• helenslunch
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    1 month ago

    Every day it feels like we’re getting closer to battery revolution.

    It’s been “every day” for as long as I can remember. Some new world-changing battery tech is right around the corner, but never manages to appear in consumer vehicles…

    • Dave@lemmy.nz
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      1 month ago

      Battery tech has still come a long way since say 10 years ago, even though the “next gen” stuff hasn’t made it to scaled production. Looks like this is the beginning of scaled production, though.

      • helenslunch
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        1 month ago

        Looks like this is the beginning of scaled production, though.

        Production is a tiny link in the supply chain.

        According to the article they’ve sent them to manufacturers for testing and that’s it.

        Even if they were able to make them they’d still be impossibly expensive for decades, as the implications of such a technology would be gargantuan.

        • Dave@lemmy.nz
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          1 month ago

          Nah, see the battery density graph here. Batteries have made great progress already, and it’s accelerating because suddenly there are trillions of dollars on the line for anyone that can make big strides in battery technology.

          • helenslunch
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            1 month ago

            Nah, see the battery density graph

            Yah, I see your battery density graph and the batteries in question would blow a hole in that chart:

            Samsung’s oxide solid-state battery technology boasts an energy density of 500 Wh/kg, nearly double the 270 Wh/kg density of mainstream EV batteries.

            That’s without even getting into the charging rates, which are impossible because you can’t even deliver power to the car at that rate, even if it could take it.

            suddenly there are trillions of dollars on the line for anyone that can make big strides in battery technology.

            What makes you think that’s “sudden”?

            • Dave@lemmy.nz
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              1 month ago

              Yah, I see your battery density graph and the batteries in question would blow a hole in that chart, and several charts above it.

              I’m not sure if we are looking at the same chart. The chart goes up to 500 Wh/kg, the same as this new Samsung battery as per the original article. It’s may well be the same battery that gives the chart that value, but notice the years prior it gets higher and higher up to that value.

              It might be 10 years away from being the mainstream battery but the battery technology that was 10 years away 9 years ago is almost here.

              What makes you think that’s “sudden”?

              I was meaning how EVs created a consumer market for huge batteries where prior to that the biggest battery in your house might have been a power tool. But you’re right, there was a premium market for emerging battery tech and it increases along a scale like anything else.

              • helenslunch
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                1 month ago

                It might be 10 years away from being the mainstream battery

                Yes, that was my point, thank you.

                • Addv4@lemmy.world
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                  1 month ago

                  I mean, lithium cells were used for fringe use cases 20 years ago, now they are seemingly everywhere. The difference with this tech is that they know it’s currently expensive, so are aiming for use cases where the added cost is justifed. Give it 5 years and the tech will more than likely become easier to produce, lowering costs. That and sodium batteries are probably going to dramatically lower cost for grid storage, which should make it easier to have consistent power delivery.

                  • helenslunch
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                    1 month ago

                    I don’t understand what this has to do with my comment. I’m not disputing that battery technology is improving. I’m disputing that there’s going to be any sort of quantum leap in capacity or charging speed in the near future.

                • Resonosity@lemmy.world
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                  1 month ago

                  Michael Thackeray filed a patent under Argonne National Laboratory for the leading EV battery chemistry worldwide today, Lithium Nickel-Manganese-Cobalt Oxide (NMC), sometime around 2007-2008.

                  The first cars with that specific technology started coming out in the US market in 2013/2014 IIRC, with EVs coming out before then basing their battery chemistry on NCA (Tesla) or LMO (Nissan Leaf & Chevy Volt).

                  That’s a 5-7 year timeframe from laboratory to mass production.

                  If you consider new technologies today like Samsung’s battery in this article, and make the not so unrealistic leap that we’re better at battery production today than in 2013/2014, it’s very possible that we see this technology hit the market in 5 years or less.

                  Technology always improves. It’s CAPEX that hinders it, and I’m willing to bet that there are financial interests out there to keep the main battery chemistry NMC and secure steady profits.

            • GreyEyedGhost@lemmy.ca
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              1 month ago

              There is a solid state sodium battery factory being built in Japan, I think, and one in America. (Yes, I mixed up my two battery technologies, a common problem in a stagnant field…) But yes, real life isn’t a game, you can’t immediately use new tech as soon as it becomes viable, and factories take time to build. That doesn’t mean that advances haven’t been constantly occurring, just like advances continued to occur with NiMH battery technology a decade after lithium was mainstream. Partly, no doubt, because factories are expensive, they take time to build, and companies like to maximize the profits from their investments.

              • helenslunch
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                1 month ago

                That doesn’t mean that advances haven’t been constantly occurring

                No one said they haven’t. Please note the “world changing” part of my comment. I’m not talking about iterative advancements, I’m talking about things like solid-state and sodium batteries. Things we’ve been reading about for decades that are quantum leaps in battery technology.

