Samsung's New EV Battery Tech: 600-Mile Ranges, and 9-Minute Charges? (pcmag.com) 126
"Samsung's latest solid-state battery technology will power up premium EVs first, giving them up to 621 miles of range," writes PC Magazine:
The new batteries — which promise to improve vehicle range, decrease charging times, and eliminate risk of battery fires — could go into mass production as soon as 2027. Multiple automakers have been reportedly testing samples. Samsung did not list any by name but it's worked with Hyundai, Stellantis, and General Motors, among others. "We supplied samples to customers from the end of last year to the beginning of this year and are receiving positive feedback," Samsung SDI VP Koh Joo-young said at SNE Battery Day 2024 in Seoul, according to Korean outlet The Elec and translated by Google.
Perhaps unsurprisingly, the batteries won't be cheap. They will initially go in "super premium EVs" and will offer 900 to 1,000 kilometers (559-621 miles) of range and improved safety... Samsung's presentation also reiterated previously announced plans to create batteries that can charge in nine minutes and last 20 years by 2029.
More details from Notebookcheck: According to Samsung SDI's VP, automakers are interested in its solid-state battery packs because they are smaller, lighter, and much safer than what's in current electric cars. Apparently, they are also rather expensive to produce, since it warns that they will first go into the "super premium" EV segment. Those Samsung defines as luxury electric cars that can cover more than 600 miles on a charge.
Samsung's oxide solid-state battery technology is rated for an energy density of about 500 Wh/kg, which is about double the density of mainstream EV batteries. Those have capacities that already allow more than 300 miles on a charge, so 600 miles of range in a similar footprint is not out of the question, but the issue is production costs.
Thanks to Slashdot reader npetrov for sharing the news.
Perhaps unsurprisingly, the batteries won't be cheap. They will initially go in "super premium EVs" and will offer 900 to 1,000 kilometers (559-621 miles) of range and improved safety... Samsung's presentation also reiterated previously announced plans to create batteries that can charge in nine minutes and last 20 years by 2029.
More details from Notebookcheck: According to Samsung SDI's VP, automakers are interested in its solid-state battery packs because they are smaller, lighter, and much safer than what's in current electric cars. Apparently, they are also rather expensive to produce, since it warns that they will first go into the "super premium" EV segment. Those Samsung defines as luxury electric cars that can cover more than 600 miles on a charge.
Samsung's oxide solid-state battery technology is rated for an energy density of about 500 Wh/kg, which is about double the density of mainstream EV batteries. Those have capacities that already allow more than 300 miles on a charge, so 600 miles of range in a similar footprint is not out of the question, but the issue is production costs.
Thanks to Slashdot reader npetrov for sharing the news.
New battery, same old story (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
I tend to believe Samsung when they announce stuff. Samsung may not be perfect, but if they can build tanks and provide the means of defense for a country that is always under siege, they can build batteries that work well enough. They generally know what they are doing, for the most part. (Not saying they are perfect, but I'd take them over a lot of other companies any day for announcements.)
Charge Times Always Seem to Bite Back... (Score:5, Insightful)
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But a nine minute charge time is pretty awesome
THIS. 9 minutes at Buc-ee's? 6 min to use the toilets. 2 min to fill a slurpee. 1 min to check out.
Oh hey, my car is charged. On my way I go.
Re: (Score:2, Funny)
30-50 minutes waiting in line for a charger.
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30-50 minutes waiting in line for a charger.
Yeah if you read nothing but Fox News you may think that. The reality is most chargers have zero lines, and when somewhere in the country a charger is full the media pounces on it to spread FUD.
Re: (Score:2)
ANd if you can really charge in 9 minutes, any wait that you would have now will be a fraction of the current time. In fact if you need In fact avg wait time should be size_of_line/number_of_chargers*4.5 minutes. So you'd almost never be waiting more than 5. minutes.
