Maybe a bit irrelevant but why is the article calling it “China’s battery“? I feel like if the researchers were from any other countries academy of science, say France, the title would have simply been something like “scientists discover new ways for fireproof battery”. Maybe it’d say French scientists or so, but not simply “France’s battery”?
Because cool China is so totally innovative unlike the boring west! We gotta hype them up, no one else ever does cool stuff only China brand is cool.
They have been trying to murder the US and EU auto industry and dumping biblical shittons of money into battery technology. the EU and the US aren’t trying to compete.
Its still an advancement for all mankind, even if my countries leadership wont let me have one.
They have been trying to murder the US and EU auto industry and dumping biblical shittons of money into battery technology. the EU and the US aren’t trying to compete.
China invests in R&D, Trump slashed scientific research.
Not only in R&D but market development… Like, finding out what people want and selling it to them, exporting them… The Americans are trying to push pickups on europe…
Actually it’s the other way around.
The internet is all about “China Bad” so calling it China Battery is a way to depreciate this obviously positive discovery.
“Should we just not talk about this awesome new tech?”
“No, let’s put China in front of this totally awesome thing so people will think it’s bad while we hype it up as such a great invention in the article. Oh and don’t mention working conditions, state subsidies, mineral extraction, or any of the usual anti-China talking points, that might make them think it’s not bad”
I’m sorry you live with so much gratuitous hatred in your heart and I pray you can recover some day.
How is pointing out the flaw in your logic “gratuitous hatred”? It doesn’t make any sense that the rationale for calling it “China’s battery” is to make it sound bad, when the article is clearly extolling the virtues of the battery.
Or is it the part where the other commenter brought attention to the working conditions in China? Because that’s not motivated by hatred, but rather class solidarity. How badly do you have to hate Chinese people to believe Chinese workers don’t deserve better conditions? What about ethnic minorities in China who are having their cultural heritage stripped away from them?
Is it because the government officials aren’t white, so you believe they can do no wrong? So you’ll just call any legitimate criticism of them racist? That’s like Israel calling anti-zionism anti-semitic. There’s nothing sinophobic about legitimate criticisms of the PRC.
People who support China don’t seem to comprehend that shitty countries aren’t a zero sum game.
You can shit on China’s government while also shitting on the US government.
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Nice argument you’re having with yourself there, buddy. Seems like you have quite a lot to pour out.
I don’t have any affinity for China, but I also don’t like the gratuitous hate they get all over the internet, nor the reduction of Chinese people’s experience to work drones (what you’re doing).
I had hoped that Lemmy wasn’t gonna be like that, but alas.
Oh, what, you can’t handle three paragraphs? Maybe you should go over to mastodon or loops then.
I question your definition of “gratuitous hate,” as I haven’t seen any examples of actual hatred in this comment chain. You seem like you just can’t handle being disagreed with, so you make strawman arguments against the people disagreeing with you.
nor the reduction of Chinese people’s experience to work drones (what you’re doing).
Calling attention to an abysmal work culture which enforces long working hours and authoritarian hierarchies, and frequently drives people to suicide, isn’t reducing people to work drones. And if that’s how you interpret that critique, then you have no class solidarity.
And before you cry that I’m singling China out, I’m not. The US rivals them for overall shittiness, while paling by comparison in innovation and development.
But this conversation is about China, and if you can’t tolerate a structural critique that isn’t even laden with hatred and bias, then, well, I don’t know what to tell you…
Is this “china always bad” internet in the room with us right now? Do you deny the positive sentiment in this very thread you’re posting in right now?
Type china into a search engine. Guaranteed it returns a negative sounding article.
What an unhinged thing to say. That is true about literally everything except maybe puppies.
Classic fluff piece to make China look more innovative than they actually are. I wouldn‘t be surprised if we never heard of this tech or if they recycle the same article next year. Tech ‚journalism‘ about China is a mine field of false claims and exaggerations.
Sodium ion batteries are already in cars in China, this iteration is even safer. You should read the article.
