The "common knowledge" that LFPs are supposed to be charged to 100% needs to die. They need to be charged to 100% periodically for the system to know what the true capacity of the battery pack really is. It is NOT healthier to charge LFP batteries to 100% ALL THE TIME.
Absolutely correct. Even my car manual states that the LFP battery has to be charged to 100% at least once a month to calibrate the cells and make accurate range estimations.
@@GerardPinzone the latest study on LFP as shown in engineering explained seems to show it’s best to just use the battery normally and deplete it like a normal ICE car and then recharge to 100 each time. You don’t want to do small depletions at the top of the pack and recharge every night - those cycles at the top of the pack seem to be where the degradation occurs. But having it plugged in at 100 does not hurt the car at all.
@@elmersembly4th467 CAN you charge lithium-Ion batteries to 100%? Yes. Should you? Not really. Can you charge LFP batteries to 100% Yes. Should you? Mostly, no.
Nuclear batteries can be used to continuously charge standard EV batteries. Great application and doesn't require an entire car full of nuclear batteries.
There are only two makers of nuclear batteries currently. Chinese startup Betavolt currently makes 100 microwatt (that is one ten thousandth of a watt) batteries for $52 each. That means that currently, you would need to buy 10,000 batteries for $520,000 to generate even 1 watt of power, which is nothing to an EV. To generate 48KWh of power over a 24 hour period, to refill a LFP battery for example, you would need 20 million of these batteries (48,000/24 * 10,000) at a cost of over 1 billion dollars currently - to recharge a single vehicle! Even if they can make the current tech a thousand times more energy productive for the same price in a few years (which is very doubtful), it would still cost over 1 million dollars - again just to recharge a single vehicle! There is no possible way to use this technology to recharge a Battery Electric Vehicle. It is used for things like pacemakers, which require a miniscule amount of energy compared to an EV. Anyone trying to tell you different is either a scammer or a marketer who does not know any better. They are certainly not an engineer, and could not run even the simplest back of the envelope calculations or they would know this. While I am an Electrical Engineer, this should be obvious to anyone who can do fourth grade math and can multiply numbers.
It's not of a matter of getting there first, like a finish line. Rather, it will be continual progress over time just as it has been. When the best battery is created, they'll be a better one after that.
The nuclear battery is probably for vehicles that get high mileage on a consistent basis because unless you can stop the battery from outputting energy, it has to be consumed or else you either need the car to have storage capacity or it might lead to safety risks. Or maybe I'm wrong. I just don't know where all that energy would go.
I could see it being used as a self-charging car, like combining nuclear battery for constant low power charging together with large lithium battery for storage and power the car.
Yeah you don’t even have to watch the video to know it’s bs vaporware tech that isn’t viable for cars at all. You’re not going to run a car off a mars rover power cell. LFP needs to be charged from low to 100% once in a while to calibrate the charge level indicator, the least wear happens when cycling LFP batteries in their low states of charge. Bouncing between 25% to 35% is easier on the battery than going between 85% to 95%
This battery promise has been there since the 1980s. Of course it will improve but this really feels like automotive propaganda just to distract people from fighting for better public transport
I agree. I can't wait for better public transport where I live. I go to the grocery store once a week and pick up 2-3 crates worth of supplies. With public transportation I'll just need to take a cart? with me to carry all those crates, and then sit in paranoia on the trip back home, ready to defend my supplies from random people who might steal them. Or, I suppose instead I will just go to the grocery store every other day for a single bag of supplies. It'll be less to carry, and I don't have anything better to do with my time than make many many trips for the same errand because my carry capacity is basically a single bag! It will be so much better with so many other errands as well when I can only carry a single bag. Also the 10x time duration of travel with all the walking and waiting, and sitting in large groups of random people farting and making noise and trying to steal / infiltrate my electronic devices. man, what a life it will be.
Conclusion: current lithium-ion tech for car batteries is not going to be superseded anytime soon. It will take time before a new tech takes over and becomes viable for mass production. Which is good, because we are supposed to recycle the current batteries, which implies to keep using the same tech for a while!
