The timing of this announcement (the article) is quite interesting actually. A Finnish brand, Donut Labs, announced their solid-state battery at CES at the beginning of the year. Most battery...
The timing of this announcement (the article) is quite interesting actually.
A Finnish brand, Donut Labs, announced their solid-state battery at CES at the beginning of the year. Most battery manufacturers told people "this isnt possible", so they've been drip feeding information about the tech weekly since the beginning of this month. This week they shared a video showing their SSB tech on a premium sports bike brand (Verge) thats meant to ship at the beginning of Q1 2026. It did what BYD is claiming in the article with no active cooling, which is supposedly very difficult to do with current tech.
They've had a lot of flack for promoting "impossible" tech but so far they've provided interesting evidence they've got what the claim. They haven't done the obvious yet, like confirming the weight of the battery so people can work out the density (probably for obvious reasons - that might be the last thing they release honestly) but if anything, this weeks demo has quieted a lot of sceptics.
Anyway, I'm grateful there appears to be some genuine competition in the field after we were collectively lied to about the capability of it for so long by legacy manufacturers.
Yeah, I've been following the Donut Labs thing closely. Still seems, hmm, unlikely ... and yet, the CEO appears to be a rational human being, with no apparent benefit from doubling down on their...
Yeah, I've been following the Donut Labs thing closely. Still seems, hmm, unlikely ... and yet, the CEO appears to be a rational human being, with no apparent benefit from doubling down on their claims. Either they have game-changing tech that's gonna make them billions (hell, maybe trillions), or he becomes the "cold fusion of batteries" guy.
Yeah, its a weird scenario honestly. I've seen this play out before in some industries I'm adjacent to (legacy manufacturers say X cant be done, then a small independent with nothing to lose...
Yeah, its a weird scenario honestly. I've seen this play out before in some industries I'm adjacent to (legacy manufacturers say X cant be done, then a small independent with nothing to lose proves it can be, so legacy retaliate with legal action) and it has also played out in the automotive sector as well already (Tesla and legacy manufacturers ironically), but the rational side to me is very sceptical that they haven't just released the key figures up front to then have companies lining up to secure exclusive rights.
This seems like one of the perfect scenarios to just put as much information out as you can without compromising IP, and let others play catch-up.
Solid State batteries are going to come down to mass manufacturing, we know the batteries are technologically possible, lab made examples exist and work. The real problem that no one has cracked...
Solid State batteries are going to come down to mass manufacturing, we know the batteries are technologically possible, lab made examples exist and work. The real problem that no one has cracked how to mass manufacture them. Without that it doesn't matter how good the technology is, it won't go anywhere. The problem is apparently really hard as big outfits have tried, failed and given up. We are seeing lots of promising demo technology examples. Don't be fooled by one off prototype vehicles of any sort. We will know it's been cracked when a company says they will produce 100,000 of these batteries a year. I'm hopefully, but have seen zero evidence that we are there yet.
Ultimately, we dont know what we dont know until we know it, as was the case with most major inventions. One of the few reasonable explanations could be that the technology they have is just so...
Ultimately, we dont know what we dont know until we know it, as was the case with most major inventions. One of the few reasonable explanations could be that the technology they have is just so left field it was completely overlooked/ignored/discovered by accident. At which point, if everyone is thinking by a current understanding about something that isn't within the realm of it, it does seem impossible in all facets.
However, there are a lot of questions still left unanswered that have been asked by those working in good faith (like from the scientist community for example), and the fact these haven't been answered is well worth the scepticism.
Edit: oh and on the point of mass manufacturing - if the battery can do what is being claimed, the cost to mass manufacture wont matter to a few key companies. They'll buy the rights to it, and then figure it out from there, since the tech solves most of the most common issues affecting customer adoption right now i.e. range and charge time.
Reading many of the sibling/child replies to this comment, I really wish that we'd standardized on a hot-swappable battery system early on in the EV development cycle. Trending supervillian Elon...
Reading many of the sibling/child replies to this comment, I really wish that we'd standardized on a hot-swappable battery system early on in the EV development cycle. Trending supervillian Elon Musk was actually in favour of them back in 2015, and had we ended up in that timeline, the concern around at-home charging would be dramatically less pressing: your battery can charge up at the swap station, while the car takes up its parking space at home.
(admittedly, I'm not at all a fan of personal car ownership being a prerequisite for modern human existence, since hauling three tonnes of steel around with me everywhere whilst also paying for its own 180sqft apartment, seems very inefficient. Plus, all the car-only buildings and spaces we build detract from places that I -- a human being, nominally -- would selfishly prefer be devoted to homes, industry, cute cafes, and dog parks ... I miss Douglas Adams' wit in these times ...)
In case you aren’t aware, this technology already exists and is in use by the public. Ping for /u/Eji1700 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hNZy603as5w It’s a Tom Scott video from 2023 of Chinese...
In case you aren’t aware, this technology already exists and is in use by the public. Ping for /u/Eji1700
It’s a Tom Scott video from 2023 of Chinese auto maker Nio’s swap system installed in Norway. Obviously it isn’t yet viable outside of places with these stations, but it’s certainly a solvable problem.
I am in fact already aware, but thank you for sharing! I've been following them for ages XD battery swapping has been a personal bugbear of mine since like 2010! We've known that alternative...
I am in fact already aware, but thank you for sharing! I've been following them for ages XD battery swapping has been a personal bugbear of mine since like 2010! We've known that alternative battery chemistries (e.g. sodium ion) are dramatically more equitable in their materials sourcing (in that the resources to produce them are available everywhere, for cheap, so there's no need to e.g. force children into "artisinal mines" in the Congo), but suffer from low specific energy vs. lithium chemistries. The "cheap" (IMO) solution has always been to add swapping, since it also solves:
long distance transport
ferries
short distance airplanes
busses
scooters/bikes/etc. (as noted in another thread where I'm glazing battery swapping)
Really, really hoping that someday we all screw our collective heads on properly and start rolling them out more!
I'm aware. Solvable in this case is "double the cost of the car or take hits elsewhere". Prototypes are not proof that its economically viable or sustainable.
Obviously it isn’t yet viable outside of places with these stations, but it’s certainly a solvable problem.
I'm aware. Solvable in this case is "double the cost of the car or take hits elsewhere". Prototypes are not proof that its economically viable or sustainable.
It's not really feasible with current tech at a price point anyone could afford or without other tradeoffs that would make it DOA. And to my limited understanding that aren't JUST economies of...
I really wish that we'd standardized on a hot-swappable battery system early on in the EV development cycle.
It's not really feasible with current tech at a price point anyone could afford or without other tradeoffs that would make it DOA. And to my limited understanding that aren't JUST economies of scale/infrastructure issues that would be painful until adoption, but hard limitations on resources, which is the exact reason this solid state claim is such a huge deal (and such obvious bullshit in my eyes) because the BIG selling point is they've supposedly done it without critical minerals.
Sorry, could you elaborate on that, if you have some thoughts handy? We know that Nio's cracked it, and that it works for battery swaps by hand via Gogoro for mopeds, motorcycles, and scooters. Is...
It's not really feasible with current tech at a price point anyone could afford or without other tradeoffs that would make it DOA.
