• Slatlun@lemmy.ml
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    11 months ago

    ‘252 km (157 miles) range’ to save others the same skimming I did

        • indigomirage@lemmy.ca
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          11 months ago

          The key is that with the right use case, it frees up lithium to be used where only it is suitable.

          (for my needs I’d be fine with sodium…)

          • Flying Squid@lemmy.world
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            11 months ago

            I can see that. My point is that the only electric car that has that range in the U.S. is the Leaf, which goes 168 miles on the smaller battery. I don’t need an electric car that goes that many miles between charges. I’d be fine with 90. I’d probably be fine with less than 90. We have a second car if we ever want to leave town. I’d ditch my hybrid and get a cheaper electric car that didn’t have a huge range, but it isn’t even on offer.

            • Pretzilla@lemmy.world
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              11 months ago

              Dude get a used Leaf or Bolt. There is a $4k tax credit or direct price reduction for used now.

              • ramble81@lemm.ee
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                11 months ago

                Got any info on that? Looking at buying out my EV lease and wonder if I can get that added.

            • indigomirage@lemmy.ca
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              11 months ago

              For sure! I think we’re going to have to move away from a one-size fits all car design. For general city use, I use a Chevy Bolt, but for longer (infrequent) runs, I’m still stuck with ICE (I’d use a hybrid if I had one). In Canada, the range really does go down in the winter. (and Canada has not taken charging infrastructure very seriously - mandatory for adoption)

              Anyway you look at it, these are very, very positive developments.

              • thisbenzingring@lemmy.sdf.org
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                11 months ago

                They are as expensive as the other EVs and aren’t eligible for the US reimbursement 🫤

                They are kinda ugly too… Which sucks because I really love the BMW driving experience

            • sugar_in_your_tea@sh.itjust.works
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              11 months ago

              My problem is that I need >100 mile range. I live in a cold climate and have a 50 mile, round-trip commute (and high speed, so even worse range), so if EVs get half the range in the winter, I could stuck. There isn’t a big set of cars in the 100-150 mile range, usually you get something older and used with <100, or current cars get >200 and you pay the price for it.

              A new Leaf is something like $30k, and used Leafs are something like $17k, so it’s absolutely not worth replacing my reliable hybrid car at that price. If I could get a new car around $20k with ~150 mile range, or a used car (~5 years old) with 100-150 mile range for 10k, I’d probably buy it. But that just isn’t a thing right now. So I’m waiting.

    • tills13@lemmy.world
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      11 months ago

      I’ve found people vastly overstated how much range they need. 99% of usage is in the city between home and somewhere else. 250km is perfect if the price is right.

      • Sestren@lemmy.world
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        11 months ago

        For daily use, sure - but it completely excludes itself as an option for road trips in the US and parts of Canada. There’s a stretch of interstate road near me with nearly a 100 mile gap between service stations.

        I know that this isn’t the purpose of this battery, but it’s a valid reason why a lot of people might be hesitant to buy one. Many people can’t afford multiple vehicles for different purposes. You have the car you drive to work with, and if you happen to go on a trip you just use the same thing.

        Maybe 99% of use occurs within constraints that this battery can handle, but if you can only afford one vehicle, then this is still a pretty suboptimal option. That being said… it could still be cheap enough to not matter. I didn’t see any mention of price in that article.

          • ImFresh3x@sh.itjust.works
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            11 months ago

            That’s not how car sales work. People want EVs without major downsides. Until that’s what’s available we won’t be see EVs surpass 10% market share.

            • ExLisper@linux.community
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              11 months ago

              I know, people are not willing to comprises for the good of the planet. That’s why we’re so fucked.

              • Mongostein@lemmy.ca
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                11 months ago

                They should raise the driving age to 30. Then people would understand what a privilege driving really is.

        • krakenx@lemmy.world
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          11 months ago

          A solution to this would be an extra expansion battery that you could buy or rent as an add-on only when needed.

        • dubyakay@lemmy.ca
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          11 months ago

          Just use Communauto for those once a quarter out of town trips.

