‘252 km (157 miles) range’ to save others the same skimming I did
Not bad for that battery’s first outing
Perfect for my needs. But I doubt it will ever be for sale here in the U.S.
The key is that with the right use case, it frees up lithium to be used where only it is suitable.
(for my needs I’d be fine with sodium…)
I can see that. My point is that the only electric car that has that range in the U.S. is the Leaf, which goes 168 miles on the smaller battery. I don’t need an electric car that goes that many miles between charges. I’d be fine with 90. I’d probably be fine with less than 90. We have a second car if we ever want to leave town. I’d ditch my hybrid and get a cheaper electric car that didn’t have a huge range, but it isn’t even on offer.
Dude get a used Leaf or Bolt. There is a $4k tax credit or direct price reduction for used now.
Got any info on that? Looking at buying out my EV lease and wonder if I can get that added.
For sure! I think we’re going to have to move away from a one-size fits all car design. For general city use, I use a Chevy Bolt, but for longer (infrequent) runs, I’m still stuck with ICE (I’d use a hybrid if I had one). In Canada, the range really does go down in the winter. (and Canada has not taken charging infrastructure very seriously - mandatory for adoption)
Anyway you look at it, these are very, very positive developments.
I would love to have an electric smart car for running errands.
Exactly! Something cheap and tiny for just going around town.
check out the bmw i3 if you are good with that range
They are as expensive as the other EVs and aren’t eligible for the US reimbursement 🫤
They are kinda ugly too… Which sucks because I really love the BMW driving experience
My problem is that I need >100 mile range. I live in a cold climate and have a 50 mile, round-trip commute (and high speed, so even worse range), so if EVs get half the range in the winter, I could stuck. There isn’t a big set of cars in the 100-150 mile range, usually you get something older and used with <100, or current cars get >200 and you pay the price for it.
A new Leaf is something like $30k, and used Leafs are something like $17k, so it’s absolutely not worth replacing my reliable hybrid car at that price. If I could get a new car around $20k with ~150 mile range, or a used car (~5 years old) with 100-150 mile range for 10k, I’d probably buy it. But that just isn’t a thing right now. So I’m waiting.
I’ve found people vastly overstated how much range they need. 99% of usage is in the city between home and somewhere else. 250km is perfect if the price is right.
For daily use, sure - but it completely excludes itself as an option for road trips in the US and parts of Canada. There’s a stretch of interstate road near me with nearly a 100 mile gap between service stations.
I know that this isn’t the purpose of this battery, but it’s a valid reason why a lot of people might be hesitant to buy one. Many people can’t afford multiple vehicles for different purposes. You have the car you drive to work with, and if you happen to go on a trip you just use the same thing.
Maybe 99% of use occurs within constraints that this battery can handle, but if you can only afford one vehicle, then this is still a pretty suboptimal option. That being said… it could still be cheap enough to not matter. I didn’t see any mention of price in that article.
Maybe we have to settle for suboptimal solutions from time to time to save the planet?
That’s not how car sales work. People want EVs without major downsides. Until that’s what’s available we won’t be see EVs surpass 10% market share.
I know, people are not willing to comprises for the good of the planet. That’s why we’re so fucked.
They should raise the driving age to 30. Then people would understand what a privilege driving really is.
A solution to this would be an extra expansion battery that you could buy or rent as an add-on only when needed.
…or rent a vehicle with the fuel savings from driving your EV most of the year, and skip putting a couple thousand km on your car over a long weekend.
This is what I do.
You still pay the cost of driving a car a couple thousand km though, right?
Most rental places in the states don’t charge mileage iirc
If we’re going all in with expansion packs we should add a rumble pack as well 😏
or don’t buy city car for intercity trips. Get li-ion powered cars or wait for them to make model with bigger range.
Just use Communauto for those once a quarter out of town trips.
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It seems to me that car in the article is relatively small city car. I can imagine that building bigger car with inter city travels in mind would also include an improved range.
Exactly. We have two cars, and we only need one to have any kind of range. The other is fine with 250km/150mi range, but it needs to be relatively inexpensive to buy and repair. It’ll just be for a daily commute and around-town driving, no expectation for long-distance.
It doesn’t need space for people or stuff, just 2-4 passengers is plenty. It’ll strictly be for commutes and small trips to the grocery store and whatnot, the other car can be used for larger trips.
