we might even be looking at 15 years instead of 25 but that's just timing, I think you have the right outlook.
> The reason EVs haven't caught on more isn't because everybody but you is stupid.
I would pin it on the groups that campaigned against efficient city design, efficient public transport, efficient private automobiles, efficient taxing of externalities like lead and CO2 and vehicle weight, efficient electrical production like wind and solar and told a whole lot of silly lies in the processs because they were getting a cut of fossil fuel profits.
But yeah, if you supported and voted for those people and accepted their wild lies without realising they were scamming you, then you are kinda dumb, so I'm not ruling out dumbness as a contributing factor, just that there was a lot of time, effort and money put into making people dumb on this particular topic and I'll save my ire for the smart people doing the scamming rather than the dumb people being scammed.
Isn't it great then that we have so many options in vehicles to choose from?
> 8 or more hours of driving to do the deliveries. If he was to try to use a EV it would result in unemployment.
The fact that the new truck the USPS commissioned comes in an electric version says you're wrong.
Some delivery trucks are moving 8 hours a day, but many are stopped or turned off a lot of that time. Some have much heavier loads (delivery trucks for distribution from bottling companies will likely go hybrid, rather than electric). It really depends how rural the route is, and that's a double whammy because not only is it more miles but there are fewer opportunities to charge. But we aren't that far from a point where urban deliveries can be done with vehicles that are more specialized to that purpose. We don't need one vehicle that is useful for all scenarios. If anything we've moved away from that over time.
I think the unspoken fear with shitting on someone else's parade is that if this catches on then eventually the supply and labor pool for your preferred way of doing things will shrink and you will lose your economy of scale. But honestly you should worry about that for your kids and grandkids, because that's going to be a good long time.
And speaking of kids, the American Dream doesn't include cruising in a car anymore. Many kids today even in smaller towns are now delaying learning to drive. When you are against something you use the worst aspects of that thing as part of your rationale. If anything, refusing to reduce the consequences of cars will just galvanize this generation and their children against cars in general. Modest ICE vehicles benefit from both the introduction of EVs and outright banning of the worst ICE vehicles, in ways that were perhaps not true even a generation ago.
> The fact that the new truck the USPS commissioned comes in an electric version says you're wrong.
I'm not sure that this follows - I would be amazed if many USPS local delivery vehicles were driven 8 hours a day. A daily range of even 50 miles is probably way more than many routes need.
> Even if the new batteries will come out, my Kia EV6 will be absolutely fine for my weekly 300 miles.
This is what we realized when we got our BMW i3 a few years ago. Sure, cars with longer range will come soon, but we live in the city and very seldom drive more than 100 miles per day. Unless we move, that's not going to change and the i3 is good enough.
If anything my friends and I are damaging our ICE or hybrid vehicles by taking short trips we have no business taking. Even in cities that have made some progress on walkable neighborhoods, it's often the case that the place you want to be is in the next neighborhood over, which is a worst case scenario for ICE engines.
Yes exactly this, I bought a Kona Electric in November and on paper next to Tesla etc it’s not a great car. In reality it’s the best car I’ve ever owned (no hyperbole). I charged every other day for a ~60 mile round trip and never saw a gas pump. Although since then I’m full remote and it just sits in the driveway.
>I just ordered Kia EV6, friends were laughing: “we get new battery technology in couple years and you car will be soon outdated”.
This isn't really the right take. Production at scale isn't happening. Cars won't be the first applications because of huge safety concerns. Much easier to stop a battery fire when it's a cellphone.
>I must wait for my car almost a year. Volkswagen group delivers car in almost 2 years when I order today. Even if the new batteries will come out, my Kia EV6 will be absolutely fine for my weekly 300 miles.
Oh ya, it is a matter of time for new battery tech. I believe Tesla will be using a new battery tech in the cyber truck. Then again, where's that at? It's going to be at a premium for sure.
Your EV6, ID4, or even BZX4 type vehicles will be the current battery tech for many years. You're going to love your EV6.
I believe they're going to be building the Cybertruck at the new Austin plant. The plant is still under construction but looks pretty far along from the highway. It's kinda cool how they built the factory with large glass windows on the outside so you can see in from the road.
With higher energy density, for the most part the application will be that we provide a smaller battery for the same range and lower cost. that fire will still be a thing, it's just so much energy.
Here's the flipside. Did you know like 1/4 of firemen calls are for gasoline vehicles catching fire? I had a rust bucket that if you braked hard enough gasoline came out of the tank. We are dealing with explosive flammable fluid.
