I didn't see a number for cycle life. That'd be my biggest question here. You can charge in less than 7 minutes but how many times before performance (capacity) degrades?
If anything, Nio battery swap stations would allow car users to swap to newer types of battery as they become available. I say this knowing Nio is one of CATL's most important partners[1].
That'd be an interesting situation. They'd probably replace their fleet of batteries gradually, so with each swap sometimes you'd get upgraded, sometimes downgraded. Your range and home charging curves would change with the batteries, and Nio would have to update the battery management software when it puts in a different battery type.
But over time, you'd get upgraded on average without having to pay for a new battery, as long as Nio kept updating to keep its batteries competitive.
Nio already has a service to swap to higher capacity battery if you want to go on a long road trip etc. It prices its cars according to battery capacity so even people that chose lower capacity car on purchase still have the option to swap to a higher capacity battery.
Though I think the main use for battery swap technology will be for commercial trucking and if I recall correctly Chinese government and OEM are working on standardisation for that so all those truck batteries are swappable no matter which company builds the battery.
We should always take marketing number with a huge grain of salt, so the 10 to 98% in 7 minutes remain to be seen. Also, there is the question of if it lowers the battery lifespan faster than charging at lower power. It is does, there might still be a point in battery swap, especially for public transport systems (for bus). A public transit operator might want to have more battery than vehicle, so that they can rotate the battery regularly and charge them at lower power, to diminish and distribute the wear on battery. But that's obviously a big if and a more niche usage.
the life span stat with the current battery tech is mostly useless for a normal car. 300 mile range most people will need to top up 2 times a week 100 times a year 1000 times in 10 years. The battery degradation is not that bad in the first place.
Feels quite clear Donut doesn't have much - no meaningful new tests released for many weeks already and some executive of Nordic Nano sued Donut Lab and said their claims were misleading.
I haven't really followed that closely myself, but I've noticed the people who I saw defending Donut before have gone really quiet about it lately.
Donut's website claims that they will release the next test result in 7 days, so you can check next week whether those people will have something new to talk about: https://idonutbelieve.com
> have a minute to plug in? Still sufficient to get from 10 to 35 percent state of charge.
Scaling that to something the size of an EV pack will require one massive cable/connector. Call it 5kw/h in 1/60 hours, thats 3000kw, at 700v thats still roughly 4000 amps. (Please correct my head math.) Charging one car could suck up more power than an entire neighbourhood. Say four or five chargers operating at once ... every roadside charging station will need its own electrical substation.
Fjord ferries in Norway are up around that sort of charge rate, but for 30 mins instead of 5. That kind of battery charging performance is pure marketing until our local LV supply network is uplifted!
Neither article mentions what specs - voltage and kW - are used when doing this very fast charging.
Does anyone know? Assuming it's not just the current high-end spec of 800v? It matters because higher current requires heavier equipment to generate it and heavier cables too.
I didn't see a number for cycle life. That'd be my biggest question here. You can charge in less than 7 minutes but how many times before performance (capacity) degrades?
right at the end “After 1,000 fast charges, the battery should retain more than 90 percent of its original state of charge, the company said.”
China had many >1M KM electric taxies. Usually they degrade after 200,000 km, and they are like 2 generations behind the latest ones.
I did not expect Nio's 5-minute battery swap technology to become obsolete this soon.
If anything, Nio battery swap stations would allow car users to swap to newer types of battery as they become available. I say this knowing Nio is one of CATL's most important partners[1].
[1] https://eletric-vehicles.com/catl/catl-calls-nio-an-irreplac...
That'd be an interesting situation. They'd probably replace their fleet of batteries gradually, so with each swap sometimes you'd get upgraded, sometimes downgraded. Your range and home charging curves would change with the batteries, and Nio would have to update the battery management software when it puts in a different battery type.
But over time, you'd get upgraded on average without having to pay for a new battery, as long as Nio kept updating to keep its batteries competitive.
Nio already has a service to swap to higher capacity battery if you want to go on a long road trip etc. It prices its cars according to battery capacity so even people that chose lower capacity car on purchase still have the option to swap to a higher capacity battery. Though I think the main use for battery swap technology will be for commercial trucking and if I recall correctly Chinese government and OEM are working on standardisation for that so all those truck batteries are swappable no matter which company builds the battery.
5 minute swap is not needed for this.
We should always take marketing number with a huge grain of salt, so the 10 to 98% in 7 minutes remain to be seen. Also, there is the question of if it lowers the battery lifespan faster than charging at lower power. It is does, there might still be a point in battery swap, especially for public transport systems (for bus). A public transit operator might want to have more battery than vehicle, so that they can rotate the battery regularly and charge them at lower power, to diminish and distribute the wear on battery. But that's obviously a big if and a more niche usage.
the life span stat with the current battery tech is mostly useless for a normal car. 300 mile range most people will need to top up 2 times a week 100 times a year 1000 times in 10 years. The battery degradation is not that bad in the first place.
Saw this yesterday, did not expect the competition around Donut's batteries to heat up this much and this quickly.
Even the gravimetric density is fairly close, CATL's claim is 350 Wh/kg, compared to Donut's 400 Wh/kg.
The safety and durability (plus no lithium) prospects of Donut's V1 battery are still big though (if the thing is actually real).
Feels quite clear Donut doesn't have much - no meaningful new tests released for many weeks already and some executive of Nordic Nano sued Donut Lab and said their claims were misleading.
I haven't really followed that closely myself, but I've noticed the people who I saw defending Donut before have gone really quiet about it lately.
Donut's website claims that they will release the next test result in 7 days, so you can check next week whether those people will have something new to talk about: https://idonutbelieve.com
> have a minute to plug in? Still sufficient to get from 10 to 35 percent state of charge.
Scaling that to something the size of an EV pack will require one massive cable/connector. Call it 5kw/h in 1/60 hours, thats 3000kw, at 700v thats still roughly 4000 amps. (Please correct my head math.) Charging one car could suck up more power than an entire neighbourhood. Say four or five chargers operating at once ... every roadside charging station will need its own electrical substation.
> Call it 5kw/h in 1/60 hours, thats 3000kw, at 700v thats still roughly 4000 amps. (Please correct my head math.)
5 kWh * 60 = 300 kW
at 800V (typical charging voltage) that is 375A
(still huge, but an order of magnitude less)
Fjord ferries in Norway are up around that sort of charge rate, but for 30 mins instead of 5. That kind of battery charging performance is pure marketing until our local LV supply network is uplifted!
chargers of that size generally have there own internal (sometimes even shared by multiple receptacles) batteries
Neither article mentions what specs - voltage and kW - are used when doing this very fast charging.
Does anyone know? Assuming it's not just the current high-end spec of 800v? It matters because higher current requires heavier equipment to generate it and heavier cables too.