Id like to add that there are different versions of the car, with the long range version being 302km range, and the battery mass to energy ratio is actually average compared to other batteries.
Wow that sounds very useable
That’s not bad if the price is right.
I’d be willing to buy one for ~$5-8k.
5-8k for a car in this day and age? That’s the price of a scooter
Citröen Ami.
The Ami starts for substantially more than that.
And even then, it’s not legally classified as a car. It has virtually no crash safety, a top speed of 28mph assuming no incline, and a real world range of 40 miles.
Don’t get me wrong, I like the Ami, but it’s a scooter alternative more than a car alternative.
I’d pay $15-20, depending on how well it worked.
Lmao $5k for a brand new car. You’re dreaming mate
Who ever said brand new?
Might want to brush up on your reading comprehension, ‘mate’.
It’s a post about a new vehicle, when you talk about “buying one” it’s clearly inferred you’re buying from the factory.
Also, there’s no need to be a complete dick. It’s not a good look for you
No, it’s not inferred at all. The vast majority of people buying cars buy them used.
You’re just desperate to justify your assumption.
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Perfectly usable for urban travel in Chinese cities
And recharging times?
This is awesome news. Not because of the car, but because it builds the supply lines for an alternative battery chemistry.
People have been using lithium-ion batteries for home and grid storage, which is nuts if you compare it to other battery types. Lithium is expensive and polluting and only makes sense if you’re limited by weight & space. Cheaper batteries, even if they’re bigger/heavier, will do wonders to the economics of sustainable electricity production.
People have been using lithium-ion batteries for home and grid storage, which is nuts if you compare it to other battery types
Compared to other battery chemistry types using lithium makes tons of sense.
Lead acid type batteries like sealed and AGM are cheap but not power dense and do not offer the same discharge ability that lithium offers without damaging the battery (AGM fixes this but it’s still an issue). Some lead acid batteries require continuous maintenance and vent toxic gasses which may be an issue depending on your encloser.
Nickel cadmium batteries solve a lot of issues that lead acid batteries are plagued with however they suffer from moisture intrusion issues causing self discharge. Nickel cadmium also suffers from memory effect which may completely ruin pour battery depending on your use. The elephant in the room with nickel cadmium is that it’s banned in some countries including the European union due to how toxic cadmium is.
Now with lithium, it’s a very energy dense battery which means you need less batteries to meet a capacity or you can fit more capacity into an encloser. There isn’t any electrolyte or water maintenance you need to worry about. You can discharge and recharge as you wish with minimal damage. Really the only downsides is that they do not like charging in the cold, are just as toxic as cadmium, and are much much much more expensive.
I find it interesting that, on a post about sodium ion batteries, your comment completely excludes them
The original comment was about lithium and their popularity for backup power. Sodium ion batteries are so new that you can’t purchase them yet (blueitte supposedly released the NA300 but I can’t find any in stock and it’s no longer on their site).
It wouldn’t be fair to compare a chemistry you cannot purchase and which it’s strengths and weaknesses haven’t been tested outside of controlled laboratory testing.
Fair point - I’m not really that good with the physical sciences personally so apologies for my ignorance
You can buy them right now, there’s more links in the 18650masterrace subreddit, but here’s just one:
https://srikobatteries.com/product/sodium-ion-18650-1250mah-50a-rechargeable-battery/
However good luck finding a BMS that works for it’s particular voltage range, don’t think AliExpress has any yet.
I haven’t seen any posts from those diy type folks experimenting with them yet. Sodium ion cells just became available within the last few months or so.
Probably because they’re new and the parent comment specifically referred to the cheaper, less energy dense battery types.
I agree that older commercialized battery types aren’t so interesting, but my point was about all the battery types that haven’t had enough R&D yet to be commercially mass-produced.
Power grids don’t care much about density - they can build batteries where land is cheap, and for fire control they need to artificially space out higher-density batteries anyway. There are heaps of known chemistries that might be cheaper per unit stored (molten salt batteries, flow batteries, and solid state batteries based on cheaper metals), but many only make sense for energy grid applications because they’re too big/heavy for anything portable.
I’m saying it’s nuts that lithium ion is being used for cases where energy density isn’t important. It’s a bit like using bottled water on a farm because you don’t want to pay to get the nearby river water tested. It’s great that sodium ion could bring new economics to grid energy storage, but weird that the only reason it got developed in the first place was for a completely different industry.