Sorry, could you elaborate on that, if you have some thoughts handy? We know that Nio's cracked it, and that it works for battery swaps by hand via Gogoro for mopeds, motorcycles, and scooters.
[...] but hard limitations on resources [...] because [...] they've supposedly done it without critical minerals.
Is that still a concern in 2026? I know that there was a lot of press about that over the last couple years, but I was under the impression that improvements to lithium iron phosphate chemistries had rendered that largely a non-issue (lithium brines + minerals seem pretty nicely spread out, globally).
It's not a great solution, because the bigger the battery is, the exponentially more expensive it is to build machinery to swap it. Modern EVs have battery packs that are extremely integrated into...
It's not a great solution, because the bigger the battery is, the exponentially more expensive it is to build machinery to swap it.
Modern EVs have battery packs that are extremely integrated into the chassis, which makes sense, because they make up a significant amount of mass of the vehicle. Making the batteries hot swappable means the vehicle has to be completely redesigned around that capability, which will always impact things like price, range, performance, durability and so on.
Vehicles would be much more constrained because they'd have to be built around a single hot swap form factor. Heavy and light duty trucks would have to use the same batteries as passenger sedans, performance sports cars, SUVs and so on, which would result in a lot of bad tradeoffs.
On the hot swap station side, you need to install high performance motors or actuators to lift and store extremely heavy batteries quickly.
Anything with that many heavy duty, high performance moving parts is always going to be massively expensive compared to a simple high voltage charger.
Finally, one of the huge advantages of electricity as a power source, and the main reason it was adopted as the way to deliver energy to people around the developed world is because it's so easy to transport.
It's the one form of energy we have widely deployed that doesn't require any physical movement, which makes it extremely cheap and efficient to deliver. You just attach some conductors and pump electrons into whatever you want to power.
Battery swapping kind of negates a lot of that advantage. You suddenly have physical objects that are responsible for delivering power, meaning you need to track them and manage stock of them, depreciate them and so on.
If some new battery tech comes out that can't fit the hot swap form factor for some reason, you're just fucked. You have to come up with a new form factor and retrofit every single hot swap station to accept it.
I don't think it's a very good solution for vehicles larger than a small scooter or motorcycle where the battery can be carried by a single person because of all of those things.
Thank you very much for your comprehensive reply! I don't have any background in automotive stuff, so it's always cool to hear from enthusiasts. Re. hot swapping and structural integrity, that's a...
Thank you very much for your comprehensive reply! I don't have any background in automotive stuff, so it's always cool to hear from enthusiasts.
Re. hot swapping and structural integrity, that's a good point! I read up a bit on the BYD Shark's battery, which appears to assist in rigidity during collisions? I definitely don't have the necessary background to evaluate this, but I'm curious how challenging it'd be to retain that behaviour for a removable component! We manage to make doors work, for example, but per some research it doesn't look like they're considered "structural" in the same way.
Re. types of batteries, is there something stopping them from being modular, so as to use different (or repeating) form factors across a range of vehicles?
Re. lifting and moving heavy loads, I think counterweights tend to make vertical movements more efficient, right? Since you're moving a fixed, known mass down (out of the car), and then replacing it with a new one of equivalent mass up (into the car), I don't know if that'd result in any net work being done. Really depends on how they set it up, though!
Re. physical movement, ultimately a battery swap station would wind up with the same number of packs most of the time, since they're swapping -- I think? I.e. no one's going to show up with zero packs and load up to empty the station 😅 to gary's point, though, I suppose someone could dump a near-dead pack and occasionally require a "refuelling" of the battery swap station, so to speak.
Anyhow -- thank you for the conversation! It's given me much food for thought.
Assuming that battery swapping is completely figured out on the technical side (standardized battery bays, stocking enough of the same capacity batteries), the challenge would be economical. Most...
Assuming that battery swapping is completely figured out on the technical side (standardized battery bays, stocking enough of the same capacity batteries), the challenge would be economical. Most people today buy EVs because they want to save money, so they'd rather charge at home. The cost of swapping a battery must be low enough that people are willing to pay the premium on top of a charged battery to get a swap.
Another challenge is that batteries wear down. Any swapping business would have to decide how to fairly charge a customer that swapped their 80% health battery for a 90% health one. Do they charge $2k on top of that to account for depreciation cost? Do they force the customer to return later to the same station to get their battery swapped back for the original? Not impossible problems to solve, but the friction means that adoption would be low versus fast charging stations.
It more or less works that way for propane tank vending machines. It costs like double for your first one, then regular swap price. The best way is probably some form of annual contract or lein to...
It more or less works that way for propane tank vending machines. It costs like double for your first one, then regular swap price.
The best way is probably some form of annual contract or lein to get started.
The provider of said battery swap must insure that their swap cost reflects that once in awhile they're going to get the equivalent of a rusted-out useless tank in exchange for a brand new battery.
But 90%+ of the time, they'll be in fine condition, and as the provider you periodically stir in new batteries to the pot. In that way, the batteries end up as communal property. Doing it at scale would probably allow them to do some degree of refurb process, allowing for more controlled recyling.
Car companies would likely absolutely hate this, as once the battery becomes fairly ubiquitous, the only time you'd really need a brand new car is if you wreck it. The lack of thousands of explosions a minute really increases longevity.
We put people on the moon a few times. We haven't cracked living there. which have vastly lower energy demands due to their weight, and lower expected/acceptable performance. Yes, and to be clear,...
We know that Nio's cracked it,
We put people on the moon a few times. We haven't cracked living there.
mopeds, motorcycles, and scooters.
which have vastly lower energy demands due to their weight, and lower expected/acceptable performance.
Is that still a concern in 2026?
Yes, and to be clear, it's not just lithium
Even if it wasn't, it's donut's claim. If they're lying about that, which they appear to be, that would be fraud and yet another giant red flag.
I again highly recommend the person I linked before. He's got a video before the one i linked that goes into heavier detail about how the graphs do not perform in the way that you would expect if what they're claiming.
Wait. Sorry, I'm talking about battery swapping. Why are we talking about donut? (edit) For clarity's sake, their claim about having made a solid state battery is clearly a lie. Patent protection...
Wait. Sorry, I'm talking about battery swapping. Why are we talking about donut?
(edit) For clarity's sake, their claim about having made a solid state battery is clearly a lie. Patent protection exists so that you can be public about your "innovations", in order to solicit external investment and begin recouping your R&D costs. Being coy like this would serve no purpose if they actually had something, and would be 100% what a con artist would do if they didn't. So ... nah I won't watch your video because (1) I haven't liked work from the presenter before, and (2) I don't need convincing. We're talking about battery swapping in this here chat, which is a proven technology at this point, not smoke and mirrors and solid state batteries 😅
Donut is relevant to hotswapping because the tech they're proposing solves some of the major hurdles to hot swapping, and when you asked me if critical materials was still a concern, then the...
Wait. Sorry, I'm talking about battery swapping. Why are we talking about donut?
Donut is relevant to hotswapping because the tech they're proposing solves some of the major hurdles to hot swapping, and when you asked me if critical materials was still a concern, then the answer is yes. Lithium cobalt, and other materials are still a major concern even with recent developments.
I feel my post already addresses battery swapping, but the short of it is in order to have a swapable battery you have to take losses somewhere and it's made it a commercial failure/non starter for cars in every instance i'm aware of.
