New Research Promises Electric Car Batteries That Last For a Million Miles (gizmodo.com) 159
A team of battery researchers from Halifax, Nova Scotia's Dalhousie University believes it has come up with a recipe that can make electric car batteries last for a million miles. Gizmodo reports: In a paper published in the The Journal of the Electrochemical Society earlier this month, battery researchers describe a new lithium-ion battery that could potentially power an electric vehicle for over one million miles and over 4,000 charging cycles while only losing about 10 percent of its charging capacity (and vehicle range) as it reaches the end of its lifespan. Most drivers upgrade their rides well before the odometer rolls over to one million, but the new battery tech could be especially useful in vehicles that are on the road around the clock like taxis, shuttles, and even delivery trucks.
Since 2016, the Dalhousie team has actually been conducting its research on improving lithium-ion batteries exclusively for Tesla, but this paper divulges exactly how they came up with a recipe for a million-mile electric car battery by optimizing all of the ingredients, which includes artificial graphite, and then improving the nanostructure of the lithium nickel manganese cobalt oxide to create a crystal structure that's less likely to crack and degrade performance. According to Wired, who spoke to former researchers who worked in the Dalhousie lab, by publishing the most important details of this research, it provides a new performance benchmark for all of the other R&D labs working on improving battery tech, so, ideally, a million miles of battery life is just the beginning. Wired points out that just days after this paper was published, Tesla was awarded a patent for a new electric vehicle battery featuring nearly the exact same chemical makeup as the ones detailed in the research paper.
Since 2016, the Dalhousie team has actually been conducting its research on improving lithium-ion batteries exclusively for Tesla, but this paper divulges exactly how they came up with a recipe for a million-mile electric car battery by optimizing all of the ingredients, which includes artificial graphite, and then improving the nanostructure of the lithium nickel manganese cobalt oxide to create a crystal structure that's less likely to crack and degrade performance. According to Wired, who spoke to former researchers who worked in the Dalhousie lab, by publishing the most important details of this research, it provides a new performance benchmark for all of the other R&D labs working on improving battery tech, so, ideally, a million miles of battery life is just the beginning. Wired points out that just days after this paper was published, Tesla was awarded a patent for a new electric vehicle battery featuring nearly the exact same chemical makeup as the ones detailed in the research paper.
To clarify: that's not on a single charge! (Score:4, Interesting)
Need higher energy density first (Score:3)
It is an impressive feat but not the breakthrough things like cars need. We need more energy density so cars can go further between charges. Something that would double or triple the current standards would be a good step forward.
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Re:Need higher energy density first (Score:5, Insightful)
That is where the future lies: in cheaper batteries. A cheap car with a 120mile range will sell like hotcakes.
Re:Need higher energy density first (Score:4, Insightful)
Bingo.
The #1 effort by the major manufacturers has been getting price down. Thus you get the push to eliminate cobalt from the cathodes, dry electrode manufacturing to eliminate the massive/expensive/energy-sucking vacuum ovens and solvent recovery systems, "gigafactory"-sized plants for economies of scale, etc etc. Getting costs down per kWh is the key.
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If 120 miles is the maximum optimum mileage, it might be on the edge of useful for many people in more extreme climates where cold might run that down to 80 miles. I mean if you have a simple daily commute, that might be good enough. But if you've got a more complex routine, you're kind of at the outer limit for other trips.
I kind of feel like for electric cars to take off the power train has to get to be half of what a ICE power train is so the rest of the car has enough amenities to be appealing to peop
Re: Need higher energy density first (Score:2)
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A cheap car with a 120mile range will sell like hotcakes.
Like the 150 mile range Nissan Leaf [nissanguam.com]? Is that selling "like hotcakes" [extremetech.com]? Fifteen thousand Nissan Leafs were sold in the US in 2018, compared with 146,000 of the Tesla Model 3.
Re: Need higher energy density first (Score:3)
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The $30,000 MSRP for a new Nissan Leaf is $10,000 or more higher than budget compact cars. You can buy a lot of gas for ten thousand dollars -- enough to take your car well over 100k miles.
