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Our weekly "miracle battery that can <insert absurdly high claim here>" give us today.
This horseshit again? Physical product available for independent analysis, or it didn't happen.
It's not like the Chinese are famous for lying about the specs on things they manufacture or anything. Every week we hear about some Chinese company poised to "revolutionize" the EV with pie-in-the-sky range figures and yet the market continues to remain resolutely un-revolutionized.
And as usual, this article harps on "range" as if that's not an easily fudged figure. The real numbers we need to see are watts per volume, or watts per mass. And number of charge cycles tolerated, and how many before it loses what percentage of capacity. Any idiot can claim to make a 1,300 mile, 2,000 mile, 5,000 mile, 1,000,000 mile battery pack -- just make the pack bigger, or the vehicle lighter, or both. That tells us nothing meaningful whatsoever about the battery chemistry itself. Advertising us what hypothetical ranges someone thinks a pack made of these "could" build is meaningless. We could build a 1300 mile battery pack right now with LiFePo cells if we wanted to, via the simple expedient of filling a dump truck with the things.
If we just attached a generator to the battery industry, all these revolutions would solve our energy needs!
If the company is able to scale this technology large enough for consumer vehicles while keeping prices down, it could easily double the range of the farthest-driving EVs on the road today.
That's a big IF. TL;DR: They haven't developed a means of making this scalable and able to be mass manufactured. Until they do, this is another "revolutionary" battery tech that may or may not actually be used due to cost of production. Most likely in the "not" category.
If you want to make EVs more popular, make them with Sodium-Ion batteries that are cheaper than ICE vehicles. They'll sell better as a result.
Hardly anybody needs an EV with more than 200 miles of range if they're plugging in each night. Most people's commute is round-trip sub-50 miles. "Range anxiety" is 95%+ of the time a "problem" that stupid people have for their theoretical future that never actually happens. Most people are impractical idiots.
Hardly anybody needs an EV with more than 200 miles of range if they're plugging in each night.
Speaking of big IFs. Not everybody lives where a charger is convenient or can have one installed in their residence.
Range anxiety isn't about your daily commute, it's about the few times a year road trip you make across multiple states to see family on holidays. Having to stop and charge every 150 miles (as I wouldn't trust letting it go below 50) sucks if you're trying to go 500+ miles. Owning a gas car taking up space in your garage and costing you taxes and registration just to use a handful of times a year is wasteful. Renting a car is an option, but it's cumbersome and if you plan to stay a while, expensive. I would not want an EV with less than 300 miles range. You have to factor in worst case scenarios as well, sometimes it gets dreadfully cold and windy in the winter. When it's -10F and the wind is howling you're cranking the (usually resistive) heat and driving head first into the wind kills your efficiency. These are real scenarios I have had to drive in my current car (Volt, so plug in hybrid) and my battery range can be halved (from 35+ miles under 20) in these worst case scenarios, but at least I can fall back on gas. I want to go EV for my next car but if I can't reliably make it to and from my parents' house 300 miles away on a bad winter's Christmas break then it's just not a feasible option yet, even if my drive to work is maybe 15 miles round trip. Also, charging station density is an issue. I would need to go half way to their house, 150 miles, to reach a charging station. You can't just stop anywhere to recharge if you have a low range EV.
Range anxiety is in the what if scenario, can I go from Los Angeles to Las Vegas on one charge, batteries need to last longer and be cheaper or charge quicker. being universal and swappable wouldalso work.
Lol, that’s only 500km, there are many EVs capable to drive this in one sitting, but to be honest, a 15min charge and eat break would be great for every driver in a 4h ride.