EV cars are tremendously safer and even if we invented a battery that only needed recharging twice a year and held immense power. It wouldn't be a bomb. It would just be a crazy fire.
If you store your energy in a smaller volume, it gets easier to protect. It gets harder again if you want to store more energy, but the density by itself is a positive.
Anyway, wake me up when we are talking about something with an energy density any close to gasoline.
I just bought a Nissan Leaf+ (love it BTW) and had the same thoughts. I've been following battery technology for at least twenty years. Even invested in a couple of companies. Yes, battery technology continues to improve. Yes, in a few years the range on my new car might seem limited, compared to what's on the market then. But the most important thing is:
It's already enough.
My nominal range is 215 miles. That's enough to drive around town all week - this car's typical usage pattern - before I have to recharge, and of course I can do that more often if I need to. It's enough to get from here to the ski club we're members of, which we'll probably never even do unless my wife's car breaks down. And that's the key: this is a second car. It doesn't need more range.
Maybe in a few more years, if/when battery technology has improved even more, we'll be able to replace my wife's car with one that will get to the club and back without recharging. Maybe when chargers are more ubiquitous, it'll be reasonable to go all the way from eastern Massachusetts to the middle of New York (where my daughter is likely to attend college) in an electric car. Maybe even all the way to Michigan, where I have family.
But that's all in the future. In the here-and-now, all of my trips are already emissions free and much cheaper than if I were using gas. Good enough. It's a lot like buying a computer; anything you buy today will be worse than what you could buy in a year, but you can still make better or worse purchases based on technology and price cycles. No reason to make the perfect the enemy of the good.
I started my search with Dacia Spring (lol), went to Twingo, then to Leaf/Zoe. Battery degradation of these cars were known and looked good to me. Then I discovered full feature battery powered cars like ID.4 and Enyaq from Volkswagen. ID.4 had too much touchscreen. Enyaq had main screen from some back yard sale in Shenzhen. New car with 4” display. Just wow!!! Then I found Kia e-Niro, did a test drive. Was not big enough. Then did test drive of EV6 with all wheel drive and I really liked it. It will be our single car in the family trading in BMW 3 series. However BMW is a a nicer car with better build quality.
I have my eye on the EV6 but I'm bummed that the moon roof is only on the most expensive option (practically Tesla prices), and that when these products were announced they were supposed to come with Witricity's wireless charger, which seems to have been abandoned.
They almost certainly mean triple compared to lithium ion (similarly for the 90% less energy claim). Lithium ion batteries currenty hit a maxium energy density of around 265Wh/kg, with a theoretical maximum of around 400-500Wh/kg[0][1]. Lithium sulphur batteries have a theoretical maximum of around 2500Wh/kg.
I've done the math a few times and I think there's an inflection point somewhere around 400WH/kg where auxiliary batteries for EVs become a viable option.
Right now any replaceable battery is the domain of robotics, because there is no human-rated pack that would provide a compelling increase in range. Another factor of 2 and hauling a few 15kg cylinders or cubes out at a 'gas station' might get you to grandma's house or safely past a "no gas for 200 miles" sign.
I think compared with standard AAA batteries. _Everything_ looks better than them. My only concern is when this sulphur will catch fire, but why be so pessimist ?
Yes. According to chemistry classes burning gasoline (or other hydrocarbons) releases CO2 and water. Burning sulfur releases SO2 which i heard is quiet toxic.
Cool stuff! One nit to pick - isn't the major source of Sulphur oil refining? Trying to spin this as being greener than the existing tech might be a bit much.
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[ 3.7 ms ] story [ 130 ms ] threadDo these articles do anything to help spur research or draw interest? What's the point?
Most true progress comes out of hundreds if not thousands small improvements and innovations.
On the other hand, all the claims are theoretically possible, sulfur could indeed replace the much more expensive cobalt or nickel oxides, if a cathode structure allowing good reversibility has been found.
If the claims of the company are true and their batteries will start qualification tests during this year and mass production next year, it would be a very important development, by allowing in a few years much cheaper batteries, produced in much larger quantities.
Of course, until further information, the claims could also be over-optimistic and the new batteries might have some undisclosed problems that will not be solved in time to permit the announced schedule.
