Tesla Battery Researcher Unveils New Cell That Could Last 1 Million Miles (electrek.co) 152
Long-time Slashdot reader ClarkMills writes:
Not just anybody but [lithium-ion battery pioneer] Jeff Dahn [et al.] released a paper detailing
cells that "should be able to power an electric vehicle for over 1.6 million kilometers (1 million miles) and last at least two decades in grid energy storage."
The new lithium-ion battery cell has a next-generation "single crystal" NMC cathode and a new advanced electrolyte, according to the site Electrotek. "We are talking about battery cells that last two to three times longer than Tesla's current battery cells."
The new lithium-ion battery cell has a next-generation "single crystal" NMC cathode and a new advanced electrolyte, according to the site Electrotek. "We are talking about battery cells that last two to three times longer than Tesla's current battery cells."
Game set match (Score:2)
Re: Game set match (Score:2)
Come on... (Score:3)
Battery tech is not my forte... why do you make me read through the whole paper to find out:
- Ah per weight (and compared to current tech)
- Still a fire hazard I guess?
- Cost?
I mean what good does it do itf this thing lasts a million years if you need three tons of them to power a go-kart? What good are they if you need just one cell to drive around earth three times, but the thing costs a trillion dollars to make?
Seriously, how does this thing compare to what we have other than mileage?
Re: Come on... (Score:2)
Well, it lessens total cost of ownership if the battery lifetime is now 18+ years rather than 10. And since the battery is the most expensive component on an EV, that means the service lifetime of the vehicle is extended greatly.
This isn't exactly hard to seduce.
Re: Come on... (Score:5, Funny)
Stupid Android 10 keyboard turned 'deduce' into 'seduce'...
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Yeah, but somehow seduce sounds so much better :D
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Well, it lessens total cost of ownership if the battery lifetime is now 18+ years rather than 10. And since the battery is the most expensive component on an EV, that means the service lifetime of the vehicle is extended greatly.
This isn't exactly hard to seduce.
Stupid Android 10 keyboard turned 'deduce' into 'seduce'...
Yeah, but somehow seduce sounds so much better :D
There is nothing stranger than the private perversions of Slashdot geeks.
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Well, :D
in WoW I played a warlock, only to have a succubus as pet
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Today's lesson: don't write detectives and romance novels on the same device.
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I don't know anyone that got 10 years out of EV battery system, the five to eight years of a warranty is probably more like what could be expected without serious degradation. If it becomes about the same price and replacement becomes non-issue for original owner plus the next used car owner ... that would be great thing and greatly up the acceptance rate of EV.
Re: Come on... (Score:2)
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You are the one with the talking ass.
I know people that have had to replace their Tesla batteries already.
stick that in your ignorant ass.
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Of course you do, mate. Of course you do. Totes believable.
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Well, it lessens total cost of ownership if the battery lifetime is now 18+ years rather than 10.
That would only be true if all other factors remain unchanged, or change very little. A battery that can handle twice as many charge/discharge cycles but costs four times as much to put in the car might not be all that attractive. The cost of the battery is a large potion of the initial vehicle cost, as you point out. Telling people this will save them money in 10 years might not be all that helpful in making the sale. It will likely increase the resale value, which means a more immediate payback time,
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If you do read the paper, you will find out these isn't a new chemistry:
So the summary is just plain wrong. The paper is not about some new cell. It's about verifying the results of earlier papers on
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Seriously, how does this thing compare to what we have other than mileage?
It is the same. Which should be obvious.
Re:Come on... (Score:4, Insightful)
"- Still a fire hazard I guess?"
Each year 170.000 non-electric cars burn out in the US and that's highways only.
That's a meaningless data point without some context and comparison. If there are 170000 ICE vehicle fires every year per 50 billion vehicles that exist, and electric vehicles have 50 fires among 100 of such vehicles, then I can see why someone might be alarmed. There aren't 50 billion ICE vehicles, and I also pulled the EV numbers out of the air.
I'm going to have to see more numbers to make a rational decision on the fire hazards of electric vehicles.