My one year old Tesla Model 3 Performance can reliably get 270 miles of range and still roll into a supercharger with a comfortable 5%. That’s 4 hours of driving at 70mph, at least an hour farther than my bladder. While that’s more than enough for the average person, my family is a road tripping family. We want a car that can go 500 miles without charging… that specific distance because it’s the amount of distance that we never exceed in one day of driving. So … if more hotels, campsites, whatever have Level 2 chargers we could slowly charge overnight like we do when we’re at home. Drastically reducing the need for more superchargers, instead more destination chargers (cheaper, easier to install, etc). So at 500 miles of range I’ll never complain about range ever again. BTW that’s one of the key reasons I was originally sooo excited for the “promised” Cybertruck.
Hotel chains have made chargers Priority One - because that is the No. 1 question from potential guests. EVen at rural motels. Especially, at rural motels!
Nuclear batteries have very low current. They are not suitable for powering large electrical motors. They are similar to solar cells but use radiation rather than sunlight to generate modest amounts of power.
Nuclear Batteries, and maybe even Graphene Batteries, may never come to market. Not because they are impossible, but because the companies will refuse to sell something that requires no replacement. They can't make money that way, and if they do, it'll be extremely expensive to start with.
Graphene batteries already exist in the RC hobby space. LiHV packs are graphene-containing packs, and they absolutely do need replacement as the electrodes wear out
So my father did his PHD thesis on nuclear car batteries. It was during the cold war and it was deemed to risky as the material could be used to make what we now call "dirty bombs". The possibility of fissile material being widely available is a world security risk. Combine that with the fact that the shielding for the battery would be massive and likely lead based, which leads to it's own issues. Until there is cold fusion and it is possible to I do not see a nuclear battery available to to the public for a long time. Governments will freak out when someone gets close to a commercially viable product.
Since you've made no mention of the "power" density of the nuclear diamond battery (as opposed to the "energy" density), I suppose its power density extremely low, making it impractical for many applications, like EVs, that require sufficient power (rate at which the energy can be delivered on a sustained basis per kilogram or liter) as well as sufficient energy density.
The power density is was 10x that of lithium ion batteries. That is to say, it can store that much power from whatever power source it uses. The power GENERATION will be extremely low, however, because this is passive radiation, not a fission reaction. They would have to intentionally speed up the fission reaction with some neutron reflection, and if they do that, it becomes way more dangerous.
Nuclear batteries in the power range needed for a car (let's say 20kW) have a huge problem: heat generation even when the car is not used. We're speaking here of huge heat, at least 100kW thermal, practically impossible to dissipate in a car. We'll not see nuclear batteries in a car in the foreseeable future.
first time hearing of nuclear batteries, but with their long life-span, wouldn't it make more sense for like a "mega-pack" or home battery storage instead of a car (which avg lifespan is well less than 15 years)? also, would prob be better to utilize them in less dangerous situation. in case of radiation leak when the device is damaged.
@@George_Shonia A nuclear battery uses different principles. It converts the kinetic energy of decaying beta radiation of 63Ni or 14C into electricity using (diamond) diodes. This process is called betavoltaics, and it is similar to how photovoltaics transform light into electricity. Unlike a "classical" nuclear reactor, it cannot be throttled/shut down. While perfect for under the mili-watt range, the difficulty is scaling them up. While you can theoretically scale them up for a house, thermal dissipation will be an issue, and cost will be a huge issue. I doubt the thermal dissipation can be solved in a car, even if you somehow solve the cost. Current reactors use thermal->mechanical->electrical (most of them, including SMRs). The problem with these is scaling them down. There are other nuclear reactors, thermal->electrical with Seebeck (satellites, remote stations on earth). They are in the hundreds of watts region. But the efficacity is low, so you have to dissipate a lot of heat and they are heavy, and the price is very high.
@@mrmariusi wich means that current batteries have no alternative other than improving their chemistry & increasing energy density of it at least all the way up to the 1kwh/kg which would match the range of ICE engine cars.
A very nice overview of all the different battery technologies. I don't think you mentioned it but there are liquid metal batteries. They also probably won't make it into a car as they are very heavy but are another form of batteries for stationary use.
