“Out of stock” on Elecoms shop: https://shop.elecom.co.jp/item/4549550345699.html
Please give us cheap energy storage. That will be a true game changer.
At first I thought you were self-censoring the word “nation” lol
Na-ion batteries are a good thing. They are made from widely-available resource, thus there is no risk of shortage.
On top of that, they have the potential to get real cheap in the future due to said ubiquity of raw ingredients.
Looking forward to those cheap batteries. It might take a few years to ramp up production, but once that happens, it’s going to be even wilder than it currently is with Li-ion batteries.
Nowadays, we have batteries in a bunch of weird things like earbuds, bluetooth speakers, vacuum cleaners, mice, kitchen scales, and even disposable vapes. When Na-ion batteries get really cheap, we could have even more batteries in everything. This means that all the things that currently don’t use electricity at all, might do so in the future.
Ubiquitous cheap batteries also make renewable energy extremely feasible making a happier future for us all. :)
I hope this tech kicks off asap
Sodium ion batteries are better in almost every way, except energy density. They are bigger and heavier to provide the same amount of energy storage. Sodium is available everywhere, cheaper and requires less energy to manufacture, fewer toxic waste components, charges and discharges faster, and lasts longer.
This company is selling 9,000 mah packs for $65-70 depending on the exchange rates, but the prices will come down as more manufacturers join the market.
i think they should focus on stationary energy grid storage applications first. Take advantage of economies of scale to develop batteries on a massive scale. Then, when development is done, cater to the end-user market as a by-product. The end user market requires higher safety standards (you don’t want to burn down your house), and so more experience is required.
Imagine if we could swap batteries on the car with these. Daily commute to work in the city? pick the sodium ion version for safety and longevity, lower density but enough for daily errands. Wanna go out for a long drive for camping? switch to a higher density battery without any worry of running out of juice.
I never understood why swappable batteries weren’t prioritized as standard in the first place. Decouple charging time from refueling time, and you could be in and out of the service station in minutes. Plus, batteries degrade over time, so a long-lasting car is going to need replacements eventually anyway.
The problem is that batteries are often deeply integrated for performance reasons. So it’s not so easy to swap them.
Making them swappable would present design challenges, but nothing is impossible if it’s a design requirement. Current EVs distribute batteries wherever they can to distribute the weight and prevent damage from collisions or debris. But if they were required to be a certain form factor and removable, cars would be designed around that. Even better, you could get away with a much shorter range, because most people want higher capacity for the occasional long trip. You might have space for two cells, and only keep one in the car most days.
Batteries in EV don’t degrade that much, it is now expected that for most cars the battery will last longer that the car itself.
Regarding charging time, charging time is not that much of an issue. With a decent battery you need to stop roughly 15-20 min every 2 hours on the highway, less on smaller roads.
It’s honestly not a big issue and the charging time is being reduced with new technologies of batteries. What could be an issue in the other hand of the lack of charger. For this issue swapping batteries would only make things worse. An EV charger is a very basic infrastructure compared to a swapping station.
Building a swapping station would be orders of magnitude more expensive than an EV charging station and requires way more space. So I suspect we only would have a limited amount of stations available.
Lastly, going to the station to refuel a car is a reflex inherited from thermal engine powered cars. Most of the EV charging is done during the night at home or on the parking spot. Public chargers are used only occasionally.
So for all these reasons I think swappable batteries are actually a terrible idea for regular cars even though it sounds like a good idea.
That’s just it. Swappable batteries sound really cool and appealing, and I guess that’s why NIO is trying them out. Building that sort of infrastructure is incredibly expensive, and it comes with high financial risks. Finding that kind of money from investors appears to be happening, but I don’t know if they actually have enough runway to make it viable. To me, that sounds like an infrastructure project only a government could do.
You’d need a service contract with a battery supplier.
No fuel station would risk a competitor driving in with their old batteries and swapping them with good batteries.
So you would likely be locked in with a fuel station brand.
As a consumer, you also risk picking up a dud.
Fuel stations would also need to be considered in insurance claims, as they would own the battery.It’s a great idea, however. I’d rather see more public transport and less cars. But electric cars, easier “refueling” of electric cars, and more solar/wind/hydro/nuclear power is a good hold over
We actually have this thing in Australia called swap n go. It’s pretty ubiquitous in hardware stores and petrol stations- you bring in an empty lpg gas canister, swap it for a full one.
Granted there’s probably a monopoly behind it, but that’s not locked to a fuel station
Yeh, that’s pretty common. But a gas bottle is a lot cheaper than a battery, and testing a gas bottle is cheaper as well.
Swappable batteries could work, but there is a lot of risk involvedLotta risk involved in storing gas like that back in the day too. We adapt.
Electric-powered public transport is the best for both worlds. If we can add electric buses to trams and plan the cities accordingly, most people living in them would never need to own a car.
Sounds like a job for a federal program. Certify and inspect all batteries and connect every station to a central server. It would be a massive administrative task, but it would create a lot of commerce, jobs, and taxes from new sales.
Maybe I will pick one up when I go to Japan. This will be a game changer on the Critical Minerals front if it can be scaled up to more than just a phone charger.
The way I see it, sodium ion batteries look really promising in many applications where size and weight aren’t a huge concern. Obviously, mobile phones aren’t ideal, but bikes and city cars should be fine. Maybe even grid energy storage.
Yeah grid energy storage is the main application as far as i’m concerned.