Na+ batteries are really cool tech, and with a few more iterations of R&D they can potentially replace Li+ batteries, removing the need for rare earth elements that are toxic to people and the environment, dangerous to extract, and more often than not extracted by child slave labor (such as in Xinjiang and Congo).
It doesn’t matter how you feel about China, although framing Na+ as “China’s battery” is problematic for other reasons.
Well it stinks like Chinese propaganda. That much was blatantly obvious to me. It‘s just not always obvious what part they‘re lying about. So it was the part about it being Chinese in the first place. Not very creative I must say.
The particular innovation discussed in the article was developed by Chinese engineers. But that doesn’t make Na+ batteries “Chinese batteries.”
If all tech was owned by the country where it was developed, there would be a lot more “american this,” “american that.” Planes, computers, automobiles, nukes, etc.
Too much of it already is controlled by US patents, though. There needs to be more freedom to invent, develop, and iterate…
Sodium batteries won’t fix the mining issue for rare earths. Lithium is not rare.
My understanding is that the lithium itself isn’t the issue, it’s that lithium batteries require other rare earths like cobalt where as sodium itself is not only more common than lithium, but it uses more common material like iron or tin in its battery chemistry that are also less problematic.
Go read about rare earths and what they’re mostly used for, then come back when you’re ready to join the discussion
These batteries are already in production cars. Have been for a while. If you don’t have access to them it’s because of your regressive protectionist government.
No no no. China is Fake News. They don’t even make cars. If they made cars, I would have seen Chinese cars driving around in America.
Regressive protectionism isn’t exactly unique to the American auto industry but yea.
This is recycled I read about about this last year in the same kind of context on Reddit.
Separately though I have read there are hundreds of chemical combinations that produce electricity and only a handful have been researched for batteries.
Because it’s written as Chinese propaganda.
“China Battery!” typically trips everyone’s “Fake News! Evil Company! Communists Killed 100 Billion People!” alarm
More like “China lies” about everything.
That’s what my government tells me
Maybe you aren’t old enough to remember all the “scientific breakthroughs” that came out of China in the early 2000s that were later proven to be false, completely made up, all of which were published by institutions at least partially owned by ministers in China’s government.
You mean high speed rail and electric cars?
No.
This from the people that gave us fireworks… traditions disappear so fast…
God forbid someone does a humor
Gunpowder 2.1
Wut
the chinese invented gunpowder centuries ago
That’s wasn’t the confusing part
What was?
the same people that invented fireworks (thing that is set on fire and goes boom) now actively research/made the safe batteries (things that DON’T set on fire AND don’t go boom)
well best way to stop something from exploding is to invent/discover all the ways for it to explode. you become an expert at it and you know what not to do.
The “they catch fire” argument is fucking bonkers anyway.
If there’s one thing petrol cars are famous for, it’s being filled with flammable liquids that can and do leak everywhere and combust upon collision.
You can ignore them. Same with all the disingenuous cunts who complain about wind turbines “spoiling the view” who ignore the coal and gas power stations that have littered the skyline for over a century.
You can put a petrol fire out in less than a few days though. Petrol doesn’t magically catch fire upon seeing oxygen either.
Ah, Lemmy. You never disappoint with sharing hilariously inaccurate information in comments!
ICE vehicles have far more fires. EVs are more intense, but significantly less frequent
Cool source. Ok, I’ll bite. The number of fire deaths in Teslas alone drawfs the number of fatalities in the infamous Pinto. The number is being tracked by volunteers because there’s no data from the NFPA or others that segments by EV vs ICE, but the number of highway vehicle fire deaths has been trending sharply upwards since 2016.
Tesla has sold nearly 8 million cars in total, with 3.5 million cars in 2023-2024 alone. There were 3.1 million Pintos ever produced in its 10 year run.