Re: Charge Times Always Seem to Bite Back... (Score:2)
Chargers have zero lines because total ev adoption in the US is at less than 1%, and the vast, vast, vast majority of those evs are 2nd or 3rd vehicles in the household, not the primary vehicle.
Why? (Score:2)
30-50 minutes waiting in line for a charger.
Why? If the claims are true (and I have to say that I remain sceptical) then you'll have a range a refueling time comparable to an ICE. At this point the major hurdle preventing large-scale adoption of EVs will be gone and adoption will take-off rapidly leading to construction of more chargers. After all, it is much easier to build an EV charge station than a petrol station. There may be some short-term mismatch in chargers to EVs that cause problem but it is unlikely to last long..._if_ this new battery i
Re: (Score:2)
Funny thing is I've never had to wait more than 5 minutes for a charger, ever.
You just have to use the tools available to you. On a trip you will have a choice of chargers (at least in Europe, the US may need to catch up) and there are plenty of apps with live usage info. Just pick one that isn't too busy.
Exactly the same way as you avoid high traffic areas and queues, or even the petrol station at peak times. I did have had to wait half an hour for petrol once, but now avoid that time. This was before Goog
tools (Score:2)
>You just have to use the tools available to you.
uhm . . . outside of Texas, it's frowned upon to use your six-shooter to "acquire" a charging space from the incumbent vehicle! :)
Re: (Score:2)
Some ancestor poster did mention Buc-ee's though. (I'm only familiar with the one at New Braunfells. Which doesn't seem likely to have queues, if extrapolating from the number of petrol pumps.)
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Some charger spots also surcharge EVs parked in a spot but not taking a charge to create an incentive to get them to move.
Personally, I'm interested in an Plug-in Hybrid because EVs are expensive and th
Re: (Score:2, Troll)
6 min to use the toilets. 2 min to fill a slurpee. 1 min to check out.
I'm happy with 14minute charge times I already have in my car. That's 6min to use the toilets. 2min to fill a slurpee. 5 minutes to drink the slurpee . 1 min to check out.
People who eat and drink in their car are gross.
Re: (Score:2)
Frankly I've always accepted a 45 minute to 80% charge time as the benchmark. It's time for lunch and to kick around while your car gets to about four hour of travel time.
If you like fast food. Too much time to spend in a convenience store. Not enough time for a proper restaurant meal unless you go move your car during your dinner so you are not hogging the charger..
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This is why I'd go with lvl 2 chargers in the restaurant parking lot rather than fast chargers.
That, or you give them fast charge capability - but oversell the capacity. IE it might only be able to operate 2-3 chargers as fast chargers (IE 250kW+), but have 10+ charging stations capable of it. The idea is that if a really low car comes in, it can get charged up quick, but otherwise, you're looking at ~1 hour to reach a good charge, giving you a nice easy charge and still time to eat dinner without having
Re: (Score:2)
I've used a rental Polestar 2 and found that 50kW chargers were "pretty fast" in most cases. Like it's enough to (almost) fully charge in an hour if you weren't completely empty.
That would be annoying on a highay stop but about perfect to have a lunch or do some shopping or something.
Re: (Score:2)
> Not enough time for a proper restaurant meal unless you go move
>your car during your dinner so you are not hogging the charger..
I've long wondered why Tesla in particular doesn't have a dropoff zone, at which point the local controller drives the car from drop to charger, and then to pickup, notifying the customer when ready.
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I don't want my car driving itself anywhere, ever. No way no how.
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in general, no.
But this would be in a caged off area, without people, and *all* vehicles present moving only at the direction of the controller for the entire site.
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Around 18 minutes to 80% is already the norm for a few years now.
45 minutes is ok if you're going to use the stop to have lunch or whatever, but on longer highway trips you'd be stopping for charing every 1.5 hours and this would get annoying really quickly.
9 minutes pretty much "solves" charging, IMO. That's not that much more than refueling a gas car so I could deal with it even without having a charger at home.
