That's good news, but until i see them being sold, i don't believe it
Electric Vehicles
Overview:
Electric Vehicles are a key part of our tomorrow and how we get there. If we can get all the fossil fuel vehicles off our roads, out of our seas and out of our skies, we'll have a much better environment. This community is where we discuss the various different vehicles and news stories regarding electric transportation.
Related communities:
- !automotive@discuss.tchncs.de
- !avs@futurology.today
- !byd@lemmy.world
- !ebike@lemm.ee
- !energy@slrpnk.net
- !geely@lemmy.world
- !micromobility@lemmy.world
- !polestar@lemmy.ca
- !rivian@lemmy.zip
- !teslamotors@lemmy.zip
- !xiaomi@lemdro.id
Yes, the chinese battery industry is crazy intransparent
The "fast charging" is going to be the key for this one. Sodium batteries already exist. They aren't so great at certain tasks simply due to how the chemistry works: The voltage constantly drops as the battery discharges.
That makes a pretty big impact on both its actual maximum capacity, and can greatly reduce its usable capacity. As voltage drops, to get the same amount of actual power out, the current has to go up. Unless the batteries are grossly over-provisioned, the point where you exceed the deliverable amperage from the batteries arrives shockingly fast. To the point where the usable capacity is pretty sad.
Though if (and that's a big if) these batteries can both take and deliver very high current, that point doesn't arrive so quickly. They'll undoubtedly still have quite a bit less capacity than the equivalent Lithium based batteries, because that's how the chemistry works, but depending on their use case, it's not important to have hundreds of miles of capacity in one charge. Especially if they're swappable.
Li-Ion is a huge achilles heel for EVs. Moving past them could be what's needed to actually get competitive.
That process has started on multiple fronts to be fair. We're firmly transitioning away from Li-Ion.