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Num10ck ,

i wonder if/how the EU and US would trust China not to remotely turn massive fleets of electric smart cars into suicide bonbers.

catloaf ,

Why would they do that? They're going for an economic victory, not military.

ChicoSuave ,

Has China done that before? How does a battery seize control of a parent device when it is only connected by power wires?

Num10ck ,

china doesnt just make batteries of course.

gian ,

How does a battery seize control of a parent device when it is only connected by power wires?

It does not need to. Just set the battery on fire. Now set 100.000 batteries on fire, simultaneously, in a city, at night.

coarse ,

Soon: "US forces chinese battery developer to sell its business to an American company"

UnderpantsWeevil ,
@UnderpantsWeevil@lemmy.world avatar

slapping a large fuel tank full of petroleum

Good thing we're playing it safe.

chronicledmonocle ,

If the company is able to scale this technology large enough for consumer vehicles while keeping prices down, it could easily double the range of the farthest-driving EVs on the road today.

That's a big IF.
TL;DR: They haven't developed a means of making this scalable and able to be mass manufactured. Until they do, this is another "revolutionary" battery tech that may or may not actually be used due to cost of production. Most likely in the "not" category.

If you want to make EVs more popular, make them with Sodium-Ion batteries that are cheaper than ICE vehicles. They'll sell better as a result.

Hardly anybody needs an EV with more than 200 miles of range if they're plugging in each night. Most people's commute is round-trip sub-50 miles. "Range anxiety" is 95%+ of the time a "problem" that stupid people have for their theoretical future that never actually happens. Most people are impractical idiots.

Gregorech ,

Range anxiety is in the what if scenario, can I go from Los Angeles to Las Vegas on one charge, batteries need to last longer and be cheaper or charge quicker. being universal and swappable wouldalso work.

Petter1 , (edited )

Lol, that’s only 500km, there are many EVs capable to drive this in one sitting, but to be honest, a 15min charge and eat break would be great for every driver in a 4h ride.

chronicledmonocle ,

Or you could just get a Plug-in Hybrid, if that's a concern.

CalcProgrammer1 ,
@CalcProgrammer1@lemmy.ml avatar

Range anxiety isn't about your daily commute, it's about the few times a year road trip you make across multiple states to see family on holidays. Having to stop and charge every 150 miles (as I wouldn't trust letting it go below 50) sucks if you're trying to go 500+ miles. Owning a gas car taking up space in your garage and costing you taxes and registration just to use a handful of times a year is wasteful. Renting a car is an option, but it's cumbersome and if you plan to stay a while, expensive. I would not want an EV with less than 300 miles range. You have to factor in worst case scenarios as well, sometimes it gets dreadfully cold and windy in the winter. When it's -10F and the wind is howling you're cranking the (usually resistive) heat and driving head first into the wind kills your efficiency. These are real scenarios I have had to drive in my current car (Volt, so plug in hybrid) and my battery range can be halved (from 35+ miles under 20) in these worst case scenarios, but at least I can fall back on gas. I want to go EV for my next car but if I can't reliably make it to and from my parents' house 300 miles away on a bad winter's Christmas break then it's just not a feasible option yet, even if my drive to work is maybe 15 miles round trip. Also, charging station density is an issue. I would need to go half way to their house, 150 miles, to reach a charging station. You can't just stop anywhere to recharge if you have a low range EV.

Dudewitbow ,

id argue that renting a car might be less expensive. your argument doesnt consider the cost it takes to replace your tires often (the heavier your vehicle, the more often you have to replace the tires), which for some EVs already, is a pretty significant cost.

buying something for something youll use less than 1% of the time is a terrible monetary decision. its like the people who buy big trucks with high torque, when more than 60% of these truck buyers have never towed something.

These are real scenarios I have had to drive in my current car (Volt, so plug in hybrid) and my battery range can be halved (from 35+ miles under 20)

this is a problem specific to lithium ion batteries. salt ion batteries and some other batteries that are being considered do not have that problem.

CalcProgrammer1 ,
@CalcProgrammer1@lemmy.ml avatar

How do sodium ion batteries help here? Driving into the wind and running your electric heater at full blast aren't a battery issue, it's just an unavoidable increase in power consumption that you need the extra capacity to deal with.

