Every day it feels like we’re getting closer to battery revolution. It really makes you wonder how different the world will be once we have these incredible batteries actually working at consumer level.
Battery tech has still come a long way since say 10 years ago, even though the “next gen” stuff hasn’t made it to scaled production. Looks like this is the beginning of scaled production, though.
Nah, see the battery density graph here. Batteries have made great progress already, and it’s accelerating because suddenly there are trillions of dollars on the line for anyone that can make big strides in battery technology.
Yah, I see your battery density graph and the batteries in question would blow a hole in that chart, and several charts above it.
I’m not sure if we are looking at the same chart. The chart goes up to 500 Wh/kg, the same as this new Samsung battery as per the original article. It’s may well be the same battery that gives the chart that value, but notice the years prior it gets higher and higher up to that value.
It might be 10 years away from being the mainstream battery but the battery technology that was 10 years away 9 years ago is almost here.
What makes you think that’s “sudden”?
I was meaning how EVs created a consumer market for huge batteries where prior to that the biggest battery in your house might have been a power tool. But you’re right, there was a premium market for emerging battery tech and it increases along a scale like anything else.
I mean, lithium cells were used for fringe use cases 20 years ago, now they are seemingly everywhere. The difference with this tech is that they know it’s currently expensive, so are aiming for use cases where the added cost is justifed. Give it 5 years and the tech will more than likely become easier to produce, lowering costs. That and sodium batteries are probably going to dramatically lower cost for grid storage, which should make it easier to have consistent power delivery.
Michael Thackeray filed a patent under Argonne National Laboratory for the leading EV battery chemistry worldwide today, Lithium Nickel-Manganese-Cobalt Oxide (NMC), sometime around 2007-2008.
The first cars with that specific technology started coming out in the US market in 2013/2014 IIRC, with EVs coming out before then basing their battery chemistry on NCA (Tesla) or LMO (Nissan Leaf & Chevy Volt).
That’s a 5-7 year timeframe from laboratory to mass production.
If you consider new technologies today like Samsung’s battery in this article, and make the not so unrealistic leap that we’re better at battery production today than in 2013/2014, it’s very possible that we see this technology hit the market in 5 years or less.
Technology always improves. It’s CAPEX that hinders it, and I’m willing to bet that there are financial interests out there to keep the main battery chemistry NMC and secure steady profits.
There is a solid state sodium battery factory being built in Japan, I think, and one in America. (Yes, I mixed up my two battery technologies, a common problem in a stagnant field…) But yes, real life isn’t a game, you can’t immediately use new tech as soon as it becomes viable, and factories take time to build. That doesn’t mean that advances haven’t been constantly occurring, just like advances continued to occur with NiMH battery technology a decade after lithium was mainstream. Partly, no doubt, because factories are expensive, they take time to build, and companies like to maximize the profits from their investments.
As I mentioned in my other response, our battery capacity and longevity has increased by a factor of 10 in the last 30 years. Charging capacity has increased significantly, as well. And the only reason we don’t have more powerful chargers is because we haven’t needed them. It will certainly require a different configuration to charge twice as fast, probably with local power storage to reduce the burden on the electrical grid, but the only technical challenge is the power draw, and there are a number of ways to avoid that.
Only thing I’m upset with is that we get more battery capacity, but not longer battery time. I want to clock my phone down to save power, but that’s not allowed.
I always use the power saving mode, however my experience is that the battery time is almost the same irregardless of battery capacity (comparing arbitrarily över the years)
It’s not as good as previous versions but I am running stock android and I have wifi power saving and phone (background) power saving modes available. I just checked and the estimate of time until zero percent battery goes from 22 hours to 28 hours with the node that limits backup processes, and that is with 59% on the battery.
There was a power save mode on my old phone that made everything grey screen and stuff that was way better. I think I enabled it for a camping trip once and used like 20% battery in 3 days.