The rate of vehicle fires would also have to be measured against the damage caused. A 2018 Tesla Model 3 fire that destroys the vehicle is quite different than a 1974 Ford Pinto fire, even if both are considered a total loss. The loss of that Tesla would mean a loss of a large sum of money. The loss of the Pinto is something I'd consider a net gain. A car fire that results in no loss of life is certainly preferable to one that does. A car fire that leaves only a mangled mess of steel and glass is preferable to one that creates a toxic mess that can seep into the ground water and potentially poisons people and wildlife for months.
Oh, and a car fire that stays out is preferable to a car fire that likes to re-ignite at random.
https://mashable.com/article/t... [mashable.com]
Car fires after a crash are all too common: The National Fire Protection Association (NFPA) puts crashes as the reason for 3 percent of car fires for any type of vehicle. But with an electric vehicle, the car can burst into flames hours after the initial blaze. The NFPA puts out training materials for electric and hybrid vehicles for this very reason. In the Florida crash, which happened at around 4:30 p.m. on Sunday, the Model S kept burning in the police tow yard into early Monday morning.
From what I've seen so far about electric car safety is that they are in fact safer than the dinosaur burners. I believe this has more to do with them being newer and more expensive. I'd expect a 2018 Lincoln Aviator to be far safer than a 1974 Ford Pinto just because it's newer and more expensive. I also expect a 2018 Lincoln Aviator to be safer than a 2008 Ford Focus for the same reasons, though I expect the difference in safety to be smaller.
If you want to convince people of the safety of electric vehicles then you need to do more than point out that the alternatives don't have perfect safety either.
Re: Come on... (Score:4, Interesting)
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"- Still a fire hazard I guess?"
Each year 170.000 non-electric cars burn out in the US and that's highways only.
That's a meaningless data point without some context and comparison. If there are 170000 ICE vehicle fires every year per 50 billion vehicles that exist, and electric vehicles have 50 fires among 100 of such vehicles, then I can see why someone might be alarmed. There aren't 50 billion ICE vehicles, and I also pulled the EV numbers out of the air.
With Tesla 500,000 EVs on the road globally that have driven accumulated 10 billion miles there were five vehicle fires per billion miles for Tesla. Most of the Tesla fires occurred after violent high-speed violent crashes. Furthermore, the number of Tesla fires have been reduced since they armorplated the battery compartment.
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If you wanted the numbers you would have found them already, because there are many articles on the subject, and they are easy to find. You just want to look interested.
Can't speak to anything but spontaneous combustion right now, so far Teslas are about one eleventh as likely to burst into flames while parked. And most occupants have escaped Tesla fires, because there's lots of warning.
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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]
Smartphone manufacturers will stay away from this (Score:4, Insightful)
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Given how much smartphone manufacturers today rely on proprietary, built-in batteries degrading to push customers to buy new smartphones every 2 years or so, you can be sure that none of them will utilized batteries that promise to work for 20 years.
Good thing then that they are marketing this for electric cars and not cell phones.
Are cell phones the only kind of handheld sized technology that could use more durable batteries? I don't think so. I bought a new handheld ham radio recently because a new radio, that came with a new lithium ion battery, was cheaper than trying to get a new battery for my old handheld ham radio that used a Ni-Cd pack. The old radio still works fine, but without a working battery it is near worthless. I also have a set of
Open Access (Score:5, Informative)
Two things missed by the electrek piece:
- The article is CC-BY and downloable without scribd horrible UI:
http://jes.ecsdl.org/content/1... [ecsdl.org]
PDF direct http://jes.ecsdl.org/content/1... [ecsdl.org]
HTML direct http://jes.ecsdl.org/content/1... [ecsdl.org]
- In the conclusion the authors mention:
Full details of these cells including electrode compositions, electrode loadings, electrolyte compositions, additives used, etc. have been provided in contrast to literature reports using commercial cells. This has been done so that others can re-create these cells and use them as benchmarks for their own R+D efforts be they in the spaces of Li-ion cells or “beyond Li-ion cells”.
So it's science as it should be!
Re: Open Access (Score:2)
Perhaps as it could and should be now. We will simply be able to buy a chassis, with wheels, motors, battery, shocks, etc. and then separately, a body that contains the interface, seats, latest stylings that plunks down on top of it. Get a new body every few years or lease one and own the chassis for its 20 year lifespan. Now that is an efficient and better model.
a knife in the heart of planned obsolescence (Score:5, Interesting)
This advancement isn't going to add much range or save much weight, but it will allow an electric vehicle to operate much longer before replacing the batteries - the single most expensive component in an electric vehicle.