Solid state batteries have been "around the corner" for a while now but it seems they might act
So... (Score:2)
Another "works at tiny scale in a laboratory for short period of time" that pretty much all solid state battery projects have been, or do they actually have anything that can in fact be deployed at scale without costing hilarious amounts to manufacture and that doesn't have horrific cracks wrecking the battery within a few years?
Considering the stories linked are full on the marketing wank and appeals to authority of established brands and exceedingly light on any actual details, this sounds a lot more like
Solid state batteries shipping in products already (Score:2)
Another "works at tiny scale in a laboratory for short period of time" that pretty much all solid state battery projects have been, or do they actually have anything that can in fact be deployed at scale
I've seen on YouTube reviews of portable battery power banks that use real solid state batteries [amazon.com], I think some of the first shipping - so if those are shipping already a 2027 target seems pretty realistic, with slippage of no more than a year - since scaling up banks of batteries is well understood.
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Yes, you can purchase those Yoshino power banks but they are NOT using solid state batteries, despite the description on Amazon.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?... [youtube.com] Overview of the power bank with updates
https://www.youtube.com/watch?... [youtube.com] Thermal runaway result
https://www.youtube.com/watch?... [youtube.com] Thermal runaway result
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"Solid state" in these batteries is marketing wank to increase prices. They're normal lithium ion batteries with liquid electrolyte in them, but Yoshino (manufacturer/marker) claims it's "new electrolyte" and whatnot. That's how they're charging gullible people a hilarious premium on these.
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That guy on youtube is probably Matt Ferrell? He is a clueless hype man that does nothing to test or verify the claim, he just reads out the marketing material. It's a normal lithium battery, there'd be zero reason to put a very expensive solid state battery in a power pack like that.
He keeps getting away with it, here's one of the previous bullshit stories: https://www.youtube.com/watch?... [youtube.com]
KWH/lb (Score:1)
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Needless to say, that's about two straight days (48h) of house charge per fill-up for many people with only a 10A outlet.
Ten amps? Wow. Other than a power strip, unless your house electrical system is ancient, you're not likely to ever see a 10A outlet. 20A has been the norm for residential circuits since at least the early 1990s, and 15A was the norm before that. Of course, this is partially moot if you're sharing power with other outlets, but still....
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I really question how many cars should be built with 600 miles of range. My (gas) SUV does 400 and it's fine. I wouldn't want to pay for 600 miles worth of batteries.
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Well, for least battery wear, though who knows if solid state batteries have the same issue, with lithium ion batteries you want to keep them between 20 and 80% charge. so 600*.6 = 360 miles of actual range. Plus, only charging to 80% allows you to keep to fast charging.
That said, you don't want to run a gasoline engine to 0 anyways, they actually lie and tell you that you're out before you're actually out for this reason. So a 600 mile EV battery would be closer to 480 miles if you want to baby it and p
Again?!? (Score:2, Funny)
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If I had a kilowatt-hour for every article that announced a battery breakthrough, I would never have to buy energy again.
Yep. 1st one I remember I was in Iraq, got my IEEE Spectrum for January 2008, I think it was, where they touted a breakthru that would triple Li-Ion battery capacity.
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If you think today's Li-Ion batteries are anything like 2008 then I suggest asking your doctor if your PTSD meds cause memory loss. The word "breakthrough" can be used to describe virtually every metric on Li-Ion batteries changing over the past 2 decades.
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I think his point wasn't that there aren't improvements, it's just that for decades we've gotten articles that promise world altering levels of change, while LiIon ticks up like 5% that year, because the improvement touted turned out to not be practical for whatever reason.
For example, commercial LiIon has improved by about a third since 2008, not tripled.
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iPhone 3G in 2008 used lithium ion. I don't remember the issues you mention.