That made me think of the fairly low res picture of the menu screen from Mario Bros on the NES with the caption "this one image takes up more memory than the entirety of the Mario Bros game code.
Good lord…I remember getting a 1GB HDD and thinking “welp, never gonna use that up” then a few years later installing Diablo2 and seeing it was 1.1gb…
Depends on how you define “constant”. Battery prices have been falling year over year, no thanks to technological improvements.
If we’re referring explicitly to Academia and R&D, then OP is correct. You’re main point is that these huge breakthroughs haven’t affected the market, but OP isn’t arguing that.
There have been steady and iterative advancements.
Steady imo is a synonym for constant, and revolutionary breakthroughs can be subjective if referring to industry or academia.
When was OP involved in this conversation?
Apologies. I sometimes refer to an OP as the Original Poster of a thread in a given post, but perhaps a better use of language would be OC for Original Commentator.
There may not be a revolutionary discovery, but we are nearing a tipping point where battery makes more sense for most disconnected power storage than anything else.
The cell phone I had 30 years ago had a battery pack that was about as big as my current cell phone and was 500 mAh. My current cell phone has a little battery tucked away in it that stores 4000 mAh, recharges about as fast, and can be recharged more before it loses a significant amount of its capacity. It also costs about 1% per mAh of the price of that battery from 30 years ago.
Just because you haven’t bothered to investigate advances in battery technology doesn’t mean significant advances haven’t occurred.
Fossil fuels are currently the largest disconnected power storage by overall power used. You know, the thing cars use when they aren’t EVs. You may have heard of diesel and gasoline generators, or oil-fueled ships.
As per the previous part of my comment that you quoted, my point was that incremental changes can accumulate to the point where at some point revolutionary changes can occur. We increased capacity and longevity by a factor of 10 over 30 years, have a new technology hitting mainstream, and another that could double power density in the next 5 to 10. Yet you seem skeptical that’s possible, in spite of the decades of advances we already have made.
Now, if you’re quibbling about the term power vs. energy, I can’t really be bothered with it. If you aren’t, what exactly do you think is the reason we use gasoline in vehicles than because it’s a highly portable source of energy?
I can’t be bothered because laymen don’t generally know the difference, and it’s the least important detail about this conversation. Granted, unimportant details seem to be your forte.
The market will segment away from the current tech anyway. CATL Sodium-ion with comparatively low densities but also extremely low prices per kWh will likely win the low-end market and the market for stationary solutions. This is just due to the much lower resource costs. The high-end will be up for things like this battery by Samsung (or other comparable pilot products). The current technology will likely be in a weird middle spot.
And those cheaper batteries may not be as compromising as people think. In terms of kwh/kg, the sodium-ion batteries coming on the market now are about where lithium poly batteries were about 4 years ago. It takes a few years before new batteries make their way into EVs, which means EVs being purchased right now have batteries with a similar kwh/kg of the new sodium-ion batteries. Those batteries are around 30% cheaper and don’t have the same level of fire hazards as some lithium chemistries.
So if EVs on the market today have adequate range for your use, you’ll probably be just fine with a future sodium-ion EV.
It will still be a dramatic improvement because these packs will be able to hold the max charge that the charger can support for much longer. E.g., a car that can hold 350kW from 0-90 is much better than one that peaks at 350kW for 2 seconds before dropping to 150 or 100kW for 40-90%.
Can you imagine not having the constant traffic noise played into your ears like tinnitus, being able to maybe actually breathe the oxygen nature provides. That’s probably gonna be what it will be like. But still, ev are just a stop gap, more privately owned cars isn’t the solution in my humble opinion, it is a start towards it.
Totally with you, but tire dust is one of the major pollution particles from cars, maybe even the worst AFAIK. That, sadly will not go away but it is still leagues more desireable to have everything on electric than fossil fuel. Can’t have perfect stop good enough.
There’s no reason to think that will last. The kwh/kg of batteries improves by 5-8% per year, and we’ve been in the higher end of that range the last few years. Meanwhile, EVs are about 30% heavier. It will take a few years of improvement to make up that gap, but there’s every reason to expect this trend to continue.
