Evolution and limit of battery energy density

[mzso]

https://www.adaptnetwork.com/tech/first ... e-battery/

Any knowledgeable person want to comment on this technology?

I wouldn't get my hopes up. It sounds more like a proof of concept than anything.

[Andres125sx]

Looks really promising if they´ve managed 500 cycles at the beginning of development

Obviously there´s a very very long road ahead, but if they succedd ICEs will be dead next day these are released to the market

This would be revolutionary not only for automotive industry, think about laptops, wireless hand tools, self-suficient renewable instalations...

[ENGINE TUNER]

A rotary would work wonderfully with a MGU-H like device. Rotaries produce a lot of exhaust, thus can more easily drive a turbine than a piston engine could. And with an electric turbo you could increase the CR in the engine lowering pollutants at low rpm. You can also incorporate a small electric motor to get the car off the line.

They work wonderfully, turbocharged with direct injection of e85, an mguh and mguk on top of all that would be incredible.

[mzso]

They work wonderfully, turbocharged with direct injection of e85, an mguh and mguk on top of all that would be incredible.

Sounds convoluted and pointless. Just add a high efficiency turbine to an electric generator to produce electricity.

[godlameroso]

They work wonderfully, turbocharged with direct injection of e85, an mguh and mguk on top of all that would be incredible.

Sounds convoluted and pointless. Just add a high efficiency turbine to an electric generator to produce electricity.

Jaguar tried.

[aterren]

I just read this thread from the beginning. Wow. The posters demonstrated major patience and looking back 2015 is it interesting to note that some 4+ years later the Tesla Model 3 (arguably the most advanced battery in a production car) comes in at about 207 wh/kg and the stream of 'battery breakthroughs' has not abated one bit.

[Andres125sx]

I just read this thread from the beginning. Wow. The posters demonstrated major patience and looking back 2015 is it interesting to note that some 4+ years later the Tesla Model 3 (arguably the most advanced battery in a production car) comes in at about 207 wh/kg and the stream of 'battery breakthroughs' has not abated one bit.

The stream of battery breakthroughs has not abated because of the simple fact that there are dozens companies investing millions each one, so it´s just a matter of time. A lot more than I was assuming/expecting some years ago tough, but sooner or later someone will succed

When that arrives, everything will change, not only the automotive industry, for example all these will become viable:

[mzso]

looking back 2015 is it interesting to note that some 4+ years later the Tesla Model 3 (arguably the most advanced battery in a production car) comes in at about 207 wh/kg and the stream of 'battery breakthroughs' has not abated one bit.

It's going on for far longer than four years. Most of these "breakthroughs" are based on wishful thinking or outright dishonesty to solicit funding. But some of them have actual potential. Sooner or later some substantial improvement will hit the market. To me solid electrolyte ("solid state") batteries look the most promising. Many separate groups are working on it with different approaches, including big corporations.

[mzso]

for example all these will become viable:

https://youtube.com/watch?v=VMBBLuusW0g


https://youtube.com/watch?v=WsKpva914PY

Those will probably never be viable. Only potentially in the far distant future when we have so much cheap energy that we don't know what to do with it, and super advanced automatization...

Batteries with some level of improvement certainly won't make them viable. They weren't viable with fuels readily available that have greater energy density than even the most advanced future batteries hope to have.

Not to mention the practical and logistic impossibility of the general population flying aircraft. Even well trained pilots on highly managed airports have accident regularly. A manyfold increase in aircraft in much more compact areas (cities) would be obscenely beyond manageability. And the general population crashes all the time with plain cars. They would crash even more with lot more complicated aircraft and die far more often when they fall out of the sky.

[henry]

Batteries with some level of improvement certainly won't make them viable. They weren't viable with fuels readily available that have greater energy density than even the most advanced future batteries hope to have.

I think when comparing energy densities it is necessary to take into account conversion efficiency. A kilogram of petrol may well contain 45 MJ but only 10 to 20 is recovered as work in the ICE. Big range because ICE efficiency is very variable. Electric motors are more efficient. And the weight of the power unit and it’s ancillaries, cooling etc. Need to be factored in.

Even so batteries are a long way off, maybe an order of magnitude so there’s a long way to go.

[Andres125sx]

Those will probably never be viable. Only potentially in the far distant future when we have so much cheap energy that we don't know what to do with it, and super advanced automatization...

The technology for all that is already here, even the automatization. Those in the video claim around 30 minutes range, more than enough for short trips



Problem is how to regulate, but they can be fully autonomous today, an autonomous drone is several orders of magnitude easier than an autonomous car. If they´real L5 category without controls so it will always fly itself into designated paths and obviously with real time comunications with any other flying object around, they could be real this year, all the necessary technology for that is available today

And they´re so much more simple to any current helicopter reliability is simple not comparable. Same for maintenance, less than any of our cars

I fly both RC helicopters and drones, from tiny quadcopters to fly indoors to racing drones and a big octocopter, and the produce same result, even better the drones as they´re 100% self neutral (no tail rotor) but apart from that they´re different worlds, helis need huge maintenance and any small fail is fatal, while multicopters are virtually maintenance free, and even with plenty redundacy (not quadcopters) just in case some motor fails. They´re just a frame without any moving part, with some electric motors wich basically are a wire and some magnets (nothing to break), and electronics to control them. And all of those parts can and actually are redundant, even if some fail (prop, motor, motor controller or flight controller) it will stay in the air and probably the passengers will not even notice

I sincerely can´t imagine more reliable machine, assuming the electronics have passed proper and exhaustive controls obviously

[nzjrs]

Those will probably never be viable. Only potentially in the far distant future when we have so much cheap energy that we don't know what to do with it, and super advanced automatization...

