CATL will start mass producing sodium-ion batteries

[Merle Nelson]

I had a perspective awakening one time. I was standing in a museum in Carson City, Nevada and looking at an interesting long gun that had a cylinder which rotated in line with the barrel to allow six shots to be at the ready. It had obviously suffered a catastrophic malfunction. The placard read that the inventor was fatally injured while demonstrating it to famous gun manufacturer John Browning.

Anything we have today that is a marvel of engineering, anything that looks like we will soon have, comes at a cost and by incrimental steps. The first electric cars were invented about 100 years ago. It's coming.

 

[RunForTheHills]

The electric vehicle and hybrid market in the United States would not exist or be a very niche market without government incentives and more and more restrictive CAFE standards on manufacturers. California has mandated that all new cars and passenger trucks be zero emission vehicles by 2035. You can call this an evolutionary change, but it is a forced adaption to government standards and not consumer driven at all.

 

[JASmith]

The electric vehicle and hybrid market in the United States would not exist or be a very niche market without government incentives and more and more restrictive CAFE standards on manufacturers. California has mandated that all new cars and passenger trucks be zero emission vehicles by 2035. You can call this an evolutionary change, but it is a forced adaption to government standards and not consumer driven at all.

The EV market is a niche market, even w/ subsidies, making up only 2% of new vehicle sales and those batteries would be put to better use distributed into more vehicles than consolidated into so few as pure luxury EVs. Frankly, I also think its a horrible regressive taxation, as studies have found that the average Tesla owner is buying it often as a third vehicle with a healthy triple digit income, the type of people that don't require assistance purchasing a vehicle. That money would have been better spent subsidizing inexpensive hybrids to the masses (like the 40mpg Ford Maverick hybrid I'm interested in, which gets no subsidies), with a income cap at $75K so that only those below average per capita GDP citizens that need the assistance to purchase a car get the money, as redistribution of wealth upwards is not required and occurs naturally without government interference. In short, its like a boss Bill Lumbergh at the Inetek office passing around a collection plate in which all his employees have to throw in $20 so he can buy a brand new luxury car for himself, while his employees can only afford to scoot around in decade old beaters. Not cool, and I don't think anyone wants to emulate California... my housing value has skyrocketed due to California refugees fleeing their state government.

 

[Kayakguy]

Compressed hydrogen gas. There was no infrastructure to replace when gasoline came into use in the early 1900s. Steamers were too expensive and labor intensive to ever achieve mass adoption, and the first mass adopted vehicles like the Model-T were gasoline. To completely scrap an existing system, the new system has to prove that its not only equal but significantly higher performance than that which it replaces to warrant the undertaking, which is why revolutionary changes almost always fail. Evolutionary ones though like small changes to the fuel blends or additives or adding ethanol that work on the same pumps and in certain quantities on the same cars are easily and quickly implemented though. That's why electrification took off while hydrogen failed, as you could baby step to hybrids blending with established technology which hydrogen can't, and now the mainstream next baby step is to make plugin hybrids commonplace which again is an easy evolutionary change since everyone has electricity at home. Eventually as the batteries get better the evolution will slowly phase out range extending ICE generators in the hybrids making for a smooth transition. IMO the only reason hydrogen even exists right now is because some governments are forcing its continued investment as the free-market understands its a dead end tech. Its a shame as so many billions have been wasted on it that could have gone into other techs.

It may be worth noting that hydrogen is totally non-polluting. If that matters.

 

[Kayakguy]

The electric vehicle and hybrid market in the United States would not exist or be a very niche market without government incentives and more and more restrictive CAFE standards on manufacturers. California has mandated that all new cars and passenger trucks be zero emission vehicles by 2035. You can call this an evolutionary change, but it is a forced adaption to government standards and not consumer driven at all.

Just like seat belts, air bags, pollution controls, removing lead from gasoline, child-safe booster seats, etc. (I can remember as a kid being able to stand up on the front seat while riding). All of these changes were opposed by consumers, for the most part. I'm not sure I'd want to shift into regressive mode on all these issues, though.

 

[JASmith]

It may be worth noting that hydrogen is totally non-polluting. If that matters.

Hydrogen is more like a battery, not a power source like fossil fuel. Usually you need a powerplant to produce electricity to make hydrogen.

