‘252 km (157 miles) range’ to save others the same skimming I did
Not bad for that battery’s first outing
Perfect for my needs. But I doubt it will ever be for sale here in the U.S.
The key is that with the right use case, it frees up lithium to be used where only it is suitable.
(for my needs I’d be fine with sodium…)
I can see that. My point is that the only electric car that has that range in the U.S. is the Leaf, which goes 168 miles on the smaller battery. I don’t need an electric car that goes that many miles between charges. I’d be fine with 90. I’d probably be fine with less than 90. We have a second car if we ever want to leave town. I’d ditch my hybrid and get a cheaper electric car that didn’t have a huge range, but it isn’t even on offer.
Dude get a used Leaf or Bolt. There is a $4k tax credit or direct price reduction for used now.
Got any info on that? Looking at buying out my EV lease and wonder if I can get that added.
For sure! I think we’re going to have to move away from a one-size fits all car design. For general city use, I use a Chevy Bolt, but for longer (infrequent) runs, I’m still stuck with ICE (I’d use a hybrid if I had one). In Canada, the range really does go down in the winter. (and Canada has not taken charging infrastructure very seriously - mandatory for adoption)
Anyway you look at it, these are very, very positive developments.
check out the bmw i3 if you are good with that range
They are as expensive as the other EVs and aren’t eligible for the US reimbursement 🫤
They are kinda ugly too… Which sucks because I really love the BMW driving experience
I would love to have an electric smart car for running errands.
Exactly! Something cheap and tiny for just going around town.
My problem is that I need >100 mile range. I live in a cold climate and have a 50 mile, round-trip commute (and high speed, so even worse range), so if EVs get half the range in the winter, I could stuck. There isn’t a big set of cars in the 100-150 mile range, usually you get something older and used with <100, or current cars get >200 and you pay the price for it.
A new Leaf is something like $30k, and used Leafs are something like $17k, so it’s absolutely not worth replacing my reliable hybrid car at that price. If I could get a new car around $20k with ~150 mile range, or a used car (~5 years old) with 100-150 mile range for 10k, I’d probably buy it. But that just isn’t a thing right now. So I’m waiting.
I’ve found people vastly overstated how much range they need. 99% of usage is in the city between home and somewhere else. 250km is perfect if the price is right.
For daily use, sure - but it completely excludes itself as an option for road trips in the US and parts of Canada. There’s a stretch of interstate road near me with nearly a 100 mile gap between service stations.
I know that this isn’t the purpose of this battery, but it’s a valid reason why a lot of people might be hesitant to buy one. Many people can’t afford multiple vehicles for different purposes. You have the car you drive to work with, and if you happen to go on a trip you just use the same thing.
Maybe 99% of use occurs within constraints that this battery can handle, but if you can only afford one vehicle, then this is still a pretty suboptimal option. That being said… it could still be cheap enough to not matter. I didn’t see any mention of price in that article.
If 99% is covered by this then cover your last 1% by renting a vehicle has that ever occurred to you ?
I agree with your logic. It makes perfect sense to rent a vehicle for edge cases.
However, I disagree that you’re going to encourage mass adoption by asking people to change their lifestyle. A large amount of the US population views their vehicle as more than a tool to get to and from work. It’s an extension of their personality. Road trips might be part of that personality.
They’re sold on the marketing ideals of luxury, comfort, or adventure. They buy accessories for these vehicles like roof-racks for their luggage or campers/trailers to help them travel across the country while keeping that comfort of home. Tens of thousands of campers are still sold in the U.S. every year and EV’s are a nonstarter for towing more than 75 miles.
No one enjoys renting an unfamiliar Honda CR-V where the seat doesn’t feel quite right for long periods of time, there’s something sticky on the shift handle, the previous driver smoked in it, and you hear a plastic creaking sound coming from the back seat. You can’t quite figure out from where and it’s driving you insane.
Until EV’s can match the convenience and capability of ICE vehicles, adoption is going to be limited.
If we can’t convince people that we need to change habits then we are doomed anyway, switching to BE cars is not a viable solution we need to increase public transportation and cycling anyway
average american has two vehicles. Its literally not even a lifestyle change: one EV, one hybrid or gas vehicle will cover 100% of normal use cases. EVs have lower maintenance costs and longer predicted life spans and don’t waste as much energy in stop and go traffic. They are superior commuter vehicles.
The problem is vehicle fleets. Trucks and busses will be hard to replace effectively and they mostly need longer discharge cycles and ranges.