The big disruption that electric vehicles bring to the market is a change in planned obsolescence. You don't see many 20 year old vehicles being used as daily drivers because they've been designed to be discarded - not repaired and operated indefinitely. Electric cars have such a drastically reduced parts count and use higher reliability components which may allow them to be repaired and operated much longer than gas burners.
Tesla cars are a direct attack on planned obsolescence, just as much as they are an attack on burning fossil fuels. The problem for Tesla is that once they have a certain percentage of the market share their sales will significantly decrease because their cars will last so long. One way for them to combat this is to own a nation-wide super charging network that will only charge cars that are covered by an active warranty. I suspect that Tesla will happily sell extended warranties indefinitely, which will probably also require an inspection and replacement of certain components - like below-spec or older and riskier batteries. It's been a while since I've watched any "Rich Rebuilds" Youtube videos, but I recall him having some crazy issues in trying to utilize superchargers on cars that he's resurrected, which is probably just a bit of foreshadowing.
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I don't disagree with your overall point, but there are plenty of 1999 vehicles on the road as daily drivers today, even in areas where road salt is still used in the winter (historically the toughest test). The turning point in long-term automobile reliability came with the designs introduced in 1993-1996.
The viability of the auto dealership model depending on service revenue is another serious challenge for the industry.
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The turning point in long-term automobile reliability came with the designs introduced in 1993-1996.
IMO it's the corrosion protection methods adopted in the eighties. Cars of the 70s tended to rust out easy AF. You can fix anything but rust is the biggest PITA.
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The 'Cash for Clunkers' really thinned the old car herd. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]
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The problem for Tesla is that once they have a certain percentage of the market share their sales will significantly decrease because their cars will last so long.
For people to discover a Tesla car lasts decades will take decades, because.... well just because. This realization will come on slowly and therefore give plenty of time for Tesla, and the automotive industry as a whole, to adjust.
This will not happen for a very long time. Everyone will see this coming. There will be competition arising for longer lasting vehicles. There is still plenty of growth in the market for privately owned automobiles in the world. Thinking that Tesla will become it's own worst
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you clearly know nothing about cars. Firstly, there are plenty of 90s-00s cars on the road in the west. There is no rust to kill them. Second, the reason people get new cars isn't because their current one breaks. It is because the constant barrage of auto advertising convinces them for some vague reasons, that they need a new one. This feeling eats away at the person until they trade in their 5 year old car for a Brand New Car. Thus rolling their debt over and making profit for the auto companies.
Then the
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I think it will add about 20% range as these cells can be run to 100% DOD... something you just don't do with current cells due to degradation...
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That's not planned obsolescence, that's mechanical parts behaving according to the laws of nature. Moving parts inevitably deteriorate over time because friction induces wear.
Planned obsolescence would be to engineer parts to break after the warranty period (which does not happen, cars last 20+ years, not the 3-6 of their warranty period), or to not make replacement parts available (parts get rare and more expensive for really old cars, but this is never a problem for just-out-of-warranty cars).
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Tesla cars are designed as software first with some car hardware attached to it. If longevity ever become a problem for Tesla, they will just roll out an over-the-air patch. Just like Apple where they degraded performance of old phones.
Let's see it commercialized (Score:2)
All of the automakers, all of the drug companies, all technology companies, heck all restaurants with a creative chef have technology in their development group that could revolutionize their market or even the world. 98% of that technology, at least, turns out not to be practically usable in the real world. Tesla is building great electric cars and has pushed the rest of the world to advance the engineering and incremental improvements without a doubt, but Telsa/Musk's record on revelations of world-shatt
Worthless (Score:4, Interesting)
...to me, at least. Our car just cracked 100,000 km, after 17 years.
Yes, many customers will be thrilled and some made possible that were not possible before; but for a lot of us, there's no added value.
It's very possible that the future will have a whole new paradigm, where your choice of a car won't just be about whether you want a subcompact, an SUV, a truck -- but whether you want the battery system that recharges faster, holds more range, or has a longer commercial life. The three may have tradeoffs so large that different products will be sold.
Sounds like it would be perfect for you (Score:2)
100k in 17 years? That works out to roughly 5,900 miles per year or 16 miles per day.