Nio is taking something in the range of $30k lost on every car sold, but it's subsidized by the Chinese government so that doesn't matter.
I thought the whole point was to make fast charging extremely quick, which would obviate battery swapping? From some cursory searches online, maybe the claims about improved resistance to physical...
Donut is relevant to hotswapping because the tech they're proposing solves some of the major hurdles to hot swapping [...]
I thought the whole point was to make fast charging extremely quick, which would obviate battery swapping? From some cursory searches online, maybe the claims about improved resistance to physical damage is the major hurdle you're referring to ...?
Lithium cobalt, and other materials are still a major concern even with recent developments.
LFP chemistries don't use cobalt, though ...
Nio is taking something in the range of $30k lost on every car sold, but it's subsidized by the Chinese government so that doesn't matter.
Didn't the US pump tens of thousands of federal and state subsidies directly into the purchase price for American EVs a few years ago? Seems like that mattered ...
Thank you for responding to me! I don't think we're on the same page about what constitutes a reason for why battery swapping hasn't taken off, and the conversation thread has been vacillating wildly as a result. At any rate, we'll see what happens in the next few years; who knows, maybe Donut will solve cold fusion next, and this'll all be irrelevant 😅 I'll bow out, now.
I have been following this guy regarding the whole thing: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=WNX47A8BysE Personally everything about this reeks of another “room temp super conductor” at best. If you...
Personally everything about this reeks of another “room temp super conductor” at best. If you had the tech you wouldn’t be drip feeding press info. You’d be going straight to the large buyers
I just watched this video! Super interesting to hear what he has to say, and i do think there's a lot of merit to him approaching the situation in a scientific way. I think the scepticism...
I just watched this video! Super interesting to hear what he has to say, and i do think there's a lot of merit to him approaching the situation in a scientific way.
I think the scepticism surrounding it is completely warranted, but it also doesn't make sense to approach it in the way they have. I guess we will see as time moves on! Still interesting to see how much pressure this puts on legacy manufacturers.
People said the same thing about most Chinese vehicle manufacturers and yet we're talking about this on a forum post about the 7th ranked automaker (for sales in the 2021-2024 period) in the world now, who happens to be of Chinese origin.
They don't though. China proved what they could do when they could do it. Rambling talking head influencer doesn't matter, but the point that they STILL haven't provided any real proof in a...
People said the same thing about most Chinese vehicle manufacturers and yet we're talking about this on a forum post about the 7th ranked automaker (for sales in the 2021-2024 period) in the world now, who happens to be of Chinese origin.
They don't though. China proved what they could do when they could do it. Rambling talking head influencer doesn't matter, but the point that they STILL haven't provided any real proof in a scientific environment is daming. Doubly so if any of the rumors about how they're getting funding are true (it should be fraud in an ideal world to promise those kinds of returns without evidence). That's not how science is done, it's not how serious business is done, it's how you grift.
Chinese electric blew up because they had a verifiable product. They didn't hide it, they didn't tease it, and they didn't deny major manufacturers the chance to run proper tests to verify claims. It's the ONLY data point that matters. This looks from the outside like basically every Musk power point with unverifiable claims backed by verifiable, but already doable, data.
You just don't hide results on products of this magnitude. It serves no sane purpose.
Assuming the claims actually hold up in the real world and it doesn't impact longevity too much this is pretty exciting tech. Fast charging isn't useful unless you're doing a road trip or can't...
Assuming the claims actually hold up in the real world and it doesn't impact longevity too much this is pretty exciting tech. Fast charging isn't useful unless you're doing a road trip or can't charge overnight but it's a big hangup for people who haven't looked into EVs that much.
Yeah, 5 minute charging is in the same sort of convenience category as refuelling a car with a combustion engine. It may be slightly longer, but it's not a half hour charge where you've got to...
Yeah, 5 minute charging is in the same sort of convenience category as refuelling a car with a combustion engine. It may be slightly longer, but it's not a half hour charge where you've got to plan charging around meal breaks on a roadtrip.
Honestly if you have a big gas tank and you're at a gas pump with shitty clogged filters (which is basically all of them around me), it may be the same or even slightly faster. I've definitely...
Honestly if you have a big gas tank and you're at a gas pump with shitty clogged filters (which is basically all of them around me), it may be the same or even slightly faster. I've definitely spent over 5 minutes refilling the 16 gallon gas tank in my car before.
I'm just very on-board the Technology Connections et. al. argument of: if you can get ~100+ miles of charge overnight and rarely travel more than 50 miles a day, that really is good enough. For my...
I'm just very on-board the Technology Connections et. al. argument of: if you can get ~100+ miles of charge overnight and rarely travel more than 50 miles a day, that really is good enough. For my use case an EV having 300+ mile range or charging in 5 minutes is firmly in "nice to have" territory. Even with my daily ICE car that I love I'll rent a vehicle for a long trip because it'll be more comfortable and I won't have to worry about maintenance or not having a vehicle to get to work because I was in a collision out-of-town.
The infrastructure we have for refueling ICE cars probably shouldn't be the goal infrastructure we have for refueling EVs, they're different tech with different pros/cons. Modern gas stations are a long way from the service stations earlier generations of cars required with mechanics on call. Future charging stations will also probably look pretty different than modern gas stations. If nothing else, electricity is a lot easier to transport and the distribution networks far more built out than daily/weekly tanker trucks of fuel. (Excluding rant about the US's lacking investment in the electric grid) A central distribution node isn't needed in the same way you do with a liquid fuel. It would be handy for some use cases. But for most it would be more space and time efficient to have trickle charging in places the vehicle is already parked for 8+ hours a day.
Thats well and good if you have a private parking spot. Right now if you live in an older city with mostly street parking, fast charging is your main option. 5 min charging changes that equation...
Thats well and good if you have a private parking spot.
Right now if you live in an older city with mostly street parking, fast charging is your main option.
5 min charging changes that equation substantially.
Or apartments even in newer car-centric cities with big lots. I've never had to park* in the street but I've never had a place to charge at home until I started paying for a garage last month (I...
Or apartments even in newer car-centric cities with big lots. I've never had to park* in the street but I've never had a place to charge at home until I started paying for a garage last month (I don't even have an EV, but just pointing it out).
To add to what @vord said, not everywhere with a private parking spot has access to power either. I'm in a colder climate so many apartments do have plug ins for block heaters so you can do level...
To add to what @vord said, not everywhere with a private parking spot has access to power either. I'm in a colder climate so many apartments do have plug ins for block heaters so you can do level 1 charging but a LOT of apartments dont have that.
Also my experience with level 1 chargers is that, even with my wife's short commute, they don't keep up in the winter.
I do somewhat agree with technology connections in that people way overestimate their need for fast charging and need to chill out. But in the few months between getting our current EV and getting our level 2 charger installed in this house we just ended up using fast chargers periodically to top up. The level 1 charger basically felt useless.
With all of that said... having a bunch of 50-100kw chargers around malls, grocery stores, etc would be enough for most people. I agree that 5 minute charging isnt necessary when our cars spend 20+ hours a day parked. Even for road trips I think people need to chill out a bit and be ok with 20-30 minute charge times that are possible NOW.
An EV motorcycle like donut is doing though... that may be the ideal use case for 5 min charging given how much less power you'd need to deliver to such a small battery.