Also, it takes a few years for new batteries to find their way into existing models. 1.08^4 = 1.36, which means improvements in batteries since 2020 could have made up this gap already.
Yes, sure, batteries are evolving and there are solid state batteries on horizon, though probably very expensive initially. There is also a concept of getting energy wirelessly from road, which could further reduce battery sizes. I’m sure the future is bright.
Perhaps they compare, but assuming small batteries and consequently small range. Which might still be fine for shopping and shorter trips I guess. And I agree that oversized EVs is all the rage these days
The tire noise EVs make is about the same as an ICE car at about 50 kph (30 mph) so it doesn’t make much difference on busy roads. It does make a huge difference in slow traffic.
It’s not tire noise that bothers me, it’s the folks who seem to think that the rest of us will think they’re cool for being able to hear their engine roaring down the road from a quarter mile away.
The traffic noise will stay the same, from tires, honking and some fake engine noise they’ll mandate for pedestrian safety.
Do yourself a favor and spend some time in an area without cars. It’s amazing what it does to your mental health.
I waited 4 years for battery technology to get better before bring an EV last year. The “battery revolution”, with all the news being generated weekly for years, is still not here. I don’t give a fuck about theoretical battery range - give me the actual battery in a car, THEN it’s newsworthy. Now it’s all just theoretical, which we consumers can do fuck all about.
And that’s the thing. As much as we’ve gotten used to it over the past hundred years, progress is absolutely not automatic.
If people don’t buy the current stuff, it reduces the chance of advancement for that tech. Most things will only get better if people are buying the current versions.
We’ve had solar power tech for 50 years. Solar initiatives under Carter were actually pretty good. You know who killed it, or I expect we’d have solar on most roofs today.
I recently visited Switzerland, and the amount of rooftop solar there was insane.
(Solar is of course closely linked to battery tech.)
I totally agree with your statement, but in the 4 years I waited, nothing has actually happened with the batteries on EVs (except for a bit faster charging on already insane charging times).
Well, Toyota has promised 2026 for their battery tech and hasn’t changed that guidance, so I think there’s a decent chance they’ll stick to that timeline. I don’t know if Samsung is their supplier or if they’re competing on the tech, but if it’s the latter, I expect we’ll see something in the next 2-3 years.
I’m still convinced Toyota is just announcing breakthroughs miracles in battery tech Coming Soon™ because they shit the bed so hard on the first round of EVs. Now they’re trying to discourage people from buying EVs now while they play catch-up.
Well, the good news is, nobody is making an actual solid state battery car, so if they don’t deliver, I’m not out anything. The current set of EVs aren’t good enough to replace our family car (we like road trips, and even 300 miles range is too little), so I’m waiting regardless. I’ll be looking for announcements in the next year or two.
Both of our cars are Toyotas though, because they make really good cars. We have a Sienna for our family car and a Prius for my commuter, and I’m probably going to replace that Prius with an EV if I can find a good deal on something with 150 miles range. The Sienna is getting old (nearly 200k miles), but it’s reliable, so I’m holding off until I can either get a good deal on a hybrid/ICE, or reasonable EVs are released. If that’s Toyota, great, but I’m not buying the first gen of anything regardless.
I’ve found the current gen of EVs is perfect for road tripping with my family. The battery range is perfectly sized for the bladder sizes of my kids. It works really well if you’re road tripping at a casual pace. However I know a lot of people that like to “death march” road trip where they won’t stop for 500 miles at a time - so I admit it’s definitely not for everyone.
Yeah, I have kids, and we can usually get about 300 miles before someone needs a bathroom break. So usually I refill gas (<5 min) while the kids go to the bathroom, and we usually pack enough food with us (sandwiches and whatnot) that we only need to go to a restaurant once on the trip.