Imagine, in that time you would have only had to replace two sets of tires, no gas, no oil changes, etc.
Minimal infrastructure costs as you wouldn't need a special charger, just with that low amount of driving per day, you could just run an extension cord to keep it charged.
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Those are km - not miles. It works out to ~10 miles per day. This is typical for someone who can walk / bike to work. It amounts to weekend driving, the occasional "I am running late" days, and possibly a summer trip or two. But it would be hard to fit kids into that budget unless you lived across from a school.
But how much would you save with electric? Nothing... At these distances and with the reliability of modern petrol engines - gas is still the much cheaper option. Things will change if elec
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But it would be hard to fit kids into that budget unless you lived across from a school.
In most countries kids go to school with bikes, by bus or walk.
It is extremely uncommon that kids get brought by the parents in a car. Picked up perhaps, but that is also not that common as many schools are not whole day schools and kids et home before the parents.
You weren't factoring in the other advancements (Score:2)
...to me, at least. Our car just cracked 100,000 km, after 17 years.
And if your car had full self driving ability, such that you could have it act as a taxi when you were not using it?
That could put a lot of miles on very quickly.
Tesla mentioned the car being able to last a million miles when they talked about the self driving ability.
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And if your car had full self driving ability, such that you could have it act as a taxi when you were not using it?
I guess the amount of people who are (would be) willing to do that is extremely small. I would give my car to my best friend if he needs it, but not random guys via an app as a taxi, no way in freezing hell.
Talk is cheap. (Score:3)
Bring it -- don't sing it. I'll add you to the list of other battery breakthroughs due to arrive in a few years (list age: 20 years).
New battery tech article eh? I'll collect my $ (Score:2)
I haven't worked in 20 years and shouldn't need to work for 20 more.
I just get paid a dollar, every time a new amazing battery tech article is put out. I don't know what to do with all the money. (well, except keep replacing my batteries unfortunately, these things never seem to last)
TLDR (Score:2)
Re:TLDR (Score:5, Insightful)
Your fear of lithium ion battery explosion is keeping you strapped into a metal box that is harnessing thousands of explosions per minute and carrying between 30-80L of highly flammable liquid in a 2.7mm thick container, sitting maybe a foot from the roadway, racing by at 100km/h, and which could be covered in any sort of shrapnel that some idiot tried to tie down with twine to the roof of their civic.
Makes perfect sense to me!
Re: Batteries? Again? Really? (Score:5, Insightful)
Riiiiight. No progress at all. Whereas my 2015 Zoe has a 22kWh battery and my 2018 Zoe has a 40kWh battery in the same space and for the same weight, due to battery advances.
Re: Batteries? Again? Really? (Score:4, Informative)
Yup. 1st gen range was 90 miles. 2nd gen 186. 3rd is 242. Battery volume and weight is essentially unchanged, itâ(TM)s all down to better chemistry plus motor efficiencies.
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all down to better chemistry plus motor efficiencies. ... electric engines did not change much last 100 years (yes, 100, not 10)
Nope
There are special cases where we use special winding of the wires or switched to Neodymium for magnets etc. leading to smaller engines which are lighter. In industrial applications we have exotic engines driven by power frequency or are basically stepper engines.
However efficiency as in "99%" of the power goes into motion: has not changed at all in centuries.
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I shouldn't have used the word efficiency. I meant exactly what you said -- they've made the motor smaller and lighter.
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Oh, I only answered because the "thermo dynamics morons" on this site have no clue about physics in general.
We can certainly agree that engines in itself improved.
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How does that contradict what I said? I said "essentially unchanged". 15kg is a 5% increase, ie completely negligible.
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The proof is indeed in the pudding... but Musk claims the new batteries are “probably going into production next year”.
https://electrek.co/2019/04/23... [electrek.co]
Of course, Musk and hyperbole are old friends...
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Musk and Dahl definitely belong together.
Re:Cars are one thing... (Score:5, Informative)
You missed the fact that they're talking about battery life not capacity
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Whoosh!
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The truck industry and other heavy vehicles would benefit from it - and there it's going to make a much larger difference.
Also realize that now your phone might survive more re-charging cycles than before.
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It would also be a big win for grid storage and home solar.
When I looked into solar+battery, the solar panels were warrantied for 25 years, and the batteries for 10.