 

[RunForTheHills]

Just like seat belts, air bags, pollution controls, removing lead from gasoline, child-safe booster seats, etc. (I can remember as a kid being able to stand up on the front seat while riding). All of these changes were opposed by consumers, for the most part. I'm not sure I'd want to shift into regressive mode on all these issues, though.

I don't really want to debate the right and wrong of it. I was just pointing out that the adoption of electric vehicles is just as manipulated and forced by the government as hydrogen fuel cells in Japan. Hybrids also weren't economically feasible when they were introduced and needed tax credits and incentives like being able to use the carpool lane with a single occupant to get people to buy them. You didn't save enough in improved fuel mileage to offset the premium you paid for a hybrid.

 

[Kayakguy]

Hydrogen is more like a battery, not a power source like fossil fuel. Usually you need a powerplant to produce electricity to make hydrogen.

I concede the point. Hydrogen is not free, but must be extracted through electrolysis of water. But this is where non-polluting sources of electricity, such as wind and solar, can come into play.
There is no such thing as a free lunch. Every technology has its downside and its costs

 

[Mulezen]

Hydrogen has a big-big future In big rigs, trains etc., and probably in cars too. Progress in catalysts are allowing less energy intensive production via solar. Amtrak just committed mucho dinero to a new fleet of dual fuel engines. The government has proved to be an excellent incubator for future tech. We led the world in solar when Carter put panels on the WH to de carbonize and then the next admin pulled them down…and now we’re, quite predictably, on fire. The sodium batteries will be a boon for micro grids, so necessary in combatting climate change

 

[reed scott]

Compressed hydrogen gas. There was no infrastructure to replace when gasoline came into use in the early 1900s. Steamers were too expensive and labor intensive to ever achieve mass adoption, and the first mass adopted vehicles like the Model-T were gasoline. To completely scrap an existing system, the new system has to prove that its not only equal but significantly higher performance than that which it replaces to warrant the undertaking, which is why revolutionary changes almost always fail. Evolutionary ones though like small changes to the fuel blends or additives or adding ethanol that work on the same pumps and in certain quantities on the same cars are easily and quickly implemented though. That's why electrification took off while hydrogen failed, as you could baby step to hybrids blending with established technology which hydrogen can't, and now the mainstream next baby step is to make plugin hybrids commonplace which again is an easy evolutionary change since everyone has electricity at home. Eventually as the batteries get better the evolution will slowly phase out range extending ICE generators in the hybrids making for a smooth transition. IMO the only reason hydrogen even exists right now is because some governments are forcing its continued investment as the free-market understands its a dead end tech. Its a shame as so many billions have been wasted on it that could have gone into other techs.

I like your rationale comparing revolutionary to evolutionary tech. Yes electricity is ubiquitous in our country but not in constant supply any longer. As we in Texas painfully found out last winter as are those in California. And I hear very little about rectifying that situation form our leaders. We better get on it and we better make some massive changes.

 

[reed scott]

I concede the point. Hydrogen is not free, but must be extracted through electrolysis of water. But this is where non-polluting sources of electricity, such as wind and solar, can come into play.
There is no such thing as a free lunch. Every technology has its downside and its costs

There is no cure-all there. Just ask any Texan how they liked freezing in the dark and drinking melted snow water ( if they had propane or natural gas to melt the snow with ) for a week ... or three.

 

[Scott Adams]

stripping free hydrogen from compound molecules is too expensive in both joules and pennies

electrolysis only reverses the energy recovery reaction, so by definition will take more energy than you get back

catalysts, enzymatic or otherwise, only reduce energy of activation, not bonding E

just as a lot of money was spent shorting Tesla in order to slow progress -

money was invested in fuel cells by incumbents as it preserves hydrocarbon sources and business model and sucked momentum from battery electric

this is why Musk has always called them fool cells

short of finding vents of diatomic H spewing it for free from the ground, fuel cells will not become a mainstream tech

 

[JASmith]

I don't really want to debate the right and wrong of it. I was just pointing out that the adoption of electric vehicles is just as manipulated and forced by the government as hydrogen fuel cells in Japan. Hybrids also weren't economically feasible when they were introduced and needed tax credits and incentives like being able to use the carpool lane with a single occupant to get people to buy them. You didn't save enough in improved fuel mileage to offset the premium you paid for a hybrid.