One possible problem is that the batteries have a solid electrolyte, which is presumably necessary to avoid a degradation of the cathode after too few recharge cycles. A solid electrolyte might limit the density of current, which would lead to a low maximum power per volume. In that case the new batteries might be disadvantaged in high-power applications, like power tools or electric cars.
There is absolutely no information about how many charge-discharge cycles they have achieved with their completely new cathode structure. This is usually a major problem with most new promising cathodes. Their new battery might be twice cheaper than the current batteries, but it might have a lifetime of only a third of the lifetime of the current batteries.
Edit: according to https://newatlas.com/energy/rare-form-sulfur-lithium-ion-bat... it is possible to address the degradation problem. So maybe this is not vaporware.
They have used a slightly different cathode structure, with carbon nanofibers instead of nanotubes, and with a different electrolyte.
So, as shown by other posters, during the last couple of months there have been at least 3 announcements, from 2 commercial startups and from an university, all claiming to have solved the reversibility problem of the cathode in lithium-sulfur batteries, using either carbon nanofibers, carbon nanotubes or boron-nitride nanotubes, and the 2 startups claim that in a year or so such batteries may become commercially available.
Having 3 such announcements instead of 1, makes it much more believable that at least 1 of them is not overly optimistic, so indeed the lithium-sulfur batteries might replace soon the lithium-cobalt and lithium-nickel batteries, making the batteries much more affordable.
I’d expect there to be more and more interest and investment in this space over the coming years, given the latest developments around energy security.
(Interestingly, the Back Bay Battery Company simulation maintained by Harvard is commonly used as a case study in MBA programs.)
[0] https://www.lis.energy/
[1] https://www.lis.energy/site/PDF/0f90f952-4a18-45ea-bce9-3c52...
So presumably the patents of these 2 companies are non-overlapping.
In any case, having 2 companies with products based on very similar ideas, but still different, both claiming that are about a year away of starting production, is a good sign that this is something that might be real.
https://oxisenergy.com/
but this one was set "in administration" on 19 May 2021...
Also, these sound great for ultralight planes. Even though the electric motor weight is much lower than the gas engine options, battery weight makes electric almost impossible without significantly sacrificing flight duration.
Not because its lucrative, but because its the only place you can meaningfully compete before you have the economy of scale that lithium-ion has.
If you drop the floor out of the that market, the other industries will come calling you.
Grid storage is all about the price per kWh. Sodium-ion batteries ([1]) might become a good fit, while they are absolutely useless for electric airplanes / drones.
1. https://www.catl.com/en/news/665.html
Sulfur is an industrial byproduct – no harmful mining required. This drives material cost down to 0.20 EUR/kg (compared to state of the art cathode material NMC811 at 20.00 EUR/kg).
No NMC needed.
https://www.theion.de/
It's not like lithium-ion owns aerospace, economy of scale doesn't give it the required energy density for an electric 747. Though I'm unclear on if this development opens up that possibility either.
("sulfur" is the preferred spelling instead of the pseudo-Greek spelling "sulphur", which is used in the article; in Old Latin the name of the element was "sulpur", and later it became "sulfur").
The element has traditionally been spelled sulphur in the United Kingdom, most of the Commonwealth including India, Malaysia, South Africa and Hong Kong, along with the rest of the Caribbean and Ireland, but sulfur in the United States, while both spellings are used in Australia, New Zealand and Canada
While some fancier British spellings at least correspond with spellings which were correct for English some time in the past, there are also many examples of pseudo-Greek spellings of Latin words, which insert the Greek sounds "y", "ph", "th" or "ch" in Latin words where they do not belong, as no such sounds have existed in Latin.
There is no justification for the pseudo-Greek words, so they must be avoided when possible, by using the correct Latin spelling. That is not always possible, because for many words the tradition of pseudo-Greek spelling is entrenched on both sides of the Atlantic, e.g. the words "stylus" and "style".
(brit here, cares little if it's spelt ph of f)
Turns out there's a whole article on this in Nature Chemistry :
https://www.nature.com/articles/nchem.301
Best line in the article.
"Stile Antico" from the Italian (?) for a form of music, but I think it was also used during a time spelling was more fluid.
the NGRAM page doesn't really help but it is interesting. Probably the changes in animal husbandry, and land enclosure account for some of this and have nothing to do with spelling
https://books.google.com/ngrams/graph?content=stile%2C+style...
I always read these articles as having a subtext of "EVs are crap at the moment give 'em another decade" which I don't think resonates with me but is likely popular with certain segments and so gets clicks.