Don't underestimate the complexity of power transmission when we electrifying everything. A single tanker truck carries on the order of 400 MWh of energy. Even after accounting for the much higher...
If nothing else, electricity is a lot easier to transport and the distribution networks far more built out than daily/weekly tanker trucks of fuel.
Don't underestimate the complexity of power transmission when we electrifying everything. A single tanker truck carries on the order of 400 MWh of energy. Even after accounting for the much higher efficiency of the electric stack, a tanker per week is almost a 1MW electrical connection. For most locations, that's a new 20kV line to the nearest substation, if we assume customers come at a constant rate 24/7 (which they don't, so the grid link needs to be bigger, or there need to be batteries on site). And that is, of course, a relatively slow cadence - many gas stations receive fuel daily.
And that's just the small scale. The Trans-Alaska-Pipeline is a simple 48 inch pipe with a couple of pumps. But it's the power equivalent of a 150 GW electrical connection. Replacing an energy flow like that is absolutely non-trivial, especially in the US where the NIMBYs will stop you from building ultra high voltage DC power lines (which you would need to build with ~30 conductor cables - fat cables, separated by several feet of insulation/air from the nearest ground - to match the pipe) anywhere.
Realistically, we're looking at millions of tons of aluminium/copper/lead, and a lot of it underground. And again, that just transmission. Not generation, not storage.
Generation is probably the easy part, storage pretty analogous to transmission: just the strategic oil reserve of the US government (700 million barrels, mostly in simple steel tanks welded together from sheet metal) is equivalent to more than a PWh of electricity storage. One of those 40 foot containers full of cheap and long-living LFP batteries is 1MWh of storage. You'd need to build a fucking billion of those containers to replace those simple fluid tanks.
Now, you wouldn't do that. If power generation is cheap, stable, local, distributed, and (roughly) constant in time, you need far less storage and far less transmission. But even replacing just 1% is an absolutely daunting task! The east coast would need absolutely massive UHVDC connections to the sun belt, the mid-west and maybe off-shore parks. Seasonal storage would be smaller than current strategic storage... but, realistically, not even close to 99% smaller.
Yeah, it's funny that people are upset already about data center electricity usage, but if everyone buys electric vehicles and we go all-electric for housing, we're going to need a lot more...
Yeah, it's funny that people are upset already about data center electricity usage, but if everyone buys electric vehicles and we go all-electric for housing, we're going to need a lot more electrical infrastructure than that.
Which is the majority of people as they don't have access to an overnight charger be it they don't have a place to do so (house/garage) or permission to do so (renter) as overnight charging for...
Fast charging isn't useful unless [...] can't charge overnight
Which is the majority of people as they don't have access to an overnight charger be it they don't have a place to do so (house/garage) or permission to do so (renter) as overnight charging for something like an apartment complex isn't going to be possible without a massive cash influx.
Of course the details are where it really matters and these chargers would need to output 1,500 amps, or 2.5 times what the current top of the line Tesla Superchargers can spit out. For reference/comparison, three phase power that can reach that amperage is typically hooked up to entire commercial buildings/warehouses/factories.
Honestly increased availability at just random places around town would really help make it possible for people to have an EV even without over night charging. In my case (I've also met two other...
Honestly increased availability at just random places around town would really help make it possible for people to have an EV even without over night charging. In my case (I've also met two other people in a similar position), I have level 2 charging (~6 kW) at work and so once a week I plug my car in for the day and leave juiced up. If people had abundant access to chargers while grocery shopping, working, going to the gym, etc., needing to charge at home is a non issue because you'd be able to constantly pick up range while getting around town. We're definitely not there yet either, but having access at work has meant an EV is still pretty convenient even without home charging to me.
I would assume that it'd just take like a 25kV high voltage mains line directly, which would dramatically reduce the needed amperage. To be clear: Most definitely still something only getting...
I would assume that it'd just take like a 25kV high voltage mains line directly, which would dramatically reduce the needed amperage.
To be clear: Most definitely still something only getting installed in a big facility.
Still has to get converted to the DC battery voltage for charging, which is 1kV on these BYD cars. Can't pump 25kV into a car and they don't delivery line voltage to any building. In the US, the...
Still has to get converted to the DC battery voltage for charging, which is 1kV on these BYD cars. Can't pump 25kV into a car and they don't delivery line voltage to any building. In the US, the most you're getting is three phase 480V.
Since it seems like you aren’t aware, overnight charging is already possible without any cost in basically all garages, even rentals. You can just plug a car into a standard outlet. It isn’t...
permission to do so (renter) as overnight charging for something like an apartment complex isn't going to be possible without a massive cash influx.
Since it seems like you aren’t aware, overnight charging is already possible without any cost in basically all garages, even rentals. You can just plug a car into a standard outlet. It isn’t terribly fast, but it’s plenty for a moderate commute. AI estimated it can charge at 3-5 mph, which gives you 30-50 miles overnight. That doesn’t work for all commutes, but it does work for a lot of commutes. Even more so if the person has access to charging at work, which is becoming more common.
Lack of charging access at work - there are a handful of chargers at meters, none in the garages or lots for staff - and the cost of installation at home, and a total lack of chargers in my town...
Lack of charging access at work - there are a handful of chargers at meters, none in the garages or lots for staff - and the cost of installation at home, and a total lack of chargers in my town are why I am hesitant to replace my current car with a used electric one when the time comes.
I am well aware of the availability of level 1 charging, I am also well aware of the access that people have to be able to do so being very little. No apartment complex is going to let you run a...
I am well aware of the availability of level 1 charging, I am also well aware of the access that people have to be able to do so being very little. No apartment complex is going to let you run a cord to the nearest outlet and that's assuming you have a spot next to a building and not in the middle of a parking lot, street parking is extremely commonplace even for homeowners/renters, charger access at work is typically limited to office workers, not retail, service industry, manufacturing, or nearly any other industry that isn't cubicle dwellers.
30-50 miles overnight might get you to work and back, but it's not getting you to work and the gym and picking up the kids and any random errand needed that day and back home.
Street parking is a whole other beast. (Only because the US hasn’t realized that you can put chargers in lamp posts.) I wasn’t meaning to contradict the street parking part. But any rental that...
Street parking is a whole other beast. (Only because the US hasn’t realized that you can put chargers in lamp posts.) I wasn’t meaning to contradict the street parking part. But any rental that comes with a garage will have power somewhere in the garage. I guess it’s possible that some garages don’t have power, but how common is that?
And the 30-50 miles is only on the lowest 15a socket. If you have a 20a socket you get more than that. I think 20a sockets are required by code in a garage in California. If you have a dryer socket, you get way more than that.
From some random internet source, in 2023 Americans drove 12200 miles per year on average. If driven exclusively on work days of a 5 day work week, that is 46.9 miles per day. Many people could easily fit into 30-50 miles a day. And if there is even a single extra factor in an electric cars favor, the vast majority of people can fit into it. If they can charge at work, or charge at the grocery store, gym, etc. Or they can even just allow their battery to drop throughout the week and top up at a level 2 charger on the weekends. If you get 25 miles per day and drive 50 miles for a commute, and have a 250 mile total range, you still only need to level 2 charge every 10 days. I have to fill up my gas car more than that.
My point isn’t that electric cars are great for everyone. It’s just that we need to stop thinking of level 1 charging as useless for daily commutes.