An EV could work if fast chargers were as plentiful as gas stations, but in many of the areas we go (I live in Utah and travel to WA, MT, ID, and CA frequently), they’re pretty infrequent. So we’d need to plan stops based on charger availability, not on bladder size, which means an extra recharge or two for the trip. It’s getting better, but every time I look at maps, there are maybe one or two chargers in a 50 mile radius, so if it’s full or out of service, we’d be screwed.
Now, if gas stations started offering EV charging, I’d probably be looking at them today. Gas stations are perfect because they often have fast food, bathrooms, and snacks, all of which are essential for road trips.
As another anecdote, my coworker just bought a Model 3, and he frequently says he can’t reasonably visit places within our state because the charging network sucks. That’s a pretty serious concern for us, since we like camping, which means pretty remote trips.
Every day it feels like we’re getting closer to battery revolution. It really makes you wonder how different the world will be once we have these incredible batteries actually working at consumer level.
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Battery tech has still come a long way since say 10 years ago, even though the “next gen” stuff hasn’t made it to scaled production. Looks like this is the beginning of scaled production, though.
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Nah, see the battery density graph here. Batteries have made great progress already, and it’s accelerating because suddenly there are trillions of dollars on the line for anyone that can make big strides in battery technology.
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I’m not sure if we are looking at the same chart. The chart goes up to 500 Wh/kg, the same as this new Samsung battery as per the original article. It’s may well be the same battery that gives the chart that value, but notice the years prior it gets higher and higher up to that value.
It might be 10 years away from being the mainstream battery but the battery technology that was 10 years away 9 years ago is almost here.
I was meaning how EVs created a consumer market for huge batteries where prior to that the biggest battery in your house might have been a power tool. But you’re right, there was a premium market for emerging battery tech and it increases along a scale like anything else.
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I mean, lithium cells were used for fringe use cases 20 years ago, now they are seemingly everywhere. The difference with this tech is that they know it’s currently expensive, so are aiming for use cases where the added cost is justifed. Give it 5 years and the tech will more than likely become easier to produce, lowering costs. That and sodium batteries are probably going to dramatically lower cost for grid storage, which should make it easier to have consistent power delivery.
Michael Thackeray filed a patent under Argonne National Laboratory for the leading EV battery chemistry worldwide today, Lithium Nickel-Manganese-Cobalt Oxide (NMC), sometime around 2007-2008.
The first cars with that specific technology started coming out in the US market in 2013/2014 IIRC, with EVs coming out before then basing their battery chemistry on NCA (Tesla) or LMO (Nissan Leaf & Chevy Volt).
That’s a 5-7 year timeframe from laboratory to mass production.
If you consider new technologies today like Samsung’s battery in this article, and make the not so unrealistic leap that we’re better at battery production today than in 2013/2014, it’s very possible that we see this technology hit the market in 5 years or less.
Technology always improves. It’s CAPEX that hinders it, and I’m willing to bet that there are financial interests out there to keep the main battery chemistry NMC and secure steady profits.
There is a
solid statesodium battery factory being built in Japan, I think, and one in America. (Yes, I mixed up my two battery technologies, a common problem in a stagnant field…) But yes, real life isn’t a game, you can’t immediately use new tech as soon as it becomes viable, and factories take time to build. That doesn’t mean that advances haven’t been constantly occurring, just like advances continued to occur with NiMH battery technology a decade after lithium was mainstream. Partly, no doubt, because factories are expensive, they take time to build, and companies like to maximize the profits from their investments.deleted by creator
As I mentioned in my other response, our battery capacity and longevity has increased by a factor of 10 in the last 30 years. Charging capacity has increased significantly, as well. And the only reason we don’t have more powerful chargers is because we haven’t needed them. It will certainly require a different configuration to charge twice as fast, probably with local power storage to reduce the burden on the electrical grid, but the only technical challenge is the power draw, and there are a number of ways to avoid that.
Battery tech is constantly having huge breakthroughs. They are just come in small steps.
