this post was submitted on 02 Aug 2024
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I get the cost, but it should be an option to upgrade any current EV to this new style battery.
It's not needed in today's EVs. Things should be upgradable yes, but it's not necessary to replace current existing lithium batteries with this and doing so would probably do more harm than good. The ones we have already outlast the vehicle's lifespan, and go further than a tank of gas.
We don't even know how to recycle these new types, at least we've made some headway with the current gen packs.
I'm thinking less in terms of lifespan and more in terms of range and charging time.
You shouldn't have to upgrade your entire car to get a 600 mile range and 9 minute charge time if all that's needed is better battery tech.
Two questions if that's the reasoning: how often are you driving 600 let alone 300 miles? How often are you out of range of charging, if at all? Charging at fast chargers already only takes 20 minutes, the same amount it takes to pee and get a drink.
Charging at home makes range not matter. It's not gas, you're just always charged up. You don't want to sit at 100% anyway, because again, it's not gas.
The object is to get people to give up gas cars, you do that by providing a better range and a "refill" time roughly equivalent with sitting at a gas pump.
And, yeah, vast areas of the country do not yet have good access to charging stations:
https://www.axios.com/2024/06/25/charging-deserts-evs-electric-cars
https://www.eenews.net/articles/ev-charging-deserts-are-growing-in-rural-areas-study/
https://www.hbs.edu/bigs/the-state-of-ev-charging-in-america
You're missing the point: it's not like gas, and can't be compared as such. If you have a home charger, you never need to use public charging except when road tripping, because your car charges within 4-6ish hours (my home charger does around ~22mi/hr), or overnight if you have a slower charger. You cannot do the same with gas unless you just top off at the gas pump every day.
I'm not trying to get into charging deserts right now - frankly, most people do not live in them, and thus make up less of the EV market at the moment. We haven't even come close to meeting your given objective of replacing gas in even populated areas. Anyway, this article is about a 600 mile solid state battery that will only be in luxury $200k+ cars (which most people in very rural counties wouldn't be able to afford), if at all. Not charging deserts.
Not everyone can have a home charger. People living in apartments and condos won't have access. Heck, even people who do have their own homes will have to upgrade their electrical panels to allow for charging.
Until everyone can charge at home, it all boils down to how much range a car gets and how fast it recharges, which is why this new battery tech is such a game changer.
Again, the people that can't have a charger at home will not be able to afford this. It's not a game changer, it would take higher powered chargers than the ones that currently exist, making your whole "charging desert" issue more problematic (not to mention that you first had an issue with rural charging and are now talking about urban environments where charging access is easy to come by even if not directly in your apartment).
The solution isn't prohibitively expensive 600 mile range batteries (are you still saying you need that on the daily?), it's more chargers.
Once again, it seems like you think EVs work and charge/fill up in the same way as ICE vehicles. They don't, and unless you've driven or owned one I'm not sure why you'd be speaking from such an authoritative standpoint.
Not true. Before we bought our house we could have easily afforded an EV. We didn't buy one because we had no place to charge it.
After buying a house, we had to do other upgrades before we could even think of adding a charger, like upgrading the electrical panel from 100A to 200A, and even then, there were other priorities like a new roof and solar panels.
What I don't get is why you're so averse to the basic premise of EV owners being able to upgrade the battery tech in their vehicles to get a superior range and charging time.
As it stands right now, range is inadequate and varies greatly with operating temperature:
https://www.pbs.org/newshour/economy/cold-weather-can-cut-electric-vehicle-range-and-make-charging-tough-heres-what-you-need-to-know
"It's well known that EVs lose some of their travel range in the cold, especially in subzero temperatures like those that hit the nation's mid-section this week. Studies found that range loss varies from 10 percent to 36 percent."
The average range on an EV is around 300 miles, so losing 10 to 36% of that in the cold is no good, especially when it takes longer to charge in the cold as well. With a 600 mile range and 9 minute recharge, that's less of a factor. Even if it takes 2x as long to charge in the cold, that's still less time than it takes to charge a standard EV in good weather.
Every EV owner should have the option to upgrade to this new tech for better range and faster charging. Especially since the batteries are designed to be replaced ANYWAY.
The other guy is being dumb. He's trying to tell people what they do and don't need, and that's not going to work; especially when you are considering people who are stuck on ICE cars for the exact reasons you're saying.
I love my ICE vehicle, but I've said many times that I'd consider a battery powered vehicle when I can get 500+ mile range. The last thing I'm going to do is allow myself be inconvenienced by something I don't care about, and this is the story here. I'm passionate about my WRX, but I could never be passionate about a battery and electric motors. When I switch, it'll only be because the benefit is incredible and undeniable. People will simply not convince me that a 300 mile range in optimal conditions is going to suit me, because things never play out like the paper specs say.
The benefit is incredible and undeniable, as long as you can plug in to a wall somewhere regularly. If you have to rely on public fast charging they may not be for you.
The only benefit of a gas powered engine is you can fill the gas tank up in about 5 minutes.
Forgotten benefits of gasoline: you can fix it yourself and you're not locked into a shiny new consumerist downward spiral that demands you buy a new vehicle every ten years when the car can't go 200 miles in a single charge anymore? And the next guy who gets the battery powered vehicle is just worse off than you were, as the poorer along us suffer even worse condition vehicles and the risk of massive expenses in the way of new battery failure. Why is nobody concerned with the fact that batteries are going to lock us into excess and unavoidable consumerism as they degrade? Engines -might- fail, but batteries -will- fail.
List one battery powered device that isn't basically disposable.
I own a Tesla because my engine died at 95k miles in my 2016 VW, with regular maintenance, and it was $11k for just the engine, not counting labor to install it.
I could change it myself, and I could have bought a used engine for roughly $5500, but the economics of that dont work out.
I'm willing to take my chances with a battery pack installation.
Also, 200 miles range is 6x the average daily miles driven, so for almost everyone, it should be plenty! Unless you're thinking we should mass produce solutions for the 1%?