- cross-posted to:
- automotive@discuss.tchncs.de
- technews@radiation.party
Japanese firm believes it could make a solid-state battery with a range of 745 miles that charges in 10 minutes
Japanese firm believes it could make a solid-state battery with a range of 745 miles that charges in 10 minutes
The important question is what is so wrong with the now countless existing 200/300 mile evs that charge in less than 30 minutes?
300 miles isn’t enough distance for a day of travel and lots of places don’t have charger availability still. What’s wrong with approaching parity in user experience to gasoline vehicles? It will only accelerate their use, and 700 miles in winter is going to be only maybe 300 miles.
A 30 minute charge for every 4 hours of driving is already practical for a long drive. Every safety organisation and fatigue management plan on the planet says you need to stop more often than that for fatigue anyway.
If some is regularly driving more than 200mi/320km in a day (more than the average car drives in a week) without a break on those trips, then a hybrid car is probably a better bet for the foreseeable future.
This is a very real problem. We know, we have family with an ev who need to travel to us to visit on occasion.
I’ve never owned a car in my life that gets more than 300 miles on a single tank of gas.
And there’s plenty of gas stations you can stop at to fill up in a few minutes.
What do you drive? A 2005 Honda civic gets 330+ miles on a full tank. Even a modern 4WD truck can hit 400+ miles total range.
My partner and I have owned an EV since 2017, so I am going to weigh in with my experiences.
I think this is implying that you can rotate drivers without breaks to get more miles, and that is also not great. Yes, you’re stopping briefly to rotate seats, but that is not really a break unless you are taking a 15-30 minutes to nap or walk around a little bit. I’ve done this and it is not fun and does not feel like you have taken any breaks.
With the EV, we are forced to stop more on road trips, and we typically arrive feeling like we can actually do something rather than crash in the campsite/hotel. For reference, a road trip from Seattle to the middle of nowhere Idaho took a little longer, especially with a car that only had 180 miles of range, but the in the end we still got there in plenty of time and did not feel like going directly to bed.
If you are going uphill only, yes. That being said, regeneration has got to the point where if you are going downhill, you’ll recoup most of that lost energy.
This is not true at all. 50% range loss is not only not common, the top selling EVs get at most 30% range loss. Most are in the 15-20% loss range.
https://www.recurrentauto.com/research/winter-ev-range-loss
Basically, if you live or travel in an area with cold weather, make sure you get a car with a heat pump.
Again, if you are going uphill only in cold weather this is going to be closer to 2-2.5 hours based on this metric, but most people go up then down hills when driving.
This is absolutely the biggest issue. If you are sticking to the major highways you are usually fine, but more rural ares are seriously under served.
Someone else already went into way more detail on this one, but I will absolutely agree that the rural US needs more infrastructure.
This can and does happen. Trip planning requires a bit more effort because of it for sure, but there are tools (A Better Route Planner and PlugShare) that can help. If you take a lot of trips, getting a Tesla Tap and making sure you get hotels with Tesla destination chargers helps a lot.
This really depends on the DC fast charging ability of the car and the charging station infrastructure (which needs a ton of work). Most of the cars currently available have 150kWh fast charging, which will take you about 20-30 minutes per charge. With the Hyundai/Kia eGMP platform you can get 350kWh charging, which will take you about 15 minutes per charge if you get a 350kWh charging station. The only car I would not recommend if you road trip is a Chevy Bolt, which only has 50kWh DC fast charging.
For more info you should check out MKBHD’s video about road tripping against a gas car or Aging Wheels/Technology Connections video about road tripping with a Hyundai Ionic 5 (with 350kWh charging).
As an aside, as much as I hate Elon/think Teslas are not great cars, they are starting to open their charging network and big car companies are adopting their charging port. This will help a lot with infrastructure since they have one of the biggest networks in the US, and with an adapter you can use CCS chargers with a Tesla port, so you’re not loosing out on non-Tesla chargers.
Yes. Because you can literally sleep the other two hours your other shift is driving. We do it regularly.
That’s unfortunate for you. Every single person I know does fine rotating drivers. Semis also do it all the time and it’s considered safe enough.
Unfortunately not because the primary energy losses come from aerodynamics not from the climb. So you can recover a decent amount, and the slower you go the more you can theoretically approach 99% recovery, but in practice this is not the case.
