I seriously hope the next US administration stops bending over backwards to protect the big 3. If we want to address climate change, we're gonna low cost greentech and china is currently the king of that in evs, batteries and solar.
If we're really so concerned about 'supply chain' issues we could build up a strategic reserve of batteries and solar panels. If china wants to continue subsidizing their industry below costs of manufacture I see no reason why we shouldn't exploit their generosity to meet our climate goals as quickly as possible.
One of the 'good news' stories re: the recent datacenter buildout is that grid storage is now being more widely deployed, and that compliments the roll out of renewable energy.
thewebguyd · 6h ago
Hear, Hear. We are seriously missing out over here in the US and continuing to be protectionist over the big 3 automakers is not going to improve our climate situation.
I consistently hear 2 main arguments against electric vehicles in the US. Range, and cost.
BYD & China is solving both. Range is important because we lack charging infrastructure still, and anyone who rents at an apartment complex, you are screwed and have to rely on public charging stations. Big batteries are important for these folks. People also still have range anxiety, so when a fuel efficient gas car will get ~400+ miles per full tank, only having more expensive cars with a ~250 mile range is a non starter for a lot of people in the US.
Cost is self explanatory. One of the better electric cars sold in the US, the Ioniq 6 STARTS at $38k, which is already more than a significant chunk of the population can afford - you're looking at close to an $800/month payment at current rates for entry level. BYD could sell in the US at around $20,000.
tashoecraft · 3h ago
Byd recently came out saying the hyper competitive landscape and low prices needs to end soon. The Chinese government is propping up a lot of their auto industry right now. So some protectionism is needed if you don’t want one of the last bits of manufacturing strength to disappear in the US.
Spivak · 55m ago
Genuine question, we have manufacturing strength in the US auto industry?
Even among Americans, American cars aren't considered that good. There's a massive reliability premium you pay for Honda and Toyota. Even cars with 100k miles on them (frustratingly as a buyer) keep their value. And they're manufactured in the US, inasmuch as any car can be said to be manufactured in a single location.
I've been searching around and I can't even find data about other countries importing our cars which to me would be the biggest signal of strength.
aianus · 32m ago
Teslas are great cars.
I've only been in BYDs in Mexican Ubers and I would not buy one, it felt cheap and plasticky and creaked.
bratsche · 26m ago
I have a 2018 Model 3 and your description of BYD is exactly how I would describe my Tesla. It feels cheap and plasticky and it creaks. I also briefly had a Model 3 rental car that was newer than mine (but I don't know what year it was) and it also felt the same.
Spivak · 22m ago
I had thought about throwing an exception for Tesla because they did manage to create cars that people outside the US want. So I guess that does count but I doubt they're what anyone thinks of when they think of American car makes.
Oh I would for sure buy a BYD today if I were able. The ones I've ridden in have been really nice. I mean they are literally plastic but so is every car in the "economy" price range. I don't think their interiors were noticeably different than any other non-luxury car. I've been told that their higher end models don't have this problem.
toomuchtodo · 6h ago
Not to say EV charging has been solved, it is still very much in progress, but 64% of Americans live within 2 miles of a public charging station. We should continue to use policy to encourage "EV ready" infra in residential and apartment settings, places of business, commercial/retail, government, etc, but lots of folks can be served today. The vast majority US housing stock is single family homes (attached and detached combined), and those can, in most cases, be upgraded to support a dedicated circuit for charging. And, to your point, you'll also want to mandate new apartment building build outs are EV charging ready for their tenants.
> The number of EV charging stations has more than doubled since 2020. In December 2020, the Department of Energy reported that there were nearly 29,000 public charging stations nationwide. By February 2024, that number had increased to more than 61,000 stations. Over 95% of the American public now lives in a county that has at least one public EV charging station.
> EV charging stations are most accessible to residents of urban areas: 60% of urban residents live less than a mile from the nearest public EV charger, compared with 41% of those in the suburbs and just 17% of rural Americans.
2 miles is an awfully long way, and 36% of Americans are even further away. That’s 4 miles round trip. Presumably many of those charging stations aren’t that big and disallow you leaving your car overnight. The rest of the numbers are similarly bad.
nothercastle · 2h ago
The chargers probably have 2/4 chargers working at any given time.
richardw · 4h ago
It’s not insane to hope many cars will be able to go and charge themselves at 2am, when roads are quiet and chargers are free, a few years from now. Optimise over the entire system, schedule it, car ready for the morning.
margalabargala · 2h ago
This is going to be a long time coming. Owners of EVs overwhelmingly live in houses not apartments. No one is going to send their car off to pay many times their home rate per kWh when they could get a home L2 charger and charge it themselves. It would pay for itself in under a year.
richardw · 1h ago
My comment is not solving for people who would be better served by charging at home, because they don’t care about the distance to a charger. Waymo’s can already find their own way to a charger, so it’s not a huge stretch to imagine people innovating around this problem for owned cars.
margalabargala · 10m ago
Waymo might build a waymo specific solution, but the general case for the general population won't exist for a long time.
The demand isn't there. The group of people who buy EVs and don't have a home to charge at is too small. And that won't change until the economics of purchasing an EV fundamentally change.
toomuchtodo · 4h ago
Doesn’t appear to be a problem for EV sales. Is your closest gas station 2 miles away?
> 64% of Americans live within 2 miles of a public charging station.
If this includes AC chargers, leaving your car for 8 hours 2 miles away is an absolute pain.
If it doesn't, the question becomes are the chargers occupied? Are they operational?
Waiting at a gas station takes a minute, waiting at a charger takes 30.
I've been driving an EV for more than 5 years and pretending that charging isn't a significant hindrance to EV ownership is disingenuous. It's actually gotten worse because more EVs are on the road and the chargers haven't kept pace with the rising demand.
teruakohatu · 47m ago
> It's actually gotten worse because more EVs are on the road and the chargers haven't kept pace with the rising demand.
It is curious that this is the case. If chargers were profitable a couple of years ago, you would expect more chargers and more profit today.