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Horseshit. When the iPhone 3G came out people were going mental about the battery being the defining reason they had to throw away their phone. Slashdot's favourite mantra was "engineered to fail" about batteries in that era and everyone here said that the non-removable battery on the iPhone was the single thing keeping them on Android.
You don't remember it because you don't want to remember it. But I remember that time well. It was around the time where I still went through multiple batteries per phone, a
Apparently? (Score:2)
Apparently, they are also rather expensive to produce, since it warns that they will first go into the "super premium" EV segment.
Apparently or actually? 'Cause I can think of a lot more (cynical) reasons for "apparently" than "actually".
can an electronics engineer please do the math (Score:2)
can an electronics engineer please do the math
for a car to be able to travel 600Miles.. it would require the battery to hold a substantial KWH....
How in this universe, playing with our known physical laws - would a device like this be able to charge in 9 minutes?
The amount of amps needed to charge would seem unattainable at most residential builds, the hit to the grids would seem extreme, and the thermals of the power transfer, and the battery heating up due to inefficiencies again would be very high.
Re:can an electronics engineer please do the math (Score:5, Informative)
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As for amps, 1 MW at 1000V is 1000 amps.
And 1 MW at 240V (residential supply) is 4167 Amps. My service is rated at 160 Amps continuous duty. But then the transformer down the street is a 50 kW unit (they figure quite a bit of load diversity between the half dozen houses connected to it.
In fact, 1MW would pretty much max out the underground feed to my entire neighborhood. So no. You're not charging your car at home at these rates. That's OK, because home charging can take all night. Charging on the road is where this will come in handy (being rou
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The present solution to multiple chargers at Tesla fast charge rates is often to hide a diesel gen set somewhere on the property.
No, they aren't. Maybe in the really early days (like before I got a Tesla in 2017), some of them might have had diesel backup or something, but these days, backup power consists of large battery banks.
They did use diesel generators for their temporary supercharger-on-a-trailer setups ("mobile superchargers") that they bring out for certain special events like the Superbowl, but for at least the last couple of years, those have also been powered by giant battery packs.
Of course, that doesn't keep anti-EV m
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But an EV station that could handle the volume of something like a Costco gas station would need its own dedicated substation (typically 20 MW). Such a substation has a footprint larger than a Costco gas station.
Yeah, basically putting any concentration of these in all but a handful of places will require massive distribution grid upgrades.
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The present solution to multiple chargers at Tesla fast charge rates is often to hide a diesel gen set somewhere on the property. But the 1 MW per charger load would take something like a gas turbine genset.
No it's not. The present solution is batteries. And batteries scale their discharge easily so there's no need to change that solution above 1MW.
Also a supercharger is not using a 240V residential supply, they are 3-phase 480V units. Go check the name plate next time you see one. Only Level 1 and Level 2 chargers use 240V supplies.
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The present solution is batteries.
So then, where are the batteries? I can see them working to fast charge one EV by trickle-charging a fixed pack overnight. But what do you do for service station levels of storage? You are going to have to quick charge the fixed packs pretty quickly. And that puts the same sort of loads on the distribution system that quick charging vehicles would.
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Still, it's pretty impressive if they can make it happen.
I have heard better promises in the past. *yawn*
This will hurt EV sales (Score:2)
Would you buy an EV today, knowing that its second-hand value in 5 years will be essentially zero because of obsolete battery tech? Just knowing that Samsung's batteries might exist will deter buyers.
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you could just... replace your EV's batteries with solid state batteries after they wear out and lose charge.
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No you can't. EV battery solutions are engineered to each car. There's large differences in cars even within manufacturers for EV batteries. You can't arbitrarily change the chemistry unless the manufacturer provides an engineered solution for you to do so.
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You could. You just wouldn't be able to cram it into the availabe space quite as efficiently, which might not be a problem it's a much denser cell. A different chemistry would probably require different charging electronics, but that's also something a third party could make easily enough.