🎶safety factors🎶
it was a comment on having to use alternate routes to stay charged, not on the actual duration of charging, which can potentially add up is still only around 20% added trip time.
Thank you for the links, I appreciate the thought but we have an EV in the family, most of what I’ve said here relates to safety and practical outcomes and considerations we’ve made and worst case scenarios. In other words we have already done road tripping ourselves.
The tesla charger was forced to be an open standard and is being adopted for practical reasons, which works out.
It is still not the same thing as taking a break. Some people can’t sleep in cars, most people don’t sleep well in cars. I’m glad you can. Just because you can does not mean most people can
Semis literally have beds in them. That is not the same as sleeping in a car
EVs take into account a ton of aero, and the aerodynamics don’t change going up or down hill. Also, in practice, regeneration going downhill does recuperate the range loss from going uphill. I have done it many, many times. Sometimes you even overcome range loss and end up with more than when you started if the descent is particularly steep, though that is much more rare.
You keep saying safety factors, but it seems to be based on just a hunch
That certainly can be a factor based on infrastructure. Again, we need a lot more out there
So do you have an EV or do you have family from out of town that does? You’ve kinda said both. Also, you have said you don’t want individual car arguments, but you seem to be basing everything on an individual car (the one in your family). The reality is the make/model of the car does make a difference, but it is becoming less and less of an issue as EV tech progresses, and a majority of them don’t have the issues you are concerned about. Unless you are road tripping in a gen 1 Leaf or Chevy Bolt, the concerns are more anxiety than anything.
My partner and I go camping a bunch (no charging stations in the bushes), road trip from Seattle down to Oregon quite a bit. Like I said, we have also done very long road trips, but those are more rare (as they are with most people). We have never run into an issue where the extra time was an issue, have never lost 40% range in the cold (with 3 different EVs), and have never had an issue with hills or mountains (again, we have always gone down the other side or back down the same way in the case of camping). Hell, we live in Seattle which is a steep city and my partner drives for work (75-100 miles/day) and have not run into these issues. I will say we are lucky to live on the west coast where the infrastructure is much better than other areas, but I have always agreed we need more infrastructure. Even so, now that we have a place to charge at night, we don’t use much of the local infrastructure (which is a privilege, I know).
More important than stuff we’ve been discussing (IMO, since most folks don’t actually road trip that much), I think more important things to argue for are infrastructure in rural areas, and infrastructure for people in apartments. Right now, not having a place to charge at night is a big barrier for most people in apartments. In rural areas, the distance between chargers is currently too high, though if folks have a place to charge at home, that is less of an issue for daily use.
K. Different people have different experiences. Given I was responding to someone’s assumption that cars only transfer 1 person at a time over long distances, I’m going to say my response was pretty safely addressing this exact point. Feel free to disagree.
True, and from personal experience the cars were more comfortable. Sleeper cabs are not that big.
See my other response.
Given one was explicit and the other is your inference this has been covered.
Right, because I’m offering conservative estimates on the details using it to counter an anecdotal belief to point out that it’s not exactly as simple as the op was commenting on. This discussion is so far removed and so terminally reddit, christ.
Something that is likely happening here is your definition of cold weather is not my definition of cold weather. Even the link I sent, which approaches 30%, barely touches below 20F. This is cold, sure, but not the most cold. Which when you are planning driving, you generally want to be able to drive in the worst conditions for your area so you don’t, you know, get stranded and/or die. Given temperatures in my area reach as low as -20F yearly you might benefit from reconsidering your assumptions.
These are entirely independent problems with independent research teams and are so removed from each other as “battery research” is obviously research, while “infrastructure every 50 miles” is political. These aren’t more or less important, they are entirely independent discussions.
This argument is so nitpicky and feels like bleed over from reddit. It’s not about anything useful, it’s about you misunderstanding the point I’m making and nitpicking the rhetoric until you’ve decided I’ve said something in a way you would have also said it, and therefore it is acceptable to you. I’m done here, have a good one.
Apologies for frustrating you. My whole point was to respond with your bullet list with more context from my experience. Have a good one
I hadn’t so much considered mountainous areas, since highway driving here is mostly flat (even what we consider “mountains” are pretty flat). Yes, we are going to need charging infrastructure on long drives, but that’s going to be the case even if batteries could do 500km or 1000km on a charge. My petrol hatchback can only do 500km highway, and there’s still servos every few 100km at a minimum, even through the most of the outback. We will need fast charging as commonly as we have highway servos.