Maybe it's worth the money, but it currently doesn't meet the criteria of "cheap car with a 120 mile range."
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Sure, if you drive something that gets 35 MPG and pay less than $3/gallon at the pump, you'll break 100k miles without a sweat ...
The Leaf is a small compact car; new gas-powered vehicles in that category get around that 35 MPG figure. Comparing it to a truck doesn't make sense, since if you want a truck you don't buy a Leaf. If you want to buy (or keep your existing) "older car", then you're also not in the market for a brand-new electric car.
For people who are looking for a compact car, then over the lifetime of the car, yes, you probably come out ahead. But you get that advantage because it's not a cheap car. It takes a long ti
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Re:Need higher energy density first (Score:5, Interesting)
They could easily get longer lifespans today if they wanted to. They're prioritizing initial capacity over longevity. It's a conscious decision.
The best thing that could be done without any chemistry changes would be to let people set finer charge controls on their phone. The worst way to abuse a li-ion battery is to charge it to 100% and then leave it sitting around at 100% for long periods of time. Yet that's exactly how almost everyone charges their phone every night. Being able to say, for example, "Bring it up to 85%, then right before my alarm goes off, bring it up to 95%" would greatly increase cellphone battery longevity.
Some laptops (including mine) have something like this, thankfully. When you're at home, you can leave it set to keep the charge level at 50% (optimum). But before you go on a trip, you up it to as high as you want (incl. 100% if you prefer).
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Re:Need higher energy density first (Score:4, Informative)
For long-haul air travel and transoceanic shipping, yes - energy density is king. For electric cars, no - they're currently limited by cost rather than weight. The Model 3 variants are roughly equivalent in weight to their performance and class equivalents from BMW with a full tank. The main thing that prevents using, say, two-cell-thick packs** is not mass - yes, people will still buy the cars if they're somewhat heavier, especially since doubling the cells doubles the power and charge rate (and the cell life, by halving the number of cycles per cell)***. It's cost.
For mainstreaming EVs, cost is king at present. That may change in the future, esp. at the high end (keeping weight down for cornering performance), but for now, it's all about the race to make cells and packs as cheaply as possible per kWh.
** - Two-cell-thick packs, like the upcoming Tesla Roadster, aren't actually double the thickness. The pack itself also adds some thickness overhead regardless of how many cells you stack inside, so it's only a ~60-80% increase in effective thickness. And regardless, most people these days prefer to ride higher off the ground (so long as the ceiling height is also increased to match. There's a small drag area penalty, but it's quite insignificant vs. the pack energy increase. All this said, a given vehicle has to be designed for a pack of a given thickness - you can't just retrofit it after the fact.
*** - It's not exactly "doubling" for any of these, since you are somewhat increasing the energy per unit distance. But it's close to doubling.
Re: Need higher energy density first (Score:2)
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"We need more energy density so cars can go further between charges."
No, that's only one way to solve the range problem. We could have more charging stations
What? That's nonsensical. "More charging stations" does not allow electric cars to "go further between charges".
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What i said: "that's only one way to solve the range problem. We could have more charging stations"
What you said: "What? That's nonsensical. "More charging stations" does not allow electric cars to "go further between charges"."
What you need to do: go back to elementary school and ask them to teach you to read at even a third grade level, let alone what you would expect of an adult, you irrelevant illiterate.
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the most important improvement now is a much, much faster recharge time.
A Tesla can charge to 80% (200 miles) in about 20 minutes.
I have an EV, and range and charging times are not much of a problem. A few times a year I take a trip that requires some pre-planning to map out superchargers next to a nice place to eat or a park where I can take a walk.
But I also save all the time ICE car owners spend at gas stations, which is accumulatively far more over a year.