The technology for all that is already here, even the automatization. Those in the video claim around 30 minutes range, more than enough for short trips

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M6w9DI8BMas

Problem is how to regulate, but they can be fully autonomous today, an autonomous drone is several orders of magnitude easier than an autonomous car. If they´real L5 category without controls so it will always fly itself into designated paths and obviously with real time comunications with any other flying object around, they could be real this year, all the necessary technology for that is available today

And they´re so much more simple to any current helicopter reliability is simple not comparable. Same for maintenance, less than any of our cars

I fly both RC helicopters and drones, from tiny quadcopters to fly indoors to racing drones and a big octocopter, and the produce same result, even better the drones as they´re 100% self neutral (no tail rotor) but apart from that they´re different worlds, helis need huge maintenance and any small fail is fatal, while multicopters are virtually maintenance free, and even with plenty redundacy (not quadcopters) just in case some motor fails. They´re just a frame without any moving part, with some electric motors wich basically are a wire and some magnets (nothing to break), and electronics to control them. And all of those parts can and actually are redundant, even if some fail (prop, motor, motor controller or flight controller) it will stay in the air and probably the passengers will not even notice

I sincerely can´t imagine more reliable machine, assuming the electronics have passed proper and exhaustive controls obviously

Multirotor drones are entertaining. What's less reliable and efficient than spinning a big propeller slowly, spinning 8 of them quickly!

[Edax]

Batteries with some level of improvement certainly won't make them viable. They weren't viable with fuels readily available that have greater energy density than even the most advanced future batteries hope to have.

I think when comparing energy densities it is necessary to take into account conversion efficiency. A kilogram of petrol may well contain 45 MJ but only 10 to 20 is recovered as work in the ICE. Big range because ICE efficiency is very variable. Electric motors are more efficient. And the weight of the power unit and it’s ancillaries, cooling etc. Need to be factored in.

Even so batteries are a long way off, maybe an order of magnitude so there’s a long way to go.

I think the obsession with energy densities in comparison with liquid fuel is overrated. Energy density nor weight has never really been a factor in car development so why should it be a breaking issue for electric vehicles. If you could pump gas in every parking spot we wouldn’t be driving around with 60 liter fuel tanks anyway.

Energy density just expresses the amount of range you can squeeze in a car. But people don’t care about range, they may care a bit about costs, but mostly they care about time. How to get from A to B the fastest.

For most of urban driving range is no issue. If the network of charging spots is extensive enough you actually save time not having to make a run to the petrol station now and then.

For long distance driving range becomes important but not as important as charging rate. Nobody wants to wait 1.5 hr midway a trip for their car to be charged. Bring that down to 15-30 minutes and nobody minds having a break every 300 km.

Network availability and charging time are IMHO the two things which make or break the business case for EV’s, not energy density.

Of course when it comes to flying the argument becomes different, due to the grossly adverse relation between weight and energy efficiency, but for cars the energy density is already sufficient.

[Andres125sx]

Those will probably never be viable. Only potentially in the far distant future when we have so much cheap energy that we don't know what to do with it, and super advanced automatization...

The technology for all that is already here, even the automatization. Those in the video claim around 30 minutes range, more than enough for short trips

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M6w9DI8BMas

Problem is how to regulate, but they can be fully autonomous today, an autonomous drone is several orders of magnitude easier than an autonomous car. If they´real L5 category without controls so it will always fly itself into designated paths and obviously with real time comunications with any other flying object around, they could be real this year, all the necessary technology for that is available today

And they´re so much more simple to any current helicopter reliability is simple not comparable. Same for maintenance, less than any of our cars

I fly both RC helicopters and drones, from tiny quadcopters to fly indoors to racing drones and a big octocopter, and the produce same result, even better the drones as they´re 100% self neutral (no tail rotor) but apart from that they´re different worlds, helis need huge maintenance and any small fail is fatal, while multicopters are virtually maintenance free, and even with plenty redundacy (not quadcopters) just in case some motor fails. They´re just a frame without any moving part, with some electric motors wich basically are a wire and some magnets (nothing to break), and electronics to control them. And all of those parts can and actually are redundant, even if some fail (prop, motor, motor controller or flight controller) it will stay in the air and probably the passengers will not even notice

I sincerely can´t imagine more reliable machine, assuming the electronics have passed proper and exhaustive controls obviously

Multirotor drones are entertaining. What's less reliable and efficient than spinning a big propeller slowly, spinning 8 of them quickly!

Efficient, yes, but even so they achieve 30 minutes range wich is more than enough to be considered viable today at least for short trips. Reliable, not, that´s exactly what provides redundacy and extremelly high safety and reliability standards, much higher than any current plane or helicopter

[nzjrs]

much higher than any current plane or helicopter

My point was more from first principles; 4-8x as many rotors/motors vs removal of the rotor-head and the rotor-shaft assemblies in a conventional helicopter. I think the reliability long-term of both approaches, in actual commercial passenger use, very much remains to be seen (remember: the like for like comparison, if we get to speculate about future vehicles and say a 30 minute ride is enough, is electric helicopter vs electric multi-rotor)