Maybe we have to settle for suboptimal solutions from time to time to save the planet?
That’s not how car sales work. People want EVs without major downsides. Until that’s what’s available we won’t be see EVs surpass 10% market share.
I know, people are not willing to comprises for the good of the planet. That’s why we’re so fucked.
They should raise the driving age to 30. Then people would understand what a privilege driving really is.
A solution to this would be an extra expansion battery that you could buy or rent as an add-on only when needed.
…or rent a vehicle with the fuel savings from driving your EV most of the year, and skip putting a couple thousand km on your car over a long weekend.
This is what I do.
You still pay the cost of driving a car a couple thousand km though, right?
Most rental places in the states don’t charge mileage iirc
If we’re going all in with expansion packs we should add a rumble pack as well 😏
or don’t buy city car for intercity trips. Get li-ion powered cars or wait for them to make model with bigger range.
Just use Communauto for those once a quarter out of town trips.
Most of the pollution problem is in cities with lots of vehicles. EVs dont do as much for their purpose at the hindredth meridian where the great plains begin…driving down a cordoroy road, weeds standing shoulder-high
It seems to me that car in the article is relatively small city car. I can imagine that building bigger car with inter city travels in mind would also include an improved range.
Exactly. We have two cars, and we only need one to have any kind of range. The other is fine with 250km/150mi range, but it needs to be relatively inexpensive to buy and repair. It’ll just be for a daily commute and around-town driving, no expectation for long-distance.
It doesn’t need space for people or stuff, just 2-4 passengers is plenty. It’ll strictly be for commutes and small trips to the grocery store and whatnot, the other car can be used for larger trips.
Id like to add that there are different versions of the car, with the long range version being 302km range, and the battery mass to energy ratio is actually average compared to other batteries.
Wow that sounds very useable
That’s not bad if the price is right.
I’d be willing to buy one for ~$5-8k.
5-8k for a car in this day and age? That’s the price of a scooter
Citröen Ami.
The Ami starts for substantially more than that.
And even then, it’s not legally classified as a car. It has virtually no crash safety, a top speed of 28mph assuming no incline, and a real world range of 40 miles.
Don’t get me wrong, I like the Ami, but it’s a scooter alternative more than a car alternative.
I’d pay $15-20, depending on how well it worked.
Lmao $5k for a brand new car. You’re dreaming mate
Who ever said brand new?
Might want to brush up on your reading comprehension, ‘mate’.
It’s a post about a new vehicle, when you talk about “buying one” it’s clearly inferred you’re buying from the factory.
Also, there’s no need to be a complete dick. It’s not a good look for you
No, it’s not inferred at all. The vast majority of people buying cars buy them used.
You’re just desperate to justify your assumption.
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Lol
Perfectly usable for urban travel in Chinese cities
And recharging times?
This is awesome news. Not because of the car, but because it builds the supply lines for an alternative battery chemistry.
People have been using lithium-ion batteries for home and grid storage, which is nuts if you compare it to other battery types. Lithium is expensive and polluting and only makes sense if you’re limited by weight & space. Cheaper batteries, even if they’re bigger/heavier, will do wonders to the economics of sustainable electricity production.
People have been using lithium-ion batteries for home and grid storage, which is nuts if you compare it to other battery types
Compared to other battery chemistry types using lithium makes tons of sense.
Lead acid type batteries like sealed and AGM are cheap but not power dense and do not offer the same discharge ability that lithium offers without damaging the battery (AGM fixes this but it’s still an issue). Some lead acid batteries require continuous maintenance and vent toxic gasses which may be an issue depending on your encloser.
Nickel cadmium batteries solve a lot of issues that lead acid batteries are plagued with however they suffer from moisture intrusion issues causing self discharge. Nickel cadmium also suffers from memory effect which may completely ruin pour battery depending on your use. The elephant in the room with nickel cadmium is that it’s banned in some countries including the European union due to how toxic cadmium is.
Now with lithium, it’s a very energy dense battery which means you need less batteries to meet a capacity or you can fit more capacity into an encloser. There isn’t any electrolyte or water maintenance you need to worry about. You can discharge and recharge as you wish with minimal damage. Really the only downsides is that they do not like charging in the cold, are just as toxic as cadmium, and are much much much more expensive.
I find it interesting that, on a post about sodium ion batteries, your comment completely excludes them
The original comment was about lithium and their popularity for backup power. Sodium ion batteries are so new that you can’t purchase them yet (blueitte supposedly released the NA300 but I can’t find any in stock and it’s no longer on their site).