                In the case of the OP, we’re talking about doubling battery density and charging speeds well in excess of what you could actually ever get to the car.

                • GreyEyedGhost@lemmy.ca
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                  1 month ago

                  As I mentioned in my other response, our battery capacity and longevity has increased by a factor of 10 in the last 30 years. Charging capacity has increased significantly, as well. And the only reason we don’t have more powerful chargers is because we haven’t needed them. It will certainly require a different configuration to charge twice as fast, probably with local power storage to reduce the burden on the electrical grid, but the only technical challenge is the power draw, and there are a number of ways to avoid that.

    • GetOffMyLan@programming.dev
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      1 month ago

      Battery tech is constantly having huge breakthroughs. They are just come in small steps.

      I mean a smart phone is literally a battery powered computer. It’s absolutely astounding compared to what we had 10/20 years ago.

      • HerrBeter@lemmy.world
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        1 month ago

        Only thing I’m upset with is that we get more battery capacity, but not longer battery time. I want to clock my phone down to save power, but that’s not allowed.

        • vaionko@sopuli.xyz
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          1 month ago

          Most phones have some sort of “Ultra power saving” mode that gives a lot of battery life.

          • HerrBeter@lemmy.world
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            1 month ago

            I always use the power saving mode, however my experience is that the battery time is almost the same irregardless of battery capacity (comparing arbitrarily över the years)

        • Nycto@lemmy.world
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          1 month ago

          It’s absolutely allowed.

          It’s not as good as previous versions but I am running stock android and I have wifi power saving and phone (background) power saving modes available. I just checked and the estimate of time until zero percent battery goes from 22 hours to 28 hours with the node that limits backup processes, and that is with 59% on the battery.

          There was a power save mode on my old phone that made everything grey screen and stuff that was way better. I think I enabled it for a camping trip once and used like 20% battery in 3 days.

          • Freefall@lemmy.world
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            1 month ago

            That made me think of the fairly low res picture of the menu screen from Mario Bros on the NES with the caption "this one image takes up more memory than the entirety of the Mario Bros game code.

            Good lord…I remember getting a 1GB HDD and thinking “welp, never gonna use that up” then a few years later installing Diablo2 and seeing it was 1.1gb…

      • helenslunch
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        1 month ago

        Battery tech is constantly having huge breakthroughs. They are just come in small steps.

        My guy, those are opposite things…

        • GetOffMyLan@programming.dev
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          1 month ago

          Not really. They have massive breakthroughs that increase capacity and charging hugely.

          People just seem to expect some world changing development constantly.

        • Resonosity@lemmy.world
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          1 month ago

          Depends on how you define “constant”. Battery prices have been falling year over year, no thanks to technological improvements.

          If we’re referring explicitly to Academia and R&D, then OP is correct. You’re main point is that these huge breakthroughs haven’t affected the market, but OP isn’t arguing that.

          You’re both talking past each other.

          • helenslunch
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            1 month ago

            Depends on how you define “constant”.

            No it doesn’t? Because there have been none. There have been steady and iterative advancements.

            OP is correct

            When was OP involved in this conversation?

            • Resonosity@lemmy.world
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              1 month ago

              There have been steady and iterative advancements.

              Steady imo is a synonym for constant, and revolutionary breakthroughs can be subjective if referring to industry or academia.

              When was OP involved in this conversation?

              Apologies. I sometimes refer to an OP as the Original Poster of a thread in a given post, but perhaps a better use of language would be OC for Original Commentator.

    • GreyEyedGhost@lemmy.ca
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      1 month ago

      There may not be a revolutionary discovery, but we are nearing a tipping point where battery makes more sense for most disconnected power storage than anything else.

      The cell phone I had 30 years ago had a battery pack that was about as big as my current cell phone and was 500 mAh. My current cell phone has a little battery tucked away in it that stores 4000 mAh, recharges about as fast, and can be recharged more before it loses a significant amount of its capacity. It also costs about 1% per mAh of the price of that battery from 30 years ago.

      Just because you haven’t bothered to investigate advances in battery technology doesn’t mean significant advances haven’t occurred.

      • helenslunch
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        1 month ago

        There may not be a revolutionary discovery, but we are nearing a tipping point where battery makes more sense for most disconnected power storage than anything else.

        …what else are you using for “disconnected power storage” than batteries?

        The cell phone I had 30 years ago had a battery pack that was about as big as my current cell phone and was 500 mAh.

        Please tell me what part of my comment led you to believe I was insinuating battery technology had not improved in the last 30 years…

        Just because you haven’t bothered to investigate advances in battery technology doesn’t mean significant advances haven’t occurred.

