Tesla promises best Atari games will feature in v9.0 car update

[peterb]

To be fair only like 2% of the composition of a car battery is lithium. There needs to be more robust programmes of using the old ones for static storage etc for the lithium ion ones. I've heard that solid state batteries are going to be made from sodium ion and have advantages across the board; bigger capacity, quicker charge time and obviously environmentally.

Sodium/Sulphur batteries are fairly old technology, certainly postulated for load levelling and traction purposes as far back as 1967.

The problem is that the reactive compounds have to in a liquid state and they have a high melting point which gave problems with cell life - and and maintaining the fluid state of the electrolyte. That said, there has been development and they may have applications for load levelling, in much the same way the LiIon batteries have been used recently.

Week? About £11.
How much does it cost to charge your car?
How much do you think the stations will start charging (and believe me, they WILL, because it's always about profit) once EVs are in the majority?

No more than fossil fuel stations. What will be challenging is for Governments to make up for lost fuel duty, which could be made up by increasing VAT on external charging points (as opposed to home charging)

And the more EVs I see, the less I think we'll be driving them.

Well, thats a point of view, but I'm not sure how valid it is. EVs might be a small percentage of all car sales, but they have the fastest rate of growth.

The biggest selling point people throw at me is how fast they can go 0-60... I can already get that in under 3 seconds and you do NOT want the general population having access to that kind of power...

But its OK for you because???

the only option is to make them all autonymous, which kills off the entire ability to drive in one swift H&S bulletin.

Well, that will come to improve road utilisation

Besides, they sound ridiculous and people keep stepping out in front of them

As they do with conventional vehicles

they look like ridiculous imitations of an AppleStore inside and they're just soul-less.... and they cost a fortune.

Subjective!

Diesel forever, or I'll walk!!

Better get some walking boots then - the writing is on the wall for diesels medium term. But rail against EVs as much as you like - they are a fact of life, and unless there is a revolution in public transport, you will be seeing more of them.

[outwar6010]

Sodium/Sulphur batteries are fairly old technology, certainly postulated for load levelling and traction purposes as far back as 1967.

The problem is that the reactive compounds have to in a liquid state and they have a high melting point which gave problems with cell life - and and maintaining the fluid state of the electrolyte. That said, there has been development and they may have applications for load levelling, in much the same way the LiIon batteries have been used recently.



No more than fossil fuel stations. What will be challenging is for Governments to make up for lost fuel duty, which could be made up by increasing VAT on external charging points (as opposed to home charging)





Well, thats a point of view, but I'm not sure how valid it is. EVs might be a small percentage of all car sales, but they have the fastest rate of growth.




But its OK for you because???



Well, that will come to improve road utilisation



As they do with conventional vehicles



Subjective!



Better get some walking boots then - the writing is on the wall for diesels medium term. But rail against EVs as much as you like - they are a fact of life, and unless there is a revolution in public transport, you will be seeing more of them.

A fair few companies like dyson etc have invested billions into developing the new batteries so it must not be far off. I just hope it trickles down into consumer tech like phones laptops etc fairly quickly after.

[CAT-THE-FIFTH]

To be fair only like 2% of the composition of a car battery is lithium. There needs to be more robust programmes of using the old ones for static storage etc for the lithium ion ones. I've heard that solid state batteries are going to be made from sodium ion and have advantages across the board; bigger capacity, quicker charge time and obviously environmentally.

Current consumer electronics is mostly "exported" to the world countries when dumped,and most of the batteries in those seem to have poor recycling levels. You also need to realise how huge batteries in cars are and also need to consider the amount of cars now are smallish. Look how many cars are on the road including dinosaur juice ones,and then consider what will happen when all cars are electric within the next 10 to 20 years. By 2025 90% of the lithium ion batteries will be for cars.

Also again the predictions for re-use of batteries is 60% usage and 40% dumped and that is for car batteries,not the smaller ones.