One key repeated talking point is "when our tech gets out the lab in a decade you can fill your EV just like your ICE". I don't want to do that. It was smelly, expensive and inconvenient then, it is even more so now I have a EV that's fully charged every morning when it doesn't even need to be. In 10 years time it'll be nostalgia like a fax machine or sending a telegram.
You should introduce that certain segment to the Briggs & Stratton stock price :)
Indeed: https://ourworldindata.org/battery-price-decline
We see no "breakthrough", just incremental optimisation (fine in itself). The biggest drop happened between 2000 and 2005, and for the past 15 years the progress have slowed (even after accounting for the logarithmic axis !). The conclusion is that battery technologies are incrementally harder to optimise, that progress is slowing and we shouldn't expect anything major unless an actual breakthrough is made.
In other words: if your project isn't viable with the current price point, you may hope for a small discount in few years, but don't expect anything major.
There's plenty of scenarios where a more expensive alternative could take over easily. A more energy dense alternative that cost 2x as much would be a massive win for vehicles and especially aircraft where weight is a huge penalty. Alternatively, a technology with a much lower price even with a much lower energy density could enable a lot of green energy storage projects that are currently uneconomical with current battery technology.
They are all currently lithium-ion. What they are varying is the ion.
The ion makes a big difference LiFePO4 is very different to LiMn and its mates (higher cycles and lifetime, lower energy density).
A LiS is a different ion yet again. It's not a 3 fold improvement in energy density like the article says, more like twice the density in both volume and weight. And like LiFePO4, no rare earth minerals. It's downfall has been durability (50 cycles or so), but there are now multiple teams announcing 1000 cycles or better in the lab, all using different approaches. It seems inevitable that someone will figure out how to manufacture one of those chemistries at scale in time. Then you will see a step change by a change in chemistry.
Without a change in chemistry all you see is improvements in manufacturing which is a gradual thing.
For lots of purposes EVs ARE crap.
For example my neighbor's job involves driving specialized supplies to a number of retail outlets every day. It's a very niche business that involves pickup truck and 8 or more hours of driving to do the deliveries.
If he was to try to use a EV it would result in unemployment.
The reason EVs haven't caught on more isn't because everybody but you is stupid.
Electic motor technology is fantastic. Battery technology is miserable.
And the reason we don't see "breakthroughs" every month, except those that involve press releases and nothing else, is because ideas and chemistry is cheap. It's easy to get patents. What is hard is actually manufacturing.
Taking an idea that works theoretically in a lab versus making it work in reality as a commercial product is similar to learning logging down the street the first time versus winning an olympic medal.
In terms of technology what we have now is really just a series of incremental improvements over technology released in the 1990's. The rare earth magnets, the computer control of motor phases, the lithium batteries are all stuff designed for portable Japanese consumer electronics. It's just been supersized and refined for EVs.
I would pin it on the groups that campaigned against efficient city design, efficient public transport, efficient private automobiles, efficient taxing of externalities like lead and CO2 and vehicle weight, efficient electrical production like wind and solar and told a whole lot of silly lies in the processs because they were getting a cut of fossil fuel profits.
But yeah, if you supported and voted for those people and accepted their wild lies without realising they were scamming you, then you are kinda dumb, so I'm not ruling out dumbness as a contributing factor, just that there was a lot of time, effort and money put into making people dumb on this particular topic and I'll save my ire for the smart people doing the scamming rather than the dumb people being scammed.
> 8 or more hours of driving to do the deliveries. If he was to try to use a EV it would result in unemployment.
The fact that the new truck the USPS commissioned comes in an electric version says you're wrong.
Some delivery trucks are moving 8 hours a day, but many are stopped or turned off a lot of that time. Some have much heavier loads (delivery trucks for distribution from bottling companies will likely go hybrid, rather than electric). It really depends how rural the route is, and that's a double whammy because not only is it more miles but there are fewer opportunities to charge. But we aren't that far from a point where urban deliveries can be done with vehicles that are more specialized to that purpose. We don't need one vehicle that is useful for all scenarios. If anything we've moved away from that over time.
I think the unspoken fear with shitting on someone else's parade is that if this catches on then eventually the supply and labor pool for your preferred way of doing things will shrink and you will lose your economy of scale. But honestly you should worry about that for your kids and grandkids, because that's going to be a good long time.
