China Just Invented the Battery That Will Kill Gas Cars(thechinaacademy.org)
9 pointsby fcpguru16 hours ago3 comments
  • igor4715 hours ago
    Ugh what an amazing example of poor science communication. Literally the only useful numbers for battery advances are: * Energy density in kWh/kg * Cost in $/kWh

    Neither is mentioned in TFA. This is just PR fluff. Notably, the raw range of an EV is totally useless as a metric. We can already make an EV go arbitrarily far by stuffing it full of batteries, making it insanely heavy and expensive in the process

  • billy99k16 hours ago
    This will depend on weather (like winter) and weight of the car. A friend of my had a full electric vehicle and had to go back to a gas car when we went on vacation, because the weight of his luggage in the car reduced 70 miles to around 25.
    • viraptor16 hours ago
      > because the weight of his luggage in the car reduced 70 miles to around 25.

      No idea what this means. What electric car has a range of 70 miles? Why would it change by over half due to adding weight that's tiny in comparison to the car itself? This does not pass the smell test.

      • billy99k13 hours ago
        It doesn't pass the 'smell test' because you are making guesses from behind a keyboard and it doesn't sound like you know much about electric cars.
    • igor4716 hours ago
      I'm finding this hard to believe. He had a car with 70 miles of range? Was it a 2011 leaf? That car had about 70mi of range but a payload capacity of almost 1000lb. Was your luggage just bricks?

      Winter is more believable, cold weather does affect electric range and older EVs didn't have good (or any) thermal management on the battery. I would expect that a combination of fully loaded and cold weather to reduce range by 10-15% these days

      • billy99k13 hours ago
        It was a leaf, yes (not sure about the year). It was probably 150 lbs of luggage and fully charged and in the middle of summer. This was 2 years ago.

        He had to turn around and use another vehicle.

        Without the luggage, range was normal in the same weather.