I haven’t noticed much growth in chargers where I live but I have noticed more EVs on the road.
tass · 3h ago
I’m lucky to be able to charge quickly at home.
I’m currently on a road trip and was leaving the car at a nearby charger which was walking distance from where I’m staying - I can’t imagine owning one where either this wasn’t available or there wasn’t a fast charger I could spend 10 minutes at.
The actual long distance drives were super easy thanks to Superchargers - 5-10 minute stops keep you driving for hours! It doesn’t feel disadvantaged compared to gas so long as the infrastructure is there.
rconti · 6h ago
Hopefully this will allow cheaper cars to get ~400mi of range but I doubt we'll ever see much more in mainstream cars. Batteries are simply too expensive and too heavy. Fuel tanks are cheap to build, but we still see no gasoline passenger cars with large tanks. The manufacturers sort of standardize around a "normal" capacity, and just want the one option to design, manufacture, crash test, etc.
devilbunny · 5h ago
> ~400+ miles per full tank
My car gets ~500 miles/800 km per tank. My wife's car, which has a more efficient engine and transmission and is also smaller, but with the same huge tank, gets ~600 miles/960 km per tank. I will have to stop for a bathroom somewhere along a route that long, but only once or twice. I used to have to stop three times for a ~900 mile/1500 km trip that I did a few times.
This is a problem with EV proponents who try to argue that "you'll stop every couple of hours for half an hour or so anyway, so charging isn't an issue". No, I won't. I'll drive 1000 miles with less than 45 minutes of downtime on the whole trip. I don't stop every two hours. Maybe 15 minutes every 4 hours, of which 10 is fueling and going to the bathroom and 5 is getting off and back on the highway.
That's not a slam against EV's, but let's acknowledge their weak points honestly.
dcow · 3h ago
I think the argument is not whether EVs will take an extra 65-80 min to go 1000 miles, it’s whether that matters to the average driver. Realistically for my family it doesn’t. I’m sure for some (predominately) solo drivers it does. But then there’s the question of how often you’re driving 1000 mile trips that an extra 1.5hrs max actually impacts anything real in your life…
I guess if you’re trying to follow an ICE car on a road trip then yeah it might be a weak point. If you’re already stopping every 200 miles then it’s no matter. For us, we enjoy travel days more with the built in stretch/bathroom breaks.
bryanlarsen · 36m ago
You can do 1000 miles in one day, but it is a really unpleasant trip. Doing it in two is so much nicer. Take a hotel one night. Have a really nice meal at a slow restaurant a couple of times. Visit a couple of roadside attractions.
Those are five long charging opportunities, which is two more than you need for a 1000 mile trip.
justinrubek · 1h ago
That sounds like you have a more efficient car than many of us. When I switched to an EV I actually got a range upgrade due to having a really inefficient ICE vehicle. Regardless, most of us aren't spending our days doing multi hundred mile drives. We shouldn't be optimizing for that scenario.
djrj477dhsnv · 3h ago
I'd like to see the stats on how many people regularly drive 500+ miles in a day.
I'm American, so grew up in car culture, but I've never driven more than 200 - 300 miles in a day.
SoftTalker · 1h ago
I do it about once a month.
nerdsniper · 5h ago
Agreed but this car would solve that for just $25,000 if we didn’t have 100% tariffs on Chinese vehicles. 1,200 mile range, can charge 800 miles in 12 minutes.
nothercastle · 2h ago
If our 350 mile vehicle could actually do 350 it would be fine but the reality is that it can barely do 200 ish
richardw · 4h ago
Not only the climate situation, the economic situation. If the US protects the old tech for another decade it’ll never catch up. The US needs to move along the experience curve as fast as possible, build skills and volume and charging stations and suitable power grids and sources. I would much, much rather be China than the US in this fight right now.
Dylan16807 · 6h ago
> If china wants to continue subsidizing their industry below costs of manufacture I see no reason why we shouldn't exploit their generosity to meet our climate goals as quickly as possible.
Are they even doing that? A few billion dollars a year is meaningful but it's not dumping for an industry this big.
mensetmanusman · 40m ago
Few place climate change as more important than national security. Won’t happen.
billfor · 5h ago
If you are willing to take the risk that if China invades Taiwan your car will no longer work or be serviceable.
djrj477dhsnv · 3h ago
I highly doubt that would happen. Why would China want to destroy their reputation as the world's manufacturer?
margalabargala · 1h ago
Because someone takes power who is more concerned with image than economic long term success. See the US for a recent example of a country abdicating its strong economic position for no reason beyond the leaders' ego.
mensetmanusman · 38m ago
Because ideology is a hell of a drug. Xi is a true believer.
epolanski · 7h ago
Also, the only way to make your companies competitive is by having them face competition, not by protecting them by artificial and anti consumer duties.
chneu · 6h ago
> If we want to address climate change
At least 40% of Americans do not give a crap about addressing climate change. Many Americans see EVs as a waste of time and a direct attack on the US.
georgeburdell · 1h ago
GM has the Bolt, Blazer, Siverado, and Hummer EV's. I think they're genuinely trying to make EV's work. Ford and Stellantis on the other hand...
Stellantis sells a good number of EVs in Europe, but almost entirely in form factors that won't sell in North America. Perhaps this expertise and experience will be useful.
I hope domestic manufacturers survive the "protection" Trump is giving them, but the protection may prove fatal.
triceratops · 1h ago
They cancelled the Bolt in 2023.
tzs · 40m ago
...and later announced it would be coming back but on the new battery platform they were using for their other new EVs. It's supposed to go into production later this year.
p_j_w · 6h ago
> If we want to address climate change
Given our recent election results, it seems to me that we don't want to.
tw04 · 5h ago
The big 3 are not the ones asking for this. It actively hurts them. They aren’t delusional, they NEED government support to compete globally against Chinese EVs. Every big 3 CEO to a T has made it clear they know it’s if, not when ICE sales become a rounding error on their books.