The company unveiled its second-generation Blade Battery alongside a 1,500-kW charging system called FLASH Charging. Put together and in optimal conditions, BYD says the technologies allow compatible vehicles to recharge from 10% to 70% in about five minutes and from 10% to 97% in roughly nine. Even in subzero temperatures the system can charge a battery from 20% to 97% in about 12 minutes.
[...]
BYD says the Blade Battery 2.0 improves both charging speed and energy density, and increases energy density by about five percent compared with the original version, enabling driving ranges of more than 621 miles (1,000 kilometers) under China’s CLTC test cycle, which could translate to well north of 400 miles EPA.
The mechanism behind such an improvement is what BYD is calling a “FlashPass” ion transport system, which uses specially designed cathode, electrolyte, and anode that reduce internal resistance and heat buildup and allow for faster lithium-ion movement within the battery.
[...]
The charging hardware itself is designed to be easier to use than conventional stations. BYD’s FLASH Charger features a T-shaped overhead cable system that keeps connectors off the ground and allows drivers to plug in more easily.
BYD has already installed more than 4,200 of the new charging stations in China and plans to deploy about 20,000 by the end of the year. The stations include energy-storage systems that help deliver ultra-high charging power even where local electrical grids may have limitations.
The first vehicle expected to use the new technology in Europe will be the Denza Z9GT, a premium electric wagon from BYD’s luxury sub-brand Denza. Additional details about international rollout plans for the charging network are expected later.
1,500 kW (1.5 mega watts) is a crazy amount of power! O.o I suppose it's only delivered for 5 minutes, but that's a bananas level of power delivery to charge a battery. I'm not super familiar with...
1,500 kW (1.5 mega watts) is a crazy amount of power! O.o I suppose it's only delivered for 5 minutes, but that's a bananas level of power delivery to charge a battery. I'm not super familiar with industrial power needs, but I feel like a device that draw 1.5 MW is in a category of its own. Pretty impressive!
Industrial devices can draw as much. Think smelters and furnaces. Aluminium production may draw 100s of MWs (total) in fact. The thing to remember is that if you need more than about 20-50MW you...
Industrial devices can draw as much. Think smelters and furnaces. Aluminium production may draw 100s of MWs (total) in fact.
The thing to remember is that if you need more than about 20-50MW you get connected to the HV grid (otherwise MV)
HV = High Voltage grid (transmission) (typically 110-400 kV (kiloVolt)) MV = Medium Voltage grid (distribution) (typically 2-35kV) Below MV you have LV (low voltage) (distribution for less power...
HV = High Voltage grid (transmission) (typically 110-400 kV (kiloVolt))
MV = Medium Voltage grid (distribution) (typically 2-35kV)
Below MV you have LV (low voltage) (distribution for less power hungry customers, eg residential, smaller shops etc)
A charging station would likely be connected to MV.
The implication of connecting to HV is quite higher equipment costs (and power up to GW)
There're a lot of disincentives in our economies for them, I fear, even though they make a tonne of sense from an engineering perspective IMO. The major challenge is that contactors wear out, and...
There're a lot of disincentives in our economies for them, I fear, even though they make a tonne of sense from an engineering perspective IMO. The major challenge is that contactors wear out, and that mechanical components are wear items, but that can also be said for many parts of a car and we've managed to keep them quite reliable regardless.
It *probably* adds size and weight which translates to smaller capacity for a vehicle. A Chinese company is currently doing it but of course it only works on their cars... which raises the next...
It *probably* adds size and weight which translates to smaller capacity for a vehicle.
A Chinese company is currently doing it but of course it only works on their cars... which raises the next issue; you kind of need a standardized battery pack to make it work for multiple brands otherwise we need different swap stations for each battery type.
You're probably also going to pay a lot more money for a swap than a charge.
The Nio battery swap system does indeed do that! However, it's been traditionally difficult to get multiple manufacturers onboard to using a single standard -- we'd probably have to legislate that...
The Nio battery swap system does indeed do that! However, it's been traditionally difficult to get multiple manufacturers onboard to using a single standard -- we'd probably have to legislate that into existence, and up until the Chinese EV auto boom, the only country investing heavily into EVs is also deathly allergic to legislation.
Exactly this! It would be tough to standardize packs when the industry is changing so fast but I feel like it would be better for consumers, for potential future infrastructure, and better for...
Exactly this!
It would be tough to standardize packs when the industry is changing so fast but I feel like it would be better for consumers, for potential future infrastructure, and better for manufacturers to benefit from joint R&D costs. Maybe we break off pack construction and auto makers just make the vehicles to utilize the existing packs. Auto makers already buy a bunch of stuff from bosch for example.
The timing of this announcement (the article) is quite interesting actually.
A Finnish brand, Donut Labs, announced their solid-state battery at CES at the beginning of the year. Most battery manufacturers told people "this isnt possible", so they've been drip feeding information about the tech weekly since the beginning of this month. This week they shared a video showing their SSB tech on a premium sports bike brand (Verge) thats meant to ship at the beginning of Q1 2026. It did what BYD is claiming in the article with no active cooling, which is supposedly very difficult to do with current tech.
They've had a lot of flack for promoting "impossible" tech but so far they've provided interesting evidence they've got what the claim. They haven't done the obvious yet, like confirming the weight of the battery so people can work out the density (probably for obvious reasons - that might be the last thing they release honestly) but if anything, this weeks demo has quieted a lot of sceptics.
Anyway, I'm grateful there appears to be some genuine competition in the field after we were collectively lied to about the capability of it for so long by legacy manufacturers.
Yeah, I've been following the Donut Labs thing closely. Still seems, hmm, unlikely ... and yet, the CEO appears to be a rational human being, with no apparent benefit from doubling down on their claims. Either they have game-changing tech that's gonna make them billions (hell, maybe trillions), or he becomes the "cold fusion of batteries" guy.
Yeah, its a weird scenario honestly. I've seen this play out before in some industries I'm adjacent to (legacy manufacturers say X cant be done, then a small independent with nothing to lose proves it can be, so legacy retaliate with legal action) and it has also played out in the automotive sector as well already (Tesla and legacy manufacturers ironically), but the rational side to me is very sceptical that they haven't just released the key figures up front to then have companies lining up to secure exclusive rights.
This seems like one of the perfect scenarios to just put as much information out as you can without compromising IP, and let others play catch-up.
Solid State batteries are going to come down to mass manufacturing, we know the batteries are technologically possible, lab made examples exist and work. The real problem that no one has cracked how to mass manufacture them. Without that it doesn't matter how good the technology is, it won't go anywhere. The problem is apparently really hard as big outfits have tried, failed and given up. We are seeing lots of promising demo technology examples. Don't be fooled by one off prototype vehicles of any sort. We will know it's been cracked when a company says they will produce 100,000 of these batteries a year. I'm hopefully, but have seen zero evidence that we are there yet.
Ultimately, we dont know what we dont know until we know it, as was the case with most major inventions. One of the few reasonable explanations could be that the technology they have is just so left field it was completely overlooked/ignored/discovered by accident. At which point, if everyone is thinking by a current understanding about something that isn't within the realm of it, it does seem impossible in all facets.
However, there are a lot of questions still left unanswered that have been asked by those working in good faith (like from the scientist community for example), and the fact these haven't been answered is well worth the scepticism.