        Please read better.

        • GreyEyedGhost@lemmy.ca
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          1 month ago

          Fossil fuels are currently the largest disconnected power storage by overall power used. You know, the thing cars use when they aren’t EVs. You may have heard of diesel and gasoline generators, or oil-fueled ships.

          As per the previous part of my comment that you quoted, my point was that incremental changes can accumulate to the point where at some point revolutionary changes can occur. We increased capacity and longevity by a factor of 10 over 30 years, have a new technology hitting mainstream, and another that could double power density in the next 5 to 10. Yet you seem skeptical that’s possible, in spite of the decades of advances we already have made.

          • helenslunch
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            1 month ago

            Fossil fuels are currently the largest disconnected power storage by overall power used.

            Fossil fuels do not store “power” at all.

            incremental changes can accumulate to the point where at some point revolutionary changes can occur. We increased capacity and longevity by a factor of 10 over 30 years

            If it takes place over the course of 30 years, it is not “revolutionary”.

            Yet you seem skeptical that’s possible, in spite of the decades of advances we already have made.

            I am skeptical because of the decades of advances that have been promised time and time again but have not been made…

            I am not remotely skeptical of iterative advancements.

            • GreyEyedGhost@lemmy.ca
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              1 month ago

              Fossil fuels do not store “power” at all.

              Now, if you’re quibbling about the term power vs. energy, I can’t really be bothered with it. If you aren’t, what exactly do you think is the reason we use gasoline in vehicles than because it’s a highly portable source of energy?

              • helenslunch
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                1 month ago

                if you’re quibbling about the term power vs. energy, I can’t really be bothered with it.

                Yeah, I’m getting that impression about you.

                • GreyEyedGhost@lemmy.ca
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                  1 month ago

                  I can’t be bothered because laymen don’t generally know the difference, and it’s the least important detail about this conversation. Granted, unimportant details seem to be your forte.

    • ColeSloth@discuss.tchncs.de
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      1 month ago

      True, as far as big leaps go there hasn’t mean anything since the introduction of lithium based batteries to the market.

      Until now. This is it and they have production working. Safer than lithium. Longer lasting, quicker charging, should perform fine in extreme cold, more energy dense, and solid state.

      The next big thing is finally here.

      • _NoName_@lemmy.ml
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        1 month ago

        I know you’re correct, since there are now solid state batteries on the market which outperform liquid-electrolyte LiPo batteries, but just stating “we’re at the tipping point” without dropping any link as evidence makes your claim very unconvincing.

        • ColeSloth@discuss.tchncs.de
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          1 month ago

          That guy on Undecided is a bit of a dunce. He never actually checked or tested in any way that the yoshino psu uses real solid state batteries. He just bought it from Amazon and it’s advertised on Amazon as having them.

          But they likely aren’t solid state batteries in that psu he bought. He even admitted as much in a podcast just last week.

          Other people have done teardowns on those yoshino batteries and have apparently found that they are not solid state. They still contain a liquid.

          Here. I think he talks about it somewhere around 25 minutes in. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aciA1dKz5iE

            • ColeSloth@discuss.tchncs.de
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              1 month ago

              Correct, but it’s on well enough authority that the batteries exist and are in production and that units are in the hands of EV manufacturers for them to play around with. Consider it like the time period when no one has the next game system yet, but everyone knows that all the game developers have the dev kit for the soon to be released system.

      • helenslunch
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        1 month ago

        Until now. This is it and they have production working.

        I hope you’re right, but I’ll believe it when I see it.

        • ColeSloth@discuss.tchncs.de
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          1 month ago

          A giant name like samsung and the auto makers they’ve teamed up with like Toyota aren’t going to bullshit about the batteries being in production. There’s no benefit to doing so. It’s not like they’re trying to raise investment capital.

          • helenslunch
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            1 month ago

            Samsung is not the “bullshitter”. Samsung did not write this article. Samsung didn’t claim that these will be in cars or anywhere else anytime soon.

            • ColeSloth@discuss.tchncs.de
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              1 month ago

              Yes they have. Not from this article, though. Same for Toyota. They announced a 2027(likely) solid state battery EV months ago.

              As for “samsung didn’t claim this”, they put the battery on display at the trade show in Seoul, and it’s been reported by tons of outlets. Samsung has very clearly announced it.

              • helenslunch
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                1 month ago

                No they haven’t. Samsung didn’t say they have a 600 mile battery. The author did. Which is nonsense for a variety of reasons, which is exactly my point

                They announced a 2027(likely) solid state battery EV months ago.

                …likely? Based on what?

                they put the battery on display

                No one is trying to claim the battery doesn’t exist so I’m not sure what your point is.