It wouldn’t be fair to compare a chemistry you cannot purchase and which it’s strengths and weaknesses haven’t been tested outside of controlled laboratory testing.
Fair point - I’m not really that good with the physical sciences personally so apologies for my ignorance
You can buy them right now, there’s more links in the 18650masterrace subreddit, but here’s just one:
https://srikobatteries.com/product/sodium-ion-18650-1250mah-50a-rechargeable-battery/
However good luck finding a BMS that works for it’s particular voltage range, don’t think AliExpress has any yet.
I haven’t seen any posts from those diy type folks experimenting with them yet. Sodium ion cells just became available within the last few months or so.
Probably because they’re new and the parent comment specifically referred to the cheaper, less energy dense battery types.
I agree that older commercialized battery types aren’t so interesting, but my point was about all the battery types that haven’t had enough R&D yet to be commercially mass-produced.
Power grids don’t care much about density - they can build batteries where land is cheap, and for fire control they need to artificially space out higher-density batteries anyway. There are heaps of known chemistries that might be cheaper per unit stored (molten salt batteries, flow batteries, and solid state batteries based on cheaper metals), but many only make sense for energy grid applications because they’re too big/heavy for anything portable.
I’m saying it’s nuts that lithium ion is being used for cases where energy density isn’t important. It’s a bit like using bottled water on a farm because you don’t want to pay to get the nearby river water tested. It’s great that sodium ion could bring new economics to grid energy storage, but weird that the only reason it got developed in the first place was for a completely different industry.
Now with lithium… are much much much more expensive
and explosive
Really the only downsides is that they do not like charging in the cold, are just as toxic as cadmium, and are much much much more expensive.
Seems like some pretty big and numerous downsides lmao
*enclosure
Don’t forget the volatility of Lithium batteries if they ever get damaged or punctured.
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What about nickle-metal hydride?
Lithium makes more sense when weight is an issue, for example when you have to carry the battery around. Sodium batteries could be good for grid storage if they can be implemented as scale cheaply enough, especially using common materials.
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Used car batteries can be reused for storage, so it’s going to require a cost analysis to determine what makes most sense for storage solutions. It’s great if they can use a cheaper sodium battery but we also don’t want to just waste the second hand lithium batteries. It makes sense to use both. At least until there are better recycling options. Also with solid state batteries hopefully coming up soon, it’ll still make sense to find use for the current batteries.
Ideally, home backups should be able to use any battery. Standards for compatibility would be nice.
A quick wikipedia read implies that sodium-ion batteries could be half or less the cost vs lithium. Also this:
Another factor is that cobalt, copper and nickel are not required for many types of sodium-ion batteries, and more abundant iron-based materials work well in Na+ batteries.
That’s probably most of why it’s cheaper, and it’s also way less damaging to the environment if they truly can be made from mostly sodium and iron.
I’m more concerned about the safety aspects. It seems there are two main types:
- aqueous - quite safe, but also likely very heavy per unit of energy
- carbon - high risk (probably similar to lithium)
That’s a big reason why I and probably many others aren’t interested in the current batch of EVs. Yeah they’re pretty safe, but they’re quite violent when they fail. I’d probably buy a sodium-ion EV if it could get 100-150 miles range reliably. That would be absolutely sufficient for my commute, even in the winter, and it would make a fantastic “around town” car when I’m not working.
Here’s the summary for the wikipedia article you mentioned in your comment:
Sodium-ion batteries (NIBs, SIBs, or Na-ion batteries) are several types of rechargeable batteries, which use sodium ions (Na+) as its charge carriers. In some cases, its working principle and cell construction are similar to those of lithium-ion battery (LIB) types, but it replaces lithium with sodium as the cathode material. Sodium belongs to the same group in the periodic table as lithium and thus has similar chemical properties. In other cases (such as aqueous Na-ion batteries) they are quite different from Li-ion batteries. SIBs received academic and commercial interest in the 2010s and early 2020s, largely due to the uneven geographic distribution, high environmental impact, and high cost of lithium. An obvious advantage of sodium is its natural abundance, particularly in saltwater. Another factor is that cobalt, copper and nickel are not required for many types of sodium-ion batteries, and more abundant iron-based materials work well in Na+ batteries. This is because the ionic radius of Na+ (116 pm) is substantially larger than that of Fe2+ and Fe3+ (69–92 pm depending on the spin state), whereas the ionic radius of Li+ is similar (90 pm). Similar ionic radii of lithium and iron result in their mixing in the cathode material during battery cycling, and a resultant loss of cyclable charge. A downside of the larger ionic radius of Na+ is a slower intercalation kinetics of sodium-ion electrode materials.The development of Na+ batteries started in the 1990s. After three decades of development, NIBs are at a critical moment of commercialization. Several companies such as HiNa and CATL in China, Faradion in the United Kingdom, Tiamat in France, Northvolt in Sweden, and Natron Energy in the US, are close to achieving the commercialization of NIBs, with the aim of employing sodium layered transition metal oxides (NaxTMO2), Prussian white (a Prussian blue analogue) or vanadium phosphate as cathode materials.Electric vehicles using sodium-ion battery packs are not yet commercially available. However, CATL, the world's biggest lithium-ion battery manufacturer, announced in 2022 the start of mass production of SIBs. In February 2023, the Chinese HiNA Battery Technology Company, Ltd. placed a 140 Wh/kg sodium-ion battery in an electric test car for the first time, and energy storage manufacturer Pylontech obtained the first sodium-ion battery certificate from TÜV Rheinland.
