Solid-State Battery Startup Claims Breakthrough For Electric Vehicles (electrek.co) 142
An anonymous reader quotes a report from Electrek: Now a startup developing all solid-state batteries (ASSB) secured backing from several high-profile investors, including several automakers, as it claims a breakthrough for the technology that will enable better electric cars. Solid Power is a Colorado-based startup that spun out of a battery research program at the University of Colorado Boulder. The company claims to have achieved a breakthrough by incorporating a high-capacity lithium metal anode in lithium batteries -- creating a solid-state cell with an energy capacity "2-3X higher" than conventional lithium-ion. They have already attracted investments from important companies, like A123 Systems and more recently BMW, which planned to validate their battery technology for the automotive market. Now they are announcing this week the addition Hyundai, Samsung and several others to the list as they close a $20 million series A round of financing. They are now working with two automakers and two battery cell suppliers for the auto industry. Some of the advantages that they claim their technology has over current batteries, as mentioned in their press release, include:
- 2-3x higher energy vs. current lithium-ion
- Substantially improved safety due to the elimination of the volatile, flammable, and corrosive liquid electrolyte as used in lithium-ion
- Low-cost battery-pack designs through: Minimization of safety features and elimination of pack cooling
- Greatly simplified cell, module, and pack designs through the elimination of the need for liquid containment
- High manufacturability due to compatibility with automated, industry-standard, roll-to-roll production
Solid Power plans to use the funds from its Series A investment to "scale-up production via a multi-MWh roll-to-roll facility, which will be fully constructed and installed by the end of 2018 and fully operational in 2019." The battery cells produced at this new facility "will be utilized for preliminary qualification of the company's solid-state cells for multiple markets including automotive, aerospace and defense."
- 2-3x higher energy vs. current lithium-ion
- Substantially improved safety due to the elimination of the volatile, flammable, and corrosive liquid electrolyte as used in lithium-ion
- Low-cost battery-pack designs through: Minimization of safety features and elimination of pack cooling
- Greatly simplified cell, module, and pack designs through the elimination of the need for liquid containment
- High manufacturability due to compatibility with automated, industry-standard, roll-to-roll production
Solid Power plans to use the funds from its Series A investment to "scale-up production via a multi-MWh roll-to-roll facility, which will be fully constructed and installed by the end of 2018 and fully operational in 2019." The battery cells produced at this new facility "will be utilized for preliminary qualification of the company's solid-state cells for multiple markets including automotive, aerospace and defense."
Saving (Score:2, Interesting)
but it's all bullshit (Score:4, Insightful)
There's been so many now.
Even if the energy density per size of a lipo cell is already pretty dang high.
Besides, for cars the density isn't even now so much important. take a look at a tesla battery pack. how much of it is not battery? quite a lot!
the weight and safety and most importantly PRICE is the key for making a better battery technology for a car. there's just so much of these announcements that it's really hard to take any of them seriously - and frankly, we shouldn't even care before they have a production line running. they do these media announcements to boost up their visibility to have something to show to potential investors. the smart money doesn't care two fucks if it's featured on wallstreet times or whatever though - they care if it a) works b) can be produced at a good cost.
this makes it an automatic suspect when they go for high media visibility - because really, in their line of technology it's not needed. for actual breakthrough there's several billions of parked cash waiting to be dumped on it to bring some factory online. without any need to shoot for media visibility to get some investors onboard to keep the company going.
Re: but it's all bullshit (Score:1)
Breakthrough on size and weight are important if smaller cheaper vehicles will finally become practical EVs.
Re: (Score:1)
Actually, the real problem is the time it takes to refuel; compare to filling your tank with diesel, which takes only a minute. I think most of us could live with a range of only 100 miles, if you could go an fill your battery in a minute or two. Apparently a flow battery offers this advantage.
Re:but it's all bullshit (Score:4, Interesting)
You can charge your car in the 90+% of the time you don't use it.
An EV is only useful if:
1. You can charge it at home (or work) so it's on 100% when you start your day
2. The range is enough for 95% of your daily needs
In a couple of weeks I get a Nissan Leaf and I've been monitoring my current driving habits over the last months.