Point your gun where it belongs which is the oil industry and its lobbyists.
pstuart · 4h ago
> Point your gun where it belongs which is the oil industry and its lobbyists.
They are indeed the enemy. They've managed to convince a large swath of the population to hate everything that is not fossil-fueled.
triceratops · 2h ago
Why can't we have better marketing for different types of people.
Example: God made the sun and the sky. That's where heaven is. Fossil fuels come from under the earth. Something else really bad is down there too. I don't want to spell it out, but it's the opposite of heaven.
Or for the "independent, lion-not-sheep" types: I don't depend on big companies. My energy comes from up above. You can't take the sky from me. etc.
pstuart · 2h ago
A key problem is that anger, hate, and fear are more powerful motivators than hope and optimism. That fact has been leveraged to weaponize those emotions to a degree that inspires awe at it's success.
Freedom to power your home without paying "the man" should be compelling to all who could use it. Texas is ironically a prime state for renewable energy and the dollars generated from it have convinced some, but many still reject it as "wokeness".
It boggles the mind.
Aloisius · 6h ago
> If china wants to continue subsidizing their industry below costs of manufacture I see no reason why we shouldn't exploit their generosity
Because the unfair advantage distorts the market leading to a potentially otherwise noncompetitive product destroying the competition at which point they can (and will) jack up prices, so not only do you get more expensive vehicles, but you've also destroyed an entire industry and several adjacent industries at the same time.
It's not like you can't just snap your fingers and re-establish a vehicle manufacturing supply chain once it disappears.
I get people just want cheap vehicles, but the short-term benefit simply isn't worth it.
outside1234 · 2h ago
I mean, at this pace, this isn't even green tech. Electric cars are just better and within two years will have better range. We are risking being totally left behind because they want to keep burning gasoline for Texas.
bigcat12345678 · 1h ago
> meet our climate goals as quickly as possible
heheh
The climate thing itself is a giant oligarchy influenced manipulative game play. This nation is built on capital. Capital by its nature looks to dominate humanity and freewill.
The treacherous twists to turn a noble pursuit into a way for developed nations to continue dominate developing nations is beyond the space of this comment, but you can see that clearly over the history: Caesar Hitler Mao Trump Xi etc.
We people have truly never been able to wield the power ourselves.
tonyhart7 · 7h ago
They already doing that for decades, the problem is that move making china rich. Which is US don't want
toomuchtodo · 6h ago
The US has no ability to stop China from becoming wealthy, they already have the will and political leadership to build high tech for a global market. At this point, it's just angry old people sticking brooms in their own bike wheels at speed.
They sure has, problem is people also like cheap goods
awongh · 7h ago
Most relevant part:
> BYD’s solid-state EV batteries set a record by gaining 1,500 km (932 miles) range in just 12 minutes of charging.
> The test charged the battery to just 80%, meaning total EV range could reach upwards of 1,875 km (1,165 miles). Keep in mind, that is CLTC range. On the EPA scale, it would be closer to 1,300 km (808 miles)
Is this true? How quickly will other companies be making these types of batteries?
Is there some reason why solid state batteries seem to be being deployed in cars sooner than in phones?
MostlyStable · 7h ago
For the last part, my guess is that the advantages are much more valuable in an EV than they are in a phone (where batteries are mostly fine. While longer life and faster charging are always nice to have:they are just that: nice to have), so if you are A) production limited and B) they are still more expensive (the article states they expect them to be price-comparable by the end of the decade), then they probably aren't worth it in a phone (yet).
When price comes down and production comes up (assuming those things happen), then I would expect them to start appearing in phones as well.
Dylan16807 · 6h ago
That logic seems crazy to me. Extra hundreds of miles are also just nice to have, and with the same material that goes into a 500kg car pack you could make 10000 double life phone batteries and sell them for $100 each. There's more per-cell overhead in the phone batteries but is it worth a million dollar drop in revenue?
harry8 · 4h ago
I’m out for 2-3 days. Better take an external battery for the phone. Done.
Doesn’t work with a car.
Really easy to work around Apple’s utterly crap battery life. If it were better that would be nice to have.
Going a certain distance so can’t take an ev at all. It’d be nice if you could, if your usage is mostly very urban, sure that’s just nice. Gotta visit Dad on the farm a dozen times a year or whatever? That’s not your life so you don’t see it as essential even if the rest of the driving is much shorter range.
ashdksnndck · 11m ago
To fix iPhone battery life, create an automation that turns on battery save mode when battery dips below 80%. Works really well. I figure they don’t build this functionality into the settings because people would use it instead of buying a new phone when the battery degrades.
Dylan16807 · 28m ago
It's obviously more valuable to double the range of a car compared to a phone.
But is it multiple thousands of times more valuable? I don't think so.
nicoburns · 4h ago
It really should work with a car (there's no reason why they couldn't support additional external battery packs in the trunk or as a trailer, etc).
margalabargala · 14m ago
The reason is that batteries are heavy.
Want an extra 100 miles of range? That's 600lbs of cargo. A person can't place that in a trunk, and a trailer would probably barely extend range due to the extra drag and efficiency loss.
harry8 · 2h ago
for $10, right?
mitthrowaway2 · 57m ago
Renting a U-Haul starts at $19.95 per day...
harry8 · 21m ago
Uh. How much do car batteries cost again?
MostlyStable · 6h ago
Consumers seem to disagree with you on the first part. I personally think that current battery tech is fine for EVs (I have an EV with a 260 mile range, and only a 77kW max charge rate, and I think it's fine even for 10+ hour road trips), but a segment of the consumer space wants more than that.
I personally thought that the more interesting part of the article was where they claimed to be able to add 800 miles of range in 12 minutes. At those kinds of charge rates, my ideal EV would probably have a 300ish mile range that I could charge from 10-80 in <10 minutes (although I believe that part of the way they get those charge rates is with large battery packs, so a smaller pack would probably not charge as fast).
Additionally, while the specs for EV sedans are currently fine, batteries are only barely good enough for larger, less efficient vehicles. Maybe the killer app here isn't a sedan that goes 1000 miles, but a truck or SUV that can go 500.
