Does anyone know why it's taken so long for progress to happen in battery technology? Obviously, I get that it's not that simple, but is there a specific limitation we keep running into a wall here?
I know they mention price at one point in the article, but for something that's bound to have a massive impact on a huge variety of industries, I can't imagine that the money hurdle is insurmountable.
There are a lot of variables that need to be balanced..
high energy density (both mass and volume), decent lifetime (charge cycles, unused degredation), charge/discharge time, suitable voltage range, availablility of materials, non-toxicity, complexity (cost) of manufacture, unused discharge rate, etc, etc.
This also explains why we get so many breakthroughs- a breakthrough in one area alone is usually of no practical use. Where they are they tend to be of niche interest.
Batteries are largely only a major problem in the electronics industry; and the car industry as that goes electric. There are a lot of other ways to store energy which are used in heavy industry where portability isn't required- flywheels, supercapacitors, even HEP stations are used as energy stores by the power grid.
Don't forget that the battery has to more or less operate and survive in a temperature range of 50 below zero to 180 degrees. If not, operating it on a cold day in northern Maine, or leaving it in the sun in southern Florida will break it. All this and above, and you need to be able to BEAT current low priced battery options like car batteries, which perform sufficiently well.
LiFePO4 is not a new (as in research) technology (i came across it when looking into eBikes).. It's just lithium ion battery with a lithium iron phosphate cathode. In practice, this means it trades a little power density for a little longer life.
It could be an interesting option for electronics as power draw continues to fall [eg. would be good in a kindle now], but long life over lighter/longer battery life is a hard sell for both consumers (short termist) and manufacturers (reduced planned obselescence).
They claim to have 92Kwh of LiFePO4, in their Concept_one vehicle.92Kwh will be approaching 2000lb just for the batteries. Just looking at the batteries in their rendering, I don't think it is possible to have that much energy in 10 little modules. I could be wrong, but something about the car that doesn't add up right.
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Does anyone know why it's taken so long for progress to happen in battery technology? Obviously, I get that it's not that simple, but is there a specific limitation we keep running into a wall here?
I know they mention price at one point in the article, but for something that's bound to have a massive impact on a huge variety of industries, I can't imagine that the money hurdle is insurmountable.
There are a lot of variables that need to be balanced.. high energy density (both mass and volume), decent lifetime (charge cycles, unused degredation), charge/discharge time, suitable voltage range, availablility of materials, non-toxicity, complexity (cost) of manufacture, unused discharge rate, etc, etc.
This also explains why we get so many breakthroughs- a breakthrough in one area alone is usually of no practical use. Where they are they tend to be of niche interest.
Batteries are largely only a major problem in the electronics industry; and the car industry as that goes electric. There are a lot of other ways to store energy which are used in heavy industry where portability isn't required- flywheels, supercapacitors, even HEP stations are used as energy stores by the power grid.
Thanks for the response. It's funny how we do seem to see these breakthroughs all the time, but rarely actually see marked improvements.
Don't forget that the battery has to more or less operate and survive in a temperature range of 50 below zero to 180 degrees. If not, operating it on a cold day in northern Maine, or leaving it in the sun in southern Florida will break it. All this and above, and you need to be able to BEAT current low priced battery options like car batteries, which perform sufficiently well.
I'm curious to see what will come out of this: http://www.rimac-automobili.com/concept_one/battery-system-9
LiFePO4 is not a new (as in research) technology (i came across it when looking into eBikes).. It's just lithium ion battery with a lithium iron phosphate cathode. In practice, this means it trades a little power density for a little longer life.
It could be an interesting option for electronics as power draw continues to fall [eg. would be good in a kindle now], but long life over lighter/longer battery life is a hard sell for both consumers (short termist) and manufacturers (reduced planned obselescence).
They claim to have 92Kwh of LiFePO4, in their Concept_one vehicle.92Kwh will be approaching 2000lb just for the batteries. Just looking at the batteries in their rendering, I don't think it is possible to have that much energy in 10 little modules. I could be wrong, but something about the car that doesn't add up right.