Now with lithium… are much much much more expensive
and explosive
Really the only downsides is that they do not like charging in the cold, are just as toxic as cadmium, and are much much much more expensive.
Seems like some pretty big and numerous downsides lmao
*enclosure
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Don’t forget the volatility of Lithium batteries if they ever get damaged or punctured.
What about nickle-metal hydride?
Lithium makes more sense when weight is an issue, for example when you have to carry the battery around. Sodium batteries could be good for grid storage if they can be implemented as scale cheaply enough, especially using common materials.
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Used car batteries can be reused for storage, so it’s going to require a cost analysis to determine what makes most sense for storage solutions. It’s great if they can use a cheaper sodium battery but we also don’t want to just waste the second hand lithium batteries. It makes sense to use both. At least until there are better recycling options. Also with solid state batteries hopefully coming up soon, it’ll still make sense to find use for the current batteries.
Ideally, home backups should be able to use any battery. Standards for compatibility would be nice.
A quick wikipedia read implies that sodium-ion batteries could be half or less the cost vs lithium. Also this:
Another factor is that cobalt, copper and nickel are not required for many types of sodium-ion batteries, and more abundant iron-based materials work well in Na+ batteries.
That’s probably most of why it’s cheaper, and it’s also way less damaging to the environment if they truly can be made from mostly sodium and iron.
I’m more concerned about the safety aspects. It seems there are two main types:
- aqueous - quite safe, but also likely very heavy per unit of energy
- carbon - high risk (probably similar to lithium)
That’s a big reason why I and probably many others aren’t interested in the current batch of EVs. Yeah they’re pretty safe, but they’re quite violent when they fail. I’d probably buy a sodium-ion EV if it could get 100-150 miles range reliably. That would be absolutely sufficient for my commute, even in the winter, and it would make a fantastic “around town” car when I’m not working.
Here’s the summary for the wikipedia article you mentioned in your comment:
Sodium-ion batteries (NIBs, SIBs, or Na-ion batteries) are several types of rechargeable batteries, which use sodium ions (Na+) as its charge carriers. In some cases, its working principle and cell construction are similar to those of lithium-ion battery (LIB) types, but it replaces lithium with sodium as the cathode material. Sodium belongs to the same group in the periodic table as lithium and thus has similar chemical properties. In other cases (such as aqueous Na-ion batteries) they are quite different from Li-ion batteries. SIBs received academic and commercial interest in the 2010s and early 2020s, largely due to the uneven geographic distribution, high environmental impact, and high cost of lithium. An obvious advantage of sodium is its natural abundance, particularly in saltwater. Another factor is that cobalt, copper and nickel are not required for many types of sodium-ion batteries, and more abundant iron-based materials work well in Na+ batteries. This is because the ionic radius of Na+ (116 pm) is substantially larger than that of Fe2+ and Fe3+ (69–92 pm depending on the spin state), whereas the ionic radius of Li+ is similar (90 pm). Similar ionic radii of lithium and iron result in their mixing in the cathode material during battery cycling, and a resultant loss of cyclable charge. A downside of the larger ionic radius of Na+ is a slower intercalation kinetics of sodium-ion electrode materials.The development of Na+ batteries started in the 1990s. After three decades of development, NIBs are at a critical moment of commercialization. Several companies such as HiNa and CATL in China, Faradion in the United Kingdom, Tiamat in France, Northvolt in Sweden, and Natron Energy in the US, are close to achieving the commercialization of NIBs, with the aim of employing sodium layered transition metal oxides (NaxTMO2), Prussian white (a Prussian blue analogue) or vanadium phosphate as cathode materials.Electric vehicles using sodium-ion battery packs are not yet commercially available. However, CATL, the world's biggest lithium-ion battery manufacturer, announced in 2022 the start of mass production of SIBs. In February 2023, the Chinese HiNA Battery Technology Company, Ltd. placed a 140 Wh/kg sodium-ion battery in an electric test car for the first time, and energy storage manufacturer Pylontech obtained the first sodium-ion battery certificate from TÜV Rheinland.
Not just that, we don’t have enough lithium deposits atm to build enough lithium evs to last more than a few decades if we act smart (which we generally do not).