Edit: oh and on the point of mass manufacturing - if the battery can do what is being claimed, the cost to mass manufacture wont matter to a few key companies. They'll buy the rights to it, and then figure it out from there, since the tech solves most of the most common issues affecting customer adoption right now i.e. range and charge time.
Reading many of the sibling/child replies to this comment, I really wish that we'd standardized on a hot-swappable battery system early on in the EV development cycle. Trending supervillian Elon Musk was actually in favour of them back in 2015, and had we ended up in that timeline, the concern around at-home charging would be dramatically less pressing: your battery can charge up at the swap station, while the car takes up its parking space at home.
(admittedly, I'm not at all a fan of personal car ownership being a prerequisite for modern human existence, since hauling three tonnes of steel around with me everywhere whilst also paying for its own 180sqft apartment, seems very inefficient. Plus, all the car-only buildings and spaces we build detract from places that I -- a human being, nominally -- would selfishly prefer be devoted to homes, industry, cute cafes, and dog parks ... I miss Douglas Adams' wit in these times ...)
In case you aren’t aware, this technology already exists and is in use by the public. Ping for /u/Eji1700
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hNZy603as5w
It’s a Tom Scott video from 2023 of Chinese auto maker Nio’s swap system installed in Norway. Obviously it isn’t yet viable outside of places with these stations, but it’s certainly a solvable problem.
Edit: ping also for /u/tanglisha
I am in fact already aware, but thank you for sharing! I've been following them for ages XD battery swapping has been a personal bugbear of mine since like 2010! We've known that alternative battery chemistries (e.g. sodium ion) are dramatically more equitable in their materials sourcing (in that the resources to produce them are available everywhere, for cheap, so there's no need to e.g. force children into "artisinal mines" in the Congo), but suffer from low specific energy vs. lithium chemistries. The "cheap" (IMO) solution has always been to add swapping, since it also solves:
Really, really hoping that someday we all screw our collective heads on properly and start rolling them out more!
I'm aware. Solvable in this case is "double the cost of the car or take hits elsewhere". Prototypes are not proof that its economically viable or sustainable.
It's not really feasible with current tech at a price point anyone could afford or without other tradeoffs that would make it DOA. And to my limited understanding that aren't JUST economies of scale/infrastructure issues that would be painful until adoption, but hard limitations on resources, which is the exact reason this solid state claim is such a huge deal (and such obvious bullshit in my eyes) because the BIG selling point is they've supposedly done it without critical minerals.
Sorry, could you elaborate on that, if you have some thoughts handy? We know that Nio's cracked it, and that it works for battery swaps by hand via Gogoro for mopeds, motorcycles, and scooters.
Is that still a concern in 2026? I know that there was a lot of press about that over the last couple years, but I was under the impression that improvements to lithium iron phosphate chemistries had rendered that largely a non-issue (lithium brines + minerals seem pretty nicely spread out, globally).
It's not a great solution, because the bigger the battery is, the exponentially more expensive it is to build machinery to swap it.
Modern EVs have battery packs that are extremely integrated into the chassis, which makes sense, because they make up a significant amount of mass of the vehicle. Making the batteries hot swappable means the vehicle has to be completely redesigned around that capability, which will always impact things like price, range, performance, durability and so on.
Vehicles would be much more constrained because they'd have to be built around a single hot swap form factor. Heavy and light duty trucks would have to use the same batteries as passenger sedans, performance sports cars, SUVs and so on, which would result in a lot of bad tradeoffs.
On the hot swap station side, you need to install high performance motors or actuators to lift and store extremely heavy batteries quickly.
Anything with that many heavy duty, high performance moving parts is always going to be massively expensive compared to a simple high voltage charger.
Finally, one of the huge advantages of electricity as a power source, and the main reason it was adopted as the way to deliver energy to people around the developed world is because it's so easy to transport.
It's the one form of energy we have widely deployed that doesn't require any physical movement, which makes it extremely cheap and efficient to deliver. You just attach some conductors and pump electrons into whatever you want to power.
Battery swapping kind of negates a lot of that advantage. You suddenly have physical objects that are responsible for delivering power, meaning you need to track them and manage stock of them, depreciate them and so on.
If some new battery tech comes out that can't fit the hot swap form factor for some reason, you're just fucked. You have to come up with a new form factor and retrofit every single hot swap station to accept it.
I don't think it's a very good solution for vehicles larger than a small scooter or motorcycle where the battery can be carried by a single person because of all of those things.
Thank you very much for your comprehensive reply! I don't have any background in automotive stuff, so it's always cool to hear from enthusiasts.
Re. hot swapping and structural integrity, that's a good point! I read up a bit on the BYD Shark's battery, which appears to assist in rigidity during collisions? I definitely don't have the necessary background to evaluate this, but I'm curious how challenging it'd be to retain that behaviour for a removable component! We manage to make doors work, for example, but per some research it doesn't look like they're considered "structural" in the same way.
Re. types of batteries, is there something stopping them from being modular, so as to use different (or repeating) form factors across a range of vehicles?
Re. lifting and moving heavy loads, I think counterweights tend to make vertical movements more efficient, right? Since you're moving a fixed, known mass down (out of the car), and then replacing it with a new one of equivalent mass up (into the car), I don't know if that'd result in any net work being done. Really depends on how they set it up, though!
Re. physical movement, ultimately a battery swap station would wind up with the same number of packs most of the time, since they're swapping -- I think? I.e. no one's going to show up with zero packs and load up to empty the station 😅 to gary's point, though, I suppose someone could dump a near-dead pack and occasionally require a "refuelling" of the battery swap station, so to speak.
Anyhow -- thank you for the conversation! It's given me much food for thought.
Assuming that battery swapping is completely figured out on the technical side (standardized battery bays, stocking enough of the same capacity batteries), the challenge would be economical. Most people today buy EVs because they want to save money, so they'd rather charge at home. The cost of swapping a battery must be low enough that people are willing to pay the premium on top of a charged battery to get a swap.
Another challenge is that batteries wear down. Any swapping business would have to decide how to fairly charge a customer that swapped their 80% health battery for a 90% health one. Do they charge $2k on top of that to account for depreciation cost? Do they force the customer to return later to the same station to get their battery swapped back for the original? Not impossible problems to solve, but the friction means that adoption would be low versus fast charging stations.
It more or less works that way for propane tank vending machines. It costs like double for your first one, then regular swap price.
The best way is probably some form of annual contract or lein to get started.
The provider of said battery swap must insure that their swap cost reflects that once in awhile they're going to get the equivalent of a rusted-out useless tank in exchange for a brand new battery.
But 90%+ of the time, they'll be in fine condition, and as the provider you periodically stir in new batteries to the pot. In that way, the batteries end up as communal property. Doing it at scale would probably allow them to do some degree of refurb process, allowing for more controlled recyling.
Car companies would likely absolutely hate this, as once the battery becomes fairly ubiquitous, the only time you'd really need a brand new car is if you wreck it. The lack of thousands of explosions a minute really increases longevity.
We put people on the moon a few times. We haven't cracked living there.
which have vastly lower energy demands due to their weight, and lower expected/acceptable performance.
