Written by / Zhang Ou
Editor/ Wu Jing
Design / Shi Yuchao
Source/Vox By Rebecca Heilweil
Image source/Eliana Rodgers/Vox
The revolutionary debut of lithium-ion batteries was in the 1990s. Until now, we are familiar with the life of charging in a few hours or less, using laptops, mobile phones and other electronic products.
The extremely high energy density makes lithium-ion batteries the preferred form of energy storage. Lithium itself is the lightest metal on the periodic table, which is why it has become a necessity for light travel.
But today, 30 years later, this battery technology seems to be a bit out of step, and finally the time has come to make major upgrades.
The harsh reality of climate change adds a burden to it – not only to power everyday electronics, but also to start powering vehicles on a larger scale with higher power needs. These batteries are almost pushed to the limit.
They have a limited lifespan and a limited number of charge and discharge cycles. This is also one of the biggest concerns about electric vehicles, because only more capacity can give a longer range, and it is not only responsible for the range, but also other essential functions in the car.
Therefore, if this electrification revolution is to succeed, the innovation of batteries is crucial.
What people are pursuing now is to make the vehicle go as far as possible on a single charge, to maintain the lightest possible weight, and to be safer and less prone to deflagration. Due to the risk of battery fire, GM has started several recalls of the Chevrolet Bolt in 2021.
Today, lithium-ion batteries in cars are made from scarce materials such as cobalt and nickel, and the price is getting higher and higher. Shortages of these materials will eventually hinder electrification across the automotive industry.
RJ Scaringe, CEO of EV startup Rivian, warned that eviction cells around the world are currently less than 10% of the expected demand for the next 10 years, and that according to existing battery technologies, production speeds are far from keeping up with consumption rates.
The race to solve these problems is accelerating.
Including CATL and LG New Energy, major battery manufacturers around the world are rethinking the possibilities of batteries, enabling them to play a better role in the application of electric vehicles. At the same time, car companies such as Ford Motor and General Motors are also investing in new battery research, hoping to have an advantage in competing with Tesla.
Even the government is involved.
In March 2022, U.S. President Joe Biden invoked the Defense Production Act (which allows the president to allocate funds in emergencies to boost domestic production of specific products) to increase U.S. domestic supplies of rare metals and materials used in electric vehicles.
It seems that everything is going in a good direction, but time is the most important thing. The pace of climate change will not stop, and every fuel vehicle speeding on the road is exacerbating this threat.
Fortunately, better battery technology isn't just being developed, it's already starting to hit the market.
The possibility of new materials
In the field of electric vehicles, automakers often put dozens of lithium-ion batteries into protective cases, called modules. The modules are assembled into a larger battery pack that powers the electric vehicle.
However, lithium-ion batteries are not perfect for electric vehicles. In addition to the risk of deflagration, the average endurance of ordinary electric vehicles is 418 kilometers. This is enough for daily travel needs, but it also makes many drivers worry about long-distance travel.
Lithium itself has some problems. Lithium mining is not environmentally friendly, and now, there are not even enough lithium mines in the world to provide us with the materials we need, and other metals commonly used in lithium-ion batteries are also somewhat more or less unsatisfactory problems.
A relatively straightforward approach to making better batteries is to use different materials for traditional lithium-ion technology. New materials each have advantages and disadvantages, and some new permutations may be more suitable for electric vehicles.
One of these combinations is called lithium iron phosphate batteries, which incorporate lower-cost material into the battery cathode.
While these batteries can't hold up as much energy as other lithium-ion batteries, they allow automakers to make more batteries for less money, making electric vehicles less expensive and more affordable to price.
Lithium iron phosphate batteries are already widely used in China, and Musk announced in the fall of 2021 that Tesla will also begin using lithium iron phosphate in some models.
Another way is to change the material of the battery anode. Currently, the anodes of many lithium-ion batteries are made of graphite because it is relatively inexpensive and can last a long time. But a handful of startups are using silicon, the material used to make computer chips.
Batteries using silicon anodes can maintain 10 times the charge of the graphite anode and increase the overall energy capacity of the battery. Companies such as Sila Nanotechnology, NEO Battery Materials and Enovix are currently conducting related research and development and design.
The development of solid-state batteries
Regarding solid-state batteries, there is currently a representative idea of using a solid electrolyte instead of a traditional electrolyte.
This solid material is not a huge lump, but a single-layer material like glass or ceramic. Solid electrolytes are more compact, which means solid-state batteries can be smaller and store more energy, and it's also not as flammable as traditional lithium-ion batteries.
But solid-state batteries still face some hurdles.
They are expensive and difficult to produce on a large scale, so far they have mainly appeared in laboratories. In addition, the anodes of many solid-state battery designs are made of lithium metal, not graphite. This lithium metal sometimes forms dendrites, i.e. branches of metal that leak from the anode into the electrolyte, which can lead to cracking and short circuiting of solid-state batteries.
Of course, this is not to say that the future of these batteries is only a dead end.
They've been incorporated into some pacemakers, headset prototypes and other electronic devices, and now auto giants are figuring out how to adapt the technology so they can eventually play a role in cars as well.
There has even been some encouraging progress.
Volkswagen, Ford Motor Andelantis have all invested in the technology. Toyota also plans to release a hybrid vehicle with solid-state batteries by 2025, and Nissan hopes to launch an electric vehicle using solid-state batteries by 2028.
Another company, called QuantumScape, shares a bolder study that could make it work and charge even faster than other batteries — a solid-state battery that doesn't require an anode at all.
Integration with the product
Ultimately, lithium-ion batteries may not look like the batteries we think they are at all. They become part of the product or equipment they supply and become one with it.
This is the structural battery. For example, a battery becomes part of a car body or an airplane fuselage.
This method can solve the most basic size and weight problems of batteries. Theoretically, allowing one car part to act as energy at the same time could reduce the overall size of an electric vehicle. This also means that it is possible to use fewer raw materials overall.
This concept is gradually being incorporated into vehicles already on the road.
Tesla has designed a new structural battery that will attach directly to the seats of its Model Y, just as Volvo plans to support the car floor by designing batteries, and GM has already introduced models that use batteries to strengthen the vehicle's chassis.
Now it sounds like these may be just minor adjustments. But in the future, we're highly likely to see cars, or even airplanes, powered entirely by our own bodies.
Batteries are the protagonists of powering cars, but it's not the only job.
To get rid of the effects of fossil fuels, we need to use renewable energy sources such as solar and wind. However, since the sun and wind don't always show up just when they need it, we can only store their energy.
This means that our homes, cities, and even the grid will need batteries, and they will be very, very large.
These batteries don't necessarily have the same needs as electric car batteries, just as batteries that power cars and batteries that power mobile phones are two different things.
Fortunately, the battery that stores energy for the house does not need to be particularly light or fast. That is, these batteries do not necessarily need lithium at all, and can use emerging alternatives such as sodium and zinc.
Despite their different compositions and uses, they will all play a key role in powering and mitigating climate change.
In the future, we'll have more options, and maybe even power electric cars with portable nuclear reactors. But obviously, these ideas are really just thinking about it at the moment.
This article was originally produced by Automotive Business Review
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