Not just that, we don’t have enough lithium deposits atm to build enough lithium evs to last more than a few decades if we act smart (which we generally do not).
Cheaper batteries, even if they’re bigger/heavier
Yes, just what we need is more vehicles on the road that weigh as much as a tank but accelerate like a Ferrari. I’m sure that won’t cause any problems.
Curious how it’ll perform in real world conditions. Sodium batteries are supposed to have much better charging times and don’t degrade the way lithium batteries do, both of which would be huge. Fingers crossed they live up to expectations.
(Also obligatory “expand and improve public transit damnit!”)
As some used to “gotchas” and things aren’t free, I’m wondering what kind of shortcomings[1] these batteries have that others do not.
[1] for example acid batteries can push a lot of power, but they are heavy and contain lead and well… acid. The nickel cadmium doesn’t contain lead and acid, but has memory so you should follow discharge them before charging again. They are lighter, but still not light. Lithium ion are light, don’t have memory, but can explode, also lose life if they are kept fully discharged or charged for long periods of time. They also slowly discharge when not in use, mainly due to protective circuit needing electricity to run.
Their only downside is having a little less energy density than lithium ion ones. You need a larger battery for the same capacity basically. Everything else is a positive - they are even non-flammable and the materials to make them are abundant and easy to obtain.
Thanks. That’s awesome to hear.
Interested to know about durability also :-)
Where I live they recently bought a bunch of electric and hybrid public buses.
Hope they simply bought trolley buses and didn’t waste money on battery buses
It’s such a waste to put batteries in inner city buses
Yeah, and the cables would install themselves automatically.
That’s better than the buses breaking down.
Sorry but youtube experts and their google research are not a reliable source of information for me. It’s entertaining but it’s the last thing I would base city planning on.
Lol
" i refuse to engage with content that says i am wrong"
So some dude on the Internet says I’m wrong. Guess what? I’m also a dude on the Internet and I say he’s wrong. Checkers!
Trolley buses are a weird niche. They require permanent overhead cable infrastructure like trams do but don’t have the other benefits of trams - higher capacity, greater speed, better ride and no tyre pollution. I figure if you’re going to install a trolley bus route you probably might as well install rails at the same time and get the benefits of trams. (Aka streetcars for the North Americans out there)
The City of London did assessments on trolley buses and found that the added capacity of trams made them the better choice pretty much anywhere trolley buses were proposed, despite the slightly higher install cost.
Actually electric buses make a lot more sense, as the utilisation and environmental impact would be much greater compared to normal EV cars.
Plus you are conveniently omitted mentioning the energy losses of the cables, the maintenance cost, the installation cost, etc.
id be genuinely surprised if the energy losses of the cables are more than the energy losses of charging the batteries even if they are they are more than likely offset by the weight difference of batteries vs the weight of the cable connecting mechanism.
Then there is the issue of range and the uptime of the vehicles while you can use a trolley 24/7 you have to charge the bev buses
Then there is the issue of extreme weather cold or hot where due to AC and or heating and the temperature itself affects the range a lot
Then there are the maintenance costs of the battery the power capacity since you need space for the batteries
So all in all you exchange a bunch of negatives for the benefit of not needing overhead cables
A trolley with a small built in battery for those last few miles you might need to connect but don’t want to pull cables is the best of both worlds.
Hope that was a comprehensive enough dismantling.
Source for your claims?
