Battery energy density is just about as high as it will ever get while still being a fraction of the density of gasoline. You can’t simply dump more energy into it, physics is the limit here.
You can maybe charge a bit faster but I think we’re hitting a ceiling there as well.
So what you’re saying is that the only thing between you and imaginary devices that break physics is just your willpower?
Because that’s not how the world (read: the entire universe) works. You can want all you want but physics is physics, you obey those laws like it or not.
Going “but Elon Musk” isn’t helping either, it only makes it worse as a known incompetent liar will make lots of ridiculous claims that never become reality
Your comment is great! I’ve never seen such a calamity of fallacies. Well done. My only point was that doubting the ability of people to solve problems with technological bottlenecks has not gone well by pointing out a famous example of that, but you invented a whole world of misinterpretation that doesn’t seem to apply to my point at all.
I hate how the internet made people vaguely aware of the concept of logical fallacies which makes them take said concept and run with it without understand how it works.
I’m telling you that you CAN’T break physics and that there are a lot of “innovations” out there that haven’t done anything and never will be anything because their very premise breaks physics and you start ranting about fallacies. I guess you don’t know how to say “I don’t know about this subject”?
Willpower is great, but there are things that either simply aren’t possible, or literally plain stupid on an engineering level (hello Hyperloop!) If you find that fact a fallacy then I have a bridge to sell you.
Yeah that’s right, the issue isn’t you making broad assumptions about a one-line comment and going off on some rant about Elon Musk and other imaginary arguments you read into my - again - one-line comment that made a simple and specific point. No no, the issue is that people on the internet don’t understand how fallacies work. I have to ask, for you to have reached that opinion, how many times have people called your arguments fallacious, and as a follow up, are you sure you aren’t the one that can’t properly identify fallacies, rather than… everyone else?
You lack imagination. What if they had multiple smaller batteries, as some cell phones do? The big reason it’s not more common in phones is that space is a massive premium, which is less of a concern in cars. Weight is a bigger factor here.
EV batteries have hundreds of cells that could potentially be charged in parallel. It’s even possible to do battery swaps one cell at a time, albeit that’s unlikely.
And these are just possibilities that I came up with as a non-EE. I’m sure they have their flaws, but it would bypass those physical limits.
This is already what they do. Dry batteries that are bigger than about your phone are generally comprised a whole lot of battery cells. If you ever take em apart, you’d basically see the cells are made up of what looks like a whole bunch of AA batteries (but larger).
They do charge “in parallel”, but that’s limited by how much electricity you can feed through into the system as a whole, and doesn’t speed up the process, it just makes them all fill at about the same rate.
Making the cells swappable is basically what this video is about.
I mean separately. Why limit it to a single charging system? What if you had 2 (DC) charging ports, each capable of only charging half of the cells? Many heavy duty trucks have 2 gas tanks, each with a separate fuel door. They can be filled by 2 pumps simultaneously, cutting refueling time in half. What about 4? 10?
Obviously there would be downsides (cost being a big one), but it would enable faster charging.
I mean, this is still more or less what the fast charging standards do; they’re pouring more power into it faster with higher bandwidth cables and sectioned charging.
The level 3 fast charger is basically the equivalent of 4 power cords from your wall. Also, adding more and more hardware and things for it will effectively make the electronics more complicated, which means more expensive, difficult to manufacture and repair
But also, as you scale this up more and more you’ll start running into issues that make it difficult to start pulling more power; energy from the grid isn’t infinite
Your imagination cannot break physics and just because you can imagine it that doesn’t mean it’s a good idea or that it would ever work on an engineering level.
Take Hyperloop. Anyone with a basic insight into engineering that takes more than two seconds to think about it can conclude that it’s a horribly stupid idea that will never come to reality, yet people have invested billions in it, universities jumped the Elon band wagon because… I don’t know why but for ducks sake, it’s stupid and will NEVER work. Meanwhile in that decade that the US was playing with the Hyperloop shit, china built out thousands of kilometers of high speed rail that actually works and the US is still stuck with the laughably sad Amtrak toy trains. What has Hyperloop done in a decade and tens of billions of dollars? NOTHING.
Just because Elon musk says it’s his idea (it wasn’t, but he lies all the time so there is that) doesn’t mean it’s a great idea.
Batteries as they currently are will NOT get any more efficient. “Yes but” No. Won’t happen “BUT” No. We might be able to squeeze a few % extra here and there but a doubling or anything like that won’t happen.