If you have a frequent need for long trips, then the best solution is DON'T BUY AN ELECTRIC VEHICLE. They are not for
Downsize these batteries for portable devices (Score:4, Insightful)
And of cource, the improved lifespan would also be very useful for home and grid size electric energy storage systems.
portable devices have different compromises (Score:2)
every battery is a compromise between various parameters including single charge capacity, life-time number of charges, size aand safety.
every type of device needs a different compromise point.
car batteries optimise as much as possible for life-time (because nobody needs to buy a car every year oor ssoso) but can afford a little bit more room (there's a whole car floor's worth of space) and in Tesla's case also packs more cooling tech affording safety closer to laptops than industrial power tools (though o
Re: portable devices have different compromises (Score:2)
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nah, they would just raise the price to, say $1000, to compensate for lost sales.
oh, wait...
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No phone manufacturer wants their battery to last forever.
Phone manufacturers really don't think that far ahead, except maybe Apple, which has a more locked-in customer base. Android phone manufacturers are too focused on their competition, and anything that gives a short-term competitive edge will be aggressively pursued. So if long-life batteries are available, some phone manufacturer will adopt them for the competitive edge, and that will force everyone else to adopt them, too. Which will actually force Apple to adopt them as well, because their customer base
What about rates? (Score:4, Informative)
Re:What about rates? (Score:5, Informative)
Performance at various rates is spelled out in the paper.
But not this case.
As the paper says, they charged and discharged at 1C. Nor did they limit the capacity. Each charge was 0%..100%. Capacity drop at 20C after 3,000 cycles was 5% and was linear, meaning if you use the convention "its dead at 80%" the battery lasts 12,000 cycles or over 30 years if deep cycles once per day.
They did a test at 3C [ecsdl.org] too. It appears to show the battery capacity was less at 3C (heat loss maybe?), but if anything degraded less after 3000 cycles.
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Fast charging/discharging kills your cycle count.
I don't think this is true. I think fast charging/discharging generates a lot of heat, which kills your cycle count, if not removed. Good thermal management seems to eliminate most, if not all, of the fast charge/discharge damage. This is why a Tesla charging at 120 kW sounds like a jet engine, because the car is working really hard to move the heat out as it moves the juice in.
Great Scott! (Score:3)
SWEET! Another $ in my massive bank account. (Score:2, Troll)
Another day, another $SUPERBATTERY article! I'm loving it!
I also get paid $1 per article on $FUTURISTICSTORAGEMEDIUM-HUGE as well, it's pretty great. I've been retired for 10 years . . . .
Sounds like a better fit for a whole house battery (Score:2)
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The battery can be taken out of the car and put into a house any time. In fact that was the business plan for powerwall but Tesla can't get enough used packs because the enthusiast scene is consuming them all. A model S pack for example breaks up into multiple (5?) 24v lithium packs around 5 kWh (about 4.4 usable.) So they are being used in vehicle solar systems. They cost about $1100-1250 which makes them by far the cheapest thing worth using. Even cheaper than leaf packs, and you don't have to dick with c
Not the Answer (Score:3, Insightful)
Tesla S battery, the big one, about $90K, powers car 300 miles which is marginally competitive with a gasoline car.
Battery lasts 1,000,000 miles.
9 cents per mile to replace the battery.
100 miles of driving is then $9 toward battery replacement.
30 mpg car burning $2.10 / gallon regular gas costs $6.99 to drive the 100 miles.
Gasoline car still cheaper to drive than just the replacement costs for the battery. Add in the 100 KwH for a charge that will last 300 miles at 12 1/2 cents per KwH (around here) and that is $12.50 / 300 miles or $4.17 / 100 miles or 4.17 cents per mile on top of the 9 cents per mile to replace the battery. 13.17 cents per mile for electric, 6.99 cents per mile for gasoline. Hmmmm....
Still need much cheaper battery.