I mean a smart phone is literally a battery powered computer. It’s absolutely astounding compared to what we had 10/20 years ago.
Only thing I’m upset with is that we get more battery capacity, but not longer battery time. I want to clock my phone down to save power, but that’s not allowed.
Most phones have some sort of “Ultra power saving” mode that gives a lot of battery life.
I always use the power saving mode, however my experience is that the battery time is almost the same irregardless of battery capacity (comparing arbitrarily över the years)
It’s absolutely allowed.
It’s not as good as previous versions but I am running stock android and I have wifi power saving and phone (background) power saving modes available. I just checked and the estimate of time until zero percent battery goes from 22 hours to 28 hours with the node that limits backup processes, and that is with 59% on the battery.
There was a power save mode on my old phone that made everything grey screen and stuff that was way better. I think I enabled it for a camping trip once and used like 20% battery in 3 days.
Yeah the more power phones have available the more manufacturers use.
It’s why I miss replaceable batteries.
That made me think of the fairly low res picture of the menu screen from Mario Bros on the NES with the caption "this one image takes up more memory than the entirety of the Mario Bros game code.
Good lord…I remember getting a 1GB HDD and thinking “welp, never gonna use that up” then a few years later installing Diablo2 and seeing it was 1.1gb…
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Not really. They have massive breakthroughs that increase capacity and charging hugely.
People just seem to expect some world changing development constantly.
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touché
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Depends on how you define “constant”. Battery prices have been falling year over year, no thanks to technological improvements.
If we’re referring explicitly to Academia and R&D, then OP is correct. You’re main point is that these huge breakthroughs haven’t affected the market, but OP isn’t arguing that.
You’re both talking past each other.
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Steady imo is a synonym for constant, and revolutionary breakthroughs can be subjective if referring to industry or academia.
Apologies. I sometimes refer to an OP as the Original Poster of a thread in a given post, but perhaps a better use of language would be OC for Original Commentator.
The difference is this is actually shipping to manufacturers.
Solid state batteries are already being produced at scale. It’s happening.
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The first news I’ve heard is Yoshino power selling solid state power banks. here’s a video covering them.
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There may not be a revolutionary discovery, but we are nearing a tipping point where battery makes more sense for most disconnected power storage than anything else.
The cell phone I had 30 years ago had a battery pack that was about as big as my current cell phone and was 500 mAh. My current cell phone has a little battery tucked away in it that stores 4000 mAh, recharges about as fast, and can be recharged more before it loses a significant amount of its capacity. It also costs about 1% per mAh of the price of that battery from 30 years ago.
Just because you haven’t bothered to investigate advances in battery technology doesn’t mean significant advances haven’t occurred.
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Fossil fuels are currently the largest disconnected power storage by overall power used. You know, the thing cars use when they aren’t EVs. You may have heard of diesel and gasoline generators, or oil-fueled ships.
As per the previous part of my comment that you quoted, my point was that incremental changes can accumulate to the point where at some point revolutionary changes can occur. We increased capacity and longevity by a factor of 10 over 30 years, have a new technology hitting mainstream, and another that could double power density in the next 5 to 10. Yet you seem skeptical that’s possible, in spite of the decades of advances we already have made.
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Now, if you’re quibbling about the term power vs. energy, I can’t really be bothered with it. If you aren’t, what exactly do you think is the reason we use gasoline in vehicles than because it’s a highly portable source of energy?
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I can’t be bothered because laymen don’t generally know the difference, and it’s the least important detail about this conversation. Granted, unimportant details seem to be your forte.
feels a bit like fusion power
They’re coming off a pilot production line and have shipped to vehicle manufacturers to see if they want to incorporate these into upcoming models.
Problem will be the price for the first run of this tech. They’re targeting “ultra premium” vehicles until they can scale and optimize manufacturing.