Plus do you know how expensive it is to support the whole cable infrastructure, including personnel salaries, etc. I am not convinced your math is right, but feel free to prove me wrong.
What do you think cables are made of? Gold? Lol
What do you think is more expensive maintaining the cable infrastructure or the road surfaces under the extra heavy buses?
Here is a good youtube video on the issue
I am sorry but since when do we consider YouTube as a credible source? I am looking at scientific peer reviewed proof, not someone’s video on the matter.
My city recently decided to pull down the existing overhead cable network in favour of ‘local’ batteries in buses (was aging and needed a lot of maintenance which they were allergic to)
Unfortunately, that doesn’t really argue either way, as same city is now seeing the issues of not maintaining it’s water infrastructure for the last recent decades… They do some dumb shit
Not to mention how unbelievably ugly stringing that shit all over the service area is. Electric buses make a ton of sense.
expand and improve public transit dammit!
Currently living in Shenzhen and you’d be surprised that you can actually have it both ways. You can get around via transit quite easily, but also driving isn’t too difficult. The problem with US cities is mostly just single family homes, which waste a bunch of space. If everything is less dense, you have to drive further to get to where you want to go, and building public transit makes less sense since it needs to service more areas to reach the same amount of people
Hold up, they solved the energy sink issue with the salt batteries? That’s wicked. There were physicists arguing with each other that the power you put in couldn’t be gotten back out.
Do you have more details about that?
Yeah, I’m quite curious myself as to why it’s more difficult. My chemistry knowledge is chem1 level so all I know is that sodium atoms are larger and the energy levels for state change are slightly different
I left a very brief explanation as a reply to the other user.
Well, sure, but you’re asking me about something I saw in passing half a decade ago. Basically, the main difficulties with Na Ion Batteries and especially the “Glass Batteries” were the lack of proper cathode with which to create current and also maintain the structure against the naturally occurring atomic reshuffling. In particular there was controversy over John B. Goodenough’s research because other battery scientists noted the electrodes both ends contained anode materials which should theoretically produce no electrochemical potential and therefor no cell voltage.
More modern attempts appear to use Graphene structures, which is promising in a lot of different ways: structural stability, durability, current, and material availability.
BTW Rest in Peace John, your good deeds outweigh the bad: a true scientist worth remembering for all time.
So basically we didn’t have a material that could function as a cathode until now?
I’m not in the battery research field but I assume it’s kind of like
We’ve got tons of puzzle pieces that we need to put together
and then we need to find an economically viable create more combined puzzle pieces at scale.
That is the case with every energy storage though in some cases it’s more pronounced.
We’ve only got a stated range out of this (252km/157mi) but there are a lot of factors where this could do well. Sodium batteries should be cheaper, so it’d be great if that translated to the final sale price. Depending on charge times and where you live, this could be a perfectly practical vehicle. If it doesn’t degrade like lithium batteries, then that’d be even better. Might make for a great secondary vehicle (or everyday driver, depending).
I’m expecting to see dual battery EVs in the not too distant future. A Sodium battery for the primary that gets the most charges and discharges which can be easy and cheaper to replace. Beside that a Lithium battery which would only be drawn from after the Sodium battery was exhausted. This way if you’re doing shallow discharges for your “around town” driving then charging at night, and deep discharges for longer road trips where the energy density of Lithium shines.
Lithium batteries dont like being stored fully charged they will degrade over time.
This is a solved problem. Most EVs won’t let you charge it to the actual 100% level or discharge it to 0.
Exactly. Really, “fully charged” should just be conceptualised as being at a sensible safe point, with the acknowledgement that it’s possible to “overcharge” the batteries to an even higher level, chemically speaking, but that all sensible devices don’t let you do this.
So only charge it to 80% and pretend 80% is 100%, like iPhones do. Why is that a concern?
Or you could just use all of the space for a sodium battery and fully charge it as it won’t need long term storage in that state.
You’re right. Forgot about that. Shoot.
I’m still dreaming of seeing EVs with flexible battery space, which users can fill according to their needs.
Like a car comes with space for 10x 10 kWh slots.
If 20 kWh serve your usual needs, the other spaces remain empty.
And if you plan longer trips and don’t want to recharge each 100 miles, you put in additional batteries. Those batteries don’t need to be owned, but can be rented.
Ideally there are lots of battery rental stations, where you can get charged batteries and instead of recharging the batteries in the EV, the rent’n’swap stations recharge them.
During (EV) wise low use times, these stations can provide a buffer to the energy grid.