You are talking about 100s of 1000s of tonnes of lithium containing materials within a few years,and even more in the next decade,which by extension is probably millions of tons of actual batteries. 11 million tonnes is the estimate by 2025.



https://www.theguardian.com/sustaina...hium-recycling

Umicore, which has invested €25m (£22.6m) into an industrial pilot plant in Antwerp to recycle lithium-ion batteries, has deals in Europe with both Tesla and Toyota to use smelting to recover precious metals such as cobalt and nickel. Grynberg says: “We have proven capabilities to recycle spent batteries from electric vehicles and are prepared to scale them up when needed.”

Problem solved? Not exactly. While commercial smelting processes such as Umicore’s can easily recover many metals, they can’t directly recover the vital lithium, which ends up in a mixed byproduct. Umicore says it can reclaim lithium from the byproduct, but each extra process adds cost.

This means that while electric vehicle batteries might be taken to recycling facilities, there’s no guarantee the lithium itself will be recovered if it doesn’t pay to do so.

Investment bank Morgan Stanley in June said it forecast no recycling of lithium at all over the decade ahead, and that there risked being insufficient recycling infrastructure in place when the current wave of batteries die. “There still needs to be more development to get to closed loop recycling where all materials are reclaimed,” says Jessica Alsford, head of the bank’s global sustainable research team. “There’s a difference between being able to do something and it making economic sense.”
Second life for batteries

Francisco Carranza, energy services MD at Nissan, says the fundamental problem is that while the cost of fully recycling a battery is falling toward €1 per kilo, the value of the raw materials that can be reclaimed is only a third of that.

The lack of recycling capacity is “a tragedy”, says Amrit Chandan, a chemical engineer leading business development at Aceleron, a hi-tech British startup looking to transform end of life batteries. “It takes so much energy to extract these materials from the ground. If we don’t re-use them we could be making our environmental problems worse,” he says.

Linda Gaines, transportation system analyst and electric vehicle battery expert at the Argonne National Laboratory in the US says: “The bottom line is there’s time to build plants”. “But”, she adds, “we don’t know what kinds of batteries they’ll be yet. It would help if the batteries were standardised and designed for recycling, but they’re not.”

I think its utterly hypocracy to sell electric cars as "saving the environment" then proceed to not recycle as much of the car as possible to save a few quid. Think about the actual costs - basically they are probably complaining about a few £100 quid being added to the cost of a battery,which is nothing compared to the cost of a whole car.

Argonne National Laboratory is one of the biggest National Laboratories in the US:

Argonne is a multidisciplinary science and engineering research center, where talented scientists and engineers work together to answer the biggest questions facing humanity, from how to obtain affordable clean energy to protecting ourselves and our environment. Ever since we were born out of the University of Chicago’s work on the Manhattan Project in the 1940s, our goal has been to make an impact — from the atomic to the human to the global scale.

The laboratory works in concert with universities, industry, and other national laboratories on questions and experiments too large for any one institution to do by itself. Through collaborations here and around the world, we strive to discover new ways to develop energy innovations through science, create novel materials molecule-by-molecule, and gain a deeper understanding of our planet, our climate, and the cosmos.

Surrounded by the highest concentration of top-tier research organizations in the world, Argonne leverages its Chicago-area location to lead discovery and to power innovation in a wide range of core scientific capabilities, from high-energy physics and materials science to biology and advanced computer science.

At Argonne, we explore the world together in order to build a better one.

They themselves are involved in developing sustainable battery tech such as organic batteries:

https://msutoday.msu.edu/news/2018/o...-national-lab/

These don't use lithium AFAIK:

https://www.theregister.co.uk/2018/0...ight_the_cold/

Apparently Mercedes has started to invest in it,which is a good sign.


Current lithium based technologies are not a good idea,especially if you see where the materials need for the batteries are mined like cobalt and nickel:

https://www.cbsnews.com/news/kids-co...rnative-congo/
https://www.theguardian.com/sustaina...cars-batteries

A lot of the coltan is mined in places using child labour,with 60% coming from the DRC.