The point is, whatever your and my opinions on the adequacy of current EV charging, the market seems to value improved battery specs more highly in the EV space than it does in the phone space (or maybe it doesn't and BYD is making a mistake by keeping their batteries for their cars instead of selling them to phone manufacturers).
actsasbuffoon · 5h ago
EV batteries degrade more quickly when charged too far above half-way. As a result, your ideal EV might actually have 600 miles of range and you’d just leave it half-charged most of the time.
MostlyStable · 4h ago
From everything I've heard/read you can pretty safely go to 80-90% of listed state of charge (manufacturers often also include a hidden buffer for exactly this reason).
My car, which like I said has a 260 mile range, I only charge to 80% unless I'm going on a long road trip. So for 90%+ of the time, it's never charged more than 80% (and I very rarely discharge it to less than 15%). For most people, a 300 mile range like I describe would be plenty to be able to not need 100% charge except on rare occasions. But even if it's not for you, or for some people, I very specifically said "my ideal EV". A 600 mile range that I almost never use is just extra weight that I'm carrying around and decreasing efficiency, and isn't actually providing much real battery protection. I am absolutely not someone who drives 360 miles a day (which is what you could do if you were doing an 80% to 20% discharge on a 600 mile battery every day. I'm pretty confident that stats suggest that very few people drive that much on a regular basis. The 150 miles I get from the the 80% to 20% range on my current battery is already more than enough.
cherioo · 6h ago
Battery life is fine but phone company are always after thinner and lighter. I can’t imagine no company will jump on this.
Just look at rumored iphone air
harry8 · 4h ago
I’d take a phone double the thickness to get double the battery life between charges. Options on that front are limited. Had an ulefone for a while which was better than most until the screen started getting constant phantom presses making it unusable.
ggm-at-algebras · 22m ago
My hand does not shrink. Try holding and using a phone as thick as a credit card compared to one 5mm thick and ask yourself which feels better.
Ie, I agree totally with your sentiment
rob_c · 7h ago
> Is there some reason why solid state batteries seem to be being deployed in cars sooner than in phones?
Not quite energy density, but the energy density, cost, complexity when combined with the discharge profile generates a very "interesting" phase space.
There's a few promising technologies which have very, very good efficiencies but only like very slow predictable discharge cycles. These are excellent for say building giant GW batteries in the desert, but not so great for even car batteries.
Phones and tech have bursty power needs based on use, the cost of taking other tech down to the size of a phone is extremely high (especially if you're first to market unless you know you will sell millions of units). Not to mention the reliability of batteries typically decreasing as the size drops.
Cars tend to be in the middle with their discharge profiles being relatively smooth compared to say a laptop, but yes you still have economies of scale, complexity, reliability and supply chain and patents to contend with ;)
awongh · 6h ago
I guess I would have just assumed that because batteries are chemistry the size scales relatively easily.
Anyways- isn't a normal cell in an EV battery is like a AA size? Is this still true for solid state?
vel0city · 1h ago
> isn't a normal cell in an EV battery is like a AA size?
No. Some companies use tons of cylindrical cells that are larger AAs (like 18mmx65mm, 21mmx80mm, or 46mmx80mm). But even then at 46mm in diameter it's a good bit bigger than a AA.
But lots of manufacturers use prismatic or pouch like batteries. They're large and rectangular. Like these batteries on this BYD, they're called "blades". Most other major manufacturers use prismatic cells.
jacooper · 3h ago
They already exist in Chinese phones, the new one plus has insane battery life because of its 6000mah battery, while still being as thin as a normal phone.
Other phones targeting the Chinese market have reached 8000.
But companies like Apple and Samsung like to just sit on their laurels and sell the same thing again.
ksec · 3h ago
They are not using Solid State but Semi Solid State with Silicon Carbon. We should be expecting 400Whr/Kg by end of this year.
But yes Apple and Samsung has been very slow in adoption to new Battery Tech, even when it is somewhat market tested by Chinese phone markers.
No comments yet
the_arun · 7h ago
> According to local reports, BYD’s solid-state EV batteries set a record by gaining 1,500 km (932 miles) range in just 12 minutes of charging.
If so, can this be beneficial to use cases outside auto industry? Eg. Power walls. If so, I am more excited for that. I am tired of electricity bills.
majorchord · 7h ago
The tech used to get such fast charging isn't revolutionary, it's just extremely (dangerous) high voltage DC charging that only exists in any capacity in China.
Also, what happens when an EV taxi runs out of battery power in China? They actually have stations setup all over that you simply drive into and it replaces the entire battery pack... in minutes.
daveguy · 6h ago
Really no more dangerous than a 480v, 300A level 3 charger in the US. Both have enough to kill. It's not like you'd be less dead if a level 3 charger malfunctioned. They both require redundant monitoring hardware and female plugs on the hot end.
lazide · 7h ago
For the audience - up to 1500V, 600A. Or just shy of a Megawatt. Yowzers.
rob_c · 6h ago
My favourite is the standard of water cooled high current high voltage cables for charging EVs...
Imo that's stepping beyond the risk profile of filling a tank with a known high explosive that can evaporate and suffocate and catch fire in the sun ... But risk profiles are inherently personal
recursivedoubts · 7h ago
would be very interested to know if people know what the cold-weather behavior of these batteries are: i'm in montana and battery life, especially in winter, can be a life-or-death issue and that (+ range/recharge time) is a reason a lot of folks here look at ev's skeptically, would love to hear they handle cold better
ggreer · 6h ago
I think people are working off of outdated information. I have a 2020 Model 3 and it's been fine in subzero temperatures. Yes, range goes down by about 20%, but if anything it's more convenient than a gas car in the cold because you don't have to wait for an engine to heat up before the cabin gets warm. Also you always wake up with a full tank (so to speak) because you don't need to go to a gas station to refill. And EVs tend to be AWD, so they're easy to drive in the winter. During one snowstorm I had to help dig out trucks that got stuck, but my car was fine.
