New Solid State Battery Tech

[ShadowR55]

Interesting article, this looks like they actually have a finished product that has been tested. 3x the density and longer life cycle.

Inventor of Lithium-ion Batteries Develops First All-Solid-State Battery Cells > ENGINEERING.com

 

[pilotSteve]

After reading the article, this really does sound exciting and promising. Quite the R&D team too.

 

[wdolson]

The PBS show Nova had an episode about the perfect battery a few weeks ago. I think it's online now. One of the people they talk to is someone who had developed a solid state lithium battery. He did say it needed a lot more testing, but it's looking promising. We probably won't see them in quantity until the mid-2020s though. It takes about 10 years to get a new battery chemistry from discovery in the lab into mass production.

It looks very promising though.

 

[SpiceWare]

The PBS show Nova had an episode about the perfect battery a few weeks ago. I think it's online now.

Topic about it here - "Search for the Super Battery" on PBS NOVA this week

The episode is available online. I think it was originally freely accessible, but now you have to be a PBS supporting member:


requires a minimum donation of $60 a year - at least for Houston, could be different in other parts of the country.


Once you're signed in you can play the episode:

 

[Electroman]

Prof Goodenough is the original inventor of Li Ion batter tech, which was then commercialized by Sony.

So this announcement from him has more merit then all the other press releases we have seen over the years on battery breakthrough

 

[wdolson]

Topic about it here - "Search for the Super Battery" on PBS NOVA this week

The episode is available online. I think it was originally freely accessible, but now you have to be a PBS supporting member:
View attachment 217248

requires a minimum donation of $60 a year - at least for Houston, could be different in other parts of the country.
View attachment 217249

Once you're signed in you can play the episode:
View attachment 217250

Several copies of it were uploaded to YouTube, though they might be breaking copyright law doing it. YouTube doesn't take down videos unless the right holders complain and PBS doesn't seem to be too aggressive about it.

 

[TheTalkingMule]

Slightly more detailed article from Quartz today.

Has lithium-battery genius John Goodenough done it again? Colleagues are skeptical

 

[techmaven]

Fascinating situation.

 

[BluestarE3]

Fascinating situation.

Yeah, they're going to have to open this up for independent testing and verification before people get too excited and anoint this as a holy grail.

 

[wdolson]

Goodenough is just the best known person to announce a solid state battery. University researchers in Tokyo, Kentucky, and at Tufts University have all announced some kind of solid state electrode advancement. The professor behind the Tufts U batteries was featured on the PBS program Nova a couple of months back. They demonstrated working solid state batteries that could have a nail driven through them and would keep working.

The Tufts research
Zimmerman explains: Designing a safer battery for smartphones - Office of the Vice Provost

Tokyo research:
Solid electrolytes open doors to solid-state batteries | Tokyo Tech News | Tokyo Institute of Technology
http://www.titech.ac.jp/english/news/2016/033769.html
Other tech that may pave the way to a solid state, high density supercapacitor:
Contact lens material could produce electric cars that recharge in minutes
https://techxplore.com/news/2016-12-contact-lens-material-electric-cars.html
There is a lot of work going on in a lot of places on this sort of stuff.

 

[Electroman]

What does this all mean to the Gigafactory?

 

[JohnSnowNW]

What does this all mean to the Gigafactory?

Nada.

 

[Electroman]

I am anticipating a Seeking Lies article that Prof. Goodenough sounded the deathknell for Tesla

 

[TheTalkingMule]

What does this all mean to the Gigafactory?

Nothing. Battery tech will with near certainty make major leaps like this over the next 10-30 years, this is just one of the more promising experiments/formulations. Even if it's proven 100%, consensus here seems to be 10 years to get new tech to market.

At that point you simply order the robots to retool the Gigafactory where needed.

 

[wdolson]

Any battery tech that's in the lab today is not going to make it to cars for a decade or so. Tesla will continue to make the same chemistry they are making, or something similar until the mid-2020s. When the new chemistry is well enough vetted to be reliably put into production cars, they will simply retool the factory to make the new chemistry.

Production volumes of solid state chemistry batteries will likely be much higher than current production. Solid state promises faster production and a simpler production process that will allow more cell production per day per square foot of floor space.

In any case, the evolution of battery tech is slow enough and the testing process for any new chemistry is so long that any changes will have plenty of lead time for the manufacturing engineers.