Dudewitbow ,

you dont get the condition of having your battery level halved due to cold weather, nor have the battery on an "always on" state because lion battery's only operate at a certain temperature range. theres a lot of losses on cold weather caused by the use of lithium ion batteries in general.

just because battery capacities on cars should go down doesnt mean cars wont offer a "long range" option for users if they need it (tesla for example litterally does), its just the everyday one needs to go down. having extended range on all cars is a solution to a problem that affects the 1% situation, and is impractical to apply the fix to the general fleet.

billiam0202 ,

Hardly anybody needs an EV with more than 200 miles of range if they're plugging in each night.

Speaking of big IFs. Not everybody lives where a charger is convenient or can have one installed in their residence.

chronicledmonocle ,

Most people have the option of plugging in where they live and/or work. The only argument would be for apartment complexes. Townhouses, single family homes, etc. are easy to switch to electric.

qjkxbmwvz ,

We're considering a new car (current car is an old econobox that's been to the moon), and range anxiety does factor in for the "weekend adventure" use case. We live in CA, and something like a trip to Yosemite or Tahoe requires refuelling/charging. But these places can get inundated with weekend warriors (like us!), who are all on the same schedule. We've had friends who have had stressful incidents e.g. charging in Yosemite valley, or on the way back from Tahoe. Add a toddler in the mix and it gets even less fun.

Not insurmountable, but infrastructure and timing are still not as good as for dinosaur blood.

For 95% of the time though yeah --- commuting, single-day adventures, or bopping around the city would be no problem at all.

sugar_in_your_tea ,

Exactly. Give me something with 150 miles range and a relatively inexpensive battery (like $3k?) and I'll replace my commuter.

I need 500 miles range to replace our family car though since we do road trips with it, and frequently go 400 miles between stops.

chronicledmonocle ,

Yeah I get that. That's where Plug-in hybrids are a good fit.

sugar_in_your_tea ,

Yup, I have a regular hybrid for my commuter and an ICE for our family car, but I'm hoping to switch the commuter to EV and the family car to a plug-in hybrid. That way we'd only really use gas when going on longer trips.

But PHEVs are expensive right now, so I'm watching the market. I do need to upgrade at least one of them though.

pr06lefs ,

Its kind of insane that EV manufacturers are making battery packs out of a lot of individual cells, rather than one integrated unit like this.

dual_sport_dork ,
@dual_sport_dork@lemmy.world avatar

That's how battery chemistry works. Even this, if it is real, is a bunch of individual cells in a bank. There is no alternative; you can't have sufficient reactivity between dissimilar materials to generate the types of voltages required in a single cell. You need multiples of them in series to hit 200 volts, 400, 600, whatever is required by the vehicle's drive hardware.

Petter1 ,

Do you want to drive wit 3.7v? 🤣 even the smallest EV have over 3000W, so you would need a bit less than 1000A which would require giant cables

YMMD

billiam0202 ,

Batteries, being containers for chemical reactions, are subject to the core concepts of chemistry. Namely, that increased surface area increases the speed of the reaction. You could make one enormous battery instead of multiple smaller cells, but you'd never get it to discharge fast enough to make it functionally useful.

qjkxbmwvz ,

Not a battery expert, but I think there are safety implications.

sugar_in_your_tea ,

Not a China expert, but I'm pretty sure that's not a serious consideration there...

halcyoncmdr ,
@halcyoncmdr@lemmy.world avatar

Like the other responses, the battery chemistry and design voltage are the major reasons for cell sizes, but also, smaller cells means they can be isolated if necessary.

In a Tesla battery pack for instance, each cell is connected by a single small wire that also doubles as a fuse. If there is an issue with the cell the wire will heat up and break. opening the circuit and separating that battery cell from the rest of the pack. This also means that a failed cell doesn't take out a significant portion of battery capacity. Other manufacturers do this as well, but not all, and some implement similar capability in other ways. This method functions as a sort of "passive" option since it doesn't require the BMS to make a decision to remove those bad batteries from the pack, physics just does it and the BMS adjusts to compensate when the cell no longer is connected.

Good battery management systems that handle things like charge leveling individual cells, can mean the difference between batteries degrading noticeably in a few years and the pack as a whole lasting a decade before that noticeable degradation. There are a lot of poor battery management systems on the market, EVs are no exception and if anything they make this issue more noticeable because of the increased usage.

calabast ,

If we just attached a generator to the battery industry, all these revolutions would solve our energy needs!

dual_sport_dork ,
@dual_sport_dork@lemmy.world avatar

This horseshit again? Physical product available for independent analysis, or it didn't happen.