We might get a new energy storage solution where maybe we store electrons in a plasma cloud in a container or something (this idea is pulled out of my ass right here and now), THAT would be a revolutionary new energy storage that maybe could give us double, tripple storage capacity.
But to give you an idea of energy storage: even the best battery out here still doesn’t get beyond 10-20% of the energy density of gasoline. You want an electrical plane? Sure, make battery energy density about 5x better (that’s a 500% increase) than it currently is and we’ll talk. Until then, it’s physically possible but practically stupid as your batteries will use 50-70% if your aircraft. That is not mentioning what will happen in case of fire. Kerosine is flammable and a problem, but kill the airflow and it’s out. Batteries, on the other hand, are a bitch. A batteries catches fire and it will go until it’s done. A battery catching fire in an airplane is a problem. An airplane on batteries with one of those batteries catching fire is a “you’re fucked” situation. You won’t survive, you’ll get roasted. So again, engineering wise things aren’t that easy.
Take Elon’s SpaceX. Everyone wows it for doing stuff badly that NASA did great 50 years ago, I am not kidding. If NASA did as bad as SpaceX 50 years ago they would have been disbandoned, but SpaceX has deep pockets, apparently, and so people applaud fuckup after fuckup. It’s painful to watch.
I’m dumping on Elon now as he is the biggest abuser of “if I imagine I can then I can” bit he is far from the only one. Dreaming is fine but if you want to make it real then you HAVE to comply with science and engineering. You can solve complicated or hard problems with interesting solutions (flying an airplane with static wings, hello Orvilles)
Have an open mind, but not so open that your brain falls out, please.
My wife thinks I’m insane, but my whole family is built where we would drive 10+ hours (710miles~) a couple times a year with only 1 stop at mile like 500 for fuel and a snack. Otherwise we’d just keep going. Some people don’t need a break for a LOOOONNNNGGGG time when driving. Of my friend group (20th people) on road trips only 2/3 need stops every so often. Even my wife has adjusted to my driving nature.
The first road trip my wife and I did when we were dating I was like 45 into the drive and she said “I have to pee” right after she had gone at the house. It set me up for a trip where I was stopping about once every 2ish hours or so. She was drinking a ton of water and didn’t realize she should pace herself.
inb4: Yeah, been to doctors, had tests done, had scans done, blahblah, apparently there isn’t anything wrong I’m just cursed with…if I drink something I will have to pee like 66.67% of that amount back out relatively soon.
It sucks for drives. It sucks for flights. It sucks for movies at movie theaters. It sucks for plays. I typically just go on the verge of dehydrated so I don’t have to pee at all.
I’d be really interested to see the results of response time testing on drives that long. You might be highly anomalous but most people begin to suffer significant attention and reaction penalties after around an hour that get steadily worse.
I know that when I try do multitask testing (a significant part of driving) after 2 hours of continuous driving my results are like 50% of freshly rested. I’d be surprised if you were anywhere capable of navigating an emergency reliably after 4 hours.
🤔 most of us in my family LOVE driving. Usually when we even needed to think/decompress or just have fun we would hop in a car and just drive. So I’m definitely more in a minority on that front. I suspect we’re just “drivers” compared to others. I just think more people can go more than 250 miles without stopping. It probably also helps that 3 of 4 of us have some level of adhd (medical diag). I think for us driving gives our monkey brain something to do. Like meditation, but worse for the environment. 😅
You really should try testing yourself though. You might be endangering your own and other people’s lives.
Try some stuff like memory, attention, and dual n back before and after (make sure to train for a bit and discard those results to avoid training effects)
I can assure you whatever test you want I could pass with flying colors and beyond, and so could most most drivers. That said, my car also drives itself on the highway for the most part and gives me a massage while I’m driving. So I sort of have an additional cheat code for driving. Even still my previous car for daily use was a manual Evo X and I took that all over the PNW and drove it fine for hours on end. Driving is taxing, but most people can usually go about 4-6 hours of constant driving, especially if you have someone in the car to talk with.
Don’t be an arse that isn’t how risk works. You can claim you perform perfectly well driving for a long time with distractions but evidence suggests it has a significant cost.
you might be a freak, some people are there are people who can calculate primes in their head or recall with near perfect accuracy, but the odds are stacked against you.