The market will segment away from the current tech anyway. CATL Sodium-ion with comparatively low densities but also extremely low prices per kWh will likely win the low-end market and the market for stationary solutions. This is just due to the much lower resource costs. The high-end will be up for things like this battery by Samsung (or other comparable pilot products). The current technology will likely be in a weird middle spot.
And those cheaper batteries may not be as compromising as people think. In terms of kwh/kg, the sodium-ion batteries coming on the market now are about where lithium poly batteries were about 4 years ago. It takes a few years before new batteries make their way into EVs, which means EVs being purchased right now have batteries with a similar kwh/kg of the new sodium-ion batteries. Those batteries are around 30% cheaper and don’t have the same level of fire hazards as some lithium chemistries.
So if EVs on the market today have adequate range for your use, you’ll probably be just fine with a future sodium-ion EV.
There won’t be many charging stations able to output that kind of wattage tho
It will still be a dramatic improvement because these packs will be able to hold the max charge that the charger can support for much longer. E.g., a car that can hold 350kW from 0-90 is much better than one that peaks at 350kW for 2 seconds before dropping to 150 or 100kW for 40-90%.
Can you imagine not having the constant traffic noise played into your ears like tinnitus, being able to maybe actually breathe the oxygen nature provides. That’s probably gonna be what it will be like. But still, ev are just a stop gap, more privately owned cars isn’t the solution in my humble opinion, it is a start towards it.
Totally with you, but tire dust is one of the major pollution particles from cars, maybe even the worst AFAIK. That, sadly will not go away but it is still leagues more desireable to have everything on electric than fossil fuel. Can’t have perfect stop good enough.
Yep, tire pollution is even worse with EVs due to their weight. But overall it’s still much better as you said.
It would help if cars went back to a reasonable size and not the absurdly large monstrosities that dominate the market today.
It’s even hard to find an EV sedan. There are like 3 models under $70k. Everyone wants to make SUVs instead.
That’s the real kicker. Gets especially hard if you don’t want a Tesla.
Many of the conservatives who cite heaviness of EVs as a problem didn’t say shit as ICE cars got heavier and they bought F150s to go to Walmart.
Yep, I’m all for it. However, they would be still heavier compared to equivalents ICEs.
There’s no reason to think that will last. The kwh/kg of batteries improves by 5-8% per year, and we’ve been in the higher end of that range the last few years. Meanwhile, EVs are about 30% heavier. It will take a few years of improvement to make up that gap, but there’s every reason to expect this trend to continue.
Also, it takes a few years for new batteries to find their way into existing models. 1.08^4 = 1.36, which means improvements in batteries since 2020 could have made up this gap already.
Yes, sure, batteries are evolving and there are solid state batteries on horizon, though probably very expensive initially. There is also a concept of getting energy wirelessly from road, which could further reduce battery sizes. I’m sure the future is bright.
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Perhaps they compare, but assuming small batteries and consequently small range. Which might still be fine for shopping and shorter trips I guess. And I agree that oversized EVs is all the rage these days
The tire noise EVs make is about the same as an ICE car at about 50 kph (30 mph) so it doesn’t make much difference on busy roads. It does make a huge difference in slow traffic.
It’s not tire noise that bothers me, it’s the folks who seem to think that the rest of us will think they’re cool for being able to hear their engine roaring down the road from a quarter mile away.
They’ll switch to very loud music unfortunately.
I would rather hear loud music than ear-piercing motor noise.
The traffic noise will stay the same, from tires, honking and some fake engine noise they’ll mandate for pedestrian safety.
Do yourself a favor and spend some time in an area without cars. It’s amazing what it does to your mental health.
About noise, above 30km/h electric cars are as noisy as gas powered one.
It’s better but not the panacea either.
Solution: 30km/h speed limit in cities, which is a good idea anyway for safety reasons.
Yes, it’s better for safety and health reason.
Plus 30km/h is in the speed range of bikes, so it become much more accessible to bike around in the city and more people start to do it.
It’s 30mph not kph. City streets should be limited to 20mph anyway.