It's not like the Chinese are famous for lying about the specs on things they manufacture or anything. Every week we hear about some Chinese company poised to "revolutionize" the EV with pie-in-the-sky range figures and yet the market continues to remain resolutely un-revolutionized.

And as usual, this article harps on "range" as if that's not an easily fudged figure. The real numbers we need to see are watts per volume, or watts per mass. And number of charge cycles tolerated, and how many before it loses what percentage of capacity. Any idiot can claim to make a 1,300 mile, 2,000 mile, 5,000 mile, 1,000,000 mile battery pack -- just make the pack bigger, or the vehicle lighter, or both. That tells us nothing meaningful whatsoever about the battery chemistry itself. Advertising us what hypothetical ranges someone thinks a pack made of these "could" build is meaningless. We could build a 1300 mile battery pack right now with LiFePo cells if we wanted to, via the simple expedient of filling a dump truck with the things.

sugar_in_your_tea ,

Well, Toyota seems to be promising something around 700-800 miles range with solid state lithium battery tech, but as you say, the proof is in the pudding, and the pudding isn't ready yet.

Cheesus ,

Not Toyotas first time either Toyota has said their solid state batteries are just around the corner.

http://www.electric-vehiclenews.com/2010/12/toyota-announces-4-layer-all-solid.html?m=1

Tar_alcaran ,

In 2010...

avidamoeba ,
@avidamoeba@lemmy.ca avatar

All the while lobbying anti EV policies around the world.

dual_sport_dork ,
@dual_sport_dork@lemmy.world avatar

That's because Toyota is trying to put all their eggs in the hydrogen basket. Toyota is the only brand that really has a functional consumer-available hydrogen fuel cell car and I think they're stuck in sunk cost fallacy mode with that technology.

ForgotAboutDre ,

If there was serious investment in green energy. There would be large spikes in power, to have reliable baseline to power the grid. This excess power needs to go somewhere. Hydrogen seems a good solution. It takes free electricity and turns it into a sellable product. One that can be sold at a much higher cost than storing the energy in a battery and selling it back to the grid. It may be able to ease natural gas transitions as well.

The big issue is no country is taking low carbon power generation seriously. Toyota is assuming governments will be responsible now. EVs are being sold because performance, running cost and individuals environmentally attitude is better. Hydrogen requires governments to change their attitude.

Everythingispenguins ,

Shit I already have one up on the Chinese. I have invented an all electric rocket capable of boosting humans into LEO.

Crozekiel ,

My guess is it's just a car with a battery 5 times bigger than their comparison vehicle, can't do over 30, go up a hill, or pass any safety standards.

Or it's fictional.

ilmagico ,

The real numbers we need to see are watts per volume, or watts per mass

You have to chase it down, following the link to electrek.co, but then it says:
"the prototype cells house an energy density of 720 Wh/kg"

(of course, I'm just stating what is claimed, no idea how true)

UnderpantsWeevil ,
@UnderpantsWeevil@lemmy.world avatar

Battery density has been improving steadily for the last three decades.

Battery costs keep falling while quality rises. As volumes increased, battery costs plummeted and energy density — a key metric of a battery's quality — rose steadily. Over the past 30 years, battery costs have fallen by a dramatic 99 percent; meanwhile, the density of top-tier cells has risen fivefold

...

With regards to anodes, a number of chemistry changes have the potential to improve energy density (watt-hour per kilogram, or Wh/kg). For example, silicon can be used to replace all or some of the graphite in the anode in order to make it lighter and thus increase the energy density. Silicon-doped graphite already entered the market a few years ago, and now around 30% of anodes contain silicon. Another option is innovative lithium metal anodes, which could yield even greater energy density when they become commercially available.

What's more, the Chinese market is both the leading producer and consumer of battery technology. So its weird to reflexively doubt that a Chinese firm would release a new higher-efficiency battery design.

Given that this is a prototype, its entirely unclear if the model is cost-efficient to mass manufacture or efficiently scalable based on available resources. But I'm hard pressed to discount the claim on its face simply because its got "China" in the headline.

Woozythebear ,

Racist see China did something good and have to go out of their way to shit on China.

gian ,

I think you are seeing this as racism when it is just some old good skepticism about a country that is famous for faking everything.

Maybe they really done what they say, or maybe it is just some proof of concept that need to be ported, if possible, to a viable product stage or maybe it is just a fake, we will see.