        • GreenM@lemmy.world
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          11 months ago

          It seems to me that car in the article is relatively small city car. I can imagine that building bigger car with inter city travels in mind would also include an improved range.

        • IHadTwoCows@lemm.ee
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          11 months ago

          Most of the pollution problem is in cities with lots of vehicles. EVs dont do as much for their purpose at the hindredth meridian where the great plains begin…driving down a cordoroy road, weeds standing shoulder-high

      • sugar_in_your_tea@sh.itjust.works
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        11 months ago

        Exactly. We have two cars, and we only need one to have any kind of range. The other is fine with 250km/150mi range, but it needs to be relatively inexpensive to buy and repair. It’ll just be for a daily commute and around-town driving, no expectation for long-distance.

        It doesn’t need space for people or stuff, just 2-4 passengers is plenty. It’ll strictly be for commutes and small trips to the grocery store and whatnot, the other car can be used for larger trips.

    • chitak166@lemmy.world
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      11 months ago

      That’s not bad if the price is right.

      I’d be willing to buy one for ~$5-8k.

      • Deiv@lemmy.ca
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        11 months ago

        5-8k for a car in this day and age? That’s the price of a scooter

          • TheGrandNagus@lemmy.world
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            11 months ago

            The Ami starts for substantially more than that.

            And even then, it’s not legally classified as a car. It has virtually no crash safety, a top speed of 28mph assuming no incline, and a real world range of 40 miles.

            Don’t get me wrong, I like the Ami, but it’s a scooter alternative more than a car alternative.

      • soggy_kitty
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        11 months ago

        Lmao $5k for a brand new car. You’re dreaming mate

        • chitak166@lemmy.world
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          11 months ago

          Who ever said brand new?

          Might want to brush up on your reading comprehension, ‘mate’.

          • soggy_kitty
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            11 months ago

            It’s a post about a new vehicle, when you talk about “buying one” it’s clearly inferred you’re buying from the factory.

            Also, there’s no need to be a complete dick. It’s not a good look for you

            • chitak166@lemmy.world
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              11 months ago

              No, it’s not inferred at all. The vast majority of people buying cars buy them used.

              You’re just desperate to justify your assumption.

    • auroraborealiz
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      11 months ago

      Perfectly usable for urban travel in Chinese cities

  • Newtra@pawb.social
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    11 months ago

    This is awesome news. Not because of the car, but because it builds the supply lines for an alternative battery chemistry.

    People have been using lithium-ion batteries for home and grid storage, which is nuts if you compare it to other battery types. Lithium is expensive and polluting and only makes sense if you’re limited by weight & space. Cheaper batteries, even if they’re bigger/heavier, will do wonders to the economics of sustainable electricity production.

    • You999@sh.itjust.works
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      11 months ago

      People have been using lithium-ion batteries for home and grid storage, which is nuts if you compare it to other battery types

      Compared to other battery chemistry types using lithium makes tons of sense.

      Lead acid type batteries like sealed and AGM are cheap but not power dense and do not offer the same discharge ability that lithium offers without damaging the battery (AGM fixes this but it’s still an issue). Some lead acid batteries require continuous maintenance and vent toxic gasses which may be an issue depending on your encloser.

      Nickel cadmium batteries solve a lot of issues that lead acid batteries are plagued with however they suffer from moisture intrusion issues causing self discharge. Nickel cadmium also suffers from memory effect which may completely ruin pour battery depending on your use. The elephant in the room with nickel cadmium is that it’s banned in some countries including the European union due to how toxic cadmium is.

      Now with lithium, it’s a very energy dense battery which means you need less batteries to meet a capacity or you can fit more capacity into an encloser. There isn’t any electrolyte or water maintenance you need to worry about. You can discharge and recharge as you wish with minimal damage. Really the only downsides is that they do not like charging in the cold, are just as toxic as cadmium, and are much much much more expensive.

        • You999@sh.itjust.works
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          11 months ago

          The original comment was about lithium and their popularity for backup power. Sodium ion batteries are so new that you can’t purchase them yet (blueitte supposedly released the NA300 but I can’t find any in stock and it’s no longer on their site).

