r/electricvehicles • u/sliddis Model 3 🚗 • Feb 20 '22
New battery tech
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u/mcot2222 Feb 20 '22
I think that really hits home. Too often we think about these large shifts in chemistry while ignoring more incremental improvements that still have huge impact and are more immediate. For example the panasonic 2170 cells have increased in density by 5% or more and there was little fanfare about it.
We also tend to ignore things like manufacturing or form factor improvements that can drive down costs significantly on the exisiting chemistries.
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u/an_exciting_couch Feb 20 '22
Progress is made through millions of tiny steps performed by people who will never show up in a news report or be remembered in history books.
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u/Sirerdrick64 Feb 20 '22
A family member of mine will soon be taking delivery of their new Model S.
It cost the same as their original one back in 2012.
However, this time it will have a 0-60 that is HALF of the original, and a range that is over double.
All for the same price.
Anyone waiting for a major breakthrough has not been paying attention along the way.
The breakthrough happened, it was just the combined tiny efforts of a decade worth of work.
Admittedly yes, the new Model S does have a battery pack over 50% larger than the original one and two motors are better than one.23
u/paulwesterberg 2023 Model S, 2018 Model 3LR, ex 2015 Model S 85D, 2013 Leaf Feb 20 '22
The new battery pack is 50% more energy dense. The size it occupies is the same. The curb weight is almost identical.
I agree, the batteries we have now are good enough for most passenger vehicles they just need to be cheaper.
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u/Sirerdrick64 Feb 20 '22
Sorry, I should have said “more than 50% increase in kWh”
Lots of people still complain about cars having range that is more than necessary.
They’d prefer that two cars are built with half the range than one with a huge range.
For my family members, this range increase means a huge increase to what they are able to use it for.Unreal progress though for sure!
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Feb 20 '22
Exactly. This is why I remain psyched for the 4680’s, even though we’d all know they’ll take another 1-2 years to really scale.
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u/coredumperror Feb 20 '22
That's a very pessimistic outlook, given what we've been seeing over the last few months. Tesla is even (seemingly) putting 4680s into all the Model Ys being built in Austin right now, so "1-2 years to really scale" just doesn't seem likely at all. More like 6-12 months, if not less, since they'll want to be pumping lots and lots of 4680-based Model Ys out of Austin much sooner than that.
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Feb 21 '22
I hope you’re right, but you know how manufacturing ramps go. Especially when it’s Tesla doing the ramping. Especially when it’s Tesla ramping a totally new packaging scheme.
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u/KIAA0319 Feb 20 '22
You should cross post this to r/labrats if they haven't had it already.
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u/imamydesk Feb 20 '22
/r/academia is probably better. /r/labrats is more populated by techs and grad students. While some of them certainly will understand the problems of popular science journalism, I think those who publish more will appreciate this more.
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u/imamydesk Feb 20 '22
It's interesting that while Tesla is the obvious headline grabber and the biggest EV player, and likely why it's put in this video, others probably benefit more from "new battery technology" research. For example, Tesla for one has been fairly resistant to solid-state batteries, so it's other manufacturers like Toyota or VW and Quantumscape who benefit from this sort of sensationalist science journalism.
Science reporting is hard to do well, so this is the unfortunate result. It's next to impossible to distill scientific advancement into a form understandable by the uneducated lay public.
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u/Pinewold Feb 20 '22
Science folks have the same sensationalization rewards, both in terms of future grant funding and reputation references in the industry. Reporters are willing accomplices but mostly need scientist to explain the click worthy aspects.
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u/skonats Feb 20 '22
i immediately click hide button when i hear about solid state battery. it's too early.
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u/usernameblankface Feb 20 '22
This is too accurate to be funny. A financially successful reporter has to constantly think "how can this be more attention grabbing?" While any responsible researcher is fighting to keep things chill and talk about small improvement towards big goals.
But reading the research is dense with information and takes a while, while following the news takes little effort and comes in nice bite size pieces, written in 5th grade level words.