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Comment by morserer | Hacker News Reader

Li-ion != LFP.

LFP is incredible, but LFP batteries are 5x larger than li-ion. The two aren't comparable. You won't find LFP batteries in cars nor smartphones.

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BYD has raised lithium-iron phosphate Wh per liter up to lithium-ion levels. Wh per kilogram is still maybe half that of lithium-ion.

BYD "Blade battery 1": 168 Wh/kg. 448 Wh/L. Shipping now.

BYD "Blade battery 2": 210 Wh/kg. Announced for 2025. [1]

Tesla current lithium ion battery: 260 Wh/kg. 416 Wh/L[2]

(Tesla also uses lithium iron phosphate, in their lower-end cars.)

Close on size, big difference on weight. Weight differential is narrowing.

At this point, all fixed installations should be lithium iron or better. There's no excuse for big lithium-ion battery fires such as Moss Beach and the Port of Los Angeles any more.

Solid state batteries with better density are coming along, but nobody has those in volume production yet.

(Incidentally, if you ask questions like this to search engines that use an LLM, the results may be bogus, as they tend to pick numbers from the wrong places. Check the references.)

[1] https://electric.guide/renewable-energy-storage/byd-blade-ba...

[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lithium-ion_battery

> "Wh per kilogram is still maybe half that of lithium-ion."

At the pack level, it seems to be a lot less than that. If you compare a Tesla Model Y standard range (with LFP pack) to a Model Y long range (with NMC), you're looking at around 62 kWh vs 80 kWh for the latest versions, putting the difference in energy density at < 30%.

On Smartphone, First generation silicon-carbon battery, or lithium-ion battery with a silicon-carbon anode is shipping already at ~23% higher capacity. 2nd Generation is shipping this year at 40% increase over original. And hopefully 50% next year. With expected 100-200% increase by 2035.

Lithium-ion is an umbrella term that properly includes common cell chemistries like lithium iron phosphate (LFP), lithium nickel manganese cobalt oxide (NMC) and lithium nickel cobalt aluminium oxide (NCA).

It doesn't make sense to compare LFP vs. lithium-ion, because the first is a sub-type of the second.

Most commonly when people say lithium ion they really mean lithium polymer (lipo). Usually for the other lithium ion chemistries they will specify like you Jane (LFP etc).

You are technically correct - that's just how I've seen it casually used

Most commonly when people say lithium ion they really mean lithium polymer (lipo)

I don't think this is true. There are still lots of lithium ion 18650 cells around in battery banks, tool batteries and home devices, you name it.

Also lithium polymer is the same general chemistry (there are lots of variations), the polymer is the separator.

Yes you can be a pendant about a topic to a degree that you manage to confuse even yourself, or you can understand the term is also commonly used to refer to the typical metal oxide cathodes we all are familiar with (NMC, LCO, NCA, lipo). From context it's really the obvious interpretation.

There are a lot of LFP model 3's on the road, and my understanding is it was only canceled because of manufacturing location effects on tax rebates.

A lot of BYDs cars use LFP. And they sell a -lot- of cars.

The 2024 Mach-E is LFP. The Kia EV5.

And so on. I think you have an outdated model of lfp tradeoffs.

Many of the extended range models still use higher-density chemistries. But LFP is making amazing strides.

LFP Tesla 3's is what they ship from China. Australia gets Chinese made Model 3's, so they are all LFP. The US doesn't get Chinese made Tesla's, so no LFP for you.

It doesn't seem to effect things much. The cars still have the same range. I guess they must be heavier.

Australian drive their cars around 13,000 km's per year. If the LFP battery got 3,000 cycles that's 90 years. I guess they must hit some other limit long before then.

Batteries also degrade by time even if you don't charge and discharge them.

They used to sell LFP base model 3's in the US: https://www.electrive.com/2024/10/04/tesla-withdraws-model-3...