          It wouldn’t be fair to compare a chemistry you cannot purchase and which it’s strengths and weaknesses haven’t been tested outside of controlled laboratory testing.

        • ShepherdPie@midwest.social
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          11 months ago

          Probably because they’re new and the parent comment specifically referred to the cheaper, less energy dense battery types.

      • Newtra@pawb.social
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        11 months ago

        I agree that older commercialized battery types aren’t so interesting, but my point was about all the battery types that haven’t had enough R&D yet to be commercially mass-produced.

        Power grids don’t care much about density - they can build batteries where land is cheap, and for fire control they need to artificially space out higher-density batteries anyway. There are heaps of known chemistries that might be cheaper per unit stored (molten salt batteries, flow batteries, and solid state batteries based on cheaper metals), but many only make sense for energy grid applications because they’re too big/heavy for anything portable.

        I’m saying it’s nuts that lithium ion is being used for cases where energy density isn’t important. It’s a bit like using bottled water on a farm because you don’t want to pay to get the nearby river water tested. It’s great that sodium ion could bring new economics to grid energy storage, but weird that the only reason it got developed in the first place was for a completely different industry.

      • zalgotext@sh.itjust.works
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        11 months ago

        Really the only downsides is that they do not like charging in the cold, are just as toxic as cadmium, and are much much much more expensive.

        Seems like some pretty big and numerous downsides lmao

      • AlexisFR@jlai.lu
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        11 months ago

        Don’t forget the volatility of Lithium batteries if they ever get damaged or punctured.

    • profdc9@lemmy.world
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      11 months ago

      Lithium makes more sense when weight is an issue, for example when you have to carry the battery around. Sodium batteries could be good for grid storage if they can be implemented as scale cheaply enough, especially using common materials.

        • bstix@feddit.dk
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          11 months ago

          Used car batteries can be reused for storage, so it’s going to require a cost analysis to determine what makes most sense for storage solutions. It’s great if they can use a cheaper sodium battery but we also don’t want to just waste the second hand lithium batteries. It makes sense to use both. At least until there are better recycling options. Also with solid state batteries hopefully coming up soon, it’ll still make sense to find use for the current batteries.

          Ideally, home backups should be able to use any battery. Standards for compatibility would be nice.

      • sugar_in_your_tea@sh.itjust.works
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        11 months ago

        A quick wikipedia read implies that sodium-ion batteries could be half or less the cost vs lithium. Also this:

        Another factor is that cobalt, copper and nickel are not required for many types of sodium-ion batteries, and more abundant iron-based materials work well in Na+ batteries.

        That’s probably most of why it’s cheaper, and it’s also way less damaging to the environment if they truly can be made from mostly sodium and iron.

        I’m more concerned about the safety aspects. It seems there are two main types:

        • aqueous - quite safe, but also likely very heavy per unit of energy
        • carbon - high risk (probably similar to lithium)

        That’s a big reason why I and probably many others aren’t interested in the current batch of EVs. Yeah they’re pretty safe, but they’re quite violent when they fail. I’d probably buy a sodium-ion EV if it could get 100-150 miles range reliably. That would be absolutely sufficient for my commute, even in the winter, and it would make a fantastic “around town” car when I’m not working.

        • wikibot@lemmy.worldB
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          11 months ago

          Here’s the summary for the wikipedia article you mentioned in your comment:

