They are only claiming 89,000 years, not 89 million. But yeah, probably a few decades is plausible, the battery isn't going to last thousands of years.
I think the 25 year payback quoted is way off. Those batteries are going to last 25 years? I doubt it. They'll have to be replaced at least a couple of times and that will increase the payback substantially.
20-30 years of battery life? I wish so, currently it's more like 5-6 and even there you already see the degradation. I am waiting for better batteries, for last 20 years and I keep hearing how in 20 years it will all be better... no.
That's very young for mechanical equipment. Traditional cars , washing machines and fridges could be operated for several decades with little maintenance.
> Even ignoring the life of the cells themselves
That was the point of my argument, though. That a great part of the car's production cost is due to the battery, which has a rather limited lifespan.
li-ion battery lifespans are generally calculated in power cycles. They don't really age with years...
Generally, power cells have about 300-500 power cycles until there is a significant drop in performance. This is one of the major faults of EV that is often quoted, as some parts of the batteries aren't recycled. So, you're essentially trading the co2 pollution to toxic waste.
maybe you should check the facts before you spout nonsense yourself?
> Oh, and its lifespan (7 years) is about twice that of a lead-acid battery (3-4 years).
Nonsense; lead acid batteries easily last 5 years or more.
Since the article lowballs the life of a lead-acid battery, it's reasonable to suspect that it's likewise overestimating the seven year life of this new battery, which would make them about equal.
> They’re filled with garbage materials that are terrible for the planet.
More FUD. The garbage materials are sealed, and batteries get recycled. Places that sell you the new one take back the old one, generally.
Battery places are not going to know what to do with this new-fangled thing.
So it's down to the 6 pounds and gas mileage. Okay, realistically, let's talk about the environment now: this is for an internal-combustion-engine car that spews several tonnes of carbon into the atmosphere. If you want to save the planet, ride a bicycle. Still, this could make in excess of a one percent difference in fuel economy, which is significant, and will easily more than pay for the battery. Say you spend 200 bucks on fuel per month. Get 3 of those back thanks to the 6 pound battery, that's 36 over 12 months. If it holds up for 10 years, 360 saved.
Easier on the lower back is a plus. For many people, this is a do not care; only the DIY battery swappers who do it in the parking lot will be somewhat relieved, as well as the people who swap batteries as part of their work duties.
Poor capacity is a minus. People don't just run the stereo while parked; sometimes they have the headlights on or use other accessories, not always ones built-into the car. On a warm day you might listen to the stereo, and have a fan circulating the air. How about emergencies? If you're stranded somewhere with a dead engine, it's better to have more battery capacity than less for whatever. Flashing your lights at another car, say.
> They die without warning
That is not entirely true: there are in fact warning signs which, combined with age (being say > 5 years) add up to "change the battery". A lead-acid batter that has given you five warnings will then die without an additional warning, if five warnings is all which that battery has been blessed with. Those who don't recognize the warnings of course curse the battery for dying without a warning.
Who is to say this battery won't exhibit sudden failure modes? Suppose the business takes off and millions of these that are actually sold to consumers are made in sweatshops overseas, with all kinds of corners cut to save costs. Will those units still hold up? Let's compare prototype to prototype, shipping product on the shelves with shipping product on the shelves.
This is assuming that the deterioration rate is linear, I have no idea if that is true. But if these numbers are accurate the longevity is better than expected. Scrapping these batteries in volume is another challenge.
I imagine in 10 years today's battery tech will be obsolete. I am still on the fence about getting into an EV, it still appears to be an early adopter technology.
The article says it's a ten-year lifespan. Which seems reasonable since ideally, if it's a thousand cycles and a thousand miles per cycle, that's a million mile battery.
> the National Renewable Energy Laboratory indicates that today’s batteries may last 12 to 15 years in moderate climates (8 to 12 years in extreme climates).
> Look at nearly every 12v car or boat battery. You don't see those being replaced every 3-5 years. It is old reliable tech that just works.
I actually do see this all of the time. In decades of owning multiple cars I've found the batteries tend to fail so regularly at about the 5 year mark that you could set a watch to it.
They are easy to find and inexpensive to replace, but they absolutely do have a limited lifespan.
That doesn't happen unless you have an absurd number of charge cycles. It usually takes 2-3 years of normal use to reach a point where the battery degradation is a major problem.
Thanks. I misread the article as needing to be replaced at that point and not that they should at least last that long. A reread says that they should expect to last 10 years. I assume they'd go longer with even more range degradation.
Does the expected battery replacement at years 8-12 kill the resale value for models older than 8 years?
reply