Woozythebear ,

Famous for faking everything is western propaganda

UnderpantsWeevil ,
@UnderpantsWeevil@lemmy.world avatar

Its not even like "China" invented a new battery tech. It's some battery plant in China which is the place where most batteries are created that's innovated on a design.

There are battery plants in Atlanta, Georgia and Heide, Germany who are pursuing similar advancements. They just don't have the money or the manpower equal to their Chinese peers.

michaelmrose ,

I would instantly discount it based purely on not having third party verification or enough details for a third party to replicate.

GreyEyedGhost ,

Chase it down? It says 720 Wh/kg in the thumbnail image.

ilmagico ,

You're right, I didn't see it! I just saw a bunch of chinese writings, which I cannot read, so didn't bother trying to read even the only thing I could 😅

GreyEyedGhost ,

Yeah, I'm really sick of the hype train, so that was the only info I looked for. Honestly, I was a little surprised it was that easy to find, and that is still no guarantee it's accurate.

frezik ,

If that's true, 1300 mile range isn't the big deal. Going much over 400mi is pointless if we build proper charging infrastructure. Use wh/kg advancements to reduce weight, nor increase range.

The big thing is that we can build fully electric airplanes with that kind of wh/kg.

Big if, though. Batteries have been improving by 5-8% per year, and while we're not close to theoretical limits yet, this would represent an unprecedented leap all at once. That claim needs more to back it up than a press release.

fmstrat ,

Thank you for typing out my brain squiggles.

billwashere ,

Exactly. It’s like an article I saw about some new internet tech that was “X times faster than broadband”. Broadband is a type of transmission using multiple frequency carrier waves to transmit data. It ain’t a speed.

Wh/kg or yes maybe volume Wh/cm^3…

The only other thing I’d care about it charge speed. Maybe it doesn’t last as long but I can fully charge in 10 seconds? Yeah I’m interested. Hell I’ve never had a car yet get the estimated miles per gallon on the sticker. It’s all bistromathics as far as I’m concerned.

NegativeInf ,

I wish more forms of travel were based solely on bistromathics.

Norgur ,

Our weekly "miracle battery that can <insert absurdly high claim here>" give us today.

MedicPigBabySaver ,
@MedicPigBabySaver@lemmy.world avatar

No

HootinNHollerin ,

Every day a new revolutionary battery. Where in reality

UnderpantsWeevil ,
@UnderpantsWeevil@lemmy.world avatar

Over the past 30 years, battery costs have fallen by a dramatic 99 percent; meanwhile, the density of top-tier cells has risen fivefold

GreyEyedGhost ,

We've gone from the most reliable battery being an alkaline through 3 different rechargeable technologies as well. Too bad that research never pans out...

UnderpantsWeevil ,
@UnderpantsWeevil@lemmy.world avatar

Too bad that research never pans out…

That's not true

Better performance in driving electronics and huge money saving are the two major reasons to buy NiMH (Nickel metal Hydride) rechargeable batteries. They can be charged up to 500-1000 times and last longer than alkaline or NiCd batteries. NiMH batteries are ideally compatible with most consumer devices such as digital cameras, game boys, CD players, RC vehicles, PDA’s, portable two-way radios, flash units and many more high drain devices. One set of relatively inexpensive NiMH rechargeable batteries can save you from buying thousands if throwaway alkaline batteries.

GreyEyedGhost ,

That was sarcasm.

UnderpantsWeevil ,
@UnderpantsWeevil@lemmy.world avatar

Ah, I've seen so many people insist - with full sincerity - that advances in battery technology aren't happening.

GreyEyedGhost ,

Me, too, man. Saying the same thing so many times.

coarse ,

Get your shit together, america.

You're being lapped.

dual_sport_dork ,
@dual_sport_dork@lemmy.world avatar

Lapped by what? Vaporware? Oh, yeah. If we Americans don't get all our liars organized we'll never be as good as the Chinese at playing make-believe.

This article is an ad. This thing being described is not actually a product; it does not meaningfully actually exist. It is installed in zero vehicles, and the manufacturer's claims are completely unverified and, probably, unverifiable. It's not real. These kinds of press releases get posted all the time. The company is just simping for investor money, that's all.

Gingerlegs ,

For some reason this reminds me of a cheap Chinese knockoff rotary tool I got from Amazon which the instructions said: “use until loud bang and smoke. Then replace.”

sugar_in_your_tea ,

Most I use don't give any warning at all, so that's a step up.