          Sodium-ion batteries (NIBs, SIBs, or Na-ion batteries) are several types of rechargeable batteries, which use sodium ions (Na+) as its charge carriers. In some cases, its working principle and cell construction are similar to those of lithium-ion battery (LIB) types, but it replaces lithium with sodium as the cathode material. Sodium belongs to the same group in the periodic table as lithium and thus has similar chemical properties. In other cases (such as aqueous Na-ion batteries) they are quite different from Li-ion batteries. SIBs received academic and commercial interest in the 2010s and early 2020s, largely due to the uneven geographic distribution, high environmental impact, and high cost of lithium. An obvious advantage of sodium is its natural abundance, particularly in saltwater. Another factor is that cobalt, copper and nickel are not required for many types of sodium-ion batteries, and more abundant iron-based materials work well in Na+ batteries. This is because the ionic radius of Na+ (116 pm) is substantially larger than that of Fe2+ and Fe3+ (6992 pm depending on the spin state), whereas the ionic radius of Li+ is similar (90 pm). Similar ionic radii of lithium and iron result in their mixing in the cathode material during battery cycling, and a resultant loss of cyclable charge. A downside of the larger ionic radius of Na+ is a slower intercalation kinetics of sodium-ion electrode materials.The development of Na+ batteries started in the 1990s. After three decades of development, NIBs are at a critical moment of commercialization. Several companies such as HiNa and CATL in China, Faradion in the United Kingdom, Tiamat in France, Northvolt in Sweden, and Natron Energy in the US, are close to achieving the commercialization of NIBs, with the aim of employing sodium layered transition metal oxides (NaxTMO2), Prussian white (a Prussian blue analogue) or vanadium phosphate as cathode materials.Electric vehicles using sodium-ion battery packs are not yet commercially available. However, CATL, the world's biggest lithium-ion battery manufacturer, announced in 2022 the start of mass production of SIBs. In February 2023, the Chinese HiNA Battery Technology Company, Ltd. placed a 140 Wh/kg sodium-ion battery in an electric test car for the first time, and energy storage manufacturer Pylontech obtained the first sodium-ion battery certificate from TÜV Rheinland.

          article | about

    • ___@lemm.ee
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      11 months ago

      Not just that, we don’t have enough lithium deposits atm to build enough lithium evs to last more than a few decades if we act smart (which we generally do not).

    • PraiseTheSoup@lemm.ee
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      11 months ago

      Cheaper batteries, even if they’re bigger/heavier

      Yes, just what we need is more vehicles on the road that weigh as much as a tank but accelerate like a Ferrari. I’m sure that won’t cause any problems.

  • doctorcrimson@lemmy.world
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    11 months ago

    Hold up, they solved the energy sink issue with the salt batteries? That’s wicked. There were physicists arguing with each other that the power you put in couldn’t be gotten back out.

      • theblueredditrefugee@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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        11 months ago

        Yeah, I’m quite curious myself as to why it’s more difficult. My chemistry knowledge is chem1 level so all I know is that sodium atoms are larger and the energy levels for state change are slightly different

      • doctorcrimson@lemmy.world
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        11 months ago

        Well, sure, but you’re asking me about something I saw in passing half a decade ago. Basically, the main difficulties with Na Ion Batteries and especially the “Glass Batteries” were the lack of proper cathode with which to create current and also maintain the structure against the naturally occurring atomic reshuffling. In particular there was controversy over John B. Goodenough’s research because other battery scientists noted the electrodes both ends contained anode materials which should theoretically produce no electrochemical potential and therefor no cell voltage.

        More modern attempts appear to use Graphene structures, which is promising in a lot of different ways: structural stability, durability, current, and material availability.

        BTW Rest in Peace John, your good deeds outweigh the bad: a true scientist worth remembering for all time.

          • doctorcrimson@lemmy.world
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            11 months ago

            I’m not in the battery research field but I assume it’s kind of like

            We’ve got tons of puzzle pieces that we need to put together

            and then we need to find an economically viable create more combined puzzle pieces at scale.

    • GreenM@lemmy.world
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      11 months ago

      That is the case with every energy storage though in some cases it’s more pronounced.

  • hark@lemmy.world
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    11 months ago

    We’ve only got a stated range out of this (252km/157mi) but there are a lot of factors where this could do well. Sodium batteries should be cheaper, so it’d be great if that translated to the final sale price. Depending on charge times and where you live, this could be a perfectly practical vehicle. If it doesn’t degrade like lithium batteries, then that’d be even better. Might make for a great secondary vehicle (or everyday driver, depending).

