Electric cars are on people's radar. Three friends bought new cars in the last month. Without prompting all three gave reasons why they didn't go with an electric car. It's interesting that we're at that point. Without going into details a conventionally sized electric vehicle is a poor environmental choice if the metric is lowering carbon emissions per dollar. Of course there may be other good reasons for going electric and the breed is improving. Battery technology is central to conventional EVs like Teslas and emerging unconventional and disruptive vehicles and change is in the air.
It seems every few months there's a news release announcing a dramatic breakthrough in battery development. The problem is Lithium-ion is a huge family of battery chemistries rathe rather than a specific type of battery. Hundreds of varieties exist all with different characteristics. For vehicles you want low cost, high energy density, high power density (how quickly energy can be delivered), fast charging, long lifetime (thousands of charge/discharge cycles), tolerance to temperature extremes, safety and a few other things. These translate into longer range, faster charging, extended lifetime, safety - all at a reasonable cost. The press releases usually only address one characteristic - often at the expense of others. Improving the breed has been a long road and fairly steady road, but two innovations are on the near-term horizon: solid state electrolytes and lithium metal anodes. They could change the industry.
The anode is the negative terminal of a battery. Currently most Li-Ion batteries use graphite anodes. The cathode or positive terminal is where the exotic material science is usually invoked along, but a lithium metal anode can increase the energy density (energy stored per kilogram of battery) by as much as fifty to one hundred percent. Suddenly the weight penalty of the battery is lowered. It probably won't happen tomorrow, but seems likely on the five to ten year horizon.
You've probably seen videos of flaming Teslas and cellphones. Thermal runaway causes many current Li-ion batteries to burn if they manage to get too hot (usually around 150°C) A lot of careful engineering can minimize this but, like the gasoline in a tank, it's a risk. Solid state electrolytes are non-flammable. There are a variety of types being investigated including some that charge quickly. Unfortunately no one has a handle on exactly how to pull it off. Toyota announced they'd have something ready by the early 2020s. That seems a tad aggressive. Then again it's possible a few breakthroughs could happen in the near term and they'll be on track. It raises an interesting question.. how proprietary will the technologies be? Will there be a class of solutions that allow many players or are we going to see the emergence of one or two very powerful players?
The magic number cited for cost parity of EVs and conventional cars is around $100 per kilowatt-hour of energy storage. Exact internal costs are difficult to come by and there is more than a bit hype, but most educated guesses are in the $170 to $200 range. This seems to be improving incrementally, but solid state electrolytes and lithium metal anodes in the next decade would disrupt the curve. An EV with 400 to 500 mile range between charges, a safer and faster charging battery than the current crop and for the same price as a similar car with a gasoline engine.
Many issues that are poorly addressed. Recycling a vehicle batteries is going to be necessary, but is currently basically non-existent and a difficult problem. Then there's beefing up the grid - particularly the low voltage local distribution component as electricity demand will rise significantly and could double in areas with high electric vehicle density. Issues that will take time and money to address, but nothing insurmountable.
In the meantime use whatever vehicle seems most appropriate and drive it less. Better yet use a bike or ebike to offset some of your normal driving. There's a short list of other environmentally meaningful steps you can take from flying less, to eating less meat (particularly beef), to voting global warming denying politicians from office.
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