…one can dream…Do not encourage businesses to rent more necessities to us.
You’ll own nothing and be happy happy happyyyyy
Id sooner reenact the french revolution by myself than allow neo feudalism to take full control.
The good news is there’s only 8 of them, the bad news is they have robot dogs with machine guns on their backs
Then buy it. No need to rent it then.
The main focus was on flexible energy packs not on the renting, although I’d find it convenient if done right.You have far more faith in capitalists to do the right thing than I. They’ll put this shit behind user hostile DRM the same that Disney does for drink refills.
Idk about renting, sounds like ass.
A core charge would make more sense, like swapping propane tanks you get a discount for having the empty core with you.
Wpuld you rather purchase an 80 kWh battery, alrhough you need most of the time only 20 kWh or purchase only 20 kWh and rent/swap some batteries when needed?
I’m no talking about renting all battery capacity the whole year, just the extra capacity for the 2-4 weeks in the year when long-distance rides are in the mix.
I’ve seen a video with some electric mopeds that had very easily removable batteries. Like you just pop it out and exchange it at a gas-station equivalent.
It’d be ideal if we could settle on a few sizes - kind of like how we have AA, AAA, C, D, etc. batteries. One can be for such mopeds, one larger for cars and some smaller ones to fill various otherwise empty spaces in a car.
So if your battery goes bad or just want to change its tech you can do that.
For normal city driving you carge the car at home. If you go on a trip make a few stops for charging. If you’re really in a rush, you can always pay a premium for swapping your drained battery for a prefilled one at a gas station equivalent.
To me this seems like the ideal solution for EVs and I wonder what facts make it unrealistic.
It’d be ideal if we could settle on a few sizes - kind of like how we have AA, AAA, C, D, etc. batteries. One can be for such mopeds, one larger for cars and some smaller ones to fill various otherwise empty spaces in a car.
This is precisely where we’re going to get fucked, though, because the modern pathological mindset of every tech company now is to try to build their own proprietary walled fiefdom to try to lock in
suckersrecurring revenue sourcescustomers and they won’t make their stuff compatible with anyone else’s unless the government forces them to. Maybe if we’re lucky there will be a decade or two of highly public bitching (see also: the Tesla charging connector) until someone eventually capitulates.Yup, I’ve been thinking along those lines as well. I can’t believe that every manufacturer is doing their own standards again…
Different battery chemistries have different charging requirements. So you’d have to have more complex charger/battery interaction requirements. Not insurmountable but another layer of standardization
You know, putting and removing batteries would be a very tedious task and I really doubt that many owners will bother with it.
It wouldn’t be necessary very often unless you’d want to take advantage of swapping instead of reloading.
also it’s not a trivial task to engineer for swapable EV batteries, doing so comes with a whole host of disadvantages / compromises that don’t make sense for most (I guess) consumers right now. It’s not very different from the phone battery issue, except on a huge scale and with much more severe consequences if things go wrong
Yes, you need to make the puncture proof, they are a fire hazard if stored at home, they degrade over time and if left empty long enough might not even work, etc.
The enginnering part is for sure one of the reasons we don’t see that idea in the wild (yet?).
The fire hazard at home and degradation when stored full or empty (speaking of lithion ion based batteries here) go away if you lean on the rental approach.
Wouldn’t it be nice to save investment and weight by using the required amount of battery capacity while still being able to extend the range of your car easily when needed?
I mean, US Cellular had a free battery swap program for a while. If you were a subscriber and your phone battery was low, you could go into any store and they’d swap you out for a fully charged battery for free. I presume they just ate the cost of damaged or degraded batteries as part of it. I only used it a couple times, but it was kinda nice.
Interesting idea. I hadn’t thought of that possibility!
The other thing is that it could also potentially be significantly cheaper to replace if it wears out. And could potentially be easier to recycle too, if it’s common salts. I’m optimistic about it!
The economics of an undegrading car battery are interesting.
It’s looking like these batteries will allow electric cars to be comparable to an ICE car in terms of price and cheaper to run.
So people will buy them as it makes sense. Then run the car until it falls apart then they will have a very large battery effectively for free. Does that get placed in a new car? Converted into home storage? Grid storage? Cheaply recycled?
That’s a perfect range for me. If it’s relatively cheap and charges reasonably well in the winter, I’ll buy it.
