JAC Motors, a Volkswagen-backed Chinese automaker, unveiled the first mass-produced EV with a sodium-ion battery through its new Yiwei brand. Although sodium-ion battery tech has a lower density than lithium-ion, its lower costs, simpler and more abundant supplies and superior cold-weather performance could help accelerate mass EV adoption.
  • Slatlun@lemmy.mlEnglish
    55·
    2 years ago

    ‘252 km (157 miles) range’ to save others the same skimming I did

          • Flying Squid@lemmy.worldEnglish
            6·
            2 years ago

            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.

            • sugar_in_your_tea@sh.itjust.worksEnglish
              1·
              2 years ago

              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.

    • toothbrush@lemmy.blahaj.zoneEnglish
      2·
      2 years ago

      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.

      Also, those ranges are for the sehol branded version, the car in the article might have a different range(although I doubt it) https://www.batterydesign.net/sehol-e10x-sodium-ion/

  • AClassyGentleman@lemmy.worldEnglish
    19·
    2 years ago

    Curious how it’ll perform in real world conditions. Sodium batteries are supposed to have much better charging times and don’t degrade the way lithium batteries do, both of which would be huge. Fingers crossed they live up to expectations.

    (Also obligatory “expand and improve public transit damnit!”)

    • takeda@lemmy.worldEnglish
      1·
      2 years ago

      As some used to “gotchas” and things aren’t free, I’m wondering what kind of shortcomings[1] these batteries have that others do not.

      [1] for example acid batteries can push a lot of power, but they are heavy and contain lead and well… acid. The nickel cadmium doesn’t contain lead and acid, but has memory so you should follow discharge them before charging again. They are lighter, but still not light. Lithium ion are light, don’t have memory, but can explode, also lose life if they are kept fully discharged or charged for long periods of time. They also slowly discharge when not in use, mainly due to protective circuit needing electricity to run.

  • Newtra@pawb.socialEnglish
    18·
    2 years ago

    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.

    • You999@sh.itjust.worksEnglish
      2·
      2 years ago

      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.

        • You999@sh.itjust.worksEnglish
          3·
          2 years ago

          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.

      • AlexisFR@jlai.luEnglish
        2·
        2 years ago

        Don’t forget the volatility of Lithium batteries if they ever get damaged or punctured.

      • zalgotext@sh.itjust.worksEnglish
        21·
        2 years ago

        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

      • Newtra@pawb.socialEnglish
        1·
        2 years ago

        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.