Of course, the electric car doesn't need, in say 200,000 miles of ownership, 2 brake pad changes, just one at $400 / axle for a $800 charge or 0.4 cents per mile, 20 oil changes at $65 / change for synthetic that will last 10K miles for $1,300 or 0.65 cents per mile, 2 timing belt changes at $1,300 per change for $2,600 or 1.3 cents per mile, no engine replacement after rings / pistons become loose in their bores from wear, maybe 300K miles for that, at - what? - $5K for the exchange for 1.66 cents per mile. So, ICE engined car adds 4 cents per mile for routine maintenance items to add to its approximately 7 cents per mile for a total cost of 11 cents per mile, still cheaper than electric's 13.77 cents per mile. 2.77 cents per mile difference for 200,000 miles is $5,540 more for electric over 200,000 mile life of the car, or at least where I usually trade cars at 200,000 miles usually 'cuz everything else is falling apart - new shocks, new power steering pump, hoses, brake pads, water pump, alternator, etc. At least the electric won't have an alternator or water pump, costs I didn't factor into the equation above. The electric MIGHT rival the 30 mpg car if those expenses are factored in, I'm not going to calculate it. Its close, with the big benefits of driving the electric being the head-snapping acceleration and reliability - it won't lunch the MAF sensor and be down for a week that it took the mechanics to get a new one and install it on my last car. But cheaper? Not quite. A bit more expensive.
Yeah, I'd buy it. But if you're looking for frugal, it won't be achieved by this battery unless the price of the battery comes down. A lot.
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Out of interest, in the UK, that comes out as
45 mpg car burning $6.00 / gallon regular gas costs $13.33 to drive the 100 miles.
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You were wrong before you finished your first sentence.
The Tesla Model S sedan is $75K, the battery pack is (obviously) cheaper than that.
The Tesla Model 3 battery pack costs $3-6K and last 300,000-500,000 miles. [interestin...eering.com]
I look forward to your revised calculation based on real numbers - you know what, I'll just do it for you, you're probably very busy:
Tesla Model 3 battery, the big one, about $6K, powers car 300 miles which is marginally competitive with a gasoline car.
Battery lasts 500,000 miles.
1.2 cents per mile to replace the battery.
100 miles of driving is then $1.20 toward battery replacement.
There, that makes more sense.
Average regular gas price in US is $2.654/gal (Score:3)
Going up to $3.337/gal on the West Coast. [eia.gov]
I.e. That calculation of "30 mpg car burning $2.10 / gallon regular gas" is actually somewhere between $7.84 and $11.12 per 100 miles.
Or between 7.84 and 11.12 cents per mile.
So that estimate is between 12% and 59% lower than the actual costs.
Being generous and applying the same error to the other estimates above, makes that 4 cents per mile estimate more like between 4.48 and 6.36 cents per mile.
Which ads up to between 12.32 and 17.48 cents per mile. Or 14.9 cents p
This is great news (Score:2)
Tesla needs this for powerwalls .... (Score:2)
Sure, it'll be a great battery upgrade for Tesla's electric vehicles. But the place I see the longer life battery pack really being useful is for the PowerWall battery storage units Tesla sells.
Right now, a PowerWall isn't really a cost-effective option to keep a house powered throughout a power outage because not only is the up-front cost high, but then you're looking at the whole question of how many years they'll last before they start losing charging capacity. (A mortgage on a new house is typically 3
Re:But how many YEARS? (Score:5, Informative)
ICE engines and transmissions most definitely have a finite lifespan. Can you name one that still runs with a million miles on it?
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Just one? Sure: https://www.youtube.com/watch?... [youtube.com]
There are more, but searching the web for others isn't my job.
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Anything in a tractor-trailer/18 wheeler, many volvos, land rovers, etc.
Re: But how many YEARS? (Score:3)
many volvos, land rovers
Sure; Volvos built before the nineties and Land Rovers built fucking never.
Crackhead.
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The only good thing I heard about any modern Land Rovers, is that ones with Ford engines are mostly fine.