We currently have two cars:
- hybrid sedan - only used for commute (50mi round trip) and around-town trips
- minivan - mostly used for long trips, or when my spouse needs to take the kids somewhere while I’m at work
A lot of my neighbors have a similar setup because either one person doesn’t work or works at home, but they often need to use both cars simultaneously. If it’s priced well, it’ll sell well.
The main problem with existing EVs are that they either have far too little range (e.g. original Leaf w/ 70 miles range), or are way too expensive because they try to get too much range (200+ mile range). That higher range is kind of necessary because of degradation, whereas if the battery were cheaper to replace, more people would be willing to buy something with lower range and replace the battery after a few years.
252km is 3 days worth of commuting for many people I know. For me personally it is one and hald days of work, moving around in a diesel beast. I would go stupid giddy if I was handed one of these for a daily work driver
Question to anyone who might know more: would sodium based batteries be better than lithium ones for the environment, in terms of recycling or disposing of it?
In case they are indeed better, would they be better because it’s better to use less lithium in general (so if you use more sodium based ones, you use less lithium) or would they be also better because their own disposal is “nicer” (as in less toxic) for the environment?
Well, Sodium is the 6th most abundant element on Earth, so there’s a lot more of it and the extraction process is probably far more environmentally friendly.
Since Sodium batteries are so new I don’t think we have data on the toxicity, disposal or recycling avenues yet.
They’re actually old tech. They just could never match lithium.
They’ll shine as standing storage more so than mobile applications. Home storage will benefit greatly from their improvements
That’s very interesting. If they can be used at home or in cars that don’t require batteries with a very large capacity, then that would be really good to counter the scarcity of lithium (and hopefully, help the environment too)
If they can get industrial scale it could also allow energy grids to capture excess power instead of wasting it. Could yield massive efficiency increases being able to reclaim some of that loss.
Interesting! So it would make sense to have tons of sodium batteries for all purposes for which one doesn’t need maybe higher capacity or performance as I understand lithium batteries offer
Instead of thinking “capacity” by itself, thing of “capacity for the given space” or rather “density”. So Sodium batteries can be equal capacity as Lithium, but the equivalent capacity Sodium battery will be significantly larger. In applications like storing overproduced wind or solar electricity for use later, we don’t care how big the battery is. However, it a moving vehicle where every square centimeter and every kg changes the performance of the car, those density differences can have a real impact.
It was a light bulb moment to me when I realised toxicity is at least somewhat correlated with abundance.
Like lots of metals can be toxic but something like iron is so common you could just throw it on the ground and while certainly not ideal it’s far from a major problem. The environment is very good at dealing with iron.
I don’t find the source anymore, but i saw a lifetime analysis about sodium ion batteries. Overall they are slighly worse than lithium ion due to higher energy input required during fabrication, despite better mineral availability.
The most common Na-ion batteries use Prussian Blue.
I suppose maybe they’re still useful innovations if they can be made with minerals which are more available.
Probably, we could achieve a balance between one type and the other, but I’m daydreaming now…
The main idea here is that we won’t run out of raw materials very easily when using stuff that’s relatively cheap and abundant. Well at least the ions are. Who knows what the anode and cathode are made of. Probably the usual materials; otherwise they would have mentioned it. If they still use cobalt in the cathode, you can’t really avoid the ethical questions that come with it.
Producing all the other materials can be rather energy intensive depending on the method used, so it depends. If you buy your metals from a country with hardly any environmental regulation, you can be pretty sure they don’t give a dingo’s kidney as to how many trees are chopped down and how many puppies are thrown in a furnace to get the next shipment of metals delivered.
Also, the electrolyte could be more or less harmful to humans and the environment. As far as the environmental impact is concerned, these batteries probably come with all the usual issues. Currently there just aren’t any perfect solutions commercially available. Regardless, this seems like a step in the right direction IMO.
My doctor says I can’t buy it. Is there a low sodium version?
Any new battery technology news needs to be taken with a grain of salt. They are highly likely over-hyped and the actually realized products will have more problems than the current established tech initially.
Any new battery technology news needs to be taken with grain of salt.
Well yeah, it’s sodium.
too easy…
Normally you’re right. It seems like every day there is a new revolutionary battery tech with no real estimate when it’ll ever be in use. But in this case, according to the article, deliveries will start next month which means they’re already in production.
Sure. I’m in no rush to replace my car with one of these, but it’s a great thing that this technology is already in production. With these actually going into real cars that people can buy and drive, we’ll get more data so that any serious issues will hopefully be identified and addressed in the next generation.
What kind of salt?
Sodium-ion.
Sooo… It’s a salt truck?