I really don't understand why so many RU-vid reviewers speak somewhat scornfully of LFP batteries. Here are the facts: 1. Over the first year, LFP batteries will degrade about 3% or less of its capacity. All other chemistries will drop 5% or more. 2. LFP batteries will stay at 95% -97% for YEARS. Other chemistries will degrade by 10 -15% of their original capacity in the first 2-4 years. There are exceptions, but this is generally true. 3. LFP batteries can be charged to 100% without damaging them. All other chemistries can be charged to 80% of their capacity, or they will degrade prematurely. 4. The LFP batteries used by Tesla in their Model 3 and Model Y cars should have a minimum charge cycle life of 4000 cycles. Tesla lists the number of charge cycles for its non-LFP batteries at 1,500 cycles. The difference is staggering. A Tesla Model 3 or Y equipped with LFP batteries should be able to maintain 90% of its capacity for at least 10 years if charged correctly. If you charged an LFP battery every single day, you would not reach the 4000 charge cycle limit for 11 years. The difference in stability, durability and longevity are STAGGERING compared to non-LFP batteries. This is why nearly the entire solar industry, including Tesla, are switching to LFP batteries. 5. China has created an updated LFP battery that is shown in this video that will get over 600 miles of range, can be charged very quickly, and can operate in extreme hot and cold temperatures without losing capacity and range. This type of LFP battery will be the near future of EV batteries, and China is ALREADY MASS PRODUCING THESE BATTERIES. Whereas Samsung and other solid-state battery manufacturers won't mass-produce solid-state batteries until 2027. 6. Current LFP batteries are not as efficient in cold climates as other chemistries, but the difference is negligible in real-world use because ALL EV batteries are significantly affected by extreme heat and cold temperatures. 7. New versions of the LFP batteries are more energy dense and are competitive with other chemistries. Cleary, LFP batteries are FAR superior to all other battery chemistries at this point in time. Nothing else is even close. For the short term, LFP batteries are by far the best choice if you are at all concerned about how long your battery pack will last, and how much of its original capacity it will retain. It is possible for a Model 3 or Y equipped with LFP batteries to last 20 years while retaining at least 80% of its original capacity. No other battery chemistry can even come close to this durable longevity right now. Therefore, EV reviewers should be more respectful of just how amazing LFP batteries are because they are clearly superior to anything else available currently. LFP batteries don't "Punch above their weight," as Shaw dully remarks in this video. They are the heavyweight champions of the world right now!
It is my understanding that nuclear batteries could offer the equivalent of an AC slow charge current. Which could be used the charge the Lithium drive battery which would be able to be kept charged to 80% but if on a road trip could still DC fast Supercharged.
This type of technical, educational, and explanatory video content is excellent for conveying the promises for the near future (and the drawbacks to be overcome getting there). Thank you for the time and effort that goes into such productions.
If those radioactive batteries work it will be game changing as no longer having to charge/ fill a car would be wild. Though the radioactivness will def get all the anti-nuclear people out in force.
maybe do a little research before making videos like this? nuclear batteries operate in the miliwatt range and give a continuous output, not one on demand.. they are NOT fit for cars
Never mind research, you should improve your comprehension before commenting. Nobody’s saying define things here, he’s reporting what researchers want to be out there, perhaps for funding purposes.
I do not think Ryan was saying it is going to happen for sure, but we do not know what kind of innovations are ahead. To say never will happen is not right, but it would require many major innovations. If any company is gambling on something like that, I would not invest in them. I am sure 30 years ago, if you said what is basically laptop batteries would launch EVs into the next major growth phase, people would have laughed.
Nuclear batteries are already used to power pacemakers and satellites, things that clearly have to be mostly set it and forget it type things. You don't have to worry about someone throwing away a pacemaker battery, because it's buried in their chest. I'd be worried, however, what happens to a nuclear battery in a car crash. But man, imagine a giant battery block in your basement powering your entire house???? THAT sounds amazing! Imagine no need for fossil fuels to heat your home, since you'd use heat pump tech powered by this giant nuclear battery in your house. I wonder how stable it is if there's a fire.
Fantastic job! The number of pending potential breakthroughs in battery tech proves that we'll all move to 21st-century mobility and energy economy sooner rather than later.
can you imagine never needing to charge your phone, laptop, and car? and being able to use those devices to power other devices? GAME CHANGER. Great video man!
A fascinating update on the likely development path of batteries. I would have liked to see a graph of cost / kWh and also the forecast for kWh/kg so we can see projections on energy costs and energy density.