I again highly recommend the person I linked before. He's got a video before the one i linked that goes into heavier detail about how the graphs do not perform in the way that you would expect if what they're claiming.
Wait. Sorry, I'm talking about battery swapping. Why are we talking about donut?
(edit) For clarity's sake, their claim about having made a solid state battery is clearly a lie. Patent protection exists so that you can be public about your "innovations", in order to solicit external investment and begin recouping your R&D costs. Being coy like this would serve no purpose if they actually had something, and would be 100% what a con artist would do if they didn't. So ... nah I won't watch your video because (1) I haven't liked work from the presenter before, and (2) I don't need convincing. We're talking about battery swapping in this here chat, which is a proven technology at this point, not smoke and mirrors and solid state batteries 😅
Donut is relevant to hotswapping because the tech they're proposing solves some of the major hurdles to hot swapping, and when you asked me if critical materials was still a concern, then the answer is yes. Lithium cobalt, and other materials are still a major concern even with recent developments.
I feel my post already addresses battery swapping, but the short of it is in order to have a swapable battery you have to take losses somewhere and it's made it a commercial failure/non starter for cars in every instance i'm aware of.
Nio is taking something in the range of $30k lost on every car sold, but it's subsidized by the Chinese government so that doesn't matter.
I thought the whole point was to make fast charging extremely quick, which would obviate battery swapping? From some cursory searches online, maybe the claims about improved resistance to physical damage is the major hurdle you're referring to ...?
LFP chemistries don't use cobalt, though ...
Didn't the US pump tens of thousands of federal and state subsidies directly into the purchase price for American EVs a few years ago? Seems like that mattered ...
Thank you for responding to me! I don't think we're on the same page about what constitutes a reason for why battery swapping hasn't taken off, and the conversation thread has been vacillating wildly as a result. At any rate, we'll see what happens in the next few years; who knows, maybe Donut will solve cold fusion next, and this'll all be irrelevant 😅 I'll bow out, now.
I have been following this guy regarding the whole thing:
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=WNX47A8BysE
Personally everything about this reeks of another “room temp super conductor” at best. If you had the tech you wouldn’t be drip feeding press info. You’d be going straight to the large buyers
I just watched this video! Super interesting to hear what he has to say, and i do think there's a lot of merit to him approaching the situation in a scientific way.
I think the scepticism surrounding it is completely warranted, but it also doesn't make sense to approach it in the way they have. I guess we will see as time moves on! Still interesting to see how much pressure this puts on legacy manufacturers.
People said the same thing about most Chinese vehicle manufacturers and yet we're talking about this on a forum post about the 7th ranked automaker (for sales in the 2021-2024 period) in the world now, who happens to be of Chinese origin.
They don't though. China proved what they could do when they could do it. Rambling talking head influencer doesn't matter, but the point that they STILL haven't provided any real proof in a scientific environment is daming. Doubly so if any of the rumors about how they're getting funding are true (it should be fraud in an ideal world to promise those kinds of returns without evidence). That's not how science is done, it's not how serious business is done, it's how you grift.
Chinese electric blew up because they had a verifiable product. They didn't hide it, they didn't tease it, and they didn't deny major manufacturers the chance to run proper tests to verify claims. It's the ONLY data point that matters. This looks from the outside like basically every Musk power point with unverifiable claims backed by verifiable, but already doable, data.
You just don't hide results on products of this magnitude. It serves no sane purpose.
Assuming the claims actually hold up in the real world and it doesn't impact longevity too much this is pretty exciting tech. Fast charging isn't useful unless you're doing a road trip or can't charge overnight but it's a big hangup for people who haven't looked into EVs that much.
Yeah, 5 minute charging is in the same sort of convenience category as refuelling a car with a combustion engine. It may be slightly longer, but it's not a half hour charge where you've got to plan charging around meal breaks on a roadtrip.
Honestly if you have a big gas tank and you're at a gas pump with shitty clogged filters (which is basically all of them around me), it may be the same or even slightly faster. I've definitely spent over 5 minutes refilling the 16 gallon gas tank in my car before.
I disagree. While a relevant point I see fast charging in this sense a game changer everywhere.
I'm just very on-board the Technology Connections et. al. argument of: if you can get ~100+ miles of charge overnight and rarely travel more than 50 miles a day, that really is good enough. For my use case an EV having 300+ mile range or charging in 5 minutes is firmly in "nice to have" territory. Even with my daily ICE car that I love I'll rent a vehicle for a long trip because it'll be more comfortable and I won't have to worry about maintenance or not having a vehicle to get to work because I was in a collision out-of-town.
The infrastructure we have for refueling ICE cars probably shouldn't be the goal infrastructure we have for refueling EVs, they're different tech with different pros/cons. Modern gas stations are a long way from the service stations earlier generations of cars required with mechanics on call. Future charging stations will also probably look pretty different than modern gas stations. If nothing else, electricity is a lot easier to transport and the distribution networks far more built out than daily/weekly tanker trucks of fuel. (Excluding rant about the US's lacking investment in the electric grid) A central distribution node isn't needed in the same way you do with a liquid fuel. It would be handy for some use cases. But for most it would be more space and time efficient to have trickle charging in places the vehicle is already parked for 8+ hours a day.
Thats well and good if you have a private parking spot.
Right now if you live in an older city with mostly street parking, fast charging is your main option.
5 min charging changes that equation substantially.
Or apartments even in newer car-centric cities with big lots. I've never had to park* in the street but I've never had a place to charge at home until I started paying for a garage last month (I don't even have an EV, but just pointing it out).
To add to what @vord said, not everywhere with a private parking spot has access to power either. I'm in a colder climate so many apartments do have plug ins for block heaters so you can do level 1 charging but a LOT of apartments dont have that.
Also my experience with level 1 chargers is that, even with my wife's short commute, they don't keep up in the winter.
I do somewhat agree with technology connections in that people way overestimate their need for fast charging and need to chill out. But in the few months between getting our current EV and getting our level 2 charger installed in this house we just ended up using fast chargers periodically to top up. The level 1 charger basically felt useless.
With all of that said... having a bunch of 50-100kw chargers around malls, grocery stores, etc would be enough for most people. I agree that 5 minute charging isnt necessary when our cars spend 20+ hours a day parked. Even for road trips I think people need to chill out a bit and be ok with 20-30 minute charge times that are possible NOW.
An EV motorcycle like donut is doing though... that may be the ideal use case for 5 min charging given how much less power you'd need to deliver to such a small battery.
Don't underestimate the complexity of power transmission when we electrifying everything. A single tanker truck carries on the order of 400 MWh of energy. Even after accounting for the much higher efficiency of the electric stack, a tanker per week is almost a 1MW electrical connection. For most locations, that's a new 20kV line to the nearest substation, if we assume customers come at a constant rate 24/7 (which they don't, so the grid link needs to be bigger, or there need to be batteries on site). And that is, of course, a relatively slow cadence - many gas stations receive fuel daily.
And that's just the small scale. The Trans-Alaska-Pipeline is a simple 48 inch pipe with a couple of pumps. But it's the power equivalent of a 150 GW electrical connection. Replacing an energy flow like that is absolutely non-trivial, especially in the US where the NIMBYs will stop you from building ultra high voltage DC power lines (which you would need to build with ~30 conductor cables - fat cables, separated by several feet of insulation/air from the nearest ground - to match the pipe) anywhere.