You could run a Tesla on a girlfriend shaped battery pack made out of 18650s ziptied together sitting in the passenger seat if you really wanted to.
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I mean surely you never bought a computer knowing a better one will come out the following year right?
I'm not the OP, but... I actually did keep putting off my first personal computer purchase (back in the 1980s/1990s) - for multiple years - because of the rapid pace of technological advance. It was silly, and my wife regularly mocked me about it.
It wasn't until the 486 came around that I finally managed to bite the bullet.
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Yeah but the point is you saw the light. If you didn't you wouldn't have gotten a 486, back in those days a year was still a HUUUUUUGE improvement.
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Nobody expects to trade in their computer after 5 years - they simply throw it away. Whereas people expect to trade in their car, and can usually recoup a decent chunk of the purchase price.
One thing Tesla should be on top of... (Score:2)
Firstly, I know this is just speculation and early days. But, Tesla should have a story on solid state and it just doesn't. There are enough players in this space that it is more a matter of time before they become a big part of the EV and related spaces.
It's kind of sad. Tesla used to be really good at using cars as a test bed to get new battery tech going. Now, not so much. They had a great team around the supercharger network (getting through local paperwork and so on) and that's gone.
ah EV/tech future progress (Score:2)
so many trolls posting it's hilarious. Love the Foe feature so I can just ignore the stupidity
Smaller Devices (Score:3)
Why not put these into smaller consumer devices first, like smartphones and tablets? I'm sure Apple could get away with jacking up the price of their "Pro" devices another $200 to accommodate double the battery life.
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Why not put these into smaller consumer devices first, like smartphones and tablets?
Because it is vaporware, as has all battery tech promises since the 1970s. There has been steady and gradual improvement over that time, so things are improving... but not a single promise of greatness has ever been fulfilled. This is no different. There will be some issue that keeps it from materializing... but at least we get yet another round of excited visions.
Divide by two (Score:2)
giving them up to 621 miles of range
Most EV chargers stop (or become impractically slow) to fully charge a battery. Leaving the battery with only 80% of its advertised capacity.
Plus, to account for the unavailability of public chargers in a working condition, it is wise to never allow your vehicle to drop below 20% charge. So in reality you only get 60% of the advertised range. And then, that is in ideal conditions. Add extra weight (passengers) and turn on the air-con and you will be lucky to get further than half the distance the manufactu
Be skeptical (Score:2)
Not shipping anytime soon! (Score:2)
Re:600 miles?! (Score:5, Insightful)
Re: 600 miles?! (Score:3)
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Re: 600 miles?! (Score:5, Informative)
No and no.
The current top end chargers already put out more than that (I assume you're talking about the OP's requirements, not TFA requirements). A good 300kW charger can already add 370mile range to a Taycan in 19minutes. Chargers 150kW and above are not typically grid fed directly, they are battery to battery transfers (which is why the chargers are so big), and they trickle charge from the grid. It's why you can have a row of 300kW chargers next to each other on the arse end of bumshart nowhere and still have them function.
The issue is that this system assumes they will not be in continuous use. If they are they won't be able to sustain their max discharge power.
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>200kW are typically battery backed, but 150kW is generally not. For a battery to nmake sense you need at least 1MW peak load.
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>200kW are typically battery backed, but 150kW is generally not. For a battery to nmake sense you need at least 1MW peak load.
Maybe not where you live, but literally all the 150kW chargers at our service stations are battery backed. The choice of battery is not down to just the size of the charger, it's down to the size + the number + the grid connection. We also have 75kW chargers that are battery backed units some of our more remote stations, and technically we also have a couple of stations where level 2 chargers are battery packed because in those we experimented with a battery in the substation leveling the grid draw regardle
Re: 600 miles?! (Score:2)
Re: 600 miles?! (Score:5, Interesting)
Problem is to get that kinda charge rate means insane power transfers, probably double what current top end chargers pull on what is already stressful thing on the grid. Battery tech sounds good in theory but in real world atm the charge times are a pipe dream.
