There are some fascinating new cell applied sciences which have come to market in the previous couple of years, and some extra on their manner, which might be price reviewing. Regardless of their vanishingly small market share proper now, they typically appeal to extra consideration. May they be the subsequent massive factor, or will they only be a distinct segment product or doomed to be a historic curiosity?
Within the phosphate world, swap slightly iron for manganese and also you get LMFP with a barely larger vitality density (primarily on account of a considerably larger voltage) and largely related different properties to LFP. The reasonably larger projected value of the LMFP is meant to be offset by the rise in vitality, offering a web profit total. It’s due to this fact offered because the ‘splendid’ improve, however there are nonetheless some challenges to be overcome. Firstly, you possibly can’t simply drop in LMFP the place you had LFP earlier than. The upper voltage means it’s good to change your BMS and/or energy electronics or have fewer cells in collection which modifications your module design. So, engineering prices to swap aren’t zero. The extent of data about how LMFP behaves, can be decrease. Rising the manganese content material is important to forestall a double plateau and achieve the upper voltage, however there are issues this can result in shorter lifetimes on account of manganese dissolution.
Sodium-ion batteries are one other. A product has simply been launched by CATL, stealing a march on a bunch of others creating any such cell. Sodium has a number of claimed benefits, with the argument most frequently based mostly on value and security, with the principle competitors being LFP. The issue for sodium is that the economics seem like on a knife edge, if lithium costs are excessive, sodium is price it, and vice versa if not. They’re additionally predicated on the belief that somebody will sink the billions wanted to scale it as much as the volumes vital for the assumptions to be true. Nevertheless, from a geo-politics and diversifying provide chains perspective, possibly an alternate provide chain for an alternate battery know-how does have worth and will justify the funding.
Stable-state is a bit additional away, with no larger vitality density model being commercialised but, regardless of that being its most vital USP. There are some massive names backing and creating the know-how, comparable to Toyota and Quantumscape, and a brand new consortium CASIP in China together with CATL and BYD which is projected to spend nearly a billion {dollars}. Competing with LFP or Sodium on value is unlikely, and there are some basic scientific the explanation why energy goes to be onerous, and security hazards are going to be completely different at finest or difficult at worst, leaving vitality density the one smart justification for investing on this new tech. As LFP has taught us, vitality density is simply the principle driver for a portion of the battery market. Subsequently, if any of those new applied sciences does make it and attain quantity manufacturing, I predict they received’t displace the present contenders for a very long time and can merely improve the number of choices on provide.
Affecting all these applied sciences, almost each time I hear a minimum of somebody declare will probably be safer. This demonstrates a basic misunderstanding of security as an idea. There is no such thing as a such factor as a ‘secure’ or ‘safer’ cell kind. It’s the job of the engineer to find out how a lot it’ll value to make the product secure sufficient. For some new cells this can be cheaper to attain, however the engineers received’t know the way to do that with out information, and that requires prototypes, testing, and finally area information from years of scaling up. It’s this information that provides us the educational charges for a brand new know-how, and sadly there isn’t any solution to pace this up with out shed a great deal of money. Subsequently, early adopters should usually be in a distinct segment the place the USP of the brand new know-how is price sufficient to offset the disadvantages of being the guinea pig contributing in the direction of these studying charges.