Newer models have heat pumps that greatly improve efficiency in cold weather. They also have better battery chemistries that store more energy in the same form factor. Unless you live in a very remote, very cold location (eg: rural Alaska), an EV is a fine choice.
smeeger · 5h ago
theres cold and theres cold
triceratops · 4h ago
Is Norway cold cold? 88% of new cars last year there were EVs.
No comments yet
Analemma_ · 2h ago
This is just more "it's different for us, somehow" American exceptionalism. Norway is much further north than any part of the continental US and the vast majority of new vehicle sales are BEVs.
vel0city · 1h ago
Montana is colder than Norway in the winter. Norway gets a lot of warming from the coasts. There's not much coastline in Montana. It gets hit pretty hard by polar winds without the mediation of the oceans.
Turns out there's more to climate than just latitude. Lots of the US is colder than Western Europe on average despite mostly being far further South. NYC is colder than London in the winter even though it's coastal and a much lower latitude.
aaomidi · 4h ago
EVs are already better in climates that need separate block heaters for ICE cars.
plandis · 1h ago
How far are you driving in a typical day?
If it’s less than like 100 miles (161km) I think that the vast majority of EV batteries are going to get you where you want to go, even with 25% reductions due to cold weather. FWIW, the American average is around 36 miles/day.
There is a semi famous YouTuber named Hank Green that lives in Montana and daily drives an EV. He occasionally makes videos about his experience.
Marsymars · 5h ago
IMO “handle cold better” is a bit of a misnomer for EVs. ICE cars are inefficient all the time because they’re converting most of their energy into heat even when it’s warm - with an EV you’re effectively just getting bonus range when it’s warm.
If you developed a hyper-efficient ICE engine that didn’t generate a pile of waste heat, you’d have to actively make it less efficient in the cold, or install heating hardware and burn extra gas to power that hardware - but nobody would criticize that hyper-efficient engine for being “worse in the cold”.
bryanlarsen · 7h ago
> and battery life, especially in winter, can be a life-or-death issue
How so? A full battery can run your seat heaters for about a month. That's a lot better than the hours of heat you'd get out of a full tank of gasoline.
Not to mention that you'll never get carbon monoxide poisoning from a gasoline engine with a tailpipe blocked with snow.
Zee2 · 5h ago
I believe they are talking about how the range/capacity is significantly affected in deep cold weather. It's not about life-or-death that you'll freeze to death - it's that your 300mi EV turns into a 150mi EV and that makes range planning unpredictable and more challenging in rural areas.
8note · 3h ago
if your car battery is dead because it was -30C all night, your gas car isn't starting either
slaw · 5m ago
Gasoline/petrol cars start after -30C all night without any issues.
dismalaf · 6h ago
Such a weird comment. Tailpipe blocked with snow? I've lived in (the cold part of) Canada nearly my whole life, never happened. Snow doesn't fall sideways and upwards to block a tailpipe lol. And range is the relevant part of a vehicle, given Canada is so large and sparsely populated, not how long seat heaters heat.
But it sounds like it's hard to get a handle on how common it is. It feels like it's more on the level of "a handful a year in North America/freak occurrance", rather than "common way to die".
bryanlarsen · 6h ago
I know of somebody it happened to. Maybe it's not particularly common, but it's in my mind as something that happens.
ledauphin · 6h ago
I mean... a thought experiment like "medical emergency in remote location" would seem a useful place to start.
Dylan16807 · 6h ago
I'm thinking about it.
Is it road-accessible? What kinds of vehicles can get there?
The cars in the article have twice as much range as a gas car or more, even in the cold. And it's easier to charge them at remote locations than to get fuel deliveries to those same remote locations.
I'm sure a scenario could be contrived where any type of car wins, but on average I expect a long range battery car to do quite well.
lazide · 6h ago
Tell me you’ve never lived in a really cold climate without telling me you’ve never lived in a cold climate before.
bryanlarsen · 6h ago
I've experienced -48. You?
lazide · 5h ago
-40ish for a month. And -30 around that.
None of the ‘answers’ address the range issues with batteries in the cold. Or how you can be totally fucked if your pack drops below a certain temp, and you don’t have enough charge to heat the pack and get home.
Probably even more fucked than if your diesel tank gelled. At least you can heat it up directly if you really need to.
bryanlarsen · 16m ago
You handle it the exact same way you do on a gasoline vehicle. You never let your tank go below 50%. If you slide off the road with a low tank or a low battery you can get in trouble, so don't do that.
If I let my electric car sit overnight with at least 20% charge, I know it will start in the morning, even if it was -45 overnight. You can't say that with a gasoline vehicle. It'll take almost all of that 20% to get up to temperature, but once it's up it maintains it well.
And anyplace cold has ubiquitous block heater plugs. At really cold temperatures it'll barely charge on a block heater plug because it'll use all the energy keeping the battery warm, but it means you start with a warm battery and a warm car, so the range drop is massively reduced.
ChrisMarshallNY · 7h ago
I understand that Teslas sell [sold?] well, in Norway.
breve · 2h ago
Tesla sales are suffering from the brand damage Musk has done:
They used to, but Musk's hand signal and association with Trump had a serious impact on subsequent Norwegian sales.
JumpCrisscross · 3h ago
I’m in Wyoming. The Rivians do fine in the winter.
recursivedoubts · 1h ago
How far do you drive in them?
chneu · 6h ago
People in Nordic countries are fine with EVs.
majorchord · 7h ago
> BYD’s solid-state batteries have an energy density of 400 Wh/kg, or nearly twice that of current lithium-ion batteries.
I thought the big issue with solid-state (besides dendrites) was a lower energy density than Li-ion? What happened?
maxerickson · 6h ago
Better density is one of the reasons solid state battery research has been pursued.