Now, wait a minute and let's math some things.
Let's make up some symbolic numbers. Say you've got 100 EVs. Those EVs can get say... 100 miles of distance on a charge. Those EVs take 1 hour to charge.
At any given moment you're going to have a certain number of people charging simultaneously. Let's say... 10 of those cars are charging at any given moment.
Now. Let's make new cars that have more capacity but the same charging rate. Let's say these cars have 500 miles of range. The same drivers will need to charge 1/5th as frequently, but they'll need 5 hours to charge. The end result is that you're still likely to have 10 cars charging at any given moment, at the same draw against the grid.
Next step. Let's increase the charging rate in those cars, say... by a factor of 5. Instead of taking 5 hours to charge, these cars are now taking 1 hour to charge again. BUT - as you point out - each charging unit is now drawing down 5x as much. That's alarming. BUT... those cars will only be at the charging station for 1/5th the time. Meaning that at any given moment there will only be 2 cars charging.
That puts you in exactly the same circumstance as the original cars. Why? Because the consumption hasn't gone up. The vehicle owners are still consuming the same amount of power to travel the same amount of distance. What changes is the frequency of charge (down) and the rate of charge (up), which have to balance one another.
Sure, any single charger has to be able to handle 5x the current draw in this example. But a charging facility won't have a single charger. They'll have (for instance) 10 in the facility, but... 8 of them are now idle. The overall draw for a charging facility of a reasonable size won't change. It can't change.
And... at home... you don't need charging any faster than (around) overnight, even if you have a couple EVs and only one charging port. Because even at today's capacity, almost nobody is driving 300+ miles every day. You can charge your multiple cars at home on alternating or rotating basis.
Charging anxiety is just that. Sure, there are many cases - like apartment buildings - where there's still some complexity, but... with even 20-minute charging, you can do that while you're in the grocery store. The cases where EV literally can't work aren't nearly as common as some people make them out to be.
Re: (Score:2, Informative)
If charging could be reduced to 10 minutes, range is no longer a big issue for most. I would be fine with a 200 mile range if it could be fully charged in 10 minutes.
You should get an EV then. There's many on the market that can add 200mile range in 10 minutes. In fact even the cheap darling Tesla Model 3 has a range of 390miles and fully charges in about 25min which is already very close to your criteria, and it's a common run of the mill EV, far from the fastest charging car on the market. Heck the Taycan can do 370miles in 19min. At least if you can find a 300kW charger (good luck with that in the USA).
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Fast charging lithium ion batteries all the time is bad for its health and lifespan. It shouldn't be as much of a problem with solid state though.
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With an active battery cooling system, which pretty much all EVs worth a damn now have, this is no longer true.
If your car has a passive battery thermal system, however, then yes, you are correct. The industry abandoned that around 2020.
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That is false. It's not *as bad* but it is still true that fast charging does reduce the lifespan. It's one of the reasons that even fancy modern 2024 model EVs have the option to limit both speed and max capacity from the dashboard, *and* why it typically comes limited to 100kW and 80% charging from the factory.
The one I drove to Germany this week (127km on the ODO so I'm almost only the second person to drive it since it left the factory) even gives you a nice fancy warning when you raise the charging spe
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Fast charging lithium ion batteries all the time is bad for its health and lifespan. It shouldn't be as much of a problem with solid state though.
Even all the people who claim that they absolutely need an EV that can charge in 5 seconds and drive 10000 miles don't actually end up fast charging much in real world at all.
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Depends on where the chargers are. Rented an EV (I own a Tesla, but was travelling), and the charging experience when you don't have a charger in your garage ...requires a lot of planning. Stopping at a supercharger is no big deal, but it is nice if there is one every 20 miles or so.for when you just need a little extra.
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If charging could be reduced to 10 minutes, range is no longer a big issue for most. I would be fine with a 200 mile range if it could be fully charged in 10 minutes.