    • partial_accumen@lemmy.world
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      11 months ago

      I’m expecting to see dual battery EVs in the not too distant future. A Sodium battery for the primary that gets the most charges and discharges which can be easy and cheaper to replace. Beside that a Lithium battery which would only be drawn from after the Sodium battery was exhausted. This way if you’re doing shallow discharges for your “around town” driving then charging at night, and deep discharges for longer road trips where the energy density of Lithium shines.

        • Nomecks@lemmy.ca
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          11 months ago

          This is a solved problem. Most EVs won’t let you charge it to the actual 100% level or discharge it to 0.

          • Patch@feddit.uk
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            11 months ago

            Exactly. Really, “fully charged” should just be conceptualised as being at a sensible safe point, with the acknowledgement that it’s possible to “overcharge” the batteries to an even higher level, chemically speaking, but that all sensible devices don’t let you do this.

        • LrdThndr@lemmy.world
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          11 months ago

          So only charge it to 80% and pretend 80% is 100%, like iPhones do. Why is that a concern?

          • woefkardoes@lemmy.world
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            11 months ago

            Or you could just use all of the space for a sodium battery and fully charge it as it won’t need long term storage in that state.

      • zergtoshi@lemmy.world
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        11 months ago

        I’m still dreaming of seeing EVs with flexible battery space, which users can fill according to their needs.
        Like a car comes with space for 10x 10 kWh slots.
        If 20 kWh serve your usual needs, the other spaces remain empty.
        And if you plan longer trips and don’t want to recharge each 100 miles, you put in additional batteries. Those batteries don’t need to be owned, but can be rented.
        Ideally there are lots of battery rental stations, where you can get charged batteries and instead of recharging the batteries in the EV, the rent’n’swap stations recharge them.
        During (EV) wise low use times, these stations can provide a buffer to the energy grid.
        …one can dream…

              • that guy@lemmy.world
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                11 months ago

                The good news is there’s only 8 of them, the bad news is they have robot dogs with machine guns on their backs

          • zergtoshi@lemmy.world
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            11 months ago

            Then buy it. No need to rent it then.
            The main focus was on flexible energy packs not on the renting, although I’d find it convenient if done right.

            • Forbo@lemmy.ml
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              11 months ago

              You have far more faith in capitalists to do the right thing than I. They’ll put this shit behind user hostile DRM the same that Disney does for drink refills.

        • thoughtorgan@lemmy.world
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          11 months ago

          Idk about renting, sounds like ass.

          A core charge would make more sense, like swapping propane tanks you get a discount for having the empty core with you.

          • zergtoshi@lemmy.world
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            11 months ago

            Wpuld you rather purchase an 80 kWh battery, alrhough you need most of the time only 20 kWh or purchase only 20 kWh and rent/swap some batteries when needed?
            I’m no talking about renting all battery capacity the whole year, just the extra capacity for the 2-4 weeks in the year when long-distance rides are in the mix.

        • unrelatedkeg@lemmy.sdf.org
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          11 months ago

          I’ve seen a video with some electric mopeds that had very easily removable batteries. Like you just pop it out and exchange it at a gas-station equivalent.

          It’d be ideal if we could settle on a few sizes - kind of like how we have AA, AAA, C, D, etc. batteries. One can be for such mopeds, one larger for cars and some smaller ones to fill various otherwise empty spaces in a car.

          So if your battery goes bad or just want to change its tech you can do that.

          For normal city driving you carge the car at home. If you go on a trip make a few stops for charging. If you’re really in a rush, you can always pay a premium for swapping your drained battery for a prefilled one at a gas station equivalent.

          To me this seems like the ideal solution for EVs and I wonder what facts make it unrealistic.

          • dual_sport_dork 🐧🗡️@lemmy.world
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            11 months ago

            It’d be ideal if we could settle on a few sizes - kind of like how we have AA, AAA, C, D, etc. batteries. One can be for such mopeds, one larger for cars and some smaller ones to fill various otherwise empty spaces in a car.