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1962 Kenworth with 8 million miles: https://www.youtube.com/watch?... [youtube.com]
4 million mile volvo P1800: https://www.youtube.com/watch?... [youtube.com]
A handful of other million-mile plus cars of all various manufacture: https://carbuzz.com/features/a... [carbuzz.com]
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Re:But how many YEARS? (Score:5, Interesting)
With the engine block itself, not necessarily replaced, but at least rebored. Lots of other parts will have to be replaced, however. You can keep an ICE running indefinitely, but it increasingly becomes a Ship of Theseus.
Trying to "repair" an EV battery pack isn't generally realistic, but you can generally swap battery modules rather than the whole pack. Even if you replace a whole pack, you've got the tailwind of time behind you. For example, when Tesla released a replacement battery pack for the original Roadster, it was half the cost and had 40% more range.
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Depends when and how it fails. Friend had a fuel pump recently fail in a horrible spot on the highway. I had a transmission die a couple of miles from home, both can be a big hassle.
There's also how long to fix. Seems replacing a battery pack would be quicker then rebuilding an engine or tranny.
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The car is in great condition... except that this one comes from a series plagued by rust, so it will not last and we will have to replace it next year probably. But if it wasn't for that, I'd spend €5000 on an engine rebuild to keep it going.
I had a 2008 Suburban that had engine troubles, but it had a great ride and the interior was in great shape, so I swapped in a rebuilt engine. 3 months later an older woman driving at midnight without her headlights on ran a red light and t-boned the suburban when my son was driving home from work. Everyone was fine, but as soon as the insurance adjuster saw that the air bags deployed, the car was totaled on the spot - seems the airbags cost more to replace than the car was worth.
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Re: But how many YEARS? (Score:2)
It's called "stated value" coverage. I have it on a marginal collector car I own (50 year-old mustang), and there is NO detailed appraisal. I simply declare the value of the car I choose ($16K), and the premiums are calculated on that basis, and repair vs total decisions are based on my stated value.
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, after 200 000 miles the value of a car is pretty much equal to scrap value, it's EOL in every way that matters, from there on it makes more sense to get a new one rather than keep the old one going.
Only if your eventual goal is resale. If you're going to buy a "normal" new car you're looking at a $275 to 500 monthly payment. For a decent simple used car, a $150 to 300 payment. Now keep in mind that on any financed car you have to keep full coverage insurance whereas on an old clunker you can just keep liability insurance. So not only are you avoiding that payment, but you're also saving $75 to $100 per month in insurance.
So basically by having an old beater you are saving the above amounts, minus
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Sure there is a reason: if switching to a different vehicle reduces fuel and maintenance costs.
Which is one of the main advantages of electrification.
IF an old electric vehicle exists that meets one's needs, it's highly likely to have the lowest TCO on the market. For example, the TCO on old Leafs is extremely low. That said, note the IF - old Leafs are only useful as in-town commuter vehicles. They weren't particularly good even when new.
However every year, what's available on the used market at a given p
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Sure there is a reason: if switching to a different vehicle reduces fuel and maintenance costs.
Who cares if maintenance is $200 a year as opposed to $1000 if you also go from $0 a month in payments to $200-300 a month. My 04 F150 w/ 120k miles I got from my grandfather might cost me $100 a month in gas but there's no car note with it so overall it's cheaper than getting a newer, more efficient car.
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I think you are seriously underestimating the cost of any 30k+ car. A 5 year(60 payments) 0% interest rate on 30K is 500/mo. So yes, you are far better off paying a few extra hundred a year (or even a couple of K) to keep your old car than swapping for a new lower maint/run cost one.
I was being generous, and also assuming purchase of a "newer" used car as a replacement. I don't endorse buying new cars. Personally, I'll keep the truck for a few years then purchase a lower mileage used car, letting me get that 30k+ car for a price closer to -20k. For example last year we bought my wife a 7 year old BMW X3 with about 70k miles for roughly 1/3-1/4 the price of a new car and it should run for the next 10-15 years no problem.
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He may be underestimating it (and believe me I'm on the side of avoiding a car payment), but a couple of notes:
1. It's pretty common to finance for 6 years (72 payments) instead of 5 these days, and the last time I bought a car they really wanted to push a 76-payment term for lower payments.