I went with grid-tied solar, with no battery backup.
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Yes - I was seriously looking at nickel-carbon but this might be good enough.
In the nickel-carbon apocalypse scenario there should be plenty of batteries to loot anyway.
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Re: Cars are one thing... (Score:2)
The question is if people get rid of high mileage cars because they are falling apart, or because of some other reason. An EV will have far less maintenance, with the current trade-off being battery lifetime. If this new thing causes the battery lifetime to be extended greatly, the maintenance expense on an EV equipped with that battery may be lessened, causing an increased service lifetime.
There will still be maintenance - ball joints will still fail, tires will still need replacing, etc.; But all those
Re: Cars are one thing... (Score:5, Insightful)
A fair number of people I know tend to replace their cars simply because they want a new one. Sometimes the new car might have some slightly iterative new feature, but often it just seems like they want a new one for - at best - vague reasons.
It’s a lot like the cell phone market, really. And I would hazard to guess Tesla owners will be particularly susceptible to wanting “the new shiny”.
In any case, a battery pack that will last as long as the car itself does would certainly benefit the resale market.
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And I would hazard to guess Tesla owners will be particularly susceptible to wanting “the new shiny”.
One data point: My spouse bought a Tesla in 2015, and already wants a new one.
Re: Cars are one thing... (Score:5, Interesting)
Four years doesn't seem out of the ordinary for people I've known who prefer to always have a new(-ish) car. Which is nice for people like me, who prefer to buy used cars and hang onto them if they continue to run well.
And, since this question occasionally comes up during Slashdot car discussions... I finally replaced the 1993 Escort with a 2015 Toyota Camry this past December. I'll probably keep the Camry for the next decade, at least - so I'm at the opposite end of the spectrum.
Re: Cars are one thing... (Score:2)
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My experience has been that the lease market is the richest source of "fairly new" used cars. They get driven for two to three years, then handed back and the dealer offloads them on the used market.
My 2015 leaf is a fine car in all respects other than range, which is not an issue for me. It's was an ex-lease car, I got it from the dealer and unlike new electric cars, it was cheap.
I like ooo-shiny too. You can get used shiny every two or three years and it's less than half the price of getting new shiny eve
Which means the used car market will saturate (Score:2)
if cars can last 1 million miles of economic lifetime it means that on average no one will have more than 1 car in their lifetime.
note the word average.
It doesn't mean you wont have more that one car but it does mean that cars/people-alive ~1
that means we'll just be trading used cars when we want something different but the average stays fixed.
But that brings up some weird math. If people at the top tier are buying new teslas faster than teslas get totaled in accidents then were going to start running a su
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Or add a new class of Battlebots.
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No. The purpose for making a million mile vehicle that requires very little routine maintenance is to reduce the vehicle's contribution to the cost per mile of driving. But, realistically, vehicles are going to be advancing so much over the next 40 years that they will becoming obsolete sooner rather than later.
There is only one realistic way for the majority to get the payoff in reduced per mile cost of driving for a million mile car. We must drive the cars more than 100K miles per year - preferably around
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Not a single thing you said works if here is no market for new cars. Who is going to buy a new car if their car lasts a million miles? It's not an answer to say well some people will because then you just moved the problem somewhere else (someone else has to buy it and when you get to a certain level of turtles no one is buying because no is replacing what they have).
Now do we have evidence of this. Yes. this is the problem we have right now with emission controls and converting to a new fuel type. You
Unit sales slowdown (Score:2)
Not a single thing you said works if here is no market for new cars. Who is going to buy a new car if their car lasts a million miles?
Ask the trucking industry. Trucks routinely see mileage on that scale and many parts of them carry million mile warranties. A million miles is a lot but it's not infinite. The car bodies will still corrode, accidents will still happen, technology will still improve, and people will simply get bored or have changes in needs. It might mean that people buy fewer new cars but they still will need to buy them at a reasonably steady (though reduced) clip. They'll still get sold by the millions per year - jus
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Maybe we can wind up with the car version of remodeling that's done to houses.
Strip the car to the frame, replace the worst wear items and upgrade specific parts, put in new upholstery and other touch surfaces, and re-sell the car, or some lesser version for a person that wants to keep that specific car.