But if you live in a place where the common long drives you do are ~1.5x your range, and have a charger halfway, an electric car is easily practical. Longer drives are practical, a mate did a 1600km round trip in their EV with no issues, and would gladly do it again.
As for hybrids, yeah, a plug-in hybrid is the worst of both, but a ‘normal’ hybrid is essentially just a very efficient petrol car.
Improving range and charging infrastructure is certainly a good thing, especially when there are people who live in remote parts of the country and Americans do go on road trips from time to time. That said most people in the US inherently live in the more populous regions. Less than 300 miles can get you from LA to Las Vegas, and under 300 gets you NYC to DC and theres a number of population centers you cross along the way(obviously more on the east coast). A student traveling from Long Island NY to Buffalo NY will have to drive over 400 miles which is just out of range but there’s enough towns and cities on the way that they should be able to hit up a fast charger.
EV’s already have the disadvantage of being more expensive and and adding an extra 100 miles of capacity would likely add to production costs. So I understand why the major auto manufacturers are targetting 300 which will is far enough to get you into a place with a different dialect and climate. I believe the average trip in america winds up being closer to 50 miles anyway(though this is weighed down by americans making lots of short trips).
Also most of the compact cars I’ve owned have a range of around ~350-375. If I get a good back wind and the conditions are right I can possibly get up to 400 but thats up to Poseidon and he only does it sometimes to gaslight me into thinking my car is more efficient than it.
For people living in the more sparsely populated parts of the US I think sticking with petrol for longer trips or even an EV hybrid would be a good compromise. I imagine thanks to how somehow climate change has become political, that a large chunk of residents living in such rural parts of the country are anti-electric car anyway.
I’ve got the 2021 Kona EV and while you do lose range in the winter, it’s more like 100km/450km. That’s with intense grip heavy winter tires and the heater running. In Ontario, so regularly ran it with -35c temps. It’s cold and you lose some range, but not 400miles out of a 700mile range
In general Li ion batteries lose about 40% charge efficiency in normal cold weather. It’s up to the car’s systems to keep the batteries heated to reduce that, at the cost of constant power draw. In our experience with similar weather it’s not far off, and for safety reasons we just assume half the battery is lost during winter driving. Mountains add into that, but aren’t ultimately super extreme.
Yes, but the power draw of those systems are less than the 40% figure you cited. Anyone who lives somewhere cold and doesn’t get a heat pump on their battery is stupid, and not a fair comparison. As I mentioned, the battery life is closer to losing 10% than 40% in real life tests of the vehicles, and that lines up with my experiences.
Source
Ultimately depends on the car and the engineering. You’ll note that I am speaking in favor of safety. Nonetheless I didn’t come here to argue about individual car specs, I came here to point out that getting up to 700 miles of range is a huge benefit, and that many parts of the US and many people in the US need cars with larger ranges than 300 mi.
Yes some cars dont lose very much range in the winter, some lose as much as 30% from real testing. There’s no magic generalization here, I used 40% as a safety factor.
From your own source that 40% is wildly inaccurate. Even if it was accurate a 40% range loss from 700 miles is 420 miles.
Safety factor based on what though? There is nothing to support that most cars would lose 40% of their range, but you added 10% to real world data and called it a “safety factor” to try to legitimize what you said.
Couldn’t solid state batteries potentially be better in cold weather? Even if it was the same it would be more like 420 miles since Lithium batteries are around 40% less efficient in the average winters.
Anything that requires long travel distances…
Rented a Tesla for an overnight trip of about 250 miles. Had to top it off before leaving, again during the trip (the 300 mile range it is supposed to have was absurdly optimistic) and yet again before returning the car. We spent easily 90 minutes dealing with the charging the damn car vs. a single 5 minute fuel stop for a gasoline car.
For around town 250 miles is plenty, but for even a short, one night road trip the time and effort required to charge a current generation electric car is ridiculous.
Battery life, safety, cost, sustainability.
To add to what’s already been said:
Typical range numbers are highly optimistic, consider that many of the people who are traveling long distances are also towing a trailer of some sort-- Electric trucks seem nice until you realize that the range gets cut in half the second you start pulling something moderately heavy.