Maybe you are comparing the density of research batteries that weren't worth commercializing to highly developed lithium ion batteries?
jsight · 1h ago
Maybe you have confused it with iron phosphate, which is also fairly popular in lower cost EVs? That one has a lot of advantages, but does have relatively poor energy density.
rob_c · 6h ago
It's a next generation Lithium battery, I've seen lithium chemistry power storage quoted as high as 600 in some prototypes so I'm guessing they cracked something in the lithium chemistry.
Given it's still lithium based I'd still think twice before chucking a bucket of water on one that's fizzing :p
As for how this battery is better I'm not an expert, but good to read if true.
johnea · 6h ago
The resistance to electrification in the US is one of the country's biggest self inflicted wounds.
In the long run, I really don't think we can tariff our way around technical innovation.
900 miles of range in 12 mins of charging... Charge for 20 mins and have enough range for 2 full days of travel driving!
And this is only when driving long distances. Anyone with a driveway can eassily charge overnight for typical daily driving.
The whole package: many types of energy source providing electricity, never having to go to a gas station for typical daily driving, path to complete elimination of petro combustion byproducts, massive simplification of the overall vehicle mechanism, significant performance enhancements, etc.
All technical evaluation come out in favor of EVs...
walrus01 · 1h ago
Notably 400Wh/kg will be very useful for medium size UAV. Battery packs made out of the best 18650 or 21700 are around 255Wh/kg right now.
tiahura · 6h ago
Weren’t Chinese battery manufacturers supposed to be shipping some sort of Lithium battery breakthrough this year?
rob_c · 6h ago
Might be this if you've read something, this is still lithium based, it's just solid state vs LiPo
Still cheap by US standards. Cheap basic cars barely even exist any more.
ranger_danger · 7h ago
Because it would destroy the auto industry overnight.
johnea · 6h ago
You say that like its a bad thing...
ranger_danger · 5h ago
Yes I think it is, because over time it becomes too great an amount of leverage that another country can use to hold over your head.
johnea · 4h ago
So you don't actually believe in competition?
timschmidt · 23m ago
I think most disagreements come down to people wanting similar things at different scales.
It sounds like you're thinking of competition at the corporate scale.
It sounds like the commenter immediately previous is thinking of competition at the nation state scale.
Both (and more) are happening at the same time, and valid to optimize for.
dyauspitr · 6h ago
It is. I want American auto manufacturing to continue to be a thing. With this administration most industries will see 4 years of technological and competitive regression though so it’s probably a losing battle.
rconti · 6h ago
I suspect most cars will still be in the 250-400mi range sweet spot, same reason that's where we're at with gas cars.
If we're really so concerned about 'supply chain' issues we could build up a strategic reserve of batteries and solar panels. If china wants to continue subsidizing their industry below costs of manufacture I see no reason why we shouldn't exploit their generosity to meet our climate goals as quickly as possible.
One of the 'good news' stories re: the recent datacenter buildout is that grid storage is now being more widely deployed, and that compliments the roll out of renewable energy.
I consistently hear 2 main arguments against electric vehicles in the US. Range, and cost.
BYD & China is solving both. Range is important because we lack charging infrastructure still, and anyone who rents at an apartment complex, you are screwed and have to rely on public charging stations. Big batteries are important for these folks. People also still have range anxiety, so when a fuel efficient gas car will get ~400+ miles per full tank, only having more expensive cars with a ~250 mile range is a non starter for a lot of people in the US.
Cost is self explanatory. One of the better electric cars sold in the US, the Ioniq 6 STARTS at $38k, which is already more than a significant chunk of the population can afford - you're looking at close to an $800/month payment at current rates for entry level. BYD could sell in the US at around $20,000.
Even among Americans, American cars aren't considered that good. There's a massive reliability premium you pay for Honda and Toyota. Even cars with 100k miles on them (frustratingly as a buyer) keep their value. And they're manufactured in the US, inasmuch as any car can be said to be manufactured in a single location.
I've been searching around and I can't even find data about other countries importing our cars which to me would be the biggest signal of strength.
I've only been in BYDs in Mexican Ubers and I would not buy one, it felt cheap and plasticky and creaked.
Oh I would for sure buy a BYD today if I were able. The ones I've ridden in have been really nice. I mean they are literally plastic but so is every car in the "economy" price range. I don't think their interiors were noticeably different than any other non-luxury car. I've been told that their higher end models don't have this problem.
https://www.pewresearch.org/data-labs/2024/05/23/electric-ve...
Key takeaways from the above:
> The number of EV charging stations has more than doubled since 2020. In December 2020, the Department of Energy reported that there were nearly 29,000 public charging stations nationwide. By February 2024, that number had increased to more than 61,000 stations. Over 95% of the American public now lives in a county that has at least one public EV charging station.
> EV charging stations are most accessible to residents of urban areas: 60% of urban residents live less than a mile from the nearest public EV charger, compared with 41% of those in the suburbs and just 17% of rural Americans.
Maps: https://supercharge.info/map | https://www.plugshare.com/ | https://afdc.energy.gov/stations#/find/nearest?country=US&fu...
The demand isn't there. The group of people who buy EVs and don't have a home to charge at is too small. And that won't change until the economics of purchasing an EV fundamentally change.
https://www.coxautoinc.com/market-insights/q4-2024-ev-sales/
https://www.iea.org/reports/global-ev-outlook-2025/trends-in...
If this includes AC chargers, leaving your car for 8 hours 2 miles away is an absolute pain.
If it doesn't, the question becomes are the chargers occupied? Are they operational?
Waiting at a gas station takes a minute, waiting at a charger takes 30.
I've been driving an EV for more than 5 years and pretending that charging isn't a significant hindrance to EV ownership is disingenuous. It's actually gotten worse because more EVs are on the road and the chargers haven't kept pace with the rising demand.
It is curious that this is the case. If chargers were profitable a couple of years ago, you would expect more chargers and more profit today.
I haven’t noticed much growth in chargers where I live but I have noticed more EVs on the road.
I’m currently on a road trip and was leaving the car at a nearby charger which was walking distance from where I’m staying - I can’t imagine owning one where either this wasn’t available or there wasn’t a fast charger I could spend 10 minutes at.