There are 27 fatalities linked to Pinto related fires and 83 related to Tesla fires according to your volunteer run source. The Pinto had a fatality for every 1 in 116,000 vehicles while Tesla, according to your source, has 1 in every 96,000. So the number of Tesla fire related fatalities does not “dwarf” the number of Pinto related fatalities. On top of that, a key difference is most of the Pinto fatalities were due to rear end collisions with no fault of the driver while Tesla’s are much higher performance vehicles getting involved in high energy collisions due to driver (autonomous and human) errors.
Here is a list giving a different view of fatal accidents by car model. To quote the article:
“Most of these vehicles received excellent safety ratings, performing well in crash tests at the IIHS and NHTSA, so it’s not a vehicle design issue,” said Brauer. “The models on this list likely reflect a combination of driver behavior and driving conditions, leading to increased crashes and fatalities.”
Narrowing down the relevant information from your otherwise interesting comment, we can conclude that, if the sources are accurate, Teslas on average are more unsafe in terms of fire safety than the most unsafe internal combustion engine vehicle ever manufactured.
I think it’s ludicrous to dismiss those concerns as “fucking bonkers” and that we “can ignore them.” New addition to this list is that we can evidently also generalize all those EVs deaths as being “due to driver error,” so I suppose good riddance? Not really sure what to make of that, but boy do these threads sure show the best of humanity.
I think Teslas shouldn’t speak for all EVs.
the company has demonstrated a very high tolerance for risk. In execution, but also they don’t seem to care about reputational risk. Other manufacturers with a larger business at stake, I would expect to handle recalls, safety in a different manner (one of the reasons they are lagging in the EV space)
So… EVs have significantly less fires than combustion engines
But EVs fires are more severe
Tesla is a mess.
EV chemistry is getting better and safer over time.
Combustion engines are largely at their limit.
Absolutely agreed on all points!
You have clearly made up a narrative you want to hear, that doesn’t change the statistics that clearly shows EVs are significantly less prone (~20x) to catching fire compared to internal combustion vehicles.
How have I made up a narrative? My premise from the start was the absurdity of dismissing the dangers of vehicle fires, and there’s data showing that a significant number of people die in EV fires. You’ve decided to argue that the deaths somehow matter less—that’s making up a narrative to justify your, frankly, ludicrous position.
I’m sure that if somebody you loved died in such an event and somebody came along telling you that you’re “an idiot” for having legitimate concerns, should be ignored and lumps you into a group of “disingenuous cunts,” you’d have a different perspective.
I thought sodium batteries had considerably less energy density than conventional? Is that not a problem anymore? If that hasn’t been solved, I don’t see how this helps make EVs safer.
They indeed have less energy density, but I don’t get your point about less safety.
They work better in high and low temperatures, can be charged a lot faster and don’t degrade as fast. Sodium isn’t as reactive as Lithium, lowering the risk of fires.
My point is that if they have less energy density, they aren’t a particularity great choice for EVs, as the increased battery size to get the same capacity makes the whole thing much heavier, requiring even more battery to move it.
I guess for like short range vehicles, it might be fine, but at least around here, thats gunna be a pretty tough sell, because everything is spread out.
It can’t really make EVs safer if its not being used for them due to the drawbacks, is all.
ICE engines use a bunch of physical space for accessory components related to the engine. Li-ion powered e-cars reclaimed a ton of that space (i.e. Tesla has a frunk)
Perhaps next using a bit more space for a less dense sodium battery in exchange for a vehicle that is 0% explodable is a worthy trade (if claims are true).
Putting part of the battery in the front, in the crash zone, is going to reduce safety, not improve it.
One of the main things that improved EV safety over ICE cars is the frunk itself. By removing that massive engine from the front and replacing it with a crumple zone, the car becomes much safer in front impacts.
Who wants a more front-heavy car? That’s just a recipe for understeer and I prefer having the ability to turn on ice.
Is frunk what elon rebranded his fupa? His fat upper penis area?
I guess they suggested, that the batteries won’t be used in EVs, as long as their capacity is significantly lower.
I recall reading the same.
Sodium batteries make loads of sense for house batteries like solar storage.
