One promising candidate is the sodium-ion battery, which uses sodium,an element far more abundant and widely available than lithium. In fact, sodium is thousands of times more plentiful in the Earth’s crust than lithium — approximately 20ppm, whereas sodium is tens of thousands of ppm. This abundance makes sodium cheaper and easier to source, without the geopolitical bottlenecks associated with lithium.
Don’t get too excited. CATL is top dog here (today) Its cutting edge sodium ion is right at 200 w/kg energy density . Tesla’s NMC 4680 has an energy density of around 350 w/kg.
So there are some reasons for using Lithium. Plus there are other promising chemistries that use lithium as well as other form factors such as solid state.
On the other hand, Sodium Ion is still being optimized and the price is awesome.
Still pretty important. If the range on an EV drops from 200 miles to 150, that means people will have to have even more plans to recharge away from home - and EV charging locations are not that prevalent yet.
For example, my wife could no longer drive her EV to pick up my son from college because there are no readily available chargers along her rural route.
That would obviously be vehicle dependent. A 45-kWh sodium-ion battery pack in a Y is going to get you farther than that same battery pack in a Hummer.
Not sure what your point is with that graph. While that may be the new standard, it would not be the standard with a battery with less density. Additionally, advertised range is rarely accurate. My wife’s EV has an advertised range of 263 miles and she sometimes struggles to get to 210 with it.
Mileage whether ICE or EV usually is dependent on how a person drives a vehicle. A case in point, recently I did an experiment with my ice vehicle on a quick trip to a hot springs located 75 miles from my abode. I filled the car up with gasoline a few mile from my house and took the interstate [70 mph] to the hot springs and then refilled it for the return trip on the less traveled back roads at 50 mph. 33 mpg going and 44 mpg on the return trip.
Though EVs are more seriously affected by temperature.The US EV charging system is pretty extensive and constantly improving.
This was my initial take also. For most cars it matters very little. But cars are not the only thing that needs to move.
We have Semi trucks. They have a 72000 pound limit (I think it varies from state to state, but there is a limit. Every pound the truck weighs is a pound of cargo it cannot haul.
Construction equipment, may or may not need the attributes of lighter cells
And if Elon is even close to being right, Robots will eat up lithium and make the car problem of the early 2020’s look very small.
Also, drones. I think the use cases for drones is under appreciated. I cannot speak to it directly but I get the sense that it is growing quietly in the civil sector while we are looking at the bright flashy stuff going on in wars.
