Featured CATL unveils the 620-mile, 10-minute-fast-charging LFP battery

Well not really, but certainly battery breakthrough press releases are happening quickly.

At best, depending on how you measure it (cost per kwh or kwh/kg, etc) batteries are maybe improving in the single digits per year over many years.

Mike

 

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EV Battery Technology Revolution in 2024: Innovations, Sustainability, and Efficiency (evpowered.co.uk)
"We see a dramatic breakthrough in EV battery technology in 2024, marked by creative designs, increased efficiency, and a strong dedication to sustainability."

New Battery Technology in 2024 - Redway Power™

Charging Quickly and Lasting Longer – Scientists Develop Batteries That Require Less Rare Materials (scitechdaily.com)

Battery and charging advancements are probably the only hope for the dated and stale EV.

 

And this time next year you will be able to find a headline reading “EV Battery Technology in 2025”, and so on and so on.

I’m not saying there won’t be a breakthrough. But when you predict the same thing every year, eventually you will be right.

Kind of like the financial experts that have predicted 30 of the last 4 recessions.

 

It isn't like iron and phosphate mining is peachy clean. LFP's advantage is in cost and lack of human rights concerns that cobalt has. Wikipedia's claim about environmental advantage is from a single nickel mine in Indonesia where the location is allowing the company to be less careful, which would be the case no matter what was being pulled from the ground.

 

Being common does not make them environmental friendly. Being common just means iron and phosphate are cheaper, and more likely available from places without abusive mining practices.
"The high demand for iron necessitates continuous mining and processing, which generates a large amount of solid and liquid waste. Iron ore tailings are leftover materials that are released once mineral processing is complete.[10] This waste includes large amounts of iron and manganese oxides in addition to high pH values.[11] Potentially toxic elements found in iron ore tailings include Ba, Cr, Cd, Co, Cu, Fe, Mn, Pb, Ni, and Zn." - Environmental impact of iron ore mining - Wikipedia
Then there is the coke from fossil fuels used to smelt it.

"For each ton of phosphoric acid produced by the processing of phosphate rock, five tons of waste are generated. This waste takes the form of impure, useless, radioactive solid called phosphogypsum." - Phosphate mining in the United States - Wikipedia

Being common increase the odds of being able to get them from somewhere with proper regulation and remediation. Sources with those in place will make nickel and cobalt just as environmentally as iron and phosphate. The environmetal impact is not intrinsic to the material being mined. Then places without them will likely mean cheaper material.

Mining anything is not a clean process.

 

Not even mining crypto currency.

It would be nice if some day mining becomes powered by renewables and everything else follows suit.

Then again, I often question if we really need to pump a few tons of purified metal (let alone the many many more tons of ore to get that couple tons of metal) just to haul each person around in. It seems to me that there's got to be something way more efficient than what we're doing to the planet just to get our bodies moved from place to place.

 

Eventually,

Unfortunately, it's not quite that simple.
It's not just our bodies that we're hauling from place to place.
If people stay in one place (by choice or force) then you have to 'bring them stuff.'
You also have to haul some 'stuff' away....
This accounts for much of the transportation related 'carbon throughput' that the climate industrial complex is profiting from.
Even if one could force-relocate humans onto evenly distributed 5-acre family plots you would have to accomodate for trading stuff amongst the....collectives? kibbutz'? communes?

^ That.
FWIW I personally think that the lithium iron phosphate battery or LFP is a fantastic storage option.
My next batteries (for some radio work) are going to be of this type and they show GREAT promise as a spit can for grid-tied solar.
MAKING them and recycling them when they're nearing the end of their life cycle will STILL have to be factored into their overall cost......financial, environmental, ethically, etc....
Remember....CATL 'might not' have the same number of people working in their DEI department as Apple or Tesla.

If something 'sucks less' that doesn't MEAN it doesn't suck.

I'm surprised you're not chanting "Four more years!.....Four more years!...."
Your T3 has served you well, and you, it.
You would probably do well to get another one.

My 2023 GMC is my 6th in a row - but I can see where a BEV might fit into my life some fine day.
I'm not going to try to fit my life into a BEV, and getting my first one 'probably' will not happen until the early adopters finish paying for all of the non-recurring developmental costs.....

 

Is it?
Haven't seen direct evidence that they are.

The cost, safety, lifespan, and lack of political issue(cobalt) are all very good reasons to choose LFP over NCM or NCA. No need to bring in an environmental argument that might actually be a wash.

 

I'm not saying that there's an elegant solution that I know of, or if going car-free is a solution or if owning the gargantuan SUV's people long for these days is as bad as I portray it. It just seems a bit excessive and with so much technonogy you'd think that this +100-year-old transport medium would have changed entirely for something else that weren't a multi-ton frame of metal on rubber wheels just to haul mostly a single person.

 

it's like the local building inspector said to me, 'i can't believe we're still building houses out of 2x4's'.

 

Its been around 7% a year for cells on kwh/$, which over 11 years is over 2x. For battery packs improvements have been much greater because of manufacturing efficiencies and them figuring it out, about 5x in the last 11 years. kwh/kg is actually going down as reducing the cobalt and nickel for cost and the environment increases the weight of a pack.

Incremental improvement adds up over the years. The big breakthrough on kwh/kg is there but those battery packs are much more expensive.

 

Fair enough.

Construction lumber 2x4s became 1.5x3.5s in the early 70's - but for now, stick lumber is still the better mousetrap.
Think of it as corn on the 20 year plan - or temporary carbon capture - depending on your religion.

 

My '74 Kombi (campervan) will be full EV in a yr or 5 :lol: Bought a wrecked MG4 that was marked as never to be registered again, for AUD$3,200, AUD$48,000 new, it has 268kms on the clock and 6 mths old.
The plan is to swap everything EV out of the MG into the VW Kombi, including the battery under the floor and rear electric transaxle, so no gearbox.

A classic converted to EV, gotta be the best way to own a BEV at a reasonable price and still have the DC fast charging and 300 mile range.
Check out the salvage auctions, look for a good donor vehicle to use to convert your much loved gas guzzler. Everything is there, it all worked from the factory, so just swap it all into your classic vehicle.
When the battery finally dies, who knows what will be available on the market, hopefully, fast charging sodium ion cells. They have the same voltage range as LFP, so the BMS for an /lfp battery will work fine for the Sodium ion battery, just cheaper, higher discharge rate and no B/S to contend with regarding anything with lithium in the name ... it's developed into a frenzy over here, anything with lithium in the name will explode and cancel your birthday and any other nonsense you can think of .... all spluttered out of their lithium powered phone or computer .....

T1 Terry