            This is precisely where we’re going to get fucked, though, because the modern pathological mindset of every tech company now is to try to build their own proprietary walled fiefdom to try to lock in suckers recurring revenue sources customers and they won’t make their stuff compatible with anyone else’s unless the government forces them to. Maybe if we’re lucky there will be a decade or two of highly public bitching (see also: the Tesla charging connector) until someone eventually capitulates.

          • Bridger@sh.itjust.works
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            11 months ago

            Different battery chemistries have different charging requirements. So you’d have to have more complex charger/battery interaction requirements. Not insurmountable but another layer of standardization

          • xspurnx@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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            11 months ago

            Yup, I’ve been thinking along those lines as well. I can’t believe that every manufacturer is doing their own standards again…

        • filister@lemmy.world
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          11 months ago

          You know, putting and removing batteries would be a very tedious task and I really doubt that many owners will bother with it.

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            11 months ago

            It wouldn’t be necessary very often unless you’d want to take advantage of swapping instead of reloading.

          • fiah@discuss.tchncs.de
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            11 months ago

            also it’s not a trivial task to engineer for swapable EV batteries, doing so comes with a whole host of disadvantages / compromises that don’t make sense for most (I guess) consumers right now. It’s not very different from the phone battery issue, except on a huge scale and with much more severe consequences if things go wrong

            • filister@lemmy.world
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              11 months ago

              Yes, you need to make the puncture proof, they are a fire hazard if stored at home, they degrade over time and if left empty long enough might not even work, etc.

              • zergtoshi@lemmy.world
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                11 months ago

                The enginnering part is for sure one of the reasons we don’t see that idea in the wild (yet?).
                The fire hazard at home and degradation when stored full or empty (speaking of lithion ion based batteries here) go away if you lean on the rental approach.
                Wouldn’t it be nice to save investment and weight by using the required amount of battery capacity while still being able to extend the range of your car easily when needed?

            • LrdThndr@lemmy.world
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              11 months ago

              I mean, US Cellular had a free battery swap program for a while. If you were a subscriber and your phone battery was low, you could go into any store and they’d swap you out for a fully charged battery for free. I presume they just ate the cost of damaged or degraded batteries as part of it. I only used it a couple times, but it was kinda nice.

    • Wahots@pawb.social
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      11 months ago

      The other thing is that it could also potentially be significantly cheaper to replace if it wears out. And could potentially be easier to recycle too, if it’s common salts. I’m optimistic about it!

    • sugar_in_your_tea@sh.itjust.works
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      11 months ago

      That’s a perfect range for me. If it’s relatively cheap and charges reasonably well in the winter, I’ll buy it.

      We currently have two cars:

      • hybrid sedan - only used for commute (50mi round trip) and around-town trips
      • minivan - mostly used for long trips, or when my spouse needs to take the kids somewhere while I’m at work

      A lot of my neighbors have a similar setup because either one person doesn’t work or works at home, but they often need to use both cars simultaneously. If it’s priced well, it’ll sell well.

      The main problem with existing EVs are that they either have far too little range (e.g. original Leaf w/ 70 miles range), or are way too expensive because they try to get too much range (200+ mile range). That higher range is kind of necessary because of degradation, whereas if the battery were cheaper to replace, more people would be willing to buy something with lower range and replace the battery after a few years.

    • qyron
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      11 months ago

      252km is 3 days worth of commuting for many people I know. For me personally it is one and hald days of work, moving around in a diesel beast. I would go stupid giddy if I was handed one of these for a daily work driver

    • Wanderer@lemm.ee
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      11 months ago

      The economics of an undegrading car battery are interesting.

      It’s looking like these batteries will allow electric cars to be comparable to an ICE car in terms of price and cheaper to run.

      So people will buy them as it makes sense. Then run the car until it falls apart then they will have a very large battery effectively for free. Does that get placed in a new car? Converted into home storage? Grid storage? Cheaply recycled?

  • ConstipatedWatson@lemmy.world
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    11 months ago

    Question to anyone who might know more: would sodium based batteries be better than lithium ones for the environment, in terms of recycling or disposing of it?

