Volkswagen-backed Gotion unveils new EV battery with 1k km range

https://technode.com/2023/05/19/volkswagen-backed-gotion-unveils-new-ev-battery-allowing-1000-km-range/

by hunglee2 • 3 years ago

49 45 3 years ago

technode.com

zendaven• 3 years ago

Great to see competition and improvements in this field.

chrsw• 3 years ago

Why does the innovation in this space appear to be mostly from China?

manuelabeledo• 3 years ago

Manufacture happens primarily there.

Battery chemistry breakthroughs don’t come that usually from China, though.

ZeroGravitas5• 3 years ago

China became dependant on oil imports in the mid 1990s even as further massive economic growth was planned.

Being weak on oil and strong on manufacturing led them to take a less insane approach to climate change than in more oil dominated economies.

all23• 3 years ago

This is a hysterical take given that China, next to India, is the single largest polluter on the planet and continually refuses to have anything to do with the West's obsession with climate change.

tregtebrevre2• 3 years ago

It's pretty simple.

China strategically took over a huge percentage of the world's manufacturing ability, and access to essential minerals. They are now reaping the rewards of other countries' mandated switch to renewable tech.

ZeroGravitas5• 3 years ago

The primary selling point of the battery discussed in the story is that it doesn't use certain "essential" minerals.

imtringued2• 3 years ago

Because they are in the process of building a new generation of car companies that don't have legacy products.

crote2• 3 years ago

That's just getting ridiculous.

Sure, there are edge cases where this makes sense, but the average daily commute is well under 100km. A 500km battery is quite useful for family trips once a month, but beyond that you are getting into silly territory. For a "mainstream model", a 1000km range is just wasteful.

Using their numbers, you are carrying an extra 75kg with you all the time for each extra 100km in range - or 375kg for those extra 500km of range. It's like hauling a trailer 24/7, just because you might need it one day.

rippercushions2• 3 years ago

This hasn't stopped America from adopting massive SUVs wholesale, even though they're only used to haul kids to soccer practice.

yurishimo• 3 years ago

The market here is Americans with massive vehicles or towing needs. You can provide many of these people all of the data that says they don't need that much range, but unless they can tow their boat 300 miles "on one tank of gas" then getting them to switch to an EV is impossible.

I'd imagine as more people buy EV's they will understand personally why they don't need 1,000km of range and then more of these batteries will go to use in large over the road trucks or planes.

tyingq2• 3 years ago

Perhaps it's handy for apartment dwellers who aren't able to get charged up daily?

pornel2• 3 years ago

Existing BEVs already need to be charged only once a week.

e.g. US median commute is 35 miles, and you can get 350-mile EVs. EVs are most efficient at low speeds, so in city driving they can reach their advertised range.

pulse7• 3 years ago

How much unneeded steal does your car carry around all the time? I don't have the feeling that cars in the US are minimalistic...

tehwebguy• 3 years ago

I mean, for most people, none?

rgmerk• 3 years ago

Real world highway range is lower than EPA or WLTP range (the range quoted in advertisements in the US or EU respectively), often substantially so.

EPA range is for a mix of highway and urban driving; unlike ICE vehicles, EVs get worse range on the highway, and typically highway driving is where you actually care about range on an EV.

Weather can also reduce EV range by quite a lot, particularly cold weather and headwinds.

But as others have pointed out, the elephant in the room is towing. Towing can more than double energy consumption. The F-150 Lightning will happily tow a 3-ton trailer, but if you tow that trailer at 70mph the Lightning will barely go 100 miles before needing a recharge.

So for a tow vehicle, an EPA range of 1000km would be extremely useful.

crote2• 3 years ago

Oh absolutely, but extremely few people regularly tow a trailer - if at all.

There are certainly use cases for cars with a 1000-km range, but the average consumer isn't going to need it.

eptcyka2• 3 years ago

When I bought my car, I bought it with the sole purpose of doing cross-country travel. I wouldn't need a brand new car with a warranty if that wasn't my intention. I've regularly done 1200+km days of travel with it. I wouldn't be able to comfortably achieve similar numbers with low capacity electric cars today.

A car is rarely if ever the optimal solution for a daily commute. Let people have long-range vehicles.

dublinben2• 3 years ago

You and the eleven other people who use your vehicles this way would be well suited with one of the handful of EVs with a range extender.

troyvit3• 3 years ago

I'm a little out of the loop as far as electric cars go so I'm using Teslas as a comparison.

If you don't have any special equipment in your house and need to charge your Tesla you get 2-3 miles of charge for every hour you charge it. In effect you're talking an overnight charge to get anywhere meaningful.[1]

If charging times were comparable to filling a tank with gas then yeah I can see how 1000km would be wasteful, but if for instance you wanted to take your electric car camping anywhere interesting, or even make real progress on a road trip, this range starts to make sense.

[1] https://www.tesla.com/support/charging

mavhc3• 3 years ago

You've not heard of rapid charging? Or even Level 2 charging? For $300 you can charge at 7kW at home, so that's 28 miles per hour. At rapid chargers you can charge at 300kW and easily get 1000 miles per hour

andrei_says_• 3 years ago

The case where this makes sense for me is to not have to own a second car for longer trips.

imtringued2• 3 years ago

On the other hand, these cars will last forever. Even if they lose 80% of their capacity they would still be useful.

pornel2• 3 years ago

The weight doesn't decrease, so at some point it'd make sense to replace the battery just to avoid hauling dead weight. However, such batteries can still be reused for stationary grid storage.

rippercushions2• 3 years ago

Meanwhile, Zeekr (Geely/Polestar/Volvo's new upmarket brand) is already delivering cars with a 1k+ km range.

https://thedriven.io/2023/05/19/zeekr-begins-deliveries-of-i...

ZeroGravitas5• 3 years ago

That uses the Qilin pack mentioned (as a rival) in this story.

Which points to the real good news: that multiple, credible, (very) high volume manufacturers seem to be simultaneously announcing breakthroughs on density, cost, weight and materials so it's not just one company's PR getting a little excited.

lttlrck• 3 years ago

The keyword appears to be "affordable" not "first"

ThrowawayTestr• 3 years ago

Perfect opportunity to use megameter wasted.

Kirby64• 3 years ago

Is this... actually anything meaningfully impressive? The article says they're doing it with a 140kWh battery. It just sounds like they packed a much larger battery into a normal sedan and got 1000km/620mi of range. The Lucid Air, for comparison, already gets 520mi of range on a 118kWh battery. Seems well within reason that if they packed another 22kWh of battery in then they, too could get that same range. And if you didn't actually need all the fancy performance that a Lucid Air gets, it seems like you could easily get well beyond that.

Volkswagen-backed Gotion unveils new EV battery with 1k km range

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