Unless you’ve actually tested yourself you should probably proceed under the assumption that driving for more than a couple of hours without a break begins to get dangerously risky. Middle of a salt flat in woop woop? who cares. Elsewhere? Maybe pull over and spend 3 minutes doing jumping jacks or something.
Their comments jump all over the place. Their partner hates it, they have a self-driving car etc. Completely rationalising driving tired and proud of it. Worst kind of driver.
I’m willing to believe some people are vastly superior drivers to me, I’m also willing to believe I’m more cautious than ethics demands.
Even so, suppose you are the greatest driver to ever exist. If after 4 hours on the road you’re at 70% of your skill, even if that skill is still really high, isn’t it worth a 10 minute break to get back to like 90%?
It’s not like taking a break is terribly unpleasant. Unless the weather is dreadful just have a cup of tea from a thermos and a stretch then hop back on the road.
My wife doesn’t hate it; just took a while to adjust to it. I don’t rationalize being tired and driving because I don’t do it. When I’ve been actually tired from driving I pull over at a rest stop and stretch or sleep. It’s ok though, I’m sure my 15 years of perfect driving (about 20k miles a year) without even being pulled over or ticketed means I’m a shitty driver. 👉(👁 ͜ʖ👁)👉
Evidence suggests lots of things. There’s always outliers and people who have different skill sets for different things. That doesn’t invalidate the data and certainly I agree that many people are shitty at driving. The original comment was about people only going 250 miles and needing to rest, which I don’t find true. I drove the salt flats. As I got tired my wife and switched driving since the scenery was so… flat. Usually the mountainous driving I do keeps me awake since I need to be actively paying attention or I’d die.
Skill is having a larger capacity until mental/physical exhaustion. If someone runs every day they’re a skilled runner. Their capacity to run is greater than mine because they aren’t as quick to become exhausted. The same is true for the brain.
Correct, however a driver with more skill also has more capacity for driving longer. I don’t think 250 miles (the original point of this whole thread) is long. 750 miles on the other hand… is. I could easily drive 750 miles with no problem. Get to my location, party for several hours and then finally sleep. I know this because I do it about once a year with family. Most people might not be able to go that long. Because they’re not a “skilled driver.” They haven’t built up capacity to understand. Even friends and family of mine when they drive aren’t doing the same things I’m doing. Listening to the car, hearing the inputs and feeling the inputs, monitoring grip levels, ensuring adequate room between other vehicles to ensure accidents can’t happen due to proximity. There’s ways to also lessen mental exhaustion as I mentioned. My car keeping me in the lane and keeping speed automatically for me. Camera systems to watch out for people and other cars with collision avoidance, not to mention another passenger as a set of eyes. A skilled driver would also know where there limit is. I found mine to be around mile 850~ I know this because as I was driving across country rushing back home at night that I didn’t feel I was performing at the level I needed to in order to safely operate a vehicle. No one else on the road for miles, but I switched drivers with my wife who I made nap as I knew I couldn’t do the whole 1000 miles needed in one go. That’s also the difference in skill. Knowing you’ll need assistance and making sure it’s in place when you do. Like having a hotel booked at 700 miles (or whatever mile marker a driver can safely drive) or making other stops as needed.
I’d be interested to see a study on it, but I’d wager that Americans and Canadians can drive for longer than their European/Asian counterparts. Just due to the “training” we have of driving longer distances more frequently.
The most common risk factors for fatigue were long distance driving (41.4% of crashes), no/reduced/broken sleep (27.6% of crashes), illicit drug use (17.2% of crashes), and abnormal work/sleep routines (17.2% of crashes).
further
Fatigue contributed to 4.3% of casualty crashes and 11.5% of fatal crashes. Most fatigue crashes occurred during daylight hours (72.4%)
literally 1 in 10 fatal crashes involved fatigue, and 4/10 fatigue crashes involve long distance driving. Maybe just take a break, 10 minutes isn’t worth your life. It’s not an issue of how tough or manly you are, how bulbous and engorged your testes are, or whatever other issue of ego you’re having. You are an animal, you get tired.
Lol I just drove 14 hours one way for thxgiving. Waiting 30+ min every 250 miles is a deal breaker… I can gas and piss in less than ten min once every 400 miles. You’d add like 5 hours to that drive at least. Just waiting for charges.
I mean, you just drove what, 800 miles in one day? Youre an extreme outlier, seeing as most people drive around 40.
