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Russia Building World's Largest Li-Ion Battery Plant
MikeChino writes "Russia and China are gearing up to dominate the lithium-ion battery industry by launching the world's largest Li-ion plant (press release). Planned for Novobirsk, Russia, the facility will be a joint venture between Chinese firm Thunder Sky and RUSNANO (a Russian state-run corporation) and it will be able to produce up to 500,000 batteries (of all sizes) per year."
This might just kick the electric car into mainstream mass production, as the cost of reasonable battery technology falls below production costs with illegal subsidies.
SJW: a person who perceives an injustice, and while correcting it, commits a greater injustice.
500,000 batteries per year is considered that large? When Apple is selling close to 20,000,000 iPads/year? And iPhones, and all the PC manufacturers laptops/netbooks, and all the Android phones, and all the other phones? What do they all do, buy batteries from dozens of different manufacturers for each of their popular products? Really?
Those piddly little things are called cells. If you only have on in a device, yes you might call it a battery, but you would be bringing shame to the likes of REAL batteries. In TFA, they have a pic of a 40V/40AH *battery* which means it can deliver 1600 WH, or the equivalent of around 1,000 of those piddly little "batteries" you refer to that inhabit iThings.
Contrary to many scare reports, lithium is not particularly rare or expensive -- under $10 a kilogram for lithium carbonate, which is used to make a dozen or two percent of the mass of batteries that sell for hundreds of dollars per kilogram. It's a couple percent of the cost. The main risk for lithium is temporary supply shortages, where demand outgrows production rates (it takes many years to get a new mine started). And of course, everyone wants to produce the cheapest stuff, but the cheapest stuff isn't always in the best of locations (producing from seawater -- a basically boundless supply -- costs ~$30 or so per kilogram of carbonate, versus a couple dollars per kilogram from a good lithium-rich playa.
It's not batteries that will be displaced by elevated lithium prices, but the other uses, which currently make up the vast majority of lithium consumption -- alloys, greases, glass, ceramics, etc.
Future headline #86: "GM to Recall Three Remaining Cars"
Perhaps the poster should have read the article. The 500,000 figure comes from the number of buses they expect to be able to equip with batteries each year. It seems while we can't even read, the Chinese and the Russians are moving ahead to OWN the battery market for vehicles.
There are numerous other countries with shittier conditions than China and Russia. The latter one is generally quite good, actually. China too, especially compared to the truly cheap countries.
Yes yes, Russian products still use trusty vacuum tube! Not like in west. Our mono stereo sys-tems truly go to eleven, perhaps even twelve if you run outside in winter times or heating not working.
Actually Ladas are quite high quality make, some important parts from ladas are used in rally.
They are known to be quite reliable too (the old RWD ones), up to a certain point. They can't take as much wear in general, but until they are worn out they are damn reliable ones.
The better models have intriguing accessories too, one would not expect to see in many cars, sport version a friend owned had voltage, rpm, oil press, oil temp gauges, surprisingly fuel injected for such an old car, and other neat little things.
Also the lesser models were tuned for the russian cheap gasoline, for our usage you could easily tune it up to produce quite a bit more within an single night, changing the tune up for the higher quality fuel we got.
Parts are tremendously cheap too.
They are meant to be cheap commodity cars, and for that purpose i think they did quite well. The newer ladas tho ... They all seem to suck and have shoddy quality.
Disclaimer: I've never owned a lada, i've only driven a lada once (and i hated it, was some reaaally old model with funky steering wheel angle), and will not own one. I'm simply a fan of classic, simple, RWD cars.
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