Then since most lithium is dumped they are trying to look for new sources:

https://www.smh.com.au/world/lithium...23-gwb8me.html
https://www.theguardian.com/sustaina...ithium-bolivia

The Bolivian salt flats are being mined for Lithium.

What is better - recycling 28 tons of batteries to get one ton of Lithium,or digging up 1250 tons of earth to get one ton of Lithium out of the ground??

The fact is Lithium demand will skyrocket,as time progresses.Recycling more batteries is imperative as we can't just expect to dig more and more out of the ground. Lithium is also toxic too,so just dumping it is not ideal.

There needs to be more money put into recycling. The stupid "cost" arguments are just the car industry trying to shirk its own responsibilities,which they keep doing and doing and its taking governments to push for more recycling. Examples include VW just lying about emissions,or in the 60s with them selling cars which they knew would explode.

[peterb]

Current consumer electronics is mostly "exported" to the world countries when dumped,and most of the batteries in those seem to have poor recycling levels. You also need to realise how huge batteries in cars are and also need to consider the amount of cars now are smallish. Look how many cars are on the road including dinosaur juice ones,and then consider what will happen when all cars are electric within the next 10 to 20 years. By 2025 90% of the lithium ion batteries will be for cars.

Also again the predictions for re-use of batteries is 60% usage and 40% dumped and that is for car batteries,not the smaller ones.

You are talking about 100s of 1000s of tonnes of lithium containing materials within a few years,and even more in the next decade,which by extension is probably millions of tons of actual batteries. 11 million tonnes is the estimate by 2025.

That is the case at the moment - but as the demand for lithium rises, so will recycling facilities. Cars currently have many recycleable components, from steel used in the construction through to some plastics used in interiors. Lead acid batteries are currently recycled, there is now reason why LiIon cells shouldn't be when there is a steady supply.

EVs have only started to become mainstream in the last 5 years or so - and the LiIon cells have a projected lifespan of 8 years, the main impetus for recycling hasn't been reached yet.

[CAT-THE-FIFTH]

That is the case at the moment - but as the demand for lithium rises, so will recycling facilities. Cars currently have many recycleable components, from steel used in the construction through to some plastics used in interiors. Lead acid batteries are currently recycled, there is now reason why LiIon cells shouldn't be when there is a steady supply.

EVs have only started to become mainstream in the last 5 years or so - and the LiIon cells have a projected lifespan of 8 years, the main impetus for recycling hasn't been reached yet.

It isn't current but includes projections in the next 7 years,which is the issue.

If you read the links peterb,from many people involved in the industry and analysts,the main reason any kind of recycling is down to governments,ie,why China leads the world in recycling. Also,like I said by 2025,there will be 11 million tons of batteries needing to be recycled,so that essentially only leaves 6 years for the capacity to be built up,and sadly it seems only 9% of all batteries in 2025 are to be made using recycled content.

The fact is when Nissan is moaning recycling costs are too high and Morgan Stanley saying that the costs of recycling means little progress is being made,its a joke. Even looking at the costs mentioned,its literally a few 100 dollars per car,and that is for cars which costs 10s of 1000s of Dollars. I would imagine it would be quite easy for them to even charge a bit more,if they told car buyers they were doing it to reduce environmental overheads.

ATM,China leads in recycling and only 5% of batteries are recycled in Europe. Even re-use of batteries will barely hit 60% and that still means they do need to be recycled.

The fact is this is what the car industry does - look at VW making all the noise about lower emission cars to sell more of them,and then lied,or back in the 60s were car companies sold cars which would explode to save a few bucks. They are selling EVs as a "feature" not a genuine want to be enviromentally friendly and seem to be being pushed more by governments to do anything environmentally friendly.

Hence,governments need to push more.

Governments around the world need to force car companies now to push forward recycling at an increased pace,or fine them or make them pay for full cycle cleanup costs for dumped batteries. Soon that will make them stop moaning about recycling costing more.

