> mass-produced commercial product
To add to that, in a domain with life or death consequences.
To add to that, in a domain with life or death consequences.
Also, having the heavy battery down below axle height makes for a nice low center of gravity, making the vehicle much more stable.
Doesn't matter what kind of battery it is though, once you start cutting through them you are very likely to short the electrodes together. Which usually ends in fires.
These batteries would be much more useful for electric bikes/mopeds/motorcycles as they don’t have the same safety complications cars do.
A 50hp engine[1] needs ~37kW which at 5 volts, that is 7,500 amps of current, which requires comically large bus bars (~200x10mm) and conversion electronics. Even at 48 volts[2], you still need ~780 amps, which still requires very large conductors.
At 400 volts, for the same motor, the wiring only needs to be sized for 100 amps, which is reasonably practical (think wire found on welders).
[1]: Let assume that 50hp is the max required steady state output for a motor in a passenger car, and lets ignore any peak/dynamic loads and HVAC as this is napkin engineering
[2]: 48v is generally accepted as the highest voltage before you really need to know what you are doing, though at these power levels, you still should know what you are doing as things like to weld, melt, become bad motors and/or explode.
What else is in production, or at least in prototype?
Shorting a big capacitor is really scary. All the energy comes out at once, in milliseconds. This usually results in an explosion.
[1] https://www.pv-magazine-australia.com/2020/10/13/energy-rena...
[1] http://sikes-elec.com/Resistive-load-bank-450VDC-750VDC-100K...