> Tesla is known to frequently change the prices or availability of its models without providing separate information. As the US publication Electrek writes, the Model 3 Standard Range disappeared from the US configurator at the beginning of October. At 39,000 dollars, this variant was the cheapest Tesla in the US. Recently, however, only the Model 3 with the larger Long Range battery has been available there – in the rear-wheel drive version from 42,490 dollars. There is also the Model 3 Long Range with all-wheel drive (47,490 dollars) and the Model 3 Performance (54,990 dollars).

While most cars are not LFP, your claim that you won't find LFP batteries in cars is incorrect:

Rivian switched to LFP: https://insideevs.com/news/720396/2025-rivian-r1s-r1t-lfp-ba...

Some Teslas use LFP: https://www.notateslaapp.com/news/2464/tesla-lfp-batteries-c...

Most Chinese-built EVs use LFP. And China is the world's largest EV market, bigger than the rest of the world combined. So presumably, the majority of EVs shipping globally are using LFP batteries today.

And China is using LFP even for electric trucks.

Absolutely. Likewise most of the battery-electric buses in London (and presumably, other European cities) have always used LFP. Safety is a big consideration there as nobody wants a bus-sized battery fire in the middle of a dense city.

Had one in our university solar car 15 years ago, too :D

I read last week that about 40% of the electric cars produced now are with LFP batteries.

It would appear LFPs are making their way into EVs, despite having about half the energy/mass density.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lithium_iron_phosphate_battery

LFP has made huge energy density improvements in recent years, so the difference is much less than that today.

If you compare a standard range Tesla Model Y with LFP pack, the newest LFP pack stores around 62 kWh, vs. around 80 kWh for the long range (NMC) variant. And the LR pack actually weighs more than the LFP one, putting the difference in energy density at <30%.

Further more, typically with an NMC pack it's recommended to only charge to 80% for day-to-day use, to reduce long-term degradation. But with an LFP pack you can routinely charge to 100%. So the effective difference in range for day-to-day driving if you follow that recommendation is small.

> You won't find LFP batteries in cars nor smartphones

Bold statement. Quite incorrect too. My car has one, and I'm pretty sure Tesla sold them to other people too, not just me (M3 RWD 2022)

LFP is a type of lithium ion battery. Modern LFPs perform pretty well, though they're a bit worse than "regular" lithium ion, in part because they run at a lower nominal voltage of 3.2 volts rather than 3.6 volts. They're used in cars all the time, just not usually in the United States.

I've never heard of an LFP smartphone battery, but that doesn't mean it isn't done. I wouldn't be surprised if it was common in China.

> "Li-ion != LFP."

No, LFP is one form of Li-ion battery, along with other chemistries like NMC, NCA, LMO, etc.

> "LFP is incredible, but LFP batteries are 5x larger than li-ion."

Nope. Today it's more like 20-30% less energy density. And the gap has been closing over time.

> "You won't find LFP batteries in cars"

Absolutely false. The vast majority of Chinese-built EVs (brands like BFD, NIO, MG, XPeng, Geely) use LFP in many models. Most Chinese-built Teslas use LFP packs. Tesla's Powerwall 3 home storage batteries use LFP. Western automakers are also increasingly looking to LFP to reduce costs and improve stability and safety.

In fact, I'd say the significant majority of all EVs shipping in the world today contain LFP batteries.

LFP batteries are 5x larger than li-ion

This is completely wrong. Anyone who has bought a single LFP cell knows they are close but not quite as energy dense for the weight as regular lithium ion batteries. They are very common in all sorts of applications like medical devices and cars at the very least.

You won't find LFP batteries in cars

This is also not true at all. Here is a list of 42 car models with LFP batteries including telsa model 3, model Y and the ford mustang.

https://evdb.nz/ev-battery

Where were you seeing your information?

> You won’t find LFP batteries in cars

That’s not correct.

The MG4 uses LFP. So does some Model Y and Model 3s from Tesla.

See a long list here: https://evdb.nz/ev-battery

>You won't find LFP batteries in cars

Cars with LFP batteries: https://evdb.nz/ev-battery

LFP batteries are Li-ion though

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