[0]https://reneweconomy.com.au/redflow-in-running-to-deliver-it...

[1]https://twitter.com/redflowlimited/status/145896802782790042...

Any car tech has to pass what I call the “rusty pickup test.” It has to degrade gracefully and remain useful and safe enough for use.

Current EV tech passes that. I can totally picture a rusty old F-150 Lightning with aftermarket repairs.

Does it though? I heard exploding/self-burning batteries, which were a problem with some cellphones, were a much bigger problems with electric vehicles? I don't have data on how often it happens though, but that makes me skeptical.

Lithium batteries in consumer electronics are not really engineered for a ton of safety but for rapid time to market which is certainly not what I’d like to see for very long. And while shipping lithium batteries a warning label needs to be attached but shipping gasoline and lighter fluid requires special permits and must be transported isolated with certain guarantees by law.

In this respect our current market has deemed lithium batteries to be far safer than gasoline without much need for regulatory pressure to do so.

If you want to completely replace the batteries in a Tesla you can do so in less than an hour, if I recall correctly. It doesn’t require any special equipment either.

As such their next gen pack is a single structural member of the car and likely will not be replaceable at all.

Tesla replaces battery packs and then sends the old one back to the factory to be refurbished, rather than junked.

As for future designs, a structural battery pack would still be replaceable. The difference is that the battery pack would supply a portion of the strength and rigidity of the frame. That doesn’t mean the car would fall apart if you removed it, however.

Each module has six groups of cells in series, 74 in parallel in each group, giving a module voltage of 22.8 V.

See https://www.researchgate.net/figure/Tesla-Model-S-74p6s-Batt...

Do you have resources on this topic?

[0] https://teslamotorsclub.com/tmc/threads/balancing-the-batter...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T7Q0nNkQTC

Really about 5-6 min in.

Plenty of things are technologically possible but as energy storage is commoditized so outside the lab we only care for the best ones where cost, efficiency, energy density, power density, energy leakage and battery life define the Pareto frontier.

There are flow batteries where you can switch the electrolytes when they are discharged.

You can also use standard lead-acid gel battery and switch them when they are discharged. (Use multiple small batteries and discharge them sequentially).

You can also switch solid-state Li-ion batteries.

There are also some molten metal and salts batteries : for example Ambri (https://ambri.com/technology/) (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m8751tkBU_Q) make some liquid metal battery ( where the discharged state is an alloy, and charging the battery separate back to its original components. Their batteries work at 500°C and are 80% efficient (vs lithium 95% efficient), and need to be immobile when used, but other can work at room temperature.

A gel in a liquid battery that deplete would presumably have some other outputs other then just pure energy since the mass of that gel is gotta go somewhere…

There's no real problem left to solve, but it will keep getting better as charging tech, infrastructure, cheap renewables and EV availability expands over time.

On the other hand, there's non-negligible possibility that cars powered by ICEs will be forbidden to enter city centers in 10 years.

From my perspective, battery technology still hasn't proven itself in this regard.

And even if it was more heavy, it improves driving since the weight is low and central.

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21344135

An example of a pourable variant.