A lithium-ion breakthrough that could boost range and lower costs | Hacker News Reader

A lithium-ion breakthrough that could boost range and lower costs

techradar.com

71 pointsthelastgallon35 comments

Worth noting this is an anode-free design. Removing the anode matters more for commercialization than the energy density headline because it cuts material costs and simplifies manufacturing.

80% capacity retention is promising buuuuut.. "near-real-world conditions" is doing heavy lifting in that sentence.

> it cuts material costs and simplifies manufacturing

How much does it reduce material and manufacturing costs? I don't expect an exact number, but more like 5%? 50%?

Definitely double digit percentage. Ballpark of 20-30%.

The anode is typically made out of high purity graphite, so 99,9%+. Its production process is energy intensive and thus expensive.

A lot. The Anode is by far the most complex part of a Lithium Ion battery.

What does it mean it doesn’t have an anode? How is the other pole connected to the battery?

"Anode-free" is a bit of a misnomer; there is still a charge collector and electrical connection on the anode side. It just means that, when manufactured, the anode-side charge collector is bare (no lithium electroplated onto it); the lithium is all at the cathode. During charging, lithium gets deposited onto the anode charge collector, and during discharging, the lithium migrates back to the cathode.

More here:

https://pubs.rsc.org/en/content/articlehtml/2024/ta/d4ta0200...

Thank you. I figured it had to be a misnomer. That makes sense.

Jikes! How many ads can they squeeze in on news website… really distracting (I’m not using ad blocker).

> I’m not using ad blocker

Why not?

I get that this can make it possible for greater range for the same price, but what about the same range for lower price? If it weren't for the batteries, EVs would be much cheaper than ICE vehicles. It stands to reason that if we can cut the battery cost while keeping range the same, we could greatly cut the cost of the EV in total.

Maybe car companies don't want to do this because they'd rather price discriminate and get every last penny. It would be too bad though, since some people would happily upgrade cars more frequently if they weren't so outrageously expensive ($50k avg price for new vehicle transactions, IIRC).

Car companies already alter fuel tank sizes to get a specific range, so it would stand to reason that they would do the same for batteries. It’s cheaper for them to use fewer materials.

Hope so! I have seen a few vehicles with higher capacity trims, so the real question is whether they'd shave $5k off the price of a vehicle and give it a quite-limited range (150 mile). Some people would be totally fine with that, especially as a second/third car.

But it would somewhat complicate manufacturing and make it a little more confusing for consumers to know what they're getting. Perhaps this corner of the market will continue to be served by sellers of years-old EVs, which can have lousy range but work well otherwise.

Car manufacturers already offer different sizes of battery packs, but that doesn't affect the price that much.

Yeah I can't figure out why this is, exactly. If batteries are such a huge cost center, why can't I save a significant chunk of change by opting for a vehicle that has 100 or 200 miles less range?

You can? Going from the 84kwh ID3 to the 55 kwh saves you around 17%

That's cool, are these available in the US?

I think only the ID 4 and up is, but it seems to be the same ballpark saving between the small and large battery version, ~20% cheaper. Idk if the US pricing is completely different, maybe they combine the battery with trim options that means you dont see this jump?

I'm not quite up to date what LFP batteries cost nowadays, but I remember it's in the $70ish range - so for a respectable 80kWh, it'd only cost $5.6k out of the total. Considering you can get something like a new Corolla for $20k-ish, if the EV minus battery costs the same as a fully fledged ICE car, you could have a $25-27k car with a quite generous battery.

"If it weren't for the batteries, EVs would be much cheaper than ICE vehicles."

And yet I've watched as $/kWh for battery component prices is 1/3rd of what it was 8 years ago (when I got my Chevy Volt) but EV prices have not appreciably gone down.

Yeah I think this is a combination of greater range and the ceasing of EV subsidization.

It would be nice if there were some options that had much less range than is now possible, at a substantial discount.

There are many smaller “city” evs hitting the market that offer this. Renault 5 and Hyundia Inster etc.

Cool, hopefully won't be limited to physically small cars. Many people with medium-sized cars only go 30 miles/day regularly, and rarely need more than 100 miles of range.

Most days I'm under 20, and 90% of the time I'm under 40.

My Volt has only 50 miles of range, and, granted, working from home and not traveling much, I rarely run out of charge. However, that said, there are times, especially in the winter, when I really need to charge at my destination to keep the gas motor from turning on halfway home.

Yeah this was my experience when I had one (I'd still have it but it got totaled in an accident). Another 20km - 30km of range would have been ideal. I used to drive 100km a day but that was only feasible on zero gas in the winter when I was able to charge on both ends.

I think at least in EU most people don’t want to buy sub 200mile range EVs. There has been many options, especially from stellantis that have all more or less flopped. Could be other reasons but for me its nice to know that charging happens about when i need a break anyway, so about 4 hours of highway driving is nice to have. I dont need it for 95% of my trips, but I also want to be able to use my car for the last 5%. These new small range cars seems targeted at people who have another car for long trips.

I got a much reduced price in return for much lower range simply by buying an older EV. What’s wrong with leaving the new car market to those willing to pay the higher price, and the second hand market to those who want a lower price? This has always worked for me. It transfers especially well to EVs since older EVs were typically sold with less range.

This is awesome news - and maybe a leap forward to tide us over, but solid state batteries are also usually hyped for safety reasons: puncturing one with a nail won't result in a fire (or some other accident). The article doesn't mention that - only that they've mitigated safety concerns from dendrites.

I don’t want lithium-ion alternatives for better range. Quite the opposite, I’m actually okay having slightly less range if it means my car won’t spontaneously combust. This one apparently improves the safety of lithium-ion batteries too, so it’s great, but I hate when headlines focus on one thing that matters the least.

Do you worry about spontaneous combustion of ICE cars? They are far more likely to burst into flames than EVs.

Is this true when adjusting for vehicle age? The average age of an EV is quite a bit lower than the average age of an ICE vehicle, and I assume there is at least some correlation between a vehicle's age and how likely it is to explode (based on degradation, type of use, type of owner, etc.).

> They are far more likely to burst into flames than EVs.

There’s a substantial increased risk only with ICE cars that are at least 10 years old and poorly maintained. Li-ion EVs carry that risk from day one.

Neither EVs nor ICE cars spontaneously combust unless there's a design flaw. Even when this happens it tends to be very rare, but the Chevy Bolt fires for example were fixed with a recall. Similarly a Ford recall last year fixed a problem where fuel injectors could leak and cause an engine fire.

EVs and ICE cars can both catch on fire in a bad enough accident, but this is true regardless of the age of the vehicle, and tends to be more sudden and violent with gasoline explosions vs battery fires.

> unless there's a design flaw

No. They can happen with manufacturing flaws, wear and tear, or with a dent to the underside of the car in case of EVs too.

> Quite the opposite, I’m actually okay having slightly less range if it means my car won’t spontaneously combust.

Modern LFP LiIon (LiFePO4) batteries are pretty damn safe now, and is also the dominant chemistry in new EV batteries and energy storage systems. The fire risk is nothing like what it was, arguably your wish has already been granted.

The Chinese market is mandating this year that EV batteries prevent fire or explosion for a minimum of 2hrs after a cell enters thermal runaway, and LFP is the main driver to achieve it.

True, but they are not as common as they should be.

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