Cheaper batteries, even if they’re bigger/heavier
Yes, just what we need is more vehicles on the road that weigh as much as a tank but accelerate like a Ferrari. I’m sure that won’t cause any problems.
Hold up, they solved the energy sink issue with the salt batteries? That’s wicked. There were physicists arguing with each other that the power you put in couldn’t be gotten back out.
Do you have more details about that?
Yeah, I’m quite curious myself as to why it’s more difficult. My chemistry knowledge is chem1 level so all I know is that sodium atoms are larger and the energy levels for state change are slightly different
I left a very brief explanation as a reply to the other user.
Well, sure, but you’re asking me about something I saw in passing half a decade ago. Basically, the main difficulties with Na Ion Batteries and especially the “Glass Batteries” were the lack of proper cathode with which to create current and also maintain the structure against the naturally occurring atomic reshuffling. In particular there was controversy over John B. Goodenough’s research because other battery scientists noted the electrodes both ends contained anode materials which should theoretically produce no electrochemical potential and therefor no cell voltage.
More modern attempts appear to use Graphene structures, which is promising in a lot of different ways: structural stability, durability, current, and material availability.
BTW Rest in Peace John, your good deeds outweigh the bad: a true scientist worth remembering for all time.
So basically we didn’t have a material that could function as a cathode until now?
I’m not in the battery research field but I assume it’s kind of like
We’ve got tons of puzzle pieces that we need to put together
and then we need to find an economically viable create more combined puzzle pieces at scale.
That is the case with every energy storage though in some cases it’s more pronounced.
Question to anyone who might know more: would sodium based batteries be better than lithium ones for the environment, in terms of recycling or disposing of it?
In case they are indeed better, would they be better because it’s better to use less lithium in general (so if you use more sodium based ones, you use less lithium) or would they be also better because their own disposal is “nicer” (as in less toxic) for the environment?
Well, Sodium is the 6th most abundant element on Earth, so there’s a lot more of it and the extraction process is probably far more environmentally friendly.
Since Sodium batteries are so new I don’t think we have data on the toxicity, disposal or recycling avenues yet.
They’re actually old tech. They just could never match lithium.
They’ll shine as standing storage more so than mobile applications. Home storage will benefit greatly from their improvements
That’s very interesting. If they can be used at home or in cars that don’t require batteries with a very large capacity, then that would be really good to counter the scarcity of lithium (and hopefully, help the environment too)
If they can get industrial scale it could also allow energy grids to capture excess power instead of wasting it. Could yield massive efficiency increases being able to reclaim some of that loss.
Interesting! So it would make sense to have tons of sodium batteries for all purposes for which one doesn’t need maybe higher capacity or performance as I understand lithium batteries offer
Instead of thinking “capacity” by itself, thing of “capacity for the given space” or rather “density”. So Sodium batteries can be equal capacity as Lithium, but the equivalent capacity Sodium battery will be significantly larger. In applications like storing overproduced wind or solar electricity for use later, we don’t care how big the battery is. However, it a moving vehicle where every square centimeter and every kg changes the performance of the car, those density differences can have a real impact.
It was a light bulb moment to me when I realised toxicity is at least somewhat correlated with abundance.
Like lots of metals can be toxic but something like iron is so common you could just throw it on the ground and while certainly not ideal it’s far from a major problem. The environment is very good at dealing with iron.
I don’t find the source anymore, but i saw a lifetime analysis about sodium ion batteries. Overall they are slighly worse than lithium ion due to higher energy input required during fabrication, despite better mineral availability.
The most common Na-ion batteries use Prussian Blue.
I suppose maybe they’re still useful innovations if they can be made with minerals which are more available.
Probably, we could achieve a balance between one type and the other, but I’m daydreaming now…
The main idea here is that we won’t run out of raw materials very easily when using stuff that’s relatively cheap and abundant. Well at least the ions are. Who knows what the anode and cathode are made of. Probably the usual materials; otherwise they would have mentioned it. If they still use cobalt in the cathode, you can’t really avoid the ethical questions that come with it.
Producing all the other materials can be rather energy intensive depending on the method used, so it depends. If you buy your metals from a country with hardly any environmental regulation, you can be pretty sure they don’t give a dingo’s kidney as to how many trees are chopped down and how many puppies are thrown in a furnace to get the next shipment of metals delivered.