The actual long distance drives were super easy thanks to Superchargers - 5-10 minute stops keep you driving for hours! It doesn’t feel disadvantaged compared to gas so long as the infrastructure is there.
My car gets ~500 miles/800 km per tank. My wife's car, which has a more efficient engine and transmission and is also smaller, but with the same huge tank, gets ~600 miles/960 km per tank. I will have to stop for a bathroom somewhere along a route that long, but only once or twice. I used to have to stop three times for a ~900 mile/1500 km trip that I did a few times.
This is a problem with EV proponents who try to argue that "you'll stop every couple of hours for half an hour or so anyway, so charging isn't an issue". No, I won't. I'll drive 1000 miles with less than 45 minutes of downtime on the whole trip. I don't stop every two hours. Maybe 15 minutes every 4 hours, of which 10 is fueling and going to the bathroom and 5 is getting off and back on the highway.
That's not a slam against EV's, but let's acknowledge their weak points honestly.
I guess if you’re trying to follow an ICE car on a road trip then yeah it might be a weak point. If you’re already stopping every 200 miles then it’s no matter. For us, we enjoy travel days more with the built in stretch/bathroom breaks.
Those are five long charging opportunities, which is two more than you need for a 1000 mile trip.
I'm American, so grew up in car culture, but I've never driven more than 200 - 300 miles in a day.
Are they even doing that? A few billion dollars a year is meaningful but it's not dumping for an industry this big.
At least 40% of Americans do not give a crap about addressing climate change. Many Americans see EVs as a waste of time and a direct attack on the US.
Stellantis sells a good number of EVs in Europe, but almost entirely in form factors that won't sell in North America. Perhaps this expertise and experience will be useful.
I hope domestic manufacturers survive the "protection" Trump is giving them, but the protection may prove fatal.
Given our recent election results, it seems to me that we don't want to.
Point your gun where it belongs which is the oil industry and its lobbyists.
They are indeed the enemy. They've managed to convince a large swath of the population to hate everything that is not fossil-fueled.
Example: God made the sun and the sky. That's where heaven is. Fossil fuels come from under the earth. Something else really bad is down there too. I don't want to spell it out, but it's the opposite of heaven.
Or for the "independent, lion-not-sheep" types: I don't depend on big companies. My energy comes from up above. You can't take the sky from me. etc.
Freedom to power your home without paying "the man" should be compelling to all who could use it. Texas is ironically a prime state for renewable energy and the dollars generated from it have convinced some, but many still reject it as "wokeness".
It boggles the mind.
Because the unfair advantage distorts the market leading to a potentially otherwise noncompetitive product destroying the competition at which point they can (and will) jack up prices, so not only do you get more expensive vehicles, but you've also destroyed an entire industry and several adjacent industries at the same time.
It's not like you can't just snap your fingers and re-establish a vehicle manufacturing supply chain once it disappears.
I get people just want cheap vehicles, but the short-term benefit simply isn't worth it.
heheh
The climate thing itself is a giant oligarchy influenced manipulative game play. This nation is built on capital. Capital by its nature looks to dominate humanity and freewill.
The treacherous twists to turn a noble pursuit into a way for developed nations to continue dominate developing nations is beyond the space of this comment, but you can see that clearly over the history: Caesar Hitler Mao Trump Xi etc.
We people have truly never been able to wield the power ourselves.
How we made it: will China be the first electrostate? - https://www.ft.com/content/e1a232c7-52a0-44dd-a13b-c4af54e74... | https://archive.today/OSFYo
> BYD’s solid-state EV batteries set a record by gaining 1,500 km (932 miles) range in just 12 minutes of charging.
> The test charged the battery to just 80%, meaning total EV range could reach upwards of 1,875 km (1,165 miles). Keep in mind, that is CLTC range. On the EPA scale, it would be closer to 1,300 km (808 miles)
Is this true? How quickly will other companies be making these types of batteries?
Is there some reason why solid state batteries seem to be being deployed in cars sooner than in phones?
When price comes down and production comes up (assuming those things happen), then I would expect them to start appearing in phones as well.
Doesn’t work with a car.
Really easy to work around Apple’s utterly crap battery life. If it were better that would be nice to have.
Going a certain distance so can’t take an ev at all. It’d be nice if you could, if your usage is mostly very urban, sure that’s just nice. Gotta visit Dad on the farm a dozen times a year or whatever? That’s not your life so you don’t see it as essential even if the rest of the driving is much shorter range.
But is it multiple thousands of times more valuable? I don't think so.
Want an extra 100 miles of range? That's 600lbs of cargo. A person can't place that in a trunk, and a trailer would probably barely extend range due to the extra drag and efficiency loss.
I personally thought that the more interesting part of the article was where they claimed to be able to add 800 miles of range in 12 minutes. At those kinds of charge rates, my ideal EV would probably have a 300ish mile range that I could charge from 10-80 in <10 minutes (although I believe that part of the way they get those charge rates is with large battery packs, so a smaller pack would probably not charge as fast).
Additionally, while the specs for EV sedans are currently fine, batteries are only barely good enough for larger, less efficient vehicles. Maybe the killer app here isn't a sedan that goes 1000 miles, but a truck or SUV that can go 500.
The point is, whatever your and my opinions on the adequacy of current EV charging, the market seems to value improved battery specs more highly in the EV space than it does in the phone space (or maybe it doesn't and BYD is making a mistake by keeping their batteries for their cars instead of selling them to phone manufacturers).
My car, which like I said has a 260 mile range, I only charge to 80% unless I'm going on a long road trip. So for 90%+ of the time, it's never charged more than 80% (and I very rarely discharge it to less than 15%). For most people, a 300 mile range like I describe would be plenty to be able to not need 100% charge except on rare occasions. But even if it's not for you, or for some people, I very specifically said "my ideal EV". A 600 mile range that I almost never use is just extra weight that I'm carrying around and decreasing efficiency, and isn't actually providing much real battery protection. I am absolutely not someone who drives 360 miles a day (which is what you could do if you were doing an 80% to 20% discharge on a 600 mile battery every day. I'm pretty confident that stats suggest that very few people drive that much on a regular basis. The 150 miles I get from the the 80% to 20% range on my current battery is already more than enough.