    In case they are indeed better, would they be better because it’s better to use less lithium in general (so if you use more sodium based ones, you use less lithium) or would they be also better because their own disposal is “nicer” (as in less toxic) for the environment?

    • partial_accumen@lemmy.world
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      11 months ago

      Well, Sodium is the 6th most abundant element on Earth, so there’s a lot more of it and the extraction process is probably far more environmentally friendly.

      Since Sodium batteries are so new I don’t think we have data on the toxicity, disposal or recycling avenues yet.

      • CertifiedBlackGuy@lemmy.world
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        11 months ago

        They’re actually old tech. They just could never match lithium.

        They’ll shine as standing storage more so than mobile applications. Home storage will benefit greatly from their improvements

        • ConstipatedWatson@lemmy.world
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          11 months ago

          That’s very interesting. If they can be used at home or in cars that don’t require batteries with a very large capacity, then that would be really good to counter the scarcity of lithium (and hopefully, help the environment too)

        • agitatedpotato@lemmy.world
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          11 months ago

          If they can get industrial scale it could also allow energy grids to capture excess power instead of wasting it. Could yield massive efficiency increases being able to reclaim some of that loss.

      • ConstipatedWatson@lemmy.world
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        11 months ago

        Interesting! So it would make sense to have tons of sodium batteries for all purposes for which one doesn’t need maybe higher capacity or performance as I understand lithium batteries offer

        • partial_accumen@lemmy.world
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          11 months ago

          Instead of thinking “capacity” by itself, thing of “capacity for the given space” or rather “density”. So Sodium batteries can be equal capacity as Lithium, but the equivalent capacity Sodium battery will be significantly larger. In applications like storing overproduced wind or solar electricity for use later, we don’t care how big the battery is. However, it a moving vehicle where every square centimeter and every kg changes the performance of the car, those density differences can have a real impact.

      • Wanderer@lemm.ee
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        11 months ago

        It was a light bulb moment to me when I realised toxicity is at least somewhat correlated with abundance.

        Like lots of metals can be toxic but something like iron is so common you could just throw it on the ground and while certainly not ideal it’s far from a major problem. The environment is very good at dealing with iron.

    • Dyf_Tfh@lemmy.sdf.org
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      11 months ago

      I don’t find the source anymore, but i saw a lifetime analysis about sodium ion batteries. Overall they are slighly worse than lithium ion due to higher energy input required during fabrication, despite better mineral availability.

      The most common Na-ion batteries use Prussian Blue.

      • ConstipatedWatson@lemmy.world
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        11 months ago

        I suppose maybe they’re still useful innovations if they can be made with minerals which are more available.

        Probably, we could achieve a balance between one type and the other, but I’m daydreaming now…

    • Hamartiogonic
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      11 months ago

      The main idea here is that we won’t run out of raw materials very easily when using stuff that’s relatively cheap and abundant. Well at least the ions are. Who knows what the anode and cathode are made of. Probably the usual materials; otherwise they would have mentioned it. If they still use cobalt in the cathode, you can’t really avoid the ethical questions that come with it.

      Producing all the other materials can be rather energy intensive depending on the method used, so it depends. If you buy your metals from a country with hardly any environmental regulation, you can be pretty sure they don’t give a dingo’s kidney as to how many trees are chopped down and how many puppies are thrown in a furnace to get the next shipment of metals delivered.

      Also, the electrolyte could be more or less harmful to humans and the environment. As far as the environmental impact is concerned, these batteries probably come with all the usual issues. Currently there just aren’t any perfect solutions commercially available. Regardless, this seems like a step in the right direction IMO.

  • Slovene@feddit.nl
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    11 months ago

    My doctor says I can’t buy it. Is there a low sodium version?

  • JATth@lemmy.world
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    11 months ago

    Any new battery technology news needs to be taken with a grain of salt. They are highly likely over-hyped and the actually realized products will have more problems than the current established tech initially.

    • Echo Dot@feddit.uk
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      11 months ago

      Any new battery technology news needs to be taken with grain of salt.