The problem with that requirement is that to a large extent, it is the range that gives an EV the ability to soak up a decent of range quickly. The bigger the battery, the more charge current it can sink.
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500 Wh per kilogram is pretty impressive. I've wondered about going with a smaller battery bank, maybe 75-100 kWh, then offering either a range extender or another battery bank to run in parallel. This way, if one lives somewhere that chargers are easy to find, a pure EV is perfect. If not, the range extender allows the EV to function and effectively run on gasoline, as well as be used as a generator in a longer power outage.
A solid state battery is a milestone on par with Dr. Goodenough's first lithium
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Yeah it's just the same stupidity of the last 5 years of building only premium stuff.
If a 'premium' battery can do 1000 miles, than make one 1/3 the size for 1/2 the cost or whatever.
EVs are simple things, but makers have decided to try and reinvent the entire car at the expense of functionality at reasonable prices.
Rented an Ionic 5 a couple weeks ago. Had to charge it via a 110 outlet, started ok, charge lights are green, good to go. Came back an hour later, not charging, no lights at all, just sitting
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It depends, I think, on whether or not you still want to keep it between 20 and 80%, which turns a 300 mile EV into a 180 mile one. Even if you're willing to drive it dry, but only charge to 80% so that you're not stuck slow charging that last bit, that's still only 240 miles. I mean, it's workable along many routes with current chargers, but more chargers and a bit more overhead would be nice. A 600 mile EV would thus have a 'restricted' safe range of 360 miles, enough for like 99.99% of people out ther
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I suspect car makers will keep the same range currently and just reduce the cars weight
I suspect car makers will make what customers want and are willing to pay for.
They'll make some models with short ranges and lower prices and others with longer ranges and higher prices.
My EV has a good range, but in hindsight, I would've paid less for a shorter range.
Once you have an EV, you realize range is less important than you thought. If my EV had half the range, it would mean one or two extra stops per year.
Re: (Score:2)
Re:600 miles?! (Score:4, Informative)
Yes to latter, because second law of thermodynamics is real, and the main reason why ICE heater is effectively free is because a large chunk of energy generated by ICE is generated as heat. Which needs to be dissipated, as oils don't like too much heat.
Pushing some of that heat into a heating system is just good thermal management.
EVs do not have that (dis)advantage.
Re:600 miles?! (Score:4, Insightful)
That's a very strange way of putting it. I would have said the nice thing about EVs is that the A/C compressor is fed from it's own motor and controlled to operate in its peak efficiency mode rather than being forcefully linked to engine rotation (and for small cheap cars - absolutely sucks at cooling the interior if you're idling in stuck traffic).
It's not remotely the benefit you think it is and there are cars on the market which specifically run things like A/C from their own electrical motor precisely because it is actually quite efficient to use an alternator + motor.
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Re: 600 miles?! (Score:4, Interesting)
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We too can slog out into sub-zero weather and operate at reduced capacity.
It is because of this that perhaps nobody is investing much to invent a good cold weather rechargeable
Re: 600 miles?! (Score:2)
Lithium titanate (lto) batteries from what I've read can tolerate down to -40 and up to 140f/60c, but high cost and low energy density keep them from being more popular. Having a massive cycle life though I wonder if tco wouldn't be lower than nmc for the same pack size.
Re: (Score:2)
It's not like the liquid electrolyte flows, the ionic conductivity decreases, same thing will happen with a solid oxide. Internal resistance probably around doubles with each 10 degree drop in temperature.
That said, cold weather doesn't have to lead to cold batteries immediately. Insulate them better, so the don't cool down quickly when the coolant doesn't flow.
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Hydrogen will never happen. Why? Because it's a really stupid idea to have a highly flammable and explosive with oxygen gas under pressure in a moving vehicle where the container can easily be damaged in an accident.