Just look at rumored iphone air
Ie, I agree totally with your sentiment
Not quite energy density, but the energy density, cost, complexity when combined with the discharge profile generates a very "interesting" phase space.
There's a few promising technologies which have very, very good efficiencies but only like very slow predictable discharge cycles. These are excellent for say building giant GW batteries in the desert, but not so great for even car batteries.
Phones and tech have bursty power needs based on use, the cost of taking other tech down to the size of a phone is extremely high (especially if you're first to market unless you know you will sell millions of units). Not to mention the reliability of batteries typically decreasing as the size drops.
Cars tend to be in the middle with their discharge profiles being relatively smooth compared to say a laptop, but yes you still have economies of scale, complexity, reliability and supply chain and patents to contend with ;)
Anyways- isn't a normal cell in an EV battery is like a AA size? Is this still true for solid state?
No. Some companies use tons of cylindrical cells that are larger AAs (like 18mmx65mm, 21mmx80mm, or 46mmx80mm). But even then at 46mm in diameter it's a good bit bigger than a AA.
But lots of manufacturers use prismatic or pouch like batteries. They're large and rectangular. Like these batteries on this BYD, they're called "blades". Most other major manufacturers use prismatic cells.
Other phones targeting the Chinese market have reached 8000.
But companies like Apple and Samsung like to just sit on their laurels and sell the same thing again.
But yes Apple and Samsung has been very slow in adoption to new Battery Tech, even when it is somewhat market tested by Chinese phone markers.
No comments yet
If so, can this be beneficial to use cases outside auto industry? Eg. Power walls. If so, I am more excited for that. I am tired of electricity bills.
Also, what happens when an EV taxi runs out of battery power in China? They actually have stations setup all over that you simply drive into and it replaces the entire battery pack... in minutes.
Imo that's stepping beyond the risk profile of filling a tank with a known high explosive that can evaporate and suffocate and catch fire in the sun ... But risk profiles are inherently personal
Newer models have heat pumps that greatly improve efficiency in cold weather. They also have better battery chemistries that store more energy in the same form factor. Unless you live in a very remote, very cold location (eg: rural Alaska), an EV is a fine choice.
No comments yet
Turns out there's more to climate than just latitude. Lots of the US is colder than Western Europe on average despite mostly being far further South. NYC is colder than London in the winter even though it's coastal and a much lower latitude.
If it’s less than like 100 miles (161km) I think that the vast majority of EV batteries are going to get you where you want to go, even with 25% reductions due to cold weather. FWIW, the American average is around 36 miles/day.
There is a semi famous YouTuber named Hank Green that lives in Montana and daily drives an EV. He occasionally makes videos about his experience.
If you developed a hyper-efficient ICE engine that didn’t generate a pile of waste heat, you’d have to actively make it less efficient in the cold, or install heating hardware and burn extra gas to power that hardware - but nobody would criticize that hyper-efficient engine for being “worse in the cold”.
How so? A full battery can run your seat heaters for about a month. That's a lot better than the hours of heat you'd get out of a full tank of gasoline.
Not to mention that you'll never get carbon monoxide poisoning from a gasoline engine with a tailpipe blocked with snow.
https://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/preview/mmwrhtml/00039929.htm https://www.rearviewsafety.com/safety/news/news-release-dead...
But it sounds like it's hard to get a handle on how common it is. It feels like it's more on the level of "a handful a year in North America/freak occurrance", rather than "common way to die".
Is it road-accessible? What kinds of vehicles can get there?
The cars in the article have twice as much range as a gas car or more, even in the cold. And it's easier to charge them at remote locations than to get fuel deliveries to those same remote locations.
I'm sure a scenario could be contrived where any type of car wins, but on average I expect a long range battery car to do quite well.
None of the ‘answers’ address the range issues with batteries in the cold. Or how you can be totally fucked if your pack drops below a certain temp, and you don’t have enough charge to heat the pack and get home.
Probably even more fucked than if your diesel tank gelled. At least you can heat it up directly if you really need to.
If I let my electric car sit overnight with at least 20% charge, I know it will start in the morning, even if it was -45 overnight. You can't say that with a gasoline vehicle. It'll take almost all of that 20% to get up to temperature, but once it's up it maintains it well.
And anyplace cold has ubiquitous block heater plugs. At really cold temperatures it'll barely charge on a block heater plug because it'll use all the energy keeping the battery warm, but it means you start with a warm battery and a warm car, so the range drop is massively reduced.
https://eu-evs.com/marketShare/ALL/Groups/Line/All-time-by-Q...
Swasticars don't sell well. Musk needs to leave the company to give Tesla a chance to recover.
https://archive.md/XtUhS
I thought the big issue with solid-state (besides dendrites) was a lower energy density than Li-ion? What happened?
Maybe you are comparing the density of research batteries that weren't worth commercializing to highly developed lithium ion batteries?
Given it's still lithium based I'd still think twice before chucking a bucket of water on one that's fizzing :p
As for how this battery is better I'm not an expert, but good to read if true.
In the long run, I really don't think we can tariff our way around technical innovation.
900 miles of range in 12 mins of charging... Charge for 20 mins and have enough range for 2 full days of travel driving!
And this is only when driving long distances. Anyone with a driveway can eassily charge overnight for typical daily driving.
The whole package: many types of energy source providing electricity, never having to go to a gas station for typical daily driving, path to complete elimination of petro combustion byproducts, massive simplification of the overall vehicle mechanism, significant performance enhancements, etc.
All technical evaluation come out in favor of EVs...
https://electrek.co/2024/05/22/byds-10000-seagull-ev-worryin...
It sounds like you're thinking of competition at the corporate scale.
It sounds like the commenter immediately previous is thinking of competition at the nation state scale.
Both (and more) are happening at the same time, and valid to optimize for.