      Well yeah, it’s sodium.

    • roscoe@startrek.website
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      11 months ago

      Normally you’re right. It seems like every day there is a new revolutionary battery tech with no real estimate when it’ll ever be in use. But in this case, according to the article, deliveries will start next month which means they’re already in production.

    • graymess@lemmy.world
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      11 months ago

      Sure. I’m in no rush to replace my car with one of these, but it’s a great thing that this technology is already in production. With these actually going into real cars that people can buy and drive, we’ll get more data so that any serious issues will hopefully be identified and addressed in the next generation.

      • SolidGrue@lemmy.world
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        11 months ago

        Volkswagen: Stop hitting yourself… Stop hitting yourself.

        But you can’t stop hitting youraelf because Volkswagen has you by the wrists and is usng them to make you hit yourself with your own hands over, and over again.

      • Showroom7561@lemmy.ca
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        11 months ago

        I hope not, because salt isn’t a renewable resource. And who the hell wants to fight the auto industry for something we need for food?

        • Nima@lemmy.world
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          11 months ago

          Sodium isn’t rare in the slightest. according to Wikipedia, “Sodium is the sixth most abundant element in the Earth’s crust and exists in numerous minerals such as feldspars, sodalite, and halite (NaCl).”

          salt isn’t going anywhere. no need to fret.

          • Showroom7561@lemmy.ca
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            11 months ago

            We had a shortage in Canada… but after looking into it, it appears to have been caused by a labour strike. LOL

            Yes, it’s abundant. But it is still a finite resource that needs to be mined/harvested, and what will that look like when the EVs are running off sodium-ion batteries?

            • GreenM@lemmy.world
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              11 months ago

              Bit better then when we mined coal or lithium since it’s so abundant we don’t have to fck up whole regions for it to get to the little bit here and there. Desalination makes sense, dried death salt lakes also seems logical etc. Salt is everywhere. People are even building artificial “caves” with salt for others to go breath salty air inside.

            • TheHotze@lemmy.world
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              11 months ago

              A lot of desalinization plants just release the salty brine back out to sea, it’s actually an ecological problem, so finding another use for it might convince them to capture and separate that for manufacturing uses.

            • theblueredditrefugee@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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              11 months ago

              We had a shortage in Canada… but after looking into it, it appears to have been caused by a labour strike. LOL

              That’s a capitalism problem, not a resource problem. All resources require labor to harvest, renewable or no.

        • sir_reginald@lemmy.world
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          11 months ago

          this is plain stupid. sodium is far far more common in the earth than lithium. if you’re worried about sodium not being renewable, then by that logic you should stop using lithium batteries right now.

          • Showroom7561@lemmy.ca
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            11 months ago

            Yes, I understand. I already posted that I was under the impression that we have shortages of the stuff, since we had shortages in Canada. But it was due to a labour dispute, and not a lack of resources.

            And yes, I think we should reduce our use of lithium batteries, or at least only use recycled lithium.

    • RagingRobot@lemmy.world
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      11 months ago

      These ones look pretty normal to me. I think there are a few options now that look like regular cars. The only difference usually is they don’t have a front grill because they don’t need one.

      • eronth@lemmy.world
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        11 months ago

        Yeah, my guess is that it’s the lack of a front grill that makes them look goofy to people. You’ll get used to it.

    • beefontoast@lemmy.world
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      11 months ago

      Have a look at the Cupra Born, looks awesome and is a great car. Already 18 months old as a design.

    • ExLisper@linux.community
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      11 months ago

      E-berlingo looks exactly the same as normal Berlingo. Since it’s a fairly new design I’m guessing they had both versions in mind when designing the ICE one.

    • lorty@lemmy.ml
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      11 months ago

      They don’t need a a front opening to the radiator, that might be why you find them strange.

    • vaultdweller013@sh.itjust.works
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      11 months ago

      Agreed, just give me Jeep Cherokee/Wagoneer and id be happy. Bonus if it has the same interior and no shitty tracking bs.