I don't expect I'll need a fast charger more often than once every few months.
Re:but it's all bullshit (Score:5, Interesting)
And now imagine your Leaf magically had three times the range due to new battery technology. You would almost never need a fast charger. If your vehicle has a range of ~500 miles/800km and can be recharged overnight then unless you are engaged in cross continent tag team driving trips you are golden.
Re: (Score:2)
It's exciting and I wish them the best
Re: (Score:1)
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
And yes, it appears that the 30 kWh packs are d
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Indeed. But I suspect the market (i.e. the automakers) would try its damnedest to steer you to a super-accelerating muscle car version of the Leaf to eat up the extra battery capacity - rather than making your Leaf even that much more efficient.
Re: (Score:2)
Not quite. I was saying that the 'market' would start making heavy SUV-type cars if they got decent range - instead of treating electrics as an efficient alternative. I suppose a super-efficient Leaf might still exist, but I suspect that all the advertising would attempt to steer customers to heavier, more expensive vehicles - negating the potential efficiency gains.
Re: (Score:1)
Exactly how I drive my Ioniq EV.
Charge overnight, drive 100km/60mi per day for work, still have 100km/60mi in the tank at the end of the day for "personal" use.
Lather, rinse, repeat.
Never going back to the gas pumps.
Re: (Score:2)
Old habits die hard.
We still say cell phones use a "ring"tone even though the vast majority of them beep or play music to notify you of a call or text, it's a carryover from the old landline days. Beeptone doesn't seem to have caught on.
Re: (Score:3)
If you have only one vehicle, the topic of charging time compared to fueling up is like the question of average frame rates in a game compared to the worst frame rates. If you get 10 FPS at a critical point in a game, the system is no good to you.
Similarly when you get that call out of the ordinary that you need to go somewhere now, when you need to charge first, or you need to go further than on a typical day, you have a car that is no good to you. When you think about it a bit, a car is used for more
Re: (Score:3)
This assumes nothing like a supercharger network. Once you include the concept of a supercharger network, then they become useful for basically all situations.
Re: (Score:2)
So much 'what if' and 'one-off' being used to put down EVs. Funny how it almost universally comes from people who don't own one.
No one actually said a specific EV should meet every. single. automotive. need. In fact, there's a HUGE range of ICE vehicles to meet that same range of needs. Sure, it would be nice to have an EV with 2x the range, but someone will still point out how their specific use case makes it unusable. boo fucking hoo. Some people don't own a car at all.
People have been going on and o
Re: (Score:2)
"Similarly when you get that call out of the ordinary that you need to go somewhere now, when you need to charge first"
As an EV driver for 3 years, I've never found myself with less than 50% (100+) miles or range while in town. I have, with my previous gas car, been late because I forgot to fill up and had to stop. That said, a 100kW fast charge can add 16 kWh, or about 50 miles in 10 minutes. As to where we're going, 400 kW chargers are in the works - that's 200 miles in 10 minutes.
Re: (Score:2)
Actually, the real problem is the time it takes to refuel; compare to filling your tank with diesel, which takes only a minute. I think most of us could live with a range of only 100 miles, if you could go an fill your battery in a minute or two. Apparently a flow battery offers this advantage.
Most electric cars already have far in excess of 100 miles range- I think all the Teslas have way more than 200 now. The range of an electric car (for most people) will work for 99% of their needs; for the remaining 1%, when you go on long trips or vacations... well, you can rent an internal combustion motor powered car for your trip with the savings on fuel if you like and still come out ahead... plus not putting the miles on your own vehicle. An EV doesn't have to meet 100% of your needs to be better fo
Re: (Score:2)
well, you can rent an internal combustion motor powered car for your trip with the savings on fuel if you like and still come out ahead...
While I agree with many of your points, I don't necessarily agree with that one. It's relative, but if you're in the market to buy a cheaper vehicle, the electric options are not very good (yet).
Although that's what keeps announcement about new and improved battery tech exciting. With 3x energy density and cheaper manufacturing, an electric vehicle with a 100 mile range could be significantly cheaper and lighter.
