- cross-posted to:
- technology@lemmy.world
- cross-posted to:
- technology@lemmy.world
" CATL has thrown its hat into the ring with the Naxtra sodium-ion battery, with 175 Wh/kg and 10,000 lifetime cycles along with operation from -40°C to 70°C. CATL is planning a start-stop battery for trucks using the technology. It has the potential to replace lead-acid batteries. CATL has announced battery pricing at the cell level in volume at $19/kWh. "
You must log in or register to comment.
For anyone wondering what “10,000 lifetime cycles” means, it’s full charge / discharge to the point that the batteries are at 80% of original capacity so 10,000 is to me an absolutely incredible number.
A typical phone battery is rated for about 500 (you can massively improve this by not charging it beyond 80%).
This also means that, when you buy a car with say a 500 km range, that the battery will last for 10,000 x 500 = 5 million kms. That is an absolutely insane number compared to cars that are on the road right now. And one you will obviously only reach if the rest of the car can keep up. EVs are already doing well compared to ICE cars in this regard, but this is almost an order of magnitude larger than the current status quo.
A typical phone battery is rated for about 500 (you can massively improve this by not charging it beyond 80%).
This 80% thing is incredibly simplified and not even always accurate. Personally I charge to about 95% and my phone batteries remain at 98-100% condition after 2 years of everyday use.
Limiting yourself to 80% doesn’t really make sense. You’re losing 20% capacity instantly, instead of losing it slowly over a few years. To be fair, a lot of people treat their devices so poorly that they may hit the 80% in less than 12 months, so I guess there’s that.
I keep my car charged to 80% to help with battery degradation, and here’s why:
-
Most days, I don’t use more than 30% of my battery capacity (roughly 75 miles/120km). Even that’s high. I don’t care if that means I go from 100%->70% or 80%-50% when I’ll charge back up again overnight
-
It’s not a permanent setting! If I do go on a longer trip, I’ll bring it back up to 100% and not sweat it!
From what I’ve heard, charging beyond 80% increases the degradation rate, meaning time spent at that level is an important part of the equation. If I keep my phone plugged in overnight and at my desk, I have a lot of time at full charge that I’m not really using, but if I know I’m flying that day or running errands all day I can pop it up to 100% and it will be a non-degraded 100%
I’ve had my S20 far longer than my car and never did limit its charge. It’s fine for me, but the battery is sure showing its age.
I don’t see this as a valid comparison.
- replacement phone batteries are really not that expensive. Don’t overthink it. Is it really a problem you might spend $50-$100 in three years to replace the battery?
- car batteries are not just much more expensive but they’re also overkill. Charging to 80% is more than enough for almost everyone’s daily driving on most vehicles, so why charge more?
Maybe user replaceable phone batteries are making a comeback, but with the way my phone is pretty much sealed up I wouldn’t trust myself to not break it. I’d also be leery of a third-party replacement lithium battery of unknown quality (let’s be honest, that’s what you’ll probably end up with) charging right next to my head while I sleep. Saying that as someone whose friend had a lithium battery fire with her laptop.
Point is, the argument of “why would you try to save your battery by not using it when it has the same net effect of less battery?” is pretty short-sighted.
User replaceable batteries would be actual cheap, would be nice. But iPhone 15 pro battery replacement at Apple is $100, and I’d expect that to be one of the more expensive battery replacements. Many phones will be cheaper, third parties will be cheaper. While I’d rather do it myself, it’s really not that much for once every three years to keep it above 80% health, and 9% of phone replacement cost.
the argument of “why would you try to save your battery by not using it when it has the same net effect of less battery?” is pretty short-sighted.
The argument is
- why try to save your phone battery when it’s critical to last the day and eventual replacement is cheap?
- it’s much more important to save your car battery because you won’t miss reduced range on normal days, you want max range available for road trips, and replacing the battery is very expensive
-
Yeah, a friend of mine made a similar argument and I hear it. Personally I’m always right beside a fast charger so it’s not an issue for me.
My phone has an option to auto-stop charging at 80% so I use that. I will occasionally charge it to 100% but like maybe once a month. TBH if it had an option to stop at 90% I’d probably use that as a middle ground (my steam deck does and I use 90% with it). I got 5 years out of my last phone and I’m 3 years into the current one and hoping to get many more out of it.
edit:
Personally I charge to about 95% and my phone batteries remain at 98-100% condition after 2 years of everyday use.
That’s a good reference point, cheers. Do you not find it a pain to monitor that though?
I think that fast charging is almost as damaging as full cycles.
OnePlus claim it’s not and a quick search does back that up. For the one specific to my phone they move a chunk of the work off the device (reducing heat on the phone) and onto the charger. It’ll still charge normally with any USB charger but it gets much hotter and is much slower compared to the OnePlus “warp” charge.
Fair enough. I’m using an OP12 myself. I still don’t buy into the “fast charge ok” bit, but I also know it’s parallel cells and such. I still charge overnight using a 5w charger. :)
I don’t know if the same applies to sodium batteries, early indicators are that they are less sensitive to depth of discharge as a degradation driver.
Still, the expected lifetime is going to be at least between 4-8 times NCM (traditional li-ion), which is massive.
Definitely incredible but I still feel like people’s excitement is misdirected.
- they’re less energy dense so not likely to be on phones or many cars
- for cars the extra life is marginal when existing batteries already last more than the life of a typical vehicle
- much cheaper will make a huge difference in low end cars.
