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Along comes another new battery

4K views 10 replies 8 participants last post by  srmarti 
#1 ·
#2 ·
Swapping batteries is a non-starter. Look at all the shapes and sizes existing batteries come in.
 
#4 ·
No really a battery. It's closer to a non-refillable fuel cell. For this to be successful, it would require standardization across manufacturers. But the infrastructure is already in place. These could be provisioned from gas stations or potentially nearly any retail outlet depending on size and shape. If you made them the size of a 12 volt battery and used multiple in an auto, they could even be purchased from a vending machine. This would require a level of cooperation not usually seen in transportation.

It's an interesting idea.
 
#5 ·
The range comparison to a Tesla battery is hopelessly skewed, given that these are not rechargeable. The Tesla battery can go for hundreds of thousands of miles, counting recharging. This one is used once and then has to be recycled or disposed of.

Because it is a disposable battery, you lose the convenience of being able to recharge at home and begin each day with a fully charged battery, so managing the range anxiety issue will have new challenges. There has to be a whole industry around transporting all these batteries to distribution centers and retail points and the empties back to recycling/manufacturing centers, which will consume huge amounts of diesel fuel (or some other energy) and produce lots of CO2. You totally lose one of the main benefits of rechargeable BEV technology, which is that the energy distribution is through the efficient, clean, mostly already existing electrical grid rather then by transport trucks to retail facilities. This does not seem like a green technology, which I think it would have to be in order to be a viable, sustainable, long-term transportation solution.
 
#6 · (Edited)
While it sounds good in headlines, you don't have to dig far below the surface (as with fuel cells). It is not rechargeable as the Al is consumed (more akin to regular alkaline batteries than rechargeables). That means it would have to be replaced at regular intervals. Just like you aren't going to take your remote into Best Buy to get your alkaline batteries replaced, you aren't going to take your car into a garage to get a mechanic to replace it. Nio has a robotic replacement technology for Li batteries that can be done in three minutes but 1) you'd have to get all the car manufacturers to adopt it, 2) it would have to be modular so different vehicles could have different ranges depending on their requirements, 3) almost every garage would have to buy this standard robotic system to service the millions of vehicles needing this. Otherwise it would be like there being 20 different types of gasoline and your vehicle could only use one type.

Then there the cost. The cost is 77 pounds sterling or $100 USD per Kw for a none rechargeable. That's not cheap even if there's a price reduction for scale. Like fuel cells with their "5 minute fill time" when you look below the surface there are insurmountable down sides that make it a non starter.
 
#7 ·
Its a disposable, non-rechargable battery, much like the zinc-air batteries my hearing aides use.

The aluminum may be recyclable, but this likely means the aluminum oxide waste product needs to be re-refined, and one of steps involved in that is electrolysis. There's a reason aluminum is sometimes called "solid electricity".

The video also shows the inventor walking up to his large van with a small hand-held battery - that image alone is likely extremely misleading. A battery swap is likely to be as complicated as replacing the traction battery in any EV.
 
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