How do you get electricity from the nuclear batteries? Do they emit electrons (beta radiation), or do they ionize something to get free electrons, or what?
In the 50s they had a nuclear airplane. They scrapped the idea because no one would want a reactor flying over their head. I don’t think I would want to sit on one either.
Should we charge LFP batteries to 100 % every time ? I've seen a video that says it does degrade the battery. May be not as much, but still. 100 % charge is to make sure the car knows how much range it has. This seems to drift over time if not charge 100 % opnce in a while.
Ryan, this was truly the perfectly paste perfect amount of information and just flat out interesting. Though I watch a lot of your videos one of the things I would say as you need some new B roll! Thanks for creating this. I learned a lot.
Better yet, watch the video and get the name of "Tesla's secret weapon", man's name is Duhne, I think. His videos are much better than Engineering Explained.
I think as far as producing graphene they should try this take graphite suspended in a liquid solution Maybe water and try others etc in a Vacuum chamber in a sound proof room then introduce frequency until they find the correct constructive frequency that causes the atoms of the graphite powder to assemble into graphene. I believe this process could be used to find the resonate frequency of many objects for creating thing at a molecular level maybe even sealing wounds on biological skins like in a scifi movie.
Not clear how you draw electric power from such a heat source (radoactive waste) the small Chinese batteries use a thermocouple for a few milliwatts - good for a watch - and at this size no problem with excess heat. For a car one needs a lot of power to accelerate - so for the radiaoactive batteries to directly provide this power they need to be producing that power - and no way to shut off or moderate this heat - it's just nuclear decay. A lot of waste heat to get rid off while in the garage....
I had an idea a few years ago no idea if it would work or not. Not a scientist. Have some kind of nuclear situation safely armored in the backseat? trunk? that can produce a continuous mediocre output, 50 kW? And then have large capacitors for surge situations like acceleration.
Would like to see a story about battery tech degradation. Does my EV get more expensive to charge as it gets older or does the max capacity just drop over time. My old Volt lost a little less than ½ capacity after 10 years. Wonder what to expect on my 2023 Model Y after 10 years.
I wouldn’t bet on Stellantis being around next year to test that battery tech. I traded my 2014 Jeep grand Cherokee in on a Model Y last week as I couldnt get parts for the Jeep for the last 3 years, Jeep insiders told me they stopped making parts during COVID and never restarted, things are bad. Tradesman at my house owns a brand new 2024 Jeep Grand Cherokee and he has been waiting on parts for it for 4 months and using a customer care car from Jeep and was told to not put many KMs on it 😂 If Jeep cant make parts for new cars they are in serious trouble, the Avenger EV was a massive flop and its numerous failures got covered up on CarWow. As for the video topic the Solid state battery tech sounds amazing, this is the one thing my friends and family say they could NEVER switch to an EV, range. I cant convince them they dont need 1000km battery for average driving, most never travel on road trips but think they need 100s of KMs every day just to go to the store to get some milk and eggs 🤦♂️
Every time a battery is "charged" it's total capacity of energy it holds lessons a little bit each and every time. "Advanced Technology" would be if the EV's got their electric power from the roads they drove on. The need for stopping and "charging" your EV being eliminated. The only need to stop would be for the people and restroom breaks. Imagine an 800 mile trip and not once do you stop and "refill" fuel tank or charge a battery even once in your journey. THAT would be advanced technology! What the public is being offered today in the forms of EV's are unaffordable BLING! Governments want them because at the push of a button your EV trying to escape the bank you just robbed could be rendered useless. No chase involved.
9:45 - what they didn't tell you about the NIO test: 1. That it was a 150kwh battery 2. That they drove it to a point over 14,000ft above sea level to start the test 3. That they brought along a diesel generator in a backup vehicle to give the NIO a 100% charge at the start point 4. That they finished at sea level 1060km away (658mi) 5. That they never exceeded 90km/h (56mph) 6. That they averaged 75.7km/h (47mph) 7. That they only averaged 7.3km/kwh (4.52mi per kwh) under these extraordinary and fabricated test conditions When you don't dislcose this sort of crap going on in the test you lose all credibility. Also - You're no comparing apples to apples with the Rivian - the 150kwh NIO pack weighs in at 686kg / 1512 lbs or 4.58 kg per kWh. The Tesla 103kwh NMC pack weighs 625kg for a 6.07 kg per kwh - given that the 103kwh pack in the Tesla s/x is now several years old a 30% increase in energy density is decent but hardly outrageous.