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it's a symptom of prosperity, so it's a good sign I think.
If people were really hard up, they'd keep their cars and phones longer...I've convinced myself my old car is fine as long as it runs, but if I had more money I just might be one of those people buying a new car every couple of years.
It's nice to have a new car, but then again mine does the job just as well.
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Model 3 owners, maybe, but Model S or Model X owners, probably not; not many people can actually afford to buy a new one every three or four years. Fortunately, the software changes about once a year, so you keep getting some "new shiny" even without buying a new car.
Now people who lease a Tesla, on the other hand....
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I had a Toyota Corolla wagon from 1991 (new) until 2007, when the engine started acting up. But by then the car also had a bunch of dents, including a messed up bumper that a drunk (in his car) had pushed it off the street with. And a couple imminent rust spots (nothing like a car from the 60s or 70s would have had though). And a nick or two in the windshield, presumably from rocks falling off of trucks. And the alignment was getting difficult to adjust, at least so the repair place told me. (Something
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All that said, I recently bought a new Prius, and I almost wish I had spent a little more for an all-electric. Gas engines just have *so* many things that can go wrong these days.
Well, the Prius is the most reliable car I've ever had over the past 30 years (a Toyota usually is pretty reliable by itself but they also gave 8-year factory warranties on the model when it was first sold which is pretty good, because no manufacturer does that if it costs them too much - it means they knew it wouldn't cost all that much).
At 2-3 cents/kilometer total cost of ownership (including fuel) i'm not complaining, in any case.
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Yes and no. Cars have lives measured both in miles and years. A taxi typically runs half a million miles in its lifetime. And with the move towards vehicles on demand, that's likely to become more the norm, rather than the exception, for a lot of cars.
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Uh? The new battery lasts longer, but it doesn't have greater energy storage capacity.
We don’t even know if they have the same storage capacity. The article didn’t seem to say anything about that, just how many recharge cycles it could handle.
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I would, so would a lot of other people. But they build in planned obsolescence, so you can't. This battery will never see the light of day, if your cellphone battery lasts for 10 years it would really fuck up cellphone sales. The American postal service ordered a fleet of vehicles that would last 30 years, but you and I cannot buy them, they are limited (by law) to the American postal service.
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The car owner will still benefit from the substantially higher resale value.
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I have a feeling the only reason my car won't last 300K miles is because the mechanical bits required by the gasoline burning engine will die.
I'm at 90K right now and the wheels aren't falling off although the check engine light keeps coming on and I keep turning it off. I'm just waiting for it to die so I can buy an electric car.
Why people don't keep cars (Score:2)
Uh? The new battery lasts longer, but it doesn't have greater energy storage capacity. Only benefit is for power fleet vehicles like taxis. Most car owners don't keep their car for 300k miles, which is the current limit.
People don't keep their cars that long primarily because internal combustion engines and related equipment simply don't last that long without heroic levels of maintenance. (along with accidents and corrosion as other leading causes of failure) Honestly it's amazing and a testament to some genius engineering that they last as long as they do given how complicated they are. Electric motors last FAR longer and are far more reliable. A million miles from an electric motor would be very reasonable. There j
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Doesn't that volt have some kind of gearbox? Don't let the fluid go to their recommendation, change it at like 75k. Gearbox fluid change intervals are always overly optimistic. Same for diffs.
Bolt EV != Volt hybrid (Score:2)
Doesn't that volt have some kind of gearbox?
No idea. I don't have a Volt. I have a Bolt EV. Different car. The Bolt EV is all electric with a single gear. FAR simpler and more reliable than the Volt.
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Exception that proves the rule (Score:2)
Or the gas burner was built right.
Has nothing to do with it being "built right". There simply are vastly more failure modes for an ICEV than an BEV. Far more parts and far more moving parts to fail. A typical drivetrain in an ICE has somewhere around 2000 moving parts. A BEV drivetrain has maybe 20. The probabilities are just ridiculously in favor of the vehicle with less parts to fail.
I had an old Nissan cheap as dirt pickup. Thing went 300000 miles w/o little maintenance until the head gasket wore out.
Define "little maintenance". I suspect if you actually provided an accounting you'd find that "little" is not actually so little. Even if nothing brok
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...but where this should really shine is in airplanes! ... and how batteries don't just burn away as they get used.