Re:but it's all bullshit (Score:5, Insightful)
If it were all bullshit, we'd still be on lead-acid batteries. In the last 30 years, we've gone from lead-acid via NiCd and NiMH to Li-ion, with many improvements in each from the time they were first introduced until the time they were superseded. Battery capacity has increased by a factor of at least 10. Outside the bubble of the semiconductor industry and Moore's Law, that's massive progress.
Yes, not every breakthrough makes it into production. But there are plenty that do.
Also, we're not the Wall Street Times, this is a technology site. I want to know about interesting technological developments, and I don't want to limit my knowledge to just the ones that reach mainstream production.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Thus the "look at how far we've come in the last
Re:but it's all bullshit (Score:5, Informative)
My '10x' estimate was low, it's closer to 20x for the last 30 years [quora.com]. Current Li-ions have twice the storage density of those early ones. And going from 100 to 200 Wh/kg is a much bigger deal than the previous doubling.
So the bung argument is still "woe is us, no battery improvement research ever reaches the market".
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Maybe you're impressed by an average year-on-year improvement of about 2.5% over a quarter of a century, but I sure as hell am not.
Re: (Score:2)
Did you see the graph I linked to? In the last 10 years we went from 100 Wh/kg to 200 Wh/kg, i.e. more advancement than in the 50 years before.
Re:but it's all bullshit (Score:5, Insightful)
The first Mass-produced Li-ion batteries may have been produced in 1991, but it wasn't until around 2010 until they were used to make a viable mass-market automobile. It's only just now that we are starting to really build mass-market cars with EV range comparable to a tank of gas.
Even at the smaller scale, it's only been in the last 10 years or so that things like lithium-battery power tools have really come into their own. As recently as 5 years ago, most electric lawn tools were chintzy ni-cd powered devices suitable for only the lightest duty work. Now, you can get lithium-batteried tools that rival internal combustion counterparts and are suitable for even professional level work.
Long story short, there's been a LOT of battery development since 1991 even if the basic chemistry is mostly the same. Little 10-20% improvements compound into a revolution over time.
Re: (Score:3)
Not to be pedantic, but a "slow" revolution is just evolution. ;)
Re: (Score:2)
As for the use of older battery types in uses like power and gardening tools, there's a good reason for that and it's the inherent instability of lithium ion batteries, particularly when well charged. This is also the reason why ca
Re: (Score:2)
Re:but it's all bullshit (Score:4, Insightful)
The news article is rather short on facts "2-3x more density than Li-Ion" is not a quantitative statement when Li-Ion battery performance is all over the map. If they said the energy density in per 'MJ/kg' and per 'MJ/l' then it would be a quantitative statement. This announcement reeks. What it tells me is they never have manufactured a single battery cell of the required final specifications. At best they have a test battery cell much smaller in size which might not even scale up in performance. It wouldn't be the first time.
Re: (Score:2)
So that's, what... a technology once per decade.
Pretty sure I've read a dozen articles alone on Slashdot alone just this year about "breakthroughs". Not actually seen any of them come to fruition.
P.S. You know a battery tech is useful when it appears in the shops. Until then, the information is useful only to investors and scientists. As a consumer, none of that matters. I can no more buy these things than a hydrazine powered skateboard.
So... until then... even if they are incredibly expensive, I can't
Re: (Score:2)
You're coming dangerously close to saying scientist aren't allowed to speak about their work in public until it's in large-scale production.
Sadly, news outlets are bad at handling the time between the scientific breakthrough and its practical application. If you were to track the battery breakthough stories thorougly, I'd bet you'd find many of them are in use right now. The initial claim of '3x better than existing batteries' has been found to have drawbacks ("if we do that, batteries fail after 10 cycles"
Re: (Score:2)
The battery industry is changing rapidly at the moment. You have Panasonic/Tesla making packs, with LG and SK Innovation coming in with lower prices and a radically different pack design. There are a few Chinese companies building huge factories that dwarf Gigafactory, some partnering with European car manufacturers with locations in the EU.
The lack of major investment in this could be caution or the abundance of more certain investments, or as you say it could be pie in the sky.
Re: (Score:2)
What it tells to me is that this is barely out of the lab stage and nowhere near production if ever.