One thousand charge cycles is equal to 300k miles?? Yeah, that's real world...Tesla has 1500 charge cycles and optimistically says 300k miles. How does PowerCo/QuantumScape get as far with fewer charge cycles?
We now have many Tesla's in the 200k to 300k range that are still over 85% capacity. And the capacity is stopping slowly. They will probably reasonably make 500k miles with over 70% capacity.
Nuclear batteries aren't coming soon. Technically they are already here We built a couple of vehicles using Nuclear batteries. If the batteries last 28,000 years you are going to get next to no power out of it. If you want to power a vehicle with a nuclear decay batteries you are going to be using materials that are only available for military use. Yes, Voyager has a NDB it uses a lump of plutonium, the amount of plutonium you would need to power a car would be well beyond it's critical mass if it was involved in a serious crash and the Plutonium squashed together it could go critical contaminating everything within a 100 miles. Even for military vehicles on earth they aren't going to authorise Plutonium.
I asked AI (Perplexity) this question: Q: compare the time to charge a Tesla Model Y from 0% to 100% vs a Toyota RAV4 empty to full gas tanks AI: At a Tesla Supercharger (250 kW DC fast charging): 0% to 80%: Approximately 27-30 minutes 80% to 100%: Additional 30-40 minutes (charging slows significantly above 80%) Total time 0% to 100%: About 60-70 minutes For a Toyota RAV4, the refueling process is much quicker: Tank capacity: Approximately 14.5 gallons Refueling time: About 2-3 minutes to fill from empty to full One hour in a Model Y to fully charge it or 3 minutes to fill up your ICE car No matter what insane battery they come up with the time will be about the same For this reason and dozens more a hybrid makes more sense than a BEV like a Tesla. ============== and try to convince a mom carrying her 2 kids in the back seats that a nuclear battery under their feet is safe good luck with that
I can’t wait for batteries to get cheaper and lighter. Mean extra range. Which means charging say 10-50% gives you 500km range and takes 5-10 mins to charge. That’ll make it the same time as filling up a gas tank with the added benefit of MORE range if fully charged or charged to 80%
Newer data is showing that no, 100% charging LFP batteries everyday isn’t good. It never was. It’s recommended to do it frequently for the sake of BMS accuracy, but full charging and short cycling, such as say 100%-75%, is worse than 100%-0% cycling. So basically, unless you drive near your full battery range everyday, you should still be reducing your charge limit or simply not charging daily. Only charge when the battery is as near to depleted as you’re comfortable with. I would still use the 1.5-2x your daily range for the limit, and then somewhere between weekly and monthly charge up to 100% and then don’t charge until drained. There’s a reason Tesla says charge fully once per week, not daily.
@@droomagon I'm not knocking the EE vid, nor people testing--it's all great for the industry. I'm pointing out that OP shouldn't be taken seriously as he has no expertise and simply regurgitates whatever he's last heard. Bet you anything his comments a week ago argued the opposite for LFP charging
@@dyeace I’ve never been comfortable with the idea of 100% charging any lithium battery. Sure, everyone said it could, and it is still true that they are more resilient to 100% charging, but it’s never truly set right with me. If I did buy a LFP battery car I wouldn’t have been 100% charging it everyday. The Main thing about LFP I liked was the increased cycle life, not so much the 100% charging. I didn’t really comment on the subject until we had better data, which we now do. However I fully admit that we don’t have any data on say 70-20% cycling like we do for ion cells. What we do have those suggest that cycling from 50% to 25% would be less damaging than 100% 75%
EV's are NOT advanced technology. Stop the Lies about EV's. So long as a battery that is unable to be "removed" from the vehicle to be charged so another fully charged battery can be installed in its place so you don't have to wait hours or days to charge the battery your EV they Will Never Be "Good" or "Advanced" technology. Just someone's dream or fantasy of what makes a proper car that provides transportation when you need it. And not letting the car to decide. There were 10 electric car companies in America in the 1920's. And none of them had you sit on the battery. They were located in the trunk or under the hood and could be removed to be charged. That was "Advanced" technology 100 years ago!
