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Lithium iron phosphate batteries are very practical. Chinese BYD has developed blade batteries using this type of battery and has become the global sales leader
by rule2025 10mo ago
Lithium iron phosphate batteries are very practical. Chinese BYD has developed blade batteries using this type of battery and has become the global sales leader in new energy vehicles. However, this battery faces range limitations and the issue of how to improve charging speed. Solid-state batteries should be the next big thing, but mass production may not be feasible yet. At least, it might take 3 more years for commercialization, and that's still an optimistic prediction.
- idiotsecant 10mo agoSolid state batteries and fusion power, always 3 years away.
- seanmcdirmid 10mo agoIt’s always 20 years away until it isn’t. Self driving cars are…I guess they are here already. AGI? Well, we have to move the goal post on that constantly.
- stevage 10mo ago>Self driving cars are…I guess they are here already. They may be where you are, but they aren't generally here.
- seanmcdirmid 10mo agoIf by here I meant planet Earth I think it is well qualified. Yes, they aren't using self driving car tech for ice trucking during winter down from Purdhoe Bay yet (another form of goal post moving), but the biggest challenges have already been solved and only capital and societal barriers remain.
- rootusrootus 10mo agoI think it depends on what you mean by big challenges. City driving is maybe the easiest 80% of driving. There’s a long tail of odd challenges you run into in less controlled environments, and I’d call that the biggest challenge.
- seanmcdirmid 10mo agoWouldn’t ice trucking be in that long tail? I mean, ya, there are lot of niche cases that companies like Waymo haven’t worked on yet, but…the money is in the cities so that’s where they start. Interstate trucking might come next, ice trucking might be one of the last use cases covered. Anyways we’ve gone from “this won’t happen in our lifetime!” to “it doesn’t handle X niche use case yet.”
- sroussey 10mo agoThere are self driving trucking companies.
- sroussey 10mo agoI think city driving is the worst — people popping out from nowhere, roads that shouldn’t be but are because they have always been. Suburban and highways seem easiest. In the hills of LA you have sharp blind corners where people have installed public fisheye mirrors to help you see around, then you have crazy people in Hollywood throwing furniture in front of your car, and non-stop traffic and people passing on the wrong side of the road between blocks even when there is a median, school kids and crossing guards, emergency vehicles trying to through and people doing otherwise illegal things to help get out of the way…
- bartvk 10mo agoI'm an avoid motorcyclist and have followed additional safety courses. These placed 90% of all accidents in cities. What do you mean by city driving being the easiest?
- deleted 10mo ago[deleted]
- s0rce 10mo agoSelf driving cars have had many incremental improvements. I think fusion power is actually making progress, not clear about solid state batteries. Seems more companies closing than making solid progress.
- seanmcdirmid 10mo agoFusion is one of those things that will probably not be done in my lifetime (the hype cycle on that has been forever, remember cold fusion from U of Utah?). I'm much more optimistic about solid state batteries.
- butvacuum 10mo agoThe obvious fraud from the 90s? But, the real issue seems to be that fusion has a large nuclear waste problem. Ironically, probably more so than fission reactors. It can be fixed, but probably not in first gen reactors. However there are companies pushing designs that solve it already
- Animats 10mo agoSolid state batteries seem to work, but the price of prototypes is very high. Samsung says they will soon be shipping earbuds and watches with solid state batteries, but the cost is too high even for phones. Xaomi showed an $800 phone battery. Mercedes has one prototype car with solid state batteries. Honda has one motorcycle. EHang has one flying car. Nobody seems to be past one-off demos.
- ksec 10mo agoI am happy to pay extra $100 for Solid State Battery on Apple Watch. I am not sure if other brands could get this advantage. And yet Apple just isn't interested any more.
- kopirgan 10mo agoDoes look as if ssb are close.. Esp Japanese ones.
- epistasis 10mo agoIf your source on that is a Toyota press release, take it with a huge grain of (lithium) salt. Toyota has been saying similar things for a very long time. But they continue to make extremely poor bets, except for their hybrids. There's something really odd about their management culture that prevents them from finding the common and easy path of lithium ion batteries that everybody has already taken.
- rootusrootus 10mo agoToyota does have a conventional BEV, so they can do it if they want. They just don’t seem to be enthusiastic about it.
- scheme271 10mo agoToyota's CEO and upper management seemed to be oddly fixated on hydrogen powered cars for a very long time. I think it was just in the last 2-3 years where they finally gave up and started looking at BEVs.
- kopirgan 10mo agoIf it's not like those rare earth ( or watch movement saga with Swatch) that China will simply refuse to supply to other OEM, old car makers like Ford, Toyota with brand image and solid engg in rest of car making can just buy. Maybe that's their thinking? Bonus if there's leap frog tech that obsolete all the CATL investments..
- epistasis 10mo agoThose false supply chain concerns really only work within the right wing US political milieu. "Rare earth" with batteries really only works with the Republican set of propaganda. I'm sure Toyota management has their own set of false beliefs about supply concerns, or perhaps about competitive edges, or perhaps about biases towards fluid fuels.
- _fizz_buzz_ 10mo agoSolid state batteries and fusion might in the end suffer from a similar economical problem. That they turn out to simply be too expensive.
- AngryData 10mo agoI wouldn't equate solid state batteries with fusion power. Solid state batteries do exist and work well, they are just very expensive. Meanwhile fusion power is still entirely within the experimental stage and there are no fusion plant prototypes that can produce power at any price.
- deleted 10mo ago[deleted]
- ravedave5 10mo agoAdd Affordable at the start of that sentence and it's accurate.
- dzhiurgis 10mo ago> Lithium iron phosphate batteries are very practical Unless you want to charge in negative temperatures > However, this battery faces range limitations Yes they are less dense but plentiful for typical passenger car (and not so much for full sized trucks or even "mid-sized" US SUVs). > the issue of how to improve charging speed I think CATL demonstrated 1MW charging on these already. Definitely shipping 500kW charging (tho best measure is still average km/hr). > Solid-state batteries should be the next big thing Sodium will (great cold weather performance and even better charge rates), but it's less (vol) dense and prices won't reach LFPs for another 10-15 years (unless you believe hype, not actual analysts).
- adgjlsfhk1 10mo agoI think it is fairly likely that sodium catches LFP in the ~5 year timeframe since sodium has a lot more promise for grid scale storage since it has no expensive materials.
- _aavaa_ 10mo ago> Unless you want to charge in negative temperatures Doesn’t the thermal management system of the battery packs handle this?
- butvacuum 10mo agoYes, the largest issue is that they heating isn't enabled unless it's charging or 'knows' it will be soon. Ps: the heating is increasingly heat pump based instead of resistive.