Now you're going to say "what about gasoline?" Gasoline isn't under pressure and it's almost impossible to make a fuel air explosion without doing so on purpose- the ratio needs to be exactly right. It can catch on fire, but due to it being liquid rather than compressed gas it tends to be s
Hydrogen is stupid (Score:5, Interesting)
Actually, it's that "green hydrogen" isn't very efficient - batteries are drastically better. It costs a lot more energy to make hydrogen from electrolysis than to simply charge a lithium ion battery. It takes even more energy to compress it to a pressure useful in a car. The tank capable of holding those pressures is almost as heavy as a battery. Etc...
Now, there's some talk of "white hydrogen", apparently there are hydrogen deposits deep in the earth that we could extract like natural gas, but I'm a bit iffy on that one. There's also a difference between "hundreds of years of reserves" if we're go by current hydrogen consumption, and how long it would last if we attempted to use it to replace gasoline.
Basically, it's dead in the water for a simple reason: It's more expensive, much more, than batteries at this point.
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More important than having to put the heater on in the cold is the fact that lithium ion batteries have a much reduced range in cold weather. This because the liquid electrolyte becomes more viscous in cold weather which effectively increases the battery internal resistance.
Serious question: why doesn't this higher internal resistance cause the batteries to heat up as they discharge? I understand why cold batteries are a problem for stating ICE engines, but for an EV, wouldn't it just be a a short period of reduced efficiency until the batteries warm up? I have an EV but admittedly it doesn't get that cold here.
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Is this actual miles or a sort of "well if it's really cold and your heater is on you get 100 miles" sorta thing?
No it's not that sort of thing because that literally doesn't happen. Leaving aside that most premium EVs have heatpump heating which is very efficient, even electric heaters only use a fraction of the battery capacity. You can literally run the heater for over a day even on inefficient EVs, while draining the battery in a fraction of the time driving. Heating is simply insignificant unless you're starting completely still. And based on my own range meter, even when I'm crawling through stop start traffic i
Re: (Score:2)
Not much of an FP, but it's a legitimate question and not deserving the censor mod points. Why do such moderators even have mod points to abuse?
My own experiences with Samsung's batteries (in smartphones) has not been favorable. That includes charging problems. But maybe they are saving their best battery tech for the cars?
(And I'm still waiting for smartphone shirts...)
Re: 600 miles?! (Score:2)
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I've driven to, from, and across Death Valley many times.
Never a problem charging (there are chargers in Death Valley and all sides.)
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One Tesla fast Supercharger in Furnace Creek, one in Lone Pine, One in Beatty, all appear to be on the edges of DV. More than I suspected would exist there. You're using a different network than Supercharger, I suspect. Glad to hear it, hoping they flow 200 Kw or better.
Re: This (or better) Is What's Needed (Score:2)
Lone Pine 16
Inyokern 12
Beatty 8
Pahrump 8
Re: (Score:2, Insightful)
There is also the issue of the power grid being up. Especially in Texas or other states where a disaster can knock power out for days to weeks. I've mentioned this a few times, but I wish EVs had the option of a range extender, just so that in the situation the parent mentions, between the range extender and a few RotoPax of gasoline, it would be annoying, but it wouldn't be fatal.
The ironic thing is that it could have been the opposite when the US initially had EVs as the main motor vehicle... where the
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Those small generators disappear in the middle of the night, no matter how well secured they are.
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If there are gas stations everywhere, why do you think chargers everywhere would "probably never happen"? They're way easier to construct than the infrastructure needed for gas stations.
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Why is there not a fast DC Tesla Supercharger in Granbury, Tx? I dunno, but the map says there isn't.
DC fast chargers I think will remain rare because 1) They're expensive and 2) their expense requires charging high prices per KwH to pay for them, so anyone that can charge at home, will. The fast DC chargers in urban areas are likely getting just the folks that can't charge at home. There's few people in the countryside, so those few are unlikely to be enough to make the expensive DC fast charger prof