They should be the default for solar installations and grid-level storage, but are too new.
They can also replace lead-acid batteries for many applications.
Lithium will still rule microelectronics and wearables, but all lower density stuff should switch to sodium.
That being said, for cold environments like Scandinavia and the US Midwest & canada, sodium ion works better in both cold and heat swings than Lithium variants that it might be worth the tradeoff in capacity because in the long cold months, the reduced capacity and performance of lithium chemistries would completely close the gap anyways.
They should be the default for solar installations and grid-level storage
What ever happened to flow batteries? They were supposed to be the really cheap low density option for grid storage.
I would love this for my home, as well as at a smaller scale for my homelab, and even potentially things like power tools.
Just recently a friend doing a home reno project had one of their drill batteries achieve thermal runaway, fortunately while they were home. Made me really think twice about the pile of tools in my garage.
I’d trade in just about every portable-scale Li-ion battery I own for a slightly less energy dense but safer alternative.
I was hoping eBike could use them. I’ve seen one too many of those go up. Possibly from shoddy 3rd party batteries.
Sodium chemistry works in cold temps, lithium does not.
They have considerably less energy density yes, but that was also the case for LFP batteries in the past.
LFP batteries have improved now though over the years and can now go quite reasonable distances, making the more expensive higher energy density batteries like NCM only needed for the longer range or performance variants.
The same should happen to the sodium based batteries, and LFP will eventually get to the point of the longer range types in the future.
Eventually, the range of the higher density types won’t be needed, and they’ll simply start including fewer cells of them to get the sweet point range which will then bring their costs / weight down when compared to lower density types, but it’s possible by that point maybe the lower density types simply dominate due to their general lesser cost?
All of this of course assuming something like solid state batteries don’t have their breakthrough low cost long lifespan moment.
Yea but if it’s half the price people are willing to put up with a lot of inconveniences.
Idk about that. Electric cars have been half the price to drive and people still buy gas cars due to the ‘inconvenience’ of long charge times on road trips.
And no amount of performance improvements is going to change the minds of those people. Either they’ll finally try electric and realize how great they are or eventually die out. Either way ICE is going to be the oddity one day.
I think lot of people not too serious about buying electric dont really understand the savings either.
They see a bigger monthly payment and dont account for how much in gas they’ll pay, plus some of the extra more immediate maintenance like oil changes. Its harder to think about the longer term maintenance though.
Am I the only one who has never heard the term “ICE” referring to Internal Combustion Engine vehicles? I hate how headlines deliberately make new acronyms or limit context to get people to click on the article.
I’ve heard of it before
It’s very old… decades, and when talking about EVs and hybrids, an obviously quick way to reference conventional gas engine vehicles. The term is just unfortunately carrying some more recent baggage.
I’ve heard it a few times before the whole ICE thing in the US. Especially on threads of electric car owners talking about combustion cars.
Oldest acronym I know, since physics class in grade five
Am I the only one who has never heard the term “ICE” referring to Internal Combustion Engine vehicles?
Probably not the only one. Maybe there are dozens of you
I blame the American education system. (Or lack there of)
I love the poor grammar while dunking on the US educational system.
Sodium is absolutely less of a fire risk which is good and is made of less rare earth minerals which is also a bonus.
The major downside is the energy density. If I am not mistaken it is about half of current litium ion batteries. Which would result in a halving of range for the same weight.
On top of that, if they ever get them into production, the solid state Lithium ion batteries are not only more energy dense than current batteries, they are also safer due to the lack of flammable liquid electrolites.
In conclusion with what I know, I doubt most cars will use sodium ion batteries. I would see them as great home batteries for solar installations. And maybe batteries for farm equipement or construction vehicles although the weight might become an issue.
Sodium batteries are only 30% less energy dense, but cost half as much as lithium and work better in lower temperatures. Most cars will use sodium chemistry and the shift is already taking place.
