this post was submitted on 02 Oct 2024
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Actually exciting battery tech that isn't just fluff. They actually built the thing and tested it, rather than it being a theoretical, not-easily-produced thing and it worked.
As others have said, this is for grid-scale and not EVs, but still exceptional progress and very important for energy storage.
I wouldn't write off EV usage too quickly. The lithium batteries in EVs right now are around 160Wh/kg. The sodium batteries coming out of production lines now are about the same, but are also substantially cheaper, safer, and built out of more abundant materials.
Yes, if you compare them to top of the line lithium batteries coming out of assembly lines now, they don't look as good, but those batteries aren't in actual cars yet. It's very likely that we'll see cheap EVs running sodium batteries, and they'll often be good enough. We need more charge stations more than we need better batteries (as far as EVs go).
Will be interesting if they need the same thermal management that lithium packs do. That adds a fair amount of weight to the system