this post was submitted on 25 Apr 2024
167 points (79.3% liked)

Technology

58303 readers
15 users here now

This is a most excellent place for technology news and articles.


Our Rules


  1. Follow the lemmy.world rules.
  2. Only tech related content.
  3. Be excellent to each another!
  4. Mod approved content bots can post up to 10 articles per day.
  5. Threads asking for personal tech support may be deleted.
  6. Politics threads may be removed.
  7. No memes allowed as posts, OK to post as comments.
  8. Only approved bots from the list below, to ask if your bot can be added please contact us.
  9. Check for duplicates before posting, duplicates may be removed

Approved Bots


founded 1 year ago
MODERATORS
you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
[–] [email protected] 2 points 7 months ago* (last edited 7 months ago) (2 children)

Battery density has been improving steadily for the last three decades.

Battery costs keep falling while quality rises. As volumes increased, battery costs plummeted and energy density — a key metric of a battery's quality — rose steadily. Over the past 30 years, battery costs have fallen by a dramatic 99 percent; meanwhile, the density of top-tier cells has risen fivefold

...

With regards to anodes, a number of chemistry changes have the potential to improve energy density (watt-hour per kilogram, or Wh/kg). For example, silicon can be used to replace all or some of the graphite in the anode in order to make it lighter and thus increase the energy density. Silicon-doped graphite already entered the market a few years ago, and now around 30% of anodes contain silicon. Another option is innovative lithium metal anodes, which could yield even greater energy density when they become commercially available.

What's more, the Chinese market is both the leading producer and consumer of battery technology. So its weird to reflexively doubt that a Chinese firm would release a new higher-efficiency battery design.

Given that this is a prototype, its entirely unclear if the model is cost-efficient to mass manufacture or efficiently scalable based on available resources. But I'm hard pressed to discount the claim on its face simply because its got "China" in the headline.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 7 months ago

I would instantly discount it based purely on not having third party verification or enough details for a third party to replicate.