Realistically, we're looking at millions of tons of aluminium/copper/lead, and a lot of it underground. And again, that just transmission. Not generation, not storage.
Generation is probably the easy part, storage pretty analogous to transmission: just the strategic oil reserve of the US government (700 million barrels, mostly in simple steel tanks welded together from sheet metal) is equivalent to more than a PWh of electricity storage. One of those 40 foot containers full of cheap and long-living LFP batteries is 1MWh of storage. You'd need to build a fucking billion of those containers to replace those simple fluid tanks.
Now, you wouldn't do that. If power generation is cheap, stable, local, distributed, and (roughly) constant in time, you need far less storage and far less transmission. But even replacing just 1% is an absolutely daunting task! The east coast would need absolutely massive UHVDC connections to the sun belt, the mid-west and maybe off-shore parks. Seasonal storage would be smaller than current strategic storage... but, realistically, not even close to 99% smaller.
Yeah, it's funny that people are upset already about data center electricity usage, but if everyone buys electric vehicles and we go all-electric for housing, we're going to need a lot more electrical infrastructure than that.
Which is the majority of people as they don't have access to an overnight charger be it they don't have a place to do so (house/garage) or permission to do so (renter) as overnight charging for something like an apartment complex isn't going to be possible without a massive cash influx.
Of course the details are where it really matters and these chargers would need to output 1,500 amps, or 2.5 times what the current top of the line Tesla Superchargers can spit out. For reference/comparison, three phase power that can reach that amperage is typically hooked up to entire commercial buildings/warehouses/factories.
Honestly increased availability at just random places around town would really help make it possible for people to have an EV even without over night charging. In my case (I've also met two other people in a similar position), I have level 2 charging (~6 kW) at work and so once a week I plug my car in for the day and leave juiced up. If people had abundant access to chargers while grocery shopping, working, going to the gym, etc., needing to charge at home is a non issue because you'd be able to constantly pick up range while getting around town. We're definitely not there yet either, but having access at work has meant an EV is still pretty convenient even without home charging to me.
I would assume that it'd just take like a 25kV high voltage mains line directly, which would dramatically reduce the needed amperage.
To be clear: Most definitely still something only getting installed in a big facility.
Still has to get converted to the DC battery voltage for charging, which is 1kV on these BYD cars. Can't pump 25kV into a car and they don't delivery line voltage to any building. In the US, the most you're getting is three phase 480V.
These are my favorite kinds of fun facts.
Since it seems like you aren’t aware, overnight charging is already possible without any cost in basically all garages, even rentals. You can just plug a car into a standard outlet. It isn’t terribly fast, but it’s plenty for a moderate commute. AI estimated it can charge at 3-5 mph, which gives you 30-50 miles overnight. That doesn’t work for all commutes, but it does work for a lot of commutes. Even more so if the person has access to charging at work, which is becoming more common.
Lack of charging access at work - there are a handful of chargers at meters, none in the garages or lots for staff - and the cost of installation at home, and a total lack of chargers in my town are why I am hesitant to replace my current car with a used electric one when the time comes.
I am well aware of the availability of level 1 charging, I am also well aware of the access that people have to be able to do so being very little. No apartment complex is going to let you run a cord to the nearest outlet and that's assuming you have a spot next to a building and not in the middle of a parking lot, street parking is extremely commonplace even for homeowners/renters, charger access at work is typically limited to office workers, not retail, service industry, manufacturing, or nearly any other industry that isn't cubicle dwellers.
30-50 miles overnight might get you to work and back, but it's not getting you to work and the gym and picking up the kids and any random errand needed that day and back home.
Street parking is a whole other beast. (Only because the US hasn’t realized that you can put chargers in lamp posts.) I wasn’t meaning to contradict the street parking part. But any rental that comes with a garage will have power somewhere in the garage. I guess it’s possible that some garages don’t have power, but how common is that?
And the 30-50 miles is only on the lowest 15a socket. If you have a 20a socket you get more than that. I think 20a sockets are required by code in a garage in California. If you have a dryer socket, you get way more than that.
From some random internet source, in 2023 Americans drove 12200 miles per year on average. If driven exclusively on work days of a 5 day work week, that is 46.9 miles per day. Many people could easily fit into 30-50 miles a day. And if there is even a single extra factor in an electric cars favor, the vast majority of people can fit into it. If they can charge at work, or charge at the grocery store, gym, etc. Or they can even just allow their battery to drop throughout the week and top up at a level 2 charger on the weekends. If you get 25 miles per day and drive 50 miles for a commute, and have a 250 mile total range, you still only need to level 2 charge every 10 days. I have to fill up my gas car more than that.
My point isn’t that electric cars are great for everyone. It’s just that we need to stop thinking of level 1 charging as useless for daily commutes.
From the article:
[...]
[...]
1,500 kW (1.5 mega watts) is a crazy amount of power! O.o I suppose it's only delivered for 5 minutes, but that's a bananas level of power delivery to charge a battery. I'm not super familiar with industrial power needs, but I feel like a device that draw 1.5 MW is in a category of its own. Pretty impressive!
Industrial devices can draw as much. Think smelters and furnaces. Aluminium production may draw 100s of MWs (total) in fact.
The thing to remember is that if you need more than about 20-50MW you get connected to the HV grid (otherwise MV)
Can you clarify what HV and MV stand for?
HV = High Voltage grid (transmission) (typically 110-400 kV (kiloVolt))
MV = Medium Voltage grid (distribution) (typically 2-35kV)
Below MV you have LV (low voltage) (distribution for less power hungry customers, eg residential, smaller shops etc)
A charging station would likely be connected to MV.
The implication of connecting to HV is quite higher equipment costs (and power up to GW)
That's more straight forward than I was trying to interpret it to be. Thanks for clarifying!
I'm picturing steam turbines (pick your fuel source) in the background spooling up as a couple of cars get plugged in.
Is incompatibility or weight the main reason a battery swap isn’t feasible, especially for something like a road trip? We do it with propane tanks.
It’s been done before - see Wikipedia. It doesn’t seem to have been all that popular?
There're a lot of disincentives in our economies for them, I fear, even though they make a tonne of sense from an engineering perspective IMO. The major challenge is that contactors wear out, and that mechanical components are wear items, but that can also be said for many parts of a car and we've managed to keep them quite reliable regardless.
It *probably* adds size and weight which translates to smaller capacity for a vehicle.
A Chinese company is currently doing it but of course it only works on their cars... which raises the next issue; you kind of need a standardized battery pack to make it work for multiple brands otherwise we need different swap stations for each battery type.
You're probably also going to pay a lot more money for a swap than a charge.
Would be nice if we could standardize the battery pack ala the standardized car headlight of old.
The Nio battery swap system does indeed do that! However, it's been traditionally difficult to get multiple manufacturers onboard to using a single standard -- we'd probably have to legislate that into existence, and up until the Chinese EV auto boom, the only country investing heavily into EVs is also deathly allergic to legislation.
Exactly this!
It would be tough to standardize packs when the industry is changing so fast but I feel like it would be better for consumers, for potential future infrastructure, and better for manufacturers to benefit from joint R&D costs. Maybe we break off pack construction and auto makers just make the vehicles to utilize the existing packs. Auto makers already buy a bunch of stuff from bosch for example.