Respectfully disagree. Billions were being invested in lithium technology well before it was used in vehicles, without any government interference whatsoever, because battery technologies are always useful and a huge selling point in laptops, tablets, phones, power tools, landscaping equipment, and the like and it was improving every year.

People were buying hybrids like the Prius because they were economical to operate and because of a sense of piousness that it gave the operators, which the marketing team was well aware of hence the similarity in the name Prius and Pious. If there were no market for "green" products then there likewise would be no political support for "green" incentives. Since almost any vehicle can get you from point A to point B these days, image and emotions play a lot into purchases.

My issue is with how those incentives were regressive, with approximately 90% of "green" subsidies paid out to date going to the top quintile of American households, meaning its redistribution of wealth from the middle to upper class in the name of saving the planet, when ironically these wealthier households tend to be the largest consumers having to heat and cool much larger homes that are far less efficient than communal apartments, using public transportation far less if at all, flying jets more often, owning boats and inefficient sports cars in their multi-vehicle fleets, etc.

So you're hoping to entice 20% of the population to be more efficient with money when they are the least sensitive to the economics of a car purchase in the first place, and leaving the 80% driving less efficient aging vehicles. Common sense dictates that average fleet economy for a nation would see the greatest increase by targeting the most price-sensitive and numerous 80% majority with incentives. For example, the new Ford Maverick we are interested in starts at $20K and gets 40mpg, now imagine if it received a $7.5K rebate instead of a Tesla purchased by the stereotypical Tesla consumer that makes $300K a year in the first place. At $12.5K the factory would have a hard time producing enough of them, and you'd see 15-20mpg older vehicles quickly traded in and owners doubling their efficiency and in far higher numbers than Tesla could ever compete with.

 

[Kayakguy]

There is no cure-all there. Just ask any Texan how they liked freezing in the dark and drinking melted snow water ( if they had propane or natural gas to melt the snow with ) for a week ... or three.

I can't avoid pointing out that much of Texans' misery was the result of a poorly thought out and mismanaged power grid. It seems Texas treasured its independence so much that they refused to tie into regional power grids, which would have mitigated much of the problem.

 

[JASmith]

I can't avoid pointing out that much of Texans' misery was the result of a poorly thought out and mismanaged power grid. It seems Texas treasured its independence so much that they refused to tie into regional power grids, which would have mitigated much of the problem.

Fake news promoted by advocates of federal over state rights. Texas has a outside grid interconnect, but was receiving no power from it because they were under strain as well and had nothing to spare since the storm was so massive. In addition, Texas interconnect is such a large state and energy rich, that its the equivalent of many smaller states banding together in the first place.
Source: https://www.texasmonthly.com/news-politics/texas-isolated-power-grid-ercot/

The irony too is that the criticism is often levied by Californians that have regular power grid issues in spite of paying some of the highest electricity prices in the nation, typically twice as high as Texas.

(lighter is cheaper and red is the highest priced)

Ultimately, it was a freak weather event in that the deep freeze lasted as long as it did defeating basic winterization measures, and while wind and solar were having issues, even natural gas and our nuclear power plant had problems.

 

[RunForTheHills]

Respectfully disagree. Billions were being invested in lithium technology well before it was used in vehicles, without any government interference whatsoever, because battery technologies are always useful and a huge selling point in laptops, tablets, phones, power tools, landscaping equipment, and the like and it was improving every year.

People were buying hybrids like the Prius because they were economical to operate and because of a sense of piousness that it gave the operators, which the marketing team was well aware of hence the similarity in the name Prius and Pious. If there were no market for "green" products then there likewise would be no political support for "green" incentives. Since almost any vehicle can get you from point A to point B these days, image and emotions play a lot into purchases.

While you are smart and your Google Fu is strong, I suspect that you are a bit too young to have been in the new car market 20 years ago. When the Prius came out, there were concerns that the battery would only last five years and the cost to replace it was half the cost of a new car (they are cheaper now). So they only offered it on a lease. I bought a couple of new cars during that time and did the math on the fuel savings. Gas was a lot cheaper back then and, if I recall correctly, the break even point on fuel savings vs the extra cost of a hybrid was somewhere around 20 years. Sure, there were pious Prius buyers, but there weren't any more of those than there are pious EV buyers today. The few people I knew who bought one did so for the sticker that allowed them to use the carpool lanes with a single occupant in California.

