Next-Gen Samsung EV Battery Gets 300+ Miles of Range From 20-Minute Charge (techcrunch.com)

An anonymous reader quotes a report from TechCrunch: Samsung's SDI battery subsidiary announced a new battery cell designed for use in electric vehicles that offers improved density to manage a max range of up to 372 miles on a full charge, with a quick charge capacity that will help it regain 310 miles or so of charge on just 20 minutes of charging. Unveiled at the North American International Auto Show for the first time, the new battery tech come with a 10 percent decrease in the number of units and weight required vs. current production battery units made by Samsung SDI. Mass production isn't set to begin until 2021, but the tech should arrive in time to supply the first crop of autonomous cars, which are also targeting street dates sometime within that year from a range of manufacturers. A 20-minute charge delivering that kind of range would help considerably with making EVs more practical for more drivers; it's around the time you'd spend at a rest stop using the restroom and grabbing coffee or a snack, after all. By comparison, Tesla's superchargers currently manage to provide around 170 miles of range on a half-hour charge, so Samsung's planned tech could approximately double that.

Comments

Not to rain on the parade, but...

[Digital Avatar]

I'm sure it'll be available at the low, LOW price of just $50,000. Such a bargain! That is, ultimately, what keeps most people from ever considering an electric vehicle: They're just too damn expensive.

Re:Not to rain on the parade, but...

[Obfuscant]

In July 2015 I bought a certified-used 2013 Nissan LEAF with 11K miles on it for ~$15K. ... because the bottom line is it saves us money.

The current price for a Leaf replacement battery is $5500 plus install etc., so say $6000 ballpark. At $2.50/gallon, that's 2400 gallons of gas. Say you get a car that does 30MPG, that's 72,000 miles.

Your used car was driven 5000 miles per year. To go 72,000 miles, that would be 14 years of driving. The expected lifetime of the battery pack is 10 years. You're four years short of breaking even.

You already limit your driving due to range, relying on a second car for longer trips, or just a lot of small trips in a day. That car costs money that you haven't factored in. Yes, you might claim that you need a second car anyway so the cost doesn't add in, but every time you are using that second car you prevent it from being used for its original purpose, and so the costs do add in.

Is your electric car really saving you money in the long run? Yeah, you get to laugh at people who have stopped at the gas station as you drive by, but they'll be laughing at you when you complain about a $6000 battery change. And it will be even funnier in five years as you sit by the side of the highway wondering why you didn't get the same range from your battery that you got today, and how could you have miss-planned this trip so badly?

Re:How many charge/discharge cycles?

[Harlequin80]

At 900,000 miles I suspect that the state of the battery pack is the least of your worries..... On any normal car the entire running system has either been replaced or so heavily maintained that it may as well have been replaced.

Re:How many charge/discharge cycles?

[Ungrounded Lightning]

... the first thing I always want to see in regards to car battery technology is how many charge/discharge cycles can it handle?

That's the wrong metric for lithium ion batteries.

As I understand it, the main ageing mechanism that kills them is oxidation of the graphite anode, which starts when the cell is manufactured and isn't appreciably affected by usage except for being accelerated somewhat by being stored at high temperatures with low (20%) charge.

Charge/discharge cycling does cause some "wear", but it's generally a smaller effect. (That's why the advice for, for instance, laptop batteries is not to avoid using them. For long term storage unused they last the longest if put away at about 40% charge.)

This means that it's mainly the age of the cells, not their usage or charge history, that determines when they die. A pack designed for 7 years life will probably give you 7 years life unless you either run it nearly all the way down (which the battery management logic should prevent) or run it down to a low charge and leave it out in the sun for months.

Also: At least one new anode material appears not to age measurably at all.