- but storage is the killer app! I don’t care about energy density but they’re much cheaper and will last much longer. Huge win!
Imagine if home battery systems cost half as much but last four times as long! Or grid storage! This is huge!
10,000 lifetime cycles
so, 30 years if you charge/discharge it once daily?
Yes.
No, 27,38 years
80? Shit, I have my phone set at 85…
It’s not a dead set value. The worst you can do is keep charging it way past 100%
Now, if we can just get the robber barons and their wholely-owned politicians out of the way of progress…
So, how long do you think 'til the GOP Congress enacts a law blocking said technology and company in order to protect Tesla and oil interests of the United States fascist oligarchy?
You think the Dems won’t help them do it? The Democrats are already backing tariffs and import bans on Chinese cars and solar panels. And I haven’t seen Dems calling out the bans on lab grown meats.
They will engage in the same protectionism, because they’re paid off by the same donors.
Oh yeah, I forgot the Democrats also helped ban cancer vaccines and diabetes cures from Cuba and China. Wake the fuck up.
Honey, where did you put my sodium ion battery?
On the kitchen counter so it can watch me cook dinner.
I’m dumb and don’t get it.
The thumbnail and article show a sodium ion battery pack just randomly on the kitchen counter while a lady is cooking dinner.
Kind of like those stupid Amazon pictures for wusjduejxxw power juicer Chinese knockoff version 4.2 showing it in a pool or some random place.
Thank you. I am not less dumb now but I understand what I dumbed.
Enlightened dumbness 🧘
The YAVNXLT unit offers “elegant and productive for optimum serenity”, but the WZNGLPO says it can “bringing security for the family, business and happiness”.
They probably asked AI for a thumbnail, and since there was the word sodium, they decided to use the kitchen as a background.
AI amazing as always
This is what I’ve been waiting for as residential battery solution. Really nice to see it starting to take off.
Would this be a good replacement for 12v lead acid car batteries as well?
Depends on how fast the technology can dump current. Lead acid is particularly good about dumping a ton of current to crank.
Tell me which stocks to buy.
Tell me which stocks to sell.
FTFY
Most of the USA sodium battery companies are currently in private equities. You can buy Chinese stocks or just wait until it goes SPAC.
Gold
What will gold do in an apocalypse, time to collect bottle caps
The ones this people buy: https://share.google/PWnmursuqNxjrfSSl
If they are not buying some sodium battery producers, you can bet that somehow those batteries will not be “ready for the market” yet
if i can afford one, i’ll buy a car with it. but if i can’t, i’ll keep using my 04 nissan.
If I recall well, it isn’t a good fit for cars as it energy density per weight isn’t as good. But for residential batteries, that’s huge (if true).
This isn’t true any more, and it’s mentioned in the article. Sodium is at least equivalent to - and on pace to surpass - the energy density of Lithium. It’s already being used in passenger cars in the Far East.
It’s unlikely you will see a car powered by those in near future if ever as they have relatively low density. But you’ll definitely see those as home battery and such where size/density doesn’t matter that much. And I bet it’s less inflammable as well.
Edit: ha, I stand corrected, there are cars powered by these but don’t expect huge range.
In China NMC isn’t really used any more as a battery chemistry, almost all cars have LFP batteries. Sodium-ion has a slightly higher energy density than LFP. So basically almost all cars except the really expensive ones with a ridiculous range should switch over to sodium-ion pretty soon.
It’s still roughly half of the NMC. I wonder what’s the charging speed.
honestly, I’m fine with a lower range. when i go into the office , it’s 15 km away from my house. i can charge up at home, drive to work, come back and charge it up for the next day, so as a daily driver it might be fine. The problem comes when I want to go on a road trip, which is my preferred method of going medium to long distance. I avoid flying like the plague, and trains are really expensive for some reason.
And me my '02 Mitsubishi wagon.
And me my '93 Bianchi… oof it got stolen in 2018
The price 🤯👀
Especially for residential/static storage, where energy to weight ratio isn’t as important.
Yep
I’ll def buy some of these for a camping batt as the B-grade cells get thrown on Ali.
Holy fuck, the avg price for LFP was around $60/kWh last year and this is starting at a third of that.
“So, I don’t get why you people keep complaining. This is a green technology! Why are you so mad we’ve been evaporating the oceans at a speed to keep up with the demand for sodium? As if this is what has been causing all these new hurricanes and flood!”
- A trillionaire in 20 years or something.
The current timeline made me into a grumpy pessimist. I need to get out of that mindset.
Here’s the thing: sodium chloride aka table salt is extremely abundant. We are not expected to run out of it in any measurable timeframe, and the effect of sodium mining on the oceans or ecosystems at large is negligible.
Same cannot be said of lithium, which currently forms the backbone of battery tech. It is rare, and its extraction is extremely polluting. In fact, lithium is responsible for a huge chunk of renewable energy’s ecological footprint.
Switching to sodium technology is like switching from silver to sand. It’s just one thing we truly have enough of.
yeah I don’t really think what I’ve written above is coming. I just expect nothing less from that class than to turn a solution into a new problem. Should have been more explicit about that.
I see. But sometimes, progress really makes lesser problems than there were before.
We have cheap and generally eco-friendly solar, we install plenty of wind, and now we have a much more ecological way to store the power, too.
The rich care about their profits, and if eco-friendly tech delivers that, they’ll be all-in. Some fossil kings will try to stop it, but at this point, this trend is irreversible, because others among the rich are ready to destroy them.