2. Typically you'll have a down payment of 5-10%, so knock that amount off the financed price.
3. You don't have to get a $30k car. Even for new cars there are plenty in the ~$15k price range (eg, Toyota Yaris, Honda Fi
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$400 a month for a used Leaf? What world are you shopping for used Leafs in? You're comparing to a new EV. Comparing a new car to a used car is never a fair comparison.
Now back up and re-read my initial post and note the heavily-emphasized "IF".
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Can you name one that still runs with a million miles on it?
I specifically wrote "But how many YEARS?", and you responded with the typical miles counter-argument.
Lithium batteries just die sitting on the shelf. I've lost count of the number of things I've owned that are now inoperable due to lithium batteries that died due to old age, not due to too many charge cycles. I very much expect the batteries for my DJI drones will suffer a similar fate, where they'll be too degraded to due age well before the charge cycle count becomes a problem.
You can store an ICE vehi
Re:But how many YEARS? (Score:5, Interesting)
First off, they're lithium-ion batteries. That's not just a nitpick; lithium batteries are an entirely different, also common, technology (most commonly seen as little button cells). "Lithium" even takes longer to write than "li-ion". There's no reason to get this wrong.
Secondly, lithium-ion batteries have wildly different chemistries, with greatly varying properties. The properties are chosen based on how long the manufacturer wants their product to last, because every single decision involves tradeoffs. You design to the task at hand. To be more specific, cell phone and laptop batteries are (at least historically) generally LCO. Bus batteries are generally LFP. EV batteries are generally NMC or NCA (similar chemistries). There's half a dozen others, and even within them, there can be radical differences. Some chemistries, like the titanates, have crazy longevity / durability properties - check out the stats on, say, the SCiB family.
Third, the worst thing that can be done to a li-ion battery is to store it at 100% charge. Which is how most small electronics' batteries are stored, but not EVs. Indeed, EVs actually lock off the top of their charge range, so that what appears as 100% isn't actually 100%. The problem with storing a battery at or near 100% is that the more tightly packed the anode (generally graphite or amorphous carbon, sometimes with some silicon) is with intercalated lithium ions, the more reactive it becomes with the electrolyte. Small electronics also don't climate-control their batteries - just the opposite, they're often left right next to electronic components that get hot. And the charge control systems are primitive compared to those in EVs.
Fourth, there've been massive advancements over the years with li-ion batteries' longevity, with a particular emphasis on shelf-life issues, to the point that with a proper BMS, it's almost always cycle life that's your limiting factor, not shelf life. That said, see point #2.
Complaining that your cell phone battery died after a couple years and as a consequence, surely EVs will as well, is like complaining that your pencil broke after writing with it for a couple weeks, so surely a home built out of 2x4s will also. After all, they're both made out of wood, right?
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Cool for storage is good. Optimum storage charge is generally around 50%.
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Then you've been wrong when describing the various types and chemistries used in the portable electronics you've owned.
They literally, demonstrably do, so you should find something to assert that's not in flat contradiction to the real world
Re: But how many YEARS? (Score:2)
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There's a couple people on the school bus conversation follow failbook group I'm in who are truckers, and one of them just rolled over s million miles on his rig. I've heard of a few OM617s which have pulled it off, and those are parent bore light duty engines.
However, you usually want to replace a car long before a million miles. Rust is often the limiting factor. Parts availability is also a big issue.
Re:But how many YEARS? (Score:4, Interesting)
Batteries (the subject of this story) ARE NOT the same as engines.
The electric motors in a battery-powered car ARE comparable to IC engine in a conventional car.
A four thousand charge/discharge cycle life for the battery would last an average driver almost 40 years (assuming they completely discharge the battery twice a week, so about 100/cycles per year, for 40 years).
Cost is what I'm curious about - with that kind of operational life-span, it would make sense to have the batteries on an easily-removable sled, so when the body of your current car starts to deteriorate, you can buy a new body/drive train and add your current battery pack.