Ignoring that this development is about battery life, not capacity, there have been plenty [inc.com] of [consumerreports.org] cases [wikipedia.org] where lithium-ion batteries on airplanes have "burned away". (Just sayin'.)
Google: plane+battery+fire [google.com]
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...but where this should really shine is in airplanes!
No, these batteries will not "shine" to power aircraft. Here's a video going through the numbers.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?... [youtube.com]
Really the reason it won't work can be summed up in to two numbers, the energy density of hydrocarbon fuels vs. batteries. For hydrocarbon fuel this energy density is about 40 MJ/kg, and the best batteries we have get at best 1 MJ/kg. Increasing the energy density of batteries to the point they can power transoceanic flight is not trivial. This will not happen any time soon.
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No, electric long haul flights are not yet practical (only short haul), but also no, a simple "energy density of hydrocarbon fuels vs. batteries" is vastly misleading.
Unless you're trying to pick whether to fly around in a puddle of fuel or on the back of a battery cell, an aircraft - or any vehicle - is vastly more than its fuel source. Including things that add mass, many of which are
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Does this change the overall picture for whether long-haul flights are currently viable? No, it happens not to. But the simple naive energy density comparison will frequently give you wrong numbers, and should be avoided.
No, it will not frequently give the wrong numbers. The example you give of a few luxury vehicles ignores the many more mundane cases out there.
If we want to replace petroleum for fuel then we need a new source of hydrocarbons, a source that's carbon neutral and free from pollutants like sulfur. The research from the US Navy is very close in reaching that goal, and doing so at a price we can afford. Once that comes to dominate the market, and it likely will far sooner than battery-electric vehicles will,
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For hydrocarbon fuel this energy density is about 40 MJ/kg, and the best batteries we have get at best 1 MJ/kg.
While it is somewhat true it is comparing apples with oranges.
Hydrocarbon fuel in a turbine is about 42% efficient, so your 40MJ/kg go down to 20MJ/kg.
In a piston engine it is roughly 20% and you end up at 10MJ/kg.
Short distance electric flight is already happening and about to be introduced in wide areas.
If anyone wants to talk about fuel cells and/or hydrogen as a fuel then consider the far simpl
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While it is somewhat true it is comparing apples with oranges.
Hydrocarbon fuel in a turbine is about 42% efficient, so your 40MJ/kg go down to 20MJ/kg.
In a piston engine it is roughly 20% and you end up at 10MJ/kg.
I'm getting the idea that you did not watch the video. The efficiency of the jet engines did not come up in the video because it was not relevant to the way they made the computations. They calculated the power needed to keep the airplane airborne, and the time of a typical flight, and from that computed the weight of batteries required to store that much energy. It appears they were assuming 100% efficiency of the conversion of energy in the battery to the power needed to propel the airplane. In the en
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While it is somewhat true it is comparing apples with oranges. Hydrocarbon fuel in a turbine is about 42% efficient, so your 40MJ/kg go down to 20MJ/kg. In a piston engine it is roughly 20% and you end up at 10MJ/kg.
I'm getting the idea that you did not watch the video. The efficiency of the jet engines did not come up in the video because it was not relevant to the way they made the computations. They calculated the power needed to keep the airplane airborne, and the time of a typical flight, and from that computed the weight of batteries required to store that much energy. It appears they were assuming 100% efficiency of the conversion of energy in the battery to the power needed to propel the airplane. In the end the result was that the weight of the batteries was going to be roughly 10 times the weight of the fuel they currently use. In other words the weight of the batteries would have gone over the capacity of the plane to carry many time over. Or, if the batteries were kept to the weight of the fuel then the plane could not fly much more than a half hour.
I think he was taking issue with your attempt to make batteries look as bad as humanly possible by citing that 40 MJ/kg of energy density to 1 MJ/kg for batteries without mentioning the colossal inefficiency and wastefulness of most hydrocarbon powered engines more than he was finding fault with the calculations in your video. That having been said and you being you, i'm surprised you did not post a lengthy rant about how the aviation industry should be going for nuclear aircraft.
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Maybe airplanes should have battery packs on the bottom used sequentially, and when depleted they drop off and drone-guidance-style glide down to designated collection points.
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Man, and you thought frozen waste from airplane toilets caused a lot of damage....