Re: (Score:3)
It doesn't all have to be bullshit. It's probably just a slightly optimized truth, especially in this part:
2-3x higher energy vs. current lithium-ion
Terms like "current" and "higher energy" leave a lot of room for interpretation. What is "current"? Probably one of the less energy efficient but more economically interesting options in use today. And what amount of that "higher energy" is actually available in practice? And at what cost? Without having an actual product, they're free to cherry pick aspects about their technology, which may very well
Re: (Score:2)
Exactly. When I read this press release, it smacks of being written by somebody who doesn't understand the first thing about batteries... OR by somebody who understands a great deal about them but is trying to generate interest from venture capitalists by saying meaningless things that sound good to those who don't understand.
Money from major car and electronics companies? (Score:2)
> for actual breakthrough there's several billions of parked cash waiting to be dumped on it to bring some factory online.
Who had that parked cash waiting for better batteries? Large car companies like BMW? Major electronics manufacturers like Samsung? I'll wait until companies like that put their money into something before I think it's really that promising.
Re: (Score:3)
Actually, Apple alone would likely dump several billion into battery tech if they had a viable way to double the battery capacity of their phones. ... which, of course, they'd use to slim down the phone by another .5mm instead of doubling your battery.
Re: (Score:2)
As a random aside
Senior/Editor has an entirely different meaning than Senior Editor.
Re: (Score:2)
If I got about $100 for every battery breakthrough article, another $100 for every "future of storage, 1 quadrillion bytes in your thumbnail!", I would probably have more than enough money, to buy myself enough batteries and hard drives, to never, ever care again.
At least 5 to 20 of these articles a year for the time I've been using the internet (20+ years)
Re: (Score:2)
I'm still waiting for those 1TB optical disks that've been promised for 15+ years.
Re: (Score:2)
I remember the C3D one, I was still at my first job I think, over 18 / 19 years ago.
Purple lasers or some ridiculous thing.
Here's a link to buy the 3.3TB version, 1.5TB (Score:2)
> I'm still waiting for those 1TB optical disks that've been promised for 15+ years.
This link is the 3.3TB version. Near the bottom you'll see buttons for 1.5TB, 600GB, etc.
https://www.bhphotovideo.com/c... [bhphotovideo.com]
The are used to replace tape drives, primarily enterprise backup and archiving.
Blu-ray video means millions of those discs are produced, so economic of scale make the Blu-ray format the economical one. Blu-ray is currently available in 25GB, 50GB, and 100GB.
Re: (Score:2)
I have some sympathy for your skepticism, but this one does seem real. They are not talking about lab experiments. They are actually building full scale production facilities. I do not think they would be doing this to manufacture vaporware.
Re: (Score:3)
I do not think they would be doing this to manufacture vaporware.
It's not being vaporware that killed all the other "breakthroughs" but rather complications/disadvantages that arose during the path towards large-scale manufacturing. For example, how do these batteries respond to damage and/or age? (rapid discharge can be really bad even without caustic/flammable chemicals) How rapidly do they charge? How rapidly does capacity deplete? etc There are many, many ways in which battery technology can fail.
I'll agree that this does perhaps seem further along that path than
Re: (Score:2)
No, they're talking about building a MW/h scale demonstration plant. That's not commercial (full) scale which is in the 100's, if not 1000's of MW/h.
Plenty of other vaporware items got funding to build their demo rounds of equipment. That's how people scam and skim their millions of personal profit and run away. Maybe this is legit. Hell, I hope it's legit. But based on the previous track record of...well everyone, breakthroughs like this simply do not happen.
Battery technology isn't just a simple capa
Solid State Survivor (Score:2)
How do these compare to the Goodenough solid-state batteries?
2-3x higher energy (Score:1)
At 3x higher mass or volume that would be boring.
Or did they possibly mean energy density?
Re: (Score:2)
possibly.
1/3rd of the price at same weight would already be something.
even electrek.co advices to remain skeptical about new battery innovations, and that sites trash.
Re: (Score:2)
aw you're on to them, okay they duct taped 3 of the other guy's batteries together
Re: (Score:2)
At 3x higher mass or volume that would be boring. Or did they possibly mean energy density?
They mean "Look at us! Invest in this company so I can pay my mortgage!"