Building massive production capacity to replace all the cars just locks us in to having cars though
If big oil doesn’t buy up the patent and squirrel it away.
I waited 4 years for battery technology to get better before bring an EV last year. The “battery revolution”, with all the news being generated weekly for years, is still not here. I don’t give a fuck about theoretical battery range - give me the actual battery in a car, THEN it’s newsworthy. Now it’s all just theoretical, which we consumers can do fuck all about.
And that’s the thing. As much as we’ve gotten used to it over the past hundred years, progress is absolutely not automatic.
If people don’t buy the current stuff, it reduces the chance of advancement for that tech. Most things will only get better if people are buying the current versions.
We’ve had solar power tech for 50 years. Solar initiatives under Carter were actually pretty good. You know who killed it, or I expect we’d have solar on most roofs today.
I recently visited Switzerland, and the amount of rooftop solar there was insane.
(Solar is of course closely linked to battery tech.)
I totally agree with your statement, but in the 4 years I waited, nothing has actually happened with the batteries on EVs (except for a bit faster charging on already insane charging times).
Well, Toyota has promised 2026 for their battery tech and hasn’t changed that guidance, so I think there’s a decent chance they’ll stick to that timeline. I don’t know if Samsung is their supplier or if they’re competing on the tech, but if it’s the latter, I expect we’ll see something in the next 2-3 years.
I’m still convinced Toyota is just announcing breakthroughs miracles in battery tech Coming Soon™ because they shit the bed so hard on the first round of EVs. Now they’re trying to discourage people from buying EVs now while they play catch-up.
Well, the good news is, nobody is making an actual solid state battery car, so if they don’t deliver, I’m not out anything. The current set of EVs aren’t good enough to replace our family car (we like road trips, and even 300 miles range is too little), so I’m waiting regardless. I’ll be looking for announcements in the next year or two.
Both of our cars are Toyotas though, because they make really good cars. We have a Sienna for our family car and a Prius for my commuter, and I’m probably going to replace that Prius with an EV if I can find a good deal on something with 150 miles range. The Sienna is getting old (nearly 200k miles), but it’s reliable, so I’m holding off until I can either get a good deal on a hybrid/ICE, or reasonable EVs are released. If that’s Toyota, great, but I’m not buying the first gen of anything regardless.
I’ve found the current gen of EVs is perfect for road tripping with my family. The battery range is perfectly sized for the bladder sizes of my kids. It works really well if you’re road tripping at a casual pace. However I know a lot of people that like to “death march” road trip where they won’t stop for 500 miles at a time - so I admit it’s definitely not for everyone.
Yeah, I have kids, and we can usually get about 300 miles before someone needs a bathroom break. So usually I refill gas (<5 min) while the kids go to the bathroom, and we usually pack enough food with us (sandwiches and whatnot) that we only need to go to a restaurant once on the trip.
An EV could work if fast chargers were as plentiful as gas stations, but in many of the areas we go (I live in Utah and travel to WA, MT, ID, and CA frequently), they’re pretty infrequent. So we’d need to plan stops based on charger availability, not on bladder size, which means an extra recharge or two for the trip. It’s getting better, but every time I look at maps, there are maybe one or two chargers in a 50 mile radius, so if it’s full or out of service, we’d be screwed.
Now, if gas stations started offering EV charging, I’d probably be looking at them today. Gas stations are perfect because they often have fast food, bathrooms, and snacks, all of which are essential for road trips.
As another anecdote, my coworker just bought a Model 3, and he frequently says he can’t reasonably visit places within our state because the charging network sucks. That’s a pretty serious concern for us, since we like camping, which means pretty remote trips.
One important thing to remember is the that battery capacity is unlikely to improve anymore, we should mostly improve charging, lifespan, safety, etc.
I doubt that we will ever see batteries that have much more capacity per weight than what we have now.
That’s completely wrong. Lab research continues and we’re not close to the theoretical limits of energy density yet.