It’s a salt in battery
Volkswagen: Stop hitting yourself… Stop hitting yourself.
But you can’t stop hitting youraelf because Volkswagen has you by the wrists and is usng them to make you hit yourself with your own hands over, and over again.
as much as any other electric vehicle out there
Unfortunately the page is behind the yahoo consent tracker and my DNS resolver by precaution refused to connect.
Inline-js and third-party js disabled loads the page without any consent.
Wait how is this the first? Didn’t the th!nk city have a molten sodium battery years ago?
First sodium-ion battery powered cars. Different tech.
yes it was a sodium battery, but it had different chemistry. This one does not need to be molten to work!
Before clicking I knew it would be Chinese
Where is the sodium coming from?
My diet, probably
Low blood pressure gang unite 🤜
The ocean?
Nope. Mining. Soda ash (sodium carbonate) is one of the best raw materials for these
I hope not, because salt isn’t a renewable resource. And who the hell wants to fight the auto industry for something we need for food?
Sodium isn’t rare in the slightest. according to Wikipedia, “Sodium is the sixth most abundant element in the Earth’s crust and exists in numerous minerals such as feldspars, sodalite, and halite (NaCl).”
salt isn’t going anywhere. no need to fret.
We had a shortage in Canada… but after looking into it, it appears to have been caused by a labour strike. LOL
Yes, it’s abundant. But it is still a finite resource that needs to be mined/harvested, and what will that look like when the EVs are running off sodium-ion batteries?
Bit better then when we mined coal or lithium since it’s so abundant we don’t have to fck up whole regions for it to get to the little bit here and there. Desalination makes sense, dried death salt lakes also seems logical etc. Salt is everywhere. People are even building artificial “caves” with salt for others to go breath salty air inside.
A lot of desalinization plants just release the salty brine back out to sea, it’s actually an ecological problem, so finding another use for it might convince them to capture and separate that for manufacturing uses.
That would be a really nice idea!
We had a shortage in Canada… but after looking into it, it appears to have been caused by a labour strike. LOL
That’s a capitalism problem, not a resource problem. All resources require labor to harvest, renewable or no.
Bro we will need to do desalination plants to supply people with water, there will be more than enough salt and you can’t dump the salt back into the ocean anyway
The ocean could uhhhh use some less salt.
Fresh take.
No. Salt take, make fresh. 😁
Uhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh
this is plain stupid. sodium is far far more common in the earth than lithium. if you’re worried about sodium not being renewable, then by that logic you should stop using lithium batteries right now.
Yes, I understand. I already posted that I was under the impression that we have shortages of the stuff, since we had shortages in Canada. But it was due to a labour dispute, and not a lack of resources.
And yes, I think we should reduce our use of lithium batteries, or at least only use recycled lithium.
Way too much salt to care there.
It comes from stars.
Stars probably
Stardust.
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These ones look pretty normal to me. I think there are a few options now that look like regular cars. The only difference usually is they don’t have a front grill because they don’t need one.
Yeah, my guess is that it’s the lack of a front grill that makes them look goofy to people. You’ll get used to it.
What are you on about lol, this literally looks like a normal subcompact car.
VW up in production since 2011 https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Volkswagen_Up
Skoda citigo
https://webapps.skoda-auto.sk/Cenniky-a-katalogy/cenniky/Skoda_Citigo_cennik.pdf
Here’s the summary for the wikipedia article you mentioned in your comment:
The Volkswagen Up (stylized as Volkswagen up!) is a city car produced by the Volkswagen Group since 2011. It was unveiled at the 2011 International Motor Show Germany (IAA). Production of the Up started in December 2011 at the Volkswagen Plant in Bratislava, Slovakia. It is part of the part of the New Small Family (NSF) series of models, alongside the SEAT Mii and Škoda Citigo which are rebadged versions of the Up, with slightly different front and rear fascias. The SEAT and Škoda versions were manufactured in the same factory, before being withdrawn from sale in 2021 and 2020 respectively. Production of the Up ended in October 2023. A battery electric version, called E-up, was launched in autumn 2013.
Have a look at the Cupra Born, looks awesome and is a great car. Already 18 months old as a design.
E-berlingo looks exactly the same as normal Berlingo. Since it’s a fairly new design I’m guessing they had both versions in mind when designing the ICE one.
They don’t need a a front opening to the radiator, that might be why you find them strange.
Agreed, just give me Jeep Cherokee/Wagoneer and id be happy. Bonus if it has the same interior and no shitty tracking bs.