Plus my view,I really hope organic batteries take off,as they should avoid having to use things like Lithium,etc. The hilarious thing is oil companies seem to be investing in the new organic batteries:

https://qz.com/1287299/electric-car-...estor-big-oil/

It wouldn't surprise me is since they think they can use oil products to make them. However,my main interest in organic batteries is that it opens up far more ways to get the said raw materials than dig them out of the ground.

There are also newer generations of organic wet cells being developed:

https://newatlas.com/organic-redox-flow-battery/32739/

Another one using cotton:

https://www.theatlantic.com/technolo...-tesla/362112/

No Lithium,etc.

We need to stop thinking an answer to everything is digging more stuff out of the ground as it won't work longterm,if people truly want to be actually help the environment in any way. Technologies need to be developed from the start with recycling and reuse in mind.

Not,oh,this fancy tech looks cool,but we will think about the environmental effects of making them and recycling second.

Also,I don't consider myself an environmentalist,but if we are going to push technologies with the environment in mind,at least do it properly,otherwise its a half hearted effort,and then to cut one type of pollution we create another type. However,I do consider recycling which just makes sense longterm - humanity can't keep digging stuff out of the ground and throwing it away,because we will probably start hitting major issues over a few decades.

[Ttaskmaster]

No more than fossil fuel stations. What will be challenging is for Governments to make up for lost fuel duty, which could be made up by increasing VAT on external charging points (as opposed to home charging)

Even if it's no more, it's still not a selling point for me... and given how much our energy bills are being hiked up, I reckon EVs will end up costing a lot more in the years to come!!

Well, thats a point of view, but I'm not sure how valid it is. EVs might be a small percentage of all car sales, but they have the fastest rate of growth.

No, I mean humans will not be in control of them.
The whole culture around one's vehicles, learning to drive, teaching to drive, going out for a drive on a Sunday, and the extent some go to modifying and imrpoving both their ride and their driving skills... all will be utterly negated when our only option is an autonymous box.

But its OK for you because???

I'm on a motorcycle which you can hear revving up even before I go that fast, and it still takes me three seconds... and generally if I am abusing it and/or making a mistake I'm most likely to kill just myself.

Now imagine a near-silent car (as in even guide dogs can't hear it) that can go 0-60 in under 2.4 seconds, and put it in the hands of all those dithering wallies that hit the wrong pedal, or the BMW drivers that weave down the motorway cutting everyone up, or just the generally bad and selfish drivers you meet every day - Mostly minor incidents now, but not for long. Accidents generally occur because people do not leave enough space for reacting to situations. You give people faster cars, they will drive faster and give themselves (and those around them) even less space for reactions.

Heck, give someone an automatic car of today and watch as their ability to simply floor it without worrying about stalling leads to more reckless driving, pulling out with less space, and generally chancing things a bit more than they used to. I've seen it happen a lot among my friends and even recognised it in myself. But less than an hour ago we went out for an office lunch - Bloke with the Nissan Leaf was in front of me and, without fail, he too was hooning off every light as fast as he could. This is a 50-something father of three pre-teen kids, not some Kev, either.

By contrast, it's reckoned that riding a bike needs a similar skillset and awareness to a fighter pilot - Do you see that level of skill and awareness on the road?

As they do with conventional vehicles

Supposedly more so with EVs, though, especially in parking areas.
I've been driving and riding since 1992 and can't actually recall anyone stepping out in front of me. I've been in a car once when someone did and they were technically on a bicycle. Every other time, I've been a ped myself.

Subjective!

No more than RGB on stuff... except the affording part - I cannot afford one. FACT.
If it looks like a bag of tosh and I can't afford it, what's the point in it? "We can save the planet, we can live green...... but only if you're rich enough".... Stuff the planet, then.

Better get some walking boots then - the writing is on the wall for diesels medium term. But rail against EVs as much as you like - they are a fact of life, and unless there is a revolution in public transport, you will be seeing more of them.

It will be decades before I can afford them anyway, so yes I will be walking. It will be several more decades before the things actually are the "viable replacement" they're being sold as, by which time they'll be autonymous and all joy in driving will be gone.