See the “working better in lower temperatures” is what im interested in. I would love an EV if we had the infrastructure to support it, but as they are right now there is little incentive to build the infrastructure because it’s often too cold where I live and everything is so far apart.
Your government needs to just build whole country nuclear and stop its other spending, once you’ve got cheap abundant energy then its inevitable.
Than my information was out of date because the in formation I had sodium was around 140w an lithium around 250w so not half but a large gap. But with the range anxiety most people already have I wonder if 30% less available power will be acceptable for them. And as I said before solid state Lithium should be a massive change and allow electric cars to rival diesel for range.
Something we’ll never see in the US because the US hates real competition.
Don’t worry, you can see Teslas catching fire.
Two cyber trucks yesterday.
do you know what else Cybertrucks have in common with dumpsters (besides the obvious visual similarities and raccoon problems)? they both have spontaneous combustion issues.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sodium-ion_battery
Sodium-ion battery development took place in the 1970s and early 1980s. However, by the 1990s, lithium-ion batteries had demonstrated more commercial promise, causing interest in sodium-ion batteries to decline.[16][17] In the early 2010s, sodium-ion batteries experienced a resurgence, driven largely by the increasing cost of lithium-ion battery raw materials.[16] Also, the number of patent families reached the number of non-patent publication after ca. 2020, which usually signify the fact that the technology reached the commercialization stage.
Do we have cars made of ice?! Cool
We almost had ships made of mostly ice a while ago, but it never took off https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project_Habakkuk
Technically correct.
Sodium blows up when exposed to water.
So does lithium, even more violently, good thing is that nobody is using pure lithium or sodium
So does lithium. Not relevant for battery tech, tho
Very relevant for firefighters who have to deal with lithium and sodium fires.
BTW: Explosion in case of lithium is indirect since you need a hydrogen buildup first. In case of sodium plus water it goes boom almost instantly
Jesus Christ you all want to discount Chinese innovations so bad. America won’t fund anything that doesn’t immediately return anymore. They’ve fallen off.
they’re not using raw sodium but obviously mixing it with other chemicals. so it’s not relevant.
No, by design, you have as close as possible to raw metal on one of the electrodes when battery is fully charged. That’s the chemistry behind it - its moving metal between oxidation states. When it burns down, it also moves to higher oxidation states. Volatility is baked in. Usually you have lithium in carbon matrix that acts as physical sponge. But that’s just raw lithium in a sponge. It will still burn like hell.
For the occupants, any pedestrian hit by an EV will generally be in worse condition than if they were hit by an ICE vehicle.While this is ultimately good, the benefit can’t be applied so broadly as “the breakthrough that makes EVs safer than ICE cars”.Edit: /u/inclementimmigrant had it right, not me
The solution as always is to reduce car dependence.
wouldn’t the increased weight due the battery be partially compensated by a more lightweight motor? electric motors are significantly simpler and less heavy than ICE motors.
There’s a horde of petrolheads trying to make problems out of nothing. Don’t waste your time.
I think they may be a fuckcars person. They car be unreasonable also.
No, combustion engines don’t weigh much nowadays. 100-300 KG is common. Battery pack alone for a Model S is 544 KG, motor+inverter+transmission is another 140ish. For an RWD car, AWD of course adds another one of these (it also adds drivetrain complexity in an ICE vehicle, but not as much additional weight as in an EV).
VW ID.3 is apparently 41% heavier than a similar sized Golf.
Provide proof there bucko.
Looks like I spoke too soon, my bad.
I must have gotten studies that looked at height confused with weight.
Sodium explodes on contact with water, having a barrier or two is great, if you use them in cars it’s going to get punctured at times, what with tons of vehicle crashing into things at high speeds and all.
Sodium ion batteries don’t use sodium metal. They use sodium oxides as the cathode.
shhhh…no chemistry allowed
Some sodium ion batteries use an aqueous electrolyte, meaning they’re full of water.
Ah, so they’ve already exploded, thus rendering them safe for use.
You could still stub your toe on them, so not completely safe
“sodium batteries, pre exploded!”