This is a PR stunt of an article that literally is nonsense, but sounds to the nontechnical like something worthwhile. This is just an attempt to garner some venture capital to keep the lights on and pay salaries is my guess. Where they might have some interesting ideas, they sure didn't promise anything solid with the 2-3 times whatever statement, which is weasel wording if you ask me. It would let the VC money believe something that
where's ours? (Score:5, Interesting)
How much did taxpayers invest in the research at University of Colorado Boulder? How much can they expect in return? Will they be reimbursed by the IPO or do they have to wait until the profits roll in?
Research is typically paid for by you and I through our taxes. When a great discovery is made, all the profits go to private parties. When do we get reimbursed?
Re: (Score:3)
When do we get reimbursed?
April 15th.
Re: (Score:1, Informative)
Get bent.
Colorado ranks pretty freaking close to last place nationally in public education funding [denverpost.com] and that includes its public universities, [colorado.gov] which run almost entirely on grants, endowments and tuition.
Re: (Score:2)
You might not be that convinced about hydrogen anymore!
https://phys.org/news/2006-12-hydrogen-economy-doesnt.html
An important factor in the discussion hydrogen vs. BEV, however, is the consideration/chance whether the BEV's will be capable of storing the excess solar energy during the daytime for the time it is needed in the evenings.....
Re: (Score:2)
In hydropower plants with reversible pumps.
Re: (Score:1)
When do we get reimbursed?
Did you post this from your iPad made possible by the developments and R&D from Universities? You get paid by availability not directly.
Yay Socialism.
Re: (Score:2)
He didn't get that iPad or its battery for free, he paid money for it. There is no hidden value in technology.
Re: (Score:2)
He didn't get that iPad or its battery for free, he paid money for it. There is no hidden value in technology.
He was able to pay money for it. Now just imagine what he would have paid had each manufacturer had to independently R&D that product and lock it up under patents.
In the mean time the fundamental research for the product he is using is published for all to read. Can you say the same about any private R&D short of reading convoluted patents?
Re: (Score:2)
I'm not arguing for private R&D, I'm arguing that there is no value paid back when the fruits of public research are privatized, even if some hypothetical scenario involving private research could be worse.
If you think it's published for all to read, check out how much subscriptions to journals from Elsevier & friends cost.
Re: (Score:2)
I'm arguing that there is no value paid back when the fruits of public research are privatized
Except the results are rarely if ever privatised without actual publication of the science first. You seem to misunderstand exactly what is happening. Once published the researchers sometimes spin-off a company with their discovery which may or may not get bought by someone else. You don't get any less for your money as a result.
What you DO get is someone actively promoting a product rather than a throwaway research paper that will gather dust in the annals of scientific history.
Re: (Score:2)
Once published the researchers sometimes spin-off a company with their discovery which may or may not get bought by someone else. You don't get any less for your money as a result.
But also no more: The public pays for research, receives $0 as a result, private company makes millions, which the people who paid for the research again get $0 from.
What you DO get is someone actively promoting a product rather than a throwaway research paper that will gather dust in the annals of scientific history.
Again it's not the worst possible outcome - that would probably be if some researcher became a supervillain and used the technology he discovered to enslave the world and assign each person 2 wolves to chew on their armpits - but it's certainly not a good one IMO.
Re: (Score:2)
The public pays for research, receives $0 as a result
False. They receive the research outcomes as a result. Often behind a paywall journal, but sometimes even that is available for free. You get what you pay for. Go ahead and monetise. It's there for your taking for a small subscription fee to a journal.
If you're expecting actual dollars in return I suggest you never spend any money ever on anything ... other than gold and then hope the price of gold increases.
Re: (Score:2)
It doesn't have to be actual dollars. Free batteries/medication/etc would be acceptable. Being able to produce some invention that was made with public dollars patent-free would even be acceptable but is rarely the case. Having the technology locked behind IP laws and/or subscription journals for the profit of a few is not acceptable. And to the average person (or small university), those subscription fees are far from small.
Re: (Score:2)
Free batteries/medication/etc would be acceptable.
The output or R&D is not a product. You already get the output. There are many open access journals available.
