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4Q Basket Case

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Well, looks like there may be a breakthrough on EV batteries. Toyota is claiming that it's solved a problem with the durability of solid state batteries.

IF (two huge letters) that's true, it's huge because solid state batteries can power a car over 500 miles, take far less time to charge, and are actually less expensive to manufacture.

That would solve two issues that have stood in the way of mass adoption of EVs -- range and charging time.

Toyota’s newest breakthrough could be the ‘kiss of death’ for gas-powered cars — and could hit the market as early as 2027 (yahoo.com)

Explainer: How could solid-state batteries improve next-gen EVs? | Reuters

Contrary to what the articles say, I don't think it's yet time to sound the death knell for the ICE because there are still several impediments, none of which are solved by a better battery:

- Getting the component metals and raw materials from being in the ground to in a car rolling down the road is still a nasty dirty process and still consumes huge amounts of energy. A lot of the refining is done in China, and the energy for that isn't exactly generated in the cleanest manner.

EVs are therefore not nearly as clean as Elon Musk would have you think. As others have stated, they shift the carbon footprint from actually driving the car to earlier steps in the ground-to-road process.

- You still have to have the raw materials in the first place. And ramping up production of that stuff at a scale needed to displace the ICE is not likely anytime soon.

- You still need the charging infrastructure, which is (1) not that widespread, and (2) notoriously unreliable -- lots of stations that don't work for one reason or another.

- You still need the power grid to be capable of handling the charging volume. Right now, it maxes out handling summer and winter seasonal HVAC demand -- and sometimes falls short.

- The EV industry and the press covering it have historically been bad to resort to hyperbole, over-promising and under-delivering. So while I'd love for this to be 100% factual, I'm a bit skeptical

All that said, though, IF Toyota is accurate in its statements, it's a major breakthrough.
 
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NationalTitles18

NationalTitles18

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4Q, sometimes it seems like there are "breakthroughs" in this space every week on some level.

The main problem so far has been that none of them had all the "elements" needed to implement mass production.

And you are correct that even then the infrastructure is not "go-ready".

Also correct about the "dirty" nature of stripping rare Earth elements. Thankfully, lots of folks are working to make that cleaner in various ways or to even eliminate the need for rare Earth elements in part or in full.

I do quibble with the idea that EVs merely shift the carbon footprint. They are currently not emissions free and may never be, but there is no doubt that even the "worst" EVs reduce carbon emissions over their typical lifetimes - and by large amounts. This is being done before the grid is changed over to cleaner energy (yes, they account for current energy sources) so this will only improve with time given the current trajectories. Below is an article on this subject.

climate.mit.edu

Are electric vehicles definitely better for the climate than gas-powered cars?

Yes: although electric cars' batteries make them more carbon-intensive to manufacture than gas cars, they more than make up for it by driving much cleaner under nearly any conditions.
climate.mit.edu climate.mit.edu

To illustrate how EVs create fewer emissions than their counterparts, Paltsev points to MIT’s Insights Into Future Mobility study from 2019.4 This study looked at comparable vehicles like the Toyota Camry and Honda Clarity across their gasoline, hybrid, plug-in hybrid, battery electric, and hydrogen fuel cell configurations. The researchers found that, on average, gasoline cars emit more than 350 grams of CO2 per mile driven over their lifetimes. The hybrid and plug-in hybrid versions, meanwhile, scored at around 260 grams per mile of carbon dioxide, while the fully battery-electric vehicle created just 200 grams. Stats from the U.S. Department of Energy tell a similar story: Using the nationwide average of different energy sources, DOE found that EVs create 3,932 lbs. of CO2 equivalent per year, compared to 5,772 lbs. for plug-in hybrids, 6,258 lbs. for typical hybrids, and 11,435 lbs. for gasoline vehicles.5

MIT’s report shows how much these stats can swing based on a few key factors. For example, when the researchers used the average carbon intensity of America’s power grid, they found that a fully electric vehicle emits about 25 percent less carbon than a comparable hybrid car. But if they ran the numbers assuming the EV would charge up in hydropower-heavy Washington State, they found it would emit 61 percent less carbon than the hybrid. When they did the math for coal-heavy West Virginia, the EV actually created more carbon emissions than the hybrid, but still less than the gasoline car.

In fact, Paltsev says, it’s difficult to find a comparison in which EVs fare worse than internal combustion. If electric vehicles had a shorter lifespan than gas cars, that would hurt their numbers because they would have fewer low-emissions miles on the road to make up for the carbon-intensive manufacture of their batteries. Yet when the MIT study calculated a comparison in which EVs lasted only 90,000 miles on the road rather than 180,000 miles, they remained 15 percent better than a hybrid and far better than a gas car.

And while internal combustion engines are getting more efficient, EVs are poised to become greener by leaps and bounds as more countries add more clean energy to their mix. MIT’s report sees gasoline cars dropping from more than 350 grams of CO2 per mile to around 225 grams by the year 2050. In that same span, however, battery EVs could drop to around 125 grams, and perhaps even down to 50 grams if the price of renewable energy were to drop significantly.

“Once we decarbonize the electric grid—once we get more and more clean sources to the grid—the comparison is getting better and better,” Paltsev says.
Click to expand...
Occasionally, I post in the climate change thread on NonSports on some of the breakthrough technologies in this sector.

One thing is clear: The world is changing rapidly and seemingly gaining ever more speed.
 
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NationalTitles18

NationalTitles18

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NationalTitles18 said:
4Q, sometimes it seems like there are "breakthroughs" in this space every week on some level.

The main problem so far has been that none of them had all the "elements" needed to implement mass production.

And you are correct that even then the infrastructure is not "go-ready".

Also correct about the "dirty" nature of stripping rare Earth elements. Thankfully, lots of folks are working to make that cleaner in various ways or to even eliminate the need for rare Earth elements in part or in full.

I do quibble with the idea that EVs merely shift the carbon footprint. They are currently not emissions free and may never be, but there is no doubt that even the "worst" EVs reduce carbon emissions over their typical lifetimes - and by large amounts. This is being done before the grid is changed over to cleaner energy (yes, they account for current energy sources) so this will only improve with time given the current trajectories. Below is an article on this subject.

climate.mit.edu

Are electric vehicles definitely better for the climate than gas-powered cars?

Yes: although electric cars' batteries make them more carbon-intensive to manufacture than gas cars, they more than make up for it by driving much cleaner under nearly any conditions.
climate.mit.edu climate.mit.edu



Occasionally, I post in the climate change thread on NonSports on some of the breakthrough technologies in this sector.

One thing is clear: The world is changing rapidly and seemingly gaining ever more speed.
Click to expand...
Good format to condense the similar information.


And here:

 
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