Why electric cars are WORSE than gasoline!

[lectruck]

We do need batteries to get better.

And my electric mower throws out all of that coal dust from the power plant, too!!

[roflwaffle]

Seriously! Having to tow an entire coal plant behind your lawnmower just to cut some grass is outrageous, clearly we need better batteries.

[MPaulHolmes]

You guys, haven't you seen the commecials? Coal is clean! Geeze! hahaha! And 10 seconds isn't fast enough to be practical for recharging a battery. Electric cars won't take off until we can break that 8 second charging barrier. Hey, Every time a bell rings, an angel gets his wings, and every time I charge those new Lithium MIT batteries in 10 seconds, I black out Olympia/Lacey/Tumwater. Maybe a charging station could do it with capacitor banks?

[MazdaMatt]

It takes me about 5-8 minutes at the gas station to top up, pay, and leave. If it took me 15 for an electric vehicle, i'd be happy. OTOH, 8 hours is perfectly fine for 99% of the times that I leave the house (daily commute, vs visiting the parents 380km away).

Actually, for that particular trip (380km), if i could get 200km range, i wouldn't mind waiting 30 mintues for my car to charge up. Sit down, have a coffee, then hit the road.

[lectruck]

Yea, thoses new MIT batteries would be great. Do you think we'll see them within 5 year though?

[MPaulHolmes]

I think we will. My understanding is that it's just a small change to the process, so the infrastructure is already there. I just really wish they would do it with an element that wasn't so rare.

[roflwaffle]

What element are they using?

[MPaulHolmes]

Lithium. It is thought (although not known) that practical lithium supply will be sufficient for a global hybrid market, but not a global plug-in hybrid market, and certainly not a global pure EV market.

[MazdaMatt]

I'm sure that as oil craps out, billions of dollars will go into the discovery and earth-raping of lithium instead. I believe that lithium is highly recyclable. Lead Acid batteries ARE highly recyclable and already have a massive recycling infrastructure (though it would have to get 12 times larger if everyone's car was 144 volts). We will deal with these problems as the time comes, certainly. There are multiple options available and each has their uses. Not everyone will need 5 minute recharges with 250 mile ranges. That will be the "luxury car" option while poor sods like me are charging overnight for the commute to work.

[roflwaffle]

Originally Posted by MPaulHolmes

Lithium. It is thought (although not known) that practical lithium supply will be sufficient for a global hybrid market, but not a global plug-in hybrid market, and certainly not a global pure EV market.

Everything I've seen stating that seems to use outdated assumptions. I suppose that with Lithium Cobalt and similar availability could be a problem, but the best (cheapest per kWh stored) Lithium batteries, LFPs, use about an eighth of what previous chemistries have used. G00gling turns up 1.4kg of Lithium Carbonate per kWh for LCP, and since the LFP batteries on TS' site seem to be ~1.5 times the weight of their equivalent LCP batteries, a kWh of LFP would require ~.25kg of Lithium Carbonate.

World reserves at 2005 prices are at ~13 billion kgs of Lithium, or about 68 billion kgs of Lithium Carbonate, which is enough for ~17 billion 16kWh packs, which would be good for ~160 miles in something like the Aptera and ~80 miles in something like the i-MiEV. Course, this is at 2005 prices/recoverable reserves, and based on everything I've read the $2-3 or so increase in battery price per kWh due to a doubling of Lithium prices would also increase world reserves by a fair chunk, and recycling would naturally be an option as well. Then there's seawater absorption, which is definitely expensive, but still an option because pure Lithium is currently only ~$40/kg. Even if Lithium absorption results in Lithium that's nearly a hundred times more expensive than what we see currently, it would still only double the cost of battery packs. Supposely the cost of seawater extraction is ~$150/kg, which would increase the cost of Lithium per battery from ~$2-3/kWh to ~$10-12/kWh.

That said, as we've seen with NiMH, patent isht can keep low cost mass produced large format chemistries off the market for more than a decade, so I wouldn't hold my breath in terms of seeing LiFePO4 from a U.S. distributor for the same prices we're seeing from China, but it's definitely a technical possibility, even if it'll take a while to filter through.