Also, the electrolyte could be more or less harmful to humans and the environment. As far as the environmental impact is concerned, these batteries probably come with all the usual issues. Currently there just aren’t any perfect solutions commercially available. Regardless, this seems like a step in the right direction IMO.
My doctor says I can’t buy it. Is there a low sodium version?
Any new battery technology news needs to be taken with a grain of salt. They are highly likely over-hyped and the actually realized products will have more problems than the current established tech initially.
Any new battery technology news needs to be taken with grain of salt.
Well yeah, it’s sodium.
too easy…
Normally you’re right. It seems like every day there is a new revolutionary battery tech with no real estimate when it’ll ever be in use. But in this case, according to the article, deliveries will start next month which means they’re already in production.
Sure. I’m in no rush to replace my car with one of these, but it’s a great thing that this technology is already in production. With these actually going into real cars that people can buy and drive, we’ll get more data so that any serious issues will hopefully be identified and addressed in the next generation.
What kind of salt?
Sodium-ion.
Sooo… It’s a salt truck?
It’s a salt in battery
Volkswagen: Stop hitting yourself… Stop hitting yourself.
But you can’t stop hitting youraelf because Volkswagen has you by the wrists and is usng them to make you hit yourself with your own hands over, and over again.
as much as any other electric vehicle out there
Unfortunately the page is behind the yahoo consent tracker and my DNS resolver by precaution refused to connect.
Inline-js and third-party js disabled loads the page without any consent.
Wait how is this the first? Didn’t the th!nk city have a molten sodium battery years ago?
First sodium-ion battery powered cars. Different tech.
yes it was a sodium battery, but it had different chemistry. This one does not need to be molten to work!
Before clicking I knew it would be Chinese
Where is the sodium coming from?
My diet, probably
Low blood pressure gang unite 🤜
The ocean?
Nope. Mining. Soda ash (sodium carbonate) is one of the best raw materials for these
I hope not, because salt isn’t a renewable resource. And who the hell wants to fight the auto industry for something we need for food?
Sodium isn’t rare in the slightest. according to Wikipedia, “Sodium is the sixth most abundant element in the Earth’s crust and exists in numerous minerals such as feldspars, sodalite, and halite (NaCl).”
salt isn’t going anywhere. no need to fret.
We had a shortage in Canada… but after looking into it, it appears to have been caused by a labour strike. LOL
Yes, it’s abundant. But it is still a finite resource that needs to be mined/harvested, and what will that look like when the EVs are running off sodium-ion batteries?
Bit better then when we mined coal or lithium since it’s so abundant we don’t have to fck up whole regions for it to get to the little bit here and there. Desalination makes sense, dried death salt lakes also seems logical etc. Salt is everywhere. People are even building artificial “caves” with salt for others to go breath salty air inside.
A lot of desalinization plants just release the salty brine back out to sea, it’s actually an ecological problem, so finding another use for it might convince them to capture and separate that for manufacturing uses.
That would be a really nice idea!
We had a shortage in Canada… but after looking into it, it appears to have been caused by a labour strike. LOL
That’s a capitalism problem, not a resource problem. All resources require labor to harvest, renewable or no.
The ocean could uhhhh use some less salt.
Fresh take.
No. Salt take, make fresh. 😁
Uhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh
this is plain stupid. sodium is far far more common in the earth than lithium. if you’re worried about sodium not being renewable, then by that logic you should stop using lithium batteries right now.
Yes, I understand. I already posted that I was under the impression that we have shortages of the stuff, since we had shortages in Canada. But it was due to a labour dispute, and not a lack of resources.
And yes, I think we should reduce our use of lithium batteries, or at least only use recycled lithium.
Way too much salt to care there.
It comes from stars.
Stars probably
Stardust.
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These ones look pretty normal to me. I think there are a few options now that look like regular cars. The only difference usually is they don’t have a front grill because they don’t need one.
Yeah, my guess is that it’s the lack of a front grill that makes them look goofy to people. You’ll get used to it.
Have a look at the Cupra Born, looks awesome and is a great car. Already 18 months old as a design.
They don’t need a a front opening to the radiator, that might be why you find them strange.
E-berlingo looks exactly the same as normal Berlingo. Since it’s a fairly new design I’m guessing they had both versions in mind when designing the ICE one.
Agreed, just give me Jeep Cherokee/Wagoneer and id be happy. Bonus if it has the same interior and no shitty tracking bs.