As for being locked behind a subscription fee, I take it you don't go to unviersity libraries much...
#entitlement.
Re: (Score:2)
How would you work that out? There have been proposals that government-backed research would have to be public domain. But I've never heard anyone suggest that the taxpayers should get a cut of it. I can't see how to work that out logistically. Suppose the university patented it then sold the patent for a few million dollars. That would be less than a penny per taxpayer.
The reality is that this is not a profitable venture, which is why we the government is involved in the first place. While Slashdot w
Public universities are making money from spinoffs (Score:2)
There are a lot of profitable spun off from universities and the (taxpayer owned) university DOES get money back, someone's a pretty hefty sum. Obviously not every idea is commercially successful, but some are are. The payments back to the university help pay for the school, which reduxes the amount taxpayers pay. In this case we're talking about CU. They get about $5 million / year in royalties from spinoffs.
See also:
https://hardware.slashdot.org/... [slashdot.org]
Already got paid, will keep getting paid (Score:2)
> When a great discovery is made, all the profits go to private parties.
Uhm, no. The company already paid the school to license the technology, and they'll keep paying royalties.
> When do we get reimbursed?
Starting in 2011, in this case, and continuing forever.
In addition to giving the (taxpayer owned) school stock in the company name(profits), the company pays:
Up-front license fees for the technology developed at the school
Minimum annual and/or milestone payments
Royalties on net sales
Sublicense royal
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
We get reimbursed when the profits they make are taxed by the government.
That assumes they actually pay any taxes, like most large corporations don't.
When the companies dodge taxes and play tricks like creating shell companies to pump money around we get shafted. So keep you anger, but direct it towards tax dodgers and their abettors in the congress.
There's no shortage of valid targets.
Re: (Score:2)
On February 31st, of course.
Re: (Score:2)
When do we get reimbursed?
When battery electric vehicles displace gasoline-powered vehicles because they're better, and *cheaper*, then we get paid by having quieter streets, cleaner air and a cooler planet.
Specifically, drop the other person (Score:3)
The easy way to know is to drop the other person from the sentence and try it. In this example:
Research is typically paid for by you and I through our taxes.
Research is typically paid for by I through my taxes.
You would write:
Research is typically paid for by me through my taxes.
Therefore:
Research is typically paid for by you and me through our taxes.
Yet Another "breakthrough" (Score:1)
It seems that we hear about these "breakthroughs" pretty often. At least long enough to generate an initial round of investment and then we never hear anything from them again.
Hopefully this will not be the same.
I personally still believe that hydrogen fuel cells are better option. Especially with the recent advances in membrane tech which allows the rapid creation of hydrogen from ammonia. An Australia firm has recently made this more attractive from a cost perspective.
I am looking forward to electrically
Re: Yet Another "breakthrough" (Score:3)
Not to mention the fact that the current power grids of the world cannot support everyone having a plug in car.
Fire back up the coal plants I guess since nuclear is politically not possible in most countries.
That is a big reason hydrogen is a good option. Ammonia can be created in bulk offsite using renewables and transported using current infrastructure then using membrane tech, which is not that power intensive, converted to hydrogen onsite at a filling station.
So ... to paraphrase ....
Problem: electric grids do not produce enough electricity to power all electric cars. This scares me because we will need more coal power plants.
Solution: ditch the relatively efficient battery and switch to a much more inefficient hydrogen fuel cell. Further reduce efficiency by having to create an intermediary gas and membranes which then convert that gas to a different gas. Make sure to waste a bunch of energy moving that liquid all over the place in trucks. It's OK that yo
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Ammonia is less energy dense than most compressed gas fuels.
It also required temperatures in the range 400-500 degrees to break it down. About 5-6 more than the majority of your car engine components and their cooling systems.
It also creates an extraordinary hazard - ammonia (as a gas, typically, compressed to a liquid) with catalysts heated to beyond-your-oven temperatures producing a highly flammable gas, often with a lot of flammable by-products or catalysts too. It's a horribly nasty and destructive b
So Much Promise! (Score:2)
Re: (Score:1)
Is really 2-3x better than current gen that extraordinary?
Say that it is real and you are an investor. You aren't going to put it to market next year. You are going to pour money in it in the hope that it can be reproduced, refined and scaled up.