 

[JASmith]

While you are smart and your Google Fu is strong, I suspect that you are a bit too young to have been in the new car market 20 years ago. When the Prius came out, there were concerns that the battery would only last five years and the cost to replace it was half the cost of a new car (they are cheaper now). So they only offered it on a lease. I bought a couple of new cars during that time and did the math on the fuel savings. Gas was a lot cheaper back then and, if I recall correctly, the break even point on fuel savings vs the extra cost of a hybrid was somewhere around 20 years. Sure, there were pious Prius buyers, but there weren't any more of those than there are pious EV buyers today. The few people I knew who bought one did so for the sticker that allowed them to use the carpool lanes with a single occupant in California.

Well the very first I think used NIMH and were likely an immature product that shouldn't have been rushed to market yet. Battery tech was going to increase with or without hybrid cars for the before mentioned reasons, so if the government didn't interfere we likely would have had a more viable first generation product that actually made sense to produce. Speaking of improper vetting due to government interference, that is one of the huge problems with an artificially created massive subsidy market as especially in China we have seen a massive amount of junk startups with no true business model that were just designed to eat free government cheese until they are inevitably shut down. Unlike normal investors that actually care about making a return on their investment, with the government its not really their money and whether someone succeeds or fails really makes no difference to the government officials so there is no incentive to be frugal. Its similar to the same reason governments had paid $10,000 for an air force toilet seat cover, $37 per screw, $7,622 for a coffee maker, and $435 for a hammer. Not their money, no craps given, lol!

 

[EMGX]

Well the very first I think used NIMH and were likely an immature product that shouldn't have been rushed to market yet. Battery tech was going to increase with or without hybrid cars for the before mentioned reasons, so if the government didn't interfere we likely would have had a more viable first generation product that actually made sense to produce. Speaking of improper vetting due to government interference, that is one of the huge problems with an artificially created massive subsidy market as especially in China we have seen a massive amount of junk startups with no true business model that were just designed to eat free government cheese until they are inevitably shut down. Unlike normal investors that actually care about making a return on their investment, with the government its not really their money and whether someone succeeds or fails really makes no difference to the government officials so there is no incentive to be frugal. Its similar to the same reason governments had paid $10,000 for an air force toilet seat cover, $37 per screw, $7,622 for a coffee maker, and $435 for a hammer. Not their money, no craps given, lol!

I get what you are saying and certainly fraud and abuse is the result when expenses aren't monitored and verified. My undergraduate degree was in pharmacy, I didn't practice as a pharmacist for long but one "60 minutes" episode from back then stuck in my mind. It was one where hospital medication costs were examined. Dollars for an aspirin or tylenol sounds outrageous but pharmacy was just a revenue center for funding the entire hospital service package. It didn't go to the pharmacy operating budget per se. When I was young 60 minutes seemed like such a hard hitting expose' news show but on subjects that I had more knowledge of it just came off as sensationalist yellow journalism. I haven't watched 60 minutes in decades but at least back then it was a pre-internet version of "click bait".
Some govt funded programs like NASA have resulted in advances that wouldn't have been achieved as well or advance as quickly by the private sector alone. Same with mandated pollution control and vehicle safety. At least that is my impression.

 

[FrankR]

Thought I would bump this. What's the latest?

 

[Kayakguy]

Timpo meant non flammable I'm sure.

Yes, it's another quirk of our English language. Flammable and inflammable mean the same thing.
"Let" can mean allow (let me have a new bike) or prevent (as in the phrase "without let or hindrance") "Sanction" can mean to permit (as in a sanctioned event) or to punish (sanctions were put on the renegade state)

This is the kind of thing that happens when you build a language out of various parts (Latin, French, Anglo Saxon, plus innumerable bits from practically every language on the planet), and let it evolve throughout time. Nobody owns English (including English teachers). The French have their academy to ride herd on their language, but even they struggle to maintain its purity. Keeps getting corrupted by English words, such as "weekend" and "drugstore."

Sorry for the rant. Should have given a warning at the beginning.