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xkcd #2948: Electric vs Gas
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this post was submitted on 19 Jun 2024
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Not really. Battery tech has always been advancing. Even today electric vehicles have barely come up with anything new, battery wise. Everyone wants something better than lithium base. No one can get anything to market.
It advanced at a glacier pace because there was no massive driving force. It only kicked off a bit with cell phones and then in any substantial way with laptops. (Yes, batteries existed before that for different things, but there was no massive driving force.) Now imagine what would have happened if we funded it starting in the 1970s.
Didn’t sodium batteries start getting marketed recently?
Yes, but no one's even glancing at it for use in vehicles. The one that's finally getting into production is 70wh/Kg. Not nearly energy dense enough yet for ev's. Lithium batteries are closer to 300wh/Kg. In other words, they take up 1/4th the space and weight. EV's are already a thousand pounds heavier than non ev's and that's already causing extra tire pollution issues and having to overbuild suspension parts and bearings. Making them another 3,000 pounds heavier than that is just out of the question. Let alone making the space to fit the battery.
Sodium is going to change the world with its power storage capabilities connected to solar. Anyone on like 75% of the planet could 100% live off the electric grid problem free with enough solar panels and a big sodium storage battery.
Wasn’t aware that EVs were already that heavy. Then yeah, I guess that’s definitely not feasible, at least not at the moment.
Yep. A size of vehicle wise comparison would be that a tesla model s sedan weighs around 4,600 pounds. A toyota Corolla weighs around 1,600 pounds less at around 3,000 pounds.
Even the newest and most powerful mass produced American made car ever, the "C8 Corvette Z06" with its big V8 gas engine with 670 horsepower weighs in at around 3,650 pounds.