ShaunaTheDead ,
@ShaunaTheDead@kbin.social avatar

It seems like this vehicle comes with (as far as I know) the first solid state battery in a commercial vehicle which is HUGE news if true! I'm slightly skeptical because of this claim coming from the Chinese government, but who knows, it would be a huge boon for all of humanity if they've figured out solid state batteries.

The huge benefits we'll all see are increased capacity so batteries last longer, and INSANELY fast charge times. You could recharge your car to 100% in the same time as it takes to fill it up with gas currently.

sugar_in_your_tea ,

Toyota is promising 700-800 miles range soonish (3 years?), and I believe them a lot more than the CCP.

I don't believe either though, but I do think Toyota is more trustworthy in general. I'll wait until I see an actual product with independent reviews.

weew ,

At this point China is more reputable than Toyota when it comes to battery technology.

Toyota has been promising solid state tech "within 5 years" for the past 15 years.

Whereas Chinese companies like CATL and BYD basically make an announcement and then ship products within a year.

sugar_in_your_tea ,

So I guess we'll see if they ship solid state batteries within a year. That's the promise here, and I'll believe it when I see it. Just like with Toyota.

Grass ,

Instead of this we need EVs that aren't fucking massive.

femtech ,

Need battery space also SUVs/crossove s hold more people. And EV busses will be great as well.

sugar_in_your_tea ,

Why do you need it to hold more people when most trips are with one or two people? Also, most families tend to have two cars, so they don't need both to be big.

Also, most SUVs hold the same as a sedan: 5 people. And they don't hold more stuff, generally speaking, because they lose so much space being higher up. If you want to carry more people, look at minivans.

People buy SUVs because they're higher up, not because they're better at much of anything.

femtech ,

Kids

sugar_in_your_tea ,

I have three, so I think I can definitively say an SUV is not necessary with kids. We had a Prius until the third one came along, then we got a minivan, but only because my brother was getting rid of his. We now want to downsize because we rarely have more than just us in it, but it's frustrating because many of the SUVs have less storage space than our Prius.

I wish station wagons were still a thing, specially if it has jump seats. Everything with a similar amount of space is absolutely massive.

bilb ,
@bilb@lem.monster avatar

China makes those, too.

sugar_in_your_tea ,

Could they send some smallish, sodium-ion based cars here? I'd buy one if it had 150 miles range and a cheap to replace battery.

jordanlund ,
@jordanlund@lemmy.world avatar

Take EVs out of the equation and the ramifications of this tech (or Toyota's) is huge, if true.

Imagine an electric wheelchair you only had to charge monthly, or that could run on one charge effectively forever.

werefreeatlast ,

First they need Toyota to test their chemistry and develop their battery production system....it's part of the way Chinese companies develop technology.

If Toyota can do it, China will too! A win-win!

sugar_in_your_tea ,

Funny how that works...

China is always just behind the west (or Japan in this case)... And never ahead. I wonder why that could be?

werefreeatlast ,

It's the development time 🙂. For example the new generation microchips. You know the US has them and Taiwan makes them. China is currently developing the technology. They got all their technology development partners out in the US and Taiwan working hard to develop all the little details.

sugar_in_your_tea ,

It's so kind of them to share.

MonkderDritte ,

Yet another?

Reygle ,
@Reygle@lemmy.world avatar

Takes deep breath

MmmmmmBULLSHIII

ryrybang ,

Ha, why was this downvoted? Sketchy website "reports" proprietary Chinese research firm's accomplishment by rehashing the firm's press release about an unbelievable claim with no other evidence. This got more red flags than the beach before a hurricane.

At best, this is something they actually did approximate in some kind of lab setting that might be years and years away from being some kind of marketable product.

The (translated) press release even has a stench all on its own:

It is expected to fundamentally solve the battery life and safety anxiety of traditional lithium-ion batteries.

GBU_28 ,

Because America bad, don't you see?

Pretzilla ,

FYI thecooldown.com is a solid site with consistently good info.

I haven't dug into this particular story though.

There are plenty of petrobots here ready to cast shade.

ryrybang ,

Good to know; first time I've come across this website.

BrianTheeBiscuiteer ,

Powered by the cold fusion process they unveiled last year.

Classy ,

The ancient Chinese art of Bull-Shitto

Gabu ,

Bushido is Japanese, this joke doesn't work.

Classy ,

I have brought great shame upon my Lemmy instance ....

postmateDumbass ,

Well, kid, ya yin some, ya yang some.

But ya gotta keep trying.

ForgotAboutDre ,

Where do you think they strike the term from.

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