It might make sense to break auto loans into two parts - one, a ten year loan for the battery pack, and a shorter (5 year) loan for the body, cabin, and drive train. (Of course, it would be interesting to watch someone reposses the battery sled and the the car body/drivetrain!)
Re:But how many YEARS? (Score:4, Informative)
https://cleantechnica.com/2018... [cleantechnica.com]
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The battery is really comparable to the fuel tank, and replacing the fuel tank of an ICE vehicle is not a common occurrence.
I replaced one on a 1982 car in 2006, because the old tank had become rusty.
A battery is also much more expensive than a fuel tank...
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First you say a battery will last a driver 40 years, and then you want the battery to be easily changable? Why?
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because the battery will last longer then the car, his idea is that you can take transfer the battery between cars.
take the battery form your old car and put it in your new car, no need to buy a new battery with your car since your old one is still great quality.
this would lower the costs of electric cars dramatically since, arguably, the battery is one of the most expensive parts of the car.
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because the battery will last longer then the car, his idea is that you can take transfer the battery between cars. take the battery form your old car and put it in your new car, no need to buy a new battery with your car since your old one is still great quality. this would lower the costs of electric cars dramatically since, arguably, the battery is one of the most expensive parts of the car.
Except that batteries are likely to continue improving. I expect few BEV batteries will see service in more than one vehicle. Instead, when the vehicle wears out, I expect BEV batteries to be recycled as home and/or grid power storage.
As an aside: I really want to see BEVs start shipping with adapters that allow the car's battery to connect to a home-scale grid-tie inverter, so that when the power goes out the house can run from the vehicle battery.
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It might make sense to break auto loans into two parts - one, a ten year loan for the battery pack, and a shorter (5 year) loan for the body, cabin, and drive train.
IIRC, Renault did something not-quite-similar: they give you the option of buying the car sans battery, and lease the battery from them separately (you can also opt to buy the battery outright). This helps defray the high cost of their EV, and alleviates fears about short battery life. And if the batteries do turn out to last a lot longer than expected (and longer than their cars), they could further drop the cost of leasing them.
Re: But how many YEARS? (Score:2)
Re: But how many YEARS? (Score:2)
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A four thousand charge/discharge cycle life for the battery would last an average driver almost 40 years (assuming they completely discharge the battery twice a week, so about 100/cycles per year, for 40 years).
That's not how you use EV batteries. You basically never completely discharge them (even as far as the car will allow), and you also almost never charge them all the way to full. They tend to cycle between about 40% and 80% state of charge. You also don't go through those cycles once or twice per week (the way you might fill an ICEV tank once or twice per week), rather you do it daily. You plug the car in every night and let it charge up to 80% or so, then you drive it around, depleting down to 40% or s
Re: But how many YEARS? (Score:2, Interesting)
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Re:But how many YEARS? (Score:4, Funny)
The average age of a car in the USA is approximately 12 years [cnet.com], and many of us own (or know people who own) vehicles older than that.
Hi there.
Re:But how many YEARS? (Score:5, Insightful)
For now. As they become more ubiquitos, as they become more efficient, as they become more long-lasting, the price will drop, the profitability will level out, and they'll become as cheap as serviceable ICE junkyard parts now. It's just growing pains. 50 years from now no one will give it a second thought, and ICEs will be the expensive, hobbyist, boutique, antique technology, except maybe for very specific applications, and maybe not even those.
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"I'd like to mention that the exact opposite has happened with central air conditioning systems. The fucking things keep getting more expensive and less reliable, because the enviro-nazis keep dictating how the industry should be operating. I should know, it's been my trade industry since I was 18."
So are you just bitching about sealing a smaller molecule or is there something substantive in your argument? Because from where I'm sitting AC systems haven't changed much over the years. Even a heat pump is jus
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No, he's right about central air conditioners getting more expensive and less reliable, but not entirely right about the cause. They're getting more expensive, aside from the fact that everything is, mainly because they're getti
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Get one out of a heavy automotive application, they are built to last. Then you just need to come up with your own motor. The Trans/Air system in our bus is totally old school down to a pair (!?) of sumped Frigidaire compressors. ISTR it was about 5T in capacity, I swear I wrote that down somewhere. I managed to find literally all the parts in the system in their catalog, too (except the plastics, which are all out of production.)
