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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.
Avoiding the obvious comment/joke/pun regarding fiery past Samsung has with rechargeable products recently, the first thing I always want to see in regards to car battery technology is how many charge/discharge cycles can it handle?
If we were to assume the worst case, a vehicle could be driven 600 miles (two charge/discharge cycles) every day. Multiply that by 300 days in a year and an expected 5 (7?) year life, this is 3,000 charge/discharge cycles and what I see for most lithium battery technology is usually around 500 cycles. This doesn't include temperature extremes (say from -30C to 45C).
Can this (or any) technology provide this kind of life in a car environment? What do Tesla batteries claim to be able to do?
Mimetics Inc. Twitter
Only on startup will electric heating be required to heat the cabin. Once the battery is up to temperature heating can be accomplished the same was it is now by piping some of the battery coolant through a heater core. If designed correctly (and the driver plans correctly) initial heating can actually be done while the car is still connected to the charger.
sudo mod me up
Although there's a limit to how fast a battery can be charged before it overheats and explodes or simply damages itself, don't forget that there's a practical limit to how much power you can realistically draw from a typical house outlet. A Gallon of gasoline is estimated to have 33.41 KwH! (A normal gas engine throws a good portion of that energy away as heat.) That gallon of gas is pretty close to what my typical household uses in the entire day for electricity! So to pull down the equivalent of a couple of gallons of gas in 20 minutes is going to take the equivalent power drain of a sub-station transformer. It's why you don't see a commercial fast Tesla charger at home. A typical house doesn't use a 480 volt industrial power feed. You don't want much more current in the hands of consumers. A small mistake could cause a nasty explosion / arc.