It isn't going to compete against current consumer batteries. It is going to compete with other new technologies in the pipeline.
A 2x improvement 10 years down the line doesn't seem that extreme.
Having trouble understanding the claim (Score:1)
I don't see a whole lot in terms of technical specifications, this seems to be about it: "energy capacity 2-3X higher than conventional lithium-ion.". But according to this [wikipedia.org] it just brings the specific energy into the range of Li-Po and Li-Sulphur. So why is this better?
Re: (Score:1)
I believe the Electrolyte is a plastic polymer and will not vent as a gas when punctured. It also prevents dendrites? from forming which is the reason they use lithium ions vs a solid bar of lithium in lithium ion batteries. Using a solid bar of lithium increases the charge capacity.
Netflix has a show about this actually. they went in depth as to the benefits. they even showed some one cutting the battery as it was being used. did not explode but kept working.
Re: (Score:3)
But according to this it just brings the specific energy into the range of Li-Po and Li-Sulphur. So why is this better?
Li-Po is volatile and LiFePo is expensive. Li-Sulphur batteries are not commercially available and they must be larger than Li-Pos for a given amount of energy storage. And since I can't find anything about their volatility, I assume it's in the same range as Li-Po. A solid electrolyte should be much safer.
Where have I seen this before? (Score:1)
show me (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Price is the break through we need (Score:1)
Other companies are not far behind.
When the battery
Yawn (Score:2)
Call me when it actually goes commercial. Until then it's vapourware.
Send us a working cell (Score:2, Informative)
Elon Musk: "My top advice really for anyone who says they’ve got some breakthrough battery technology is please send us a sample cell, okay. Don’t send us PowerPoint, okay, just send us one cell that works with all appropriate caveats, that would be great. That sorts out the nonsense and the claims that aren’t actually true.” - 2014
This one is different (Score:5, Insightful)
While it is unquestionably true that /. publishes <wild_exaggeration>an average of 2,000 "battery breakthrough" stories per hour</wild_exaggeration>, this one is different from the sludgepipe of ordinary hype in two important ways:
We never see that with any of the other battery-breakthrough hype pieces. They're all either announcements of tabletop-scale demonstrations (at best), or simply theoretical extrapolations of what some newly-discovered phenomenon could, eventually mean for increaing power density and/or rechargeability, making batteries out of less-expensive materials, incorporating unicorn scat, or other examples of wishful thinking in search of investors.
This one, by contrast, is an announcement unveiling a startup that has convinced some solidly-credible major corporate investors who have (at in Samsung's case) undoubtedly heard presentations on gee-whiz battery "breakthroughs" from a raft of wannabes and scam artists in the past - and have obviously passed on all of them. It's real enough that the bean-counters in these multi-billion-dollar enterprises have signed off on those investments. That's a completely different thing than the pure hype that virtually every other story on the subject consists of.
It's certainly still possible that their pilot plant will reveal scalar problems in manufacturing that eventually will relegate Solid Power's claimed breakthrough to "nice try, but no cigar" staus. It appears that we'll have to wait until 2019 to see if that happens (although, if the actual product doesn't live up to the investors' expectations, I kinda doubt we'll see a big, public announcement about it - more likely, it'll just quietly close its doors and disappear into the investor's writeoff disclosures in their annual reports to the SEC). But I'm going to give them the benefit of the doubt - at least, until their Series A financing runs out ...
(Full disclosure: I have no affiliation with Solid Power. I have no financial interest in any tech or automotive company whatsoever, nor do I advise any such entity. Hell, my wife and I own a grand total of ONE share of stock - and it's a legacy of an employee profitsharing plan from her employment in the retail sector almost 20 years ago. And, fwiw, hype of any kind tends to make me break out in acute scepticism.)
Re: (Score:2)
replacing rotating wheels with SSDs (Score:2)
might drastically improve EV performance in bends...
It's time to stop posting these.... (Score:2)
We need to stop posting these unless there is an actual product on the market.
There have been so many "battery breakthrough!!!!111oneone" posts that we never hear about again. Shouldn't we be a bit less naive by now?
What about the other important stats? (Score:2)