Assuming 3 stops, you already waited around 30 min on that trip, but youre saying 90 makes it impossible for you?
The extra 1hr for charging vs gas makes your 14hr one way trip into a 15hr one way trip, and that’s the unbearable part? 14hr is totally workable, 15hr is a deal breaker?
“Mom, I would love to do my normal 14hr drive, but now that i have an EV and its 15hrs, I just can’t bear to do it?”
I don’t know why you’d trust a giant battery, absolutely vital to the operation of your car, to some random 3rd party service. To be arbitrarily replaced. And need to rely on it for X miles. Particularly when your use case where you’d even want a quick swap is traveling outside a regular charges’ range.
Edit - forgot the potential for catastrophic failure. Batteries can go boom.
Only in this instance it’s not a third party, it’s the car manufacturer. It’s just like Tesla and their super chargers. Only these guys are replacing the battery instead of charging it.
Does the car warranty extend to cover the replacement battery just as if it was the original battery? Given an EV battery is a pretty significant part of the cost of the entire vehicle I wouldn’t trust a swapped battery unless the manufacturer made it very clear that they would treat it as if it was the original battery if any issues arose with it. The last thing I would want is to have to fight with Tesla or whoever if the replacement battery fails and they claim it’s not covered by their warranty.
Uh. It’s literally a 3rd party company that’s currently doing a single manufacturer atm, with explicitly (detailed in the video) plans to expand to other manufacturers.
For how much people seem to know about catalytic converter theft, they seem eager to have an easily removed battery. And full trust in no bad actors finding a way to exploit these stations for the metals in the batteries.
Can’t tell if this is a serious comment or not… Sure a battery will last as long as the car, but it’s of limited use of it only holds 30% of its original capacity after 7 or 8 years. Sure. It’ll do 75 miles, so still useful for city drivers, but not for its intended use.
Yep! Thats about what I think. I will not buy a car that are like most modern day cell phones. If the battery dies, I want to be able to replace it. Even better if there is a easy charging station like the above and giving the consumer more options.
You have that backwards. The vehicle is good for the life of the battery. We could design EV where the shell and motor last 30 years, and the battery just swaps out every decade or so.
I don’t think so. Think of the engineering challenges. The battery would have to be a separate structure so more weight, less range/performance, more wear on tires and brakes, less rigidity unless you add even more weight, etc.
Batteries can be replaced now. It’s just a time consuming job but one that might only need doing once.
Cars get in accidents all the time, many of which will total it. Over time, the probability of that reaches 1.0. Most cars will not make it to 30 years regardless of how well they’re made.
Making cars repairable and making the parts swappable will extend other cars lives, especially if they standardize around certain parts like batteries.
Yeah and that’s why I’m not advocating for 100 year cars.
I’d be pretty happy with 20 years to, but 10 just feels like planned obsolescence.
I also messed around with the math very loosly, and only accounting for crashes that total a car, they could be expected to go 20 years or more on average.
And that’s now with all the terrible driving that happens, especially at night. With slight deacrease in accident frequncy that number can increase a lot.
So maybe 30 is a bit much for now, but I’d still like an ev that would claim to last 20 yeara.
I find this kind of comments so stupid. The technology is well beyond proven. Logistics have had swappable batteries for over 15 years since the time of acid batteries. Nio is a rental company first and for them the model seems to be working. It’s compelling for road trips specially since most of the charging stations are broken most of the time and for extremely dense cities where people aren’t allowed to access power plugs at parking spaces. I mean, on the suburbanite hellscape, charging at home will always make more sense, but the US is not the entirety of the world. This things seem to be ripe for success in Asia and Europe.
Sure it can be broken, but since the company runs it and it’s not a set and forget facility, they have a higher incentive to keep it serviced, specially as the company owns the batteries. Tesla’s answer to broken stations is usually “we don’t care use the one next to it that’s derated and only charges at the lowest speed”. While apparently this facilities can fit 3 or 4 swap stations on the same space. One station out of order adds no wait time, and as a last resort it can still have a regular charging station next to it. I fail to see how people settle so quickly on the status quo that companies force them to, and as soon as anything vaguely threatens the status quo they purportedly hate, they jump and attack the alternative. Having options is a good thing, having multiple companies trying different things is a good thing, silver bullets don’t exist, we are all in this together, what is not good is a zero-sum mindset where only monopolistic one-size-fits-all offers can exist.
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