And speaking of kids, the American Dream doesn't include cruising in a car anymore. Many kids today even in smaller towns are now delaying learning to drive. When you are against something you use the worst aspects of that thing as part of your rationale. If anything, refusing to reduce the consequences of cars will just galvanize this generation and their children against cars in general. Modest ICE vehicles benefit from both the introduction of EVs and outright banning of the worst ICE vehicles, in ways that were perhaps not true even a generation ago.
I'm not sure that this follows - I would be amazed if many USPS local delivery vehicles were driven 8 hours a day. A daily range of even 50 miles is probably way more than many routes need.
This is what we realized when we got our BMW i3 a few years ago. Sure, cars with longer range will come soon, but we live in the city and very seldom drive more than 100 miles per day. Unless we move, that's not going to change and the i3 is good enough.
These short trips would be much better in an EV.
This isn't really the right take. Production at scale isn't happening. Cars won't be the first applications because of huge safety concerns. Much easier to stop a battery fire when it's a cellphone.
>I must wait for my car almost a year. Volkswagen group delivers car in almost 2 years when I order today. Even if the new batteries will come out, my Kia EV6 will be absolutely fine for my weekly 300 miles.
Oh ya, it is a matter of time for new battery tech. I believe Tesla will be using a new battery tech in the cyber truck. Then again, where's that at? It's going to be at a premium for sure.
Your EV6, ID4, or even BZX4 type vehicles will be the current battery tech for many years. You're going to love your EV6.
I believe they're going to be building the Cybertruck at the new Austin plant. The plant is still under construction but looks pretty far along from the highway. It's kinda cool how they built the factory with large glass windows on the outside so you can see in from the road.
I expect you're right. When I read "higher energy density" I think "closer to being an actual bomb", ha ha.
https://topgear.fandom.com/wiki/Hammond's_Rimac_Crash_(TGT)
That Rimac caught fire and they couldn't stop the fire for days.
https://www.reddit.com/r/thegrandtour/comments/7in8bc/commen...
With higher energy density, for the most part the application will be that we provide a smaller battery for the same range and lower cost. that fire will still be a thing, it's just so much energy.
Here's the flipside. Did you know like 1/4 of firemen calls are for gasoline vehicles catching fire? I had a rust bucket that if you braked hard enough gasoline came out of the tank. We are dealing with explosive flammable fluid.
EV cars are tremendously safer and even if we invented a battery that only needed recharging twice a year and held immense power. It wouldn't be a bomb. It would just be a crazy fire.
Anyway, wake me up when we are talking about something with an energy density any close to gasoline.
It's already enough.
My nominal range is 215 miles. That's enough to drive around town all week - this car's typical usage pattern - before I have to recharge, and of course I can do that more often if I need to. It's enough to get from here to the ski club we're members of, which we'll probably never even do unless my wife's car breaks down. And that's the key: this is a second car. It doesn't need more range.
Maybe in a few more years, if/when battery technology has improved even more, we'll be able to replace my wife's car with one that will get to the club and back without recharging. Maybe when chargers are more ubiquitous, it'll be reasonable to go all the way from eastern Massachusetts to the middle of New York (where my daughter is likely to attend college) in an electric car. Maybe even all the way to Michigan, where I have family.
But that's all in the future. In the here-and-now, all of my trips are already emissions free and much cheaper than if I were using gas. Good enough. It's a lot like buying a computer; anything you buy today will be worse than what you could buy in a year, but you can still make better or worse purchases based on technology and price cycles. No reason to make the perfect the enemy of the good.
I suppose these guys have never bought and will never buy a computer?
Compared to what ? Very annoying when articles do that, it shows a lack of rigor that does not inspire confidence in the rest of the article.
[0] https://cleantechnica.com/2020/02/11/lithium-sulfur-batterie...
[1] https://www.lis.energy/site/li-s-energy-applications/lithium...
Right now any replaceable battery is the domain of robotics, because there is no human-rated pack that would provide a compelling increase in range. Another factor of 2 and hauling a few 15kg cylinders or cubes out at a 'gas station' might get you to grandma's house or safely past a "no gas for 200 miles" sign.
Gasoline does not spontaneously combust when exposed to air, unlike the components in some batteries.
Neither do lithium or sulfur.
Gravimetric energy density ≥ 1’000 Wh/kg (Gen 4) Volumetric energy density ≥ 1’500 Wh/l Power capability ≈ 12.000 W/kg Cycle life ≥ 1’000 at 1 C
More details here in in their blogs: https://www.theion.de/
https://www.theion.de/