I've never worked in the industry, but I got an ASE cert in automotive AC that
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I'd like to mention that the exact opposite has happened with central air conditioning systems.
I can confirm, modern energy efficient AC systems are garbage insofar as reliability when compared to the old systems (i.e. Freon/R-12 refrigerants). It isn't unusual to find 80s-era cars with still working AC. Hardly anything made since they switched to R-134 lasted half as long and universally 2000s-era cars have dead AC. The same is true for house ACs.
Try Ring TFA (Score:3)
I'm so tired of hearing the EV fanboys crow loudly about how many miles you can get out of EV's battery before it reaches EOL. An ICE has no finite lifespan limit due to age. The average age of a car in the USA is approximately 12 years, and many of us own (or know people who own) vehicles older than that. I have (and still regularly use) a work van built back in 1999. It is still on its original engine and transmission.
If you'd read TFA (in this case, the linked summary of the journal article), you'd know
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There are ICEs running around with a million miles WITHOUT A REBUILD. They are few in number, but they exist.
However, statistically nobody stays on top of maintenance to the level necessary to keep a vehicle going like that. Not only do you have to be religious about scheduled maintenance, but you have to address any new problem immediately. An oil leak will destroy things it leaks on. A new vibration is a sign of component failure, often a sagging bushing which will bring things out of alignment and cause
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tesla patent (Score:5, Interesting)
summary mentions Tesla filing a patent for in car use of such chemistry.
Seems like they are serious about putting into use soonish.
It might not linger 20 years on your list this time.
(as do other list items, which might not have been put in market as-is the next year, but might have found their way into modern tech after 5-10years in a compromise between capacity/long life/volume/safety)
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I like your optimism, but lets remember that nowadays companies file patents often to keep other people from using an idea more than they do for plans to exploit it themselves.
Level of technology preparedness (Score:3)
Tesla is in the market of selling cars (well technically. In practice if you look at their cash flow, they're in the market of building factories, which they finance by giving you a huge 100kWh battery pack to thank you for financing them, and throw in a complimentary cheap car bolted on top of the battery while they're at it).
Cars are object that last for very long time (decades).
Thus they have a very strong incentive of making the parts of the cars they sell able to survive those decades, even more so for
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Most cars do not last decades. The average age of the American fleet is about 11 years, and in all other developed nations it's shorter (they have meaningful inspection programs to weed out the rust buckets.)
Even buses and big rigs are expected to last only about two decades, or even less.
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A big rig (18 wheeler tractor) does about 100,000 miles/year, so after 20 years that's how many miles?
School buses have their useful lives cut short by federal programs that incentivize school districts to unload buses after 10 years.
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"School buses have their useful lives cut short by federal programs that incentivize school districts to unload buses after 10 years."
California is a way bigger threat to buses than the feds. When you get money from the state for emissions compliance you have to hole engine blocks and, if full buses are being replaced and not simply repowered, also cut the frames as well! These buses could be going down to Latin America and replacing shittier older buses down there, improving emissions elsewhere, but Califo
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on the other hand, tesla has been making their (battery) patents free for all to use;
https://www.tesla.com/blog/all... [tesla.com]
Re:If this means less spontaneous combustion... (Score:4, Insightful)
It's surprising how many "think" electric cars are dangerous because they heard about a fire in Moscow. The reality is that's such a rare event that when it occurs it makes *global* news.
In contrast gas cars catch fire at a rate of over 150 per day in the US [cleantechnica.com]. That's such a common event that it only makes *local* news if it shut down traffic, such as this one here in Houston [chron.com]..
"think" in quotes because it's likely the coward's part of a disinformation campaign [evtv.me].