There are some attention-grabbing new cell applied sciences which have come to market in the previous couple of years, and some extra on their method, which might be value reviewing. Regardless of their vanishingly small market share proper now, they usually entice extra consideration. May they be the subsequent massive factor, or will they simply be a distinct segment product or doomed to be a historic curiosity?
Within the phosphate world, swap a bit iron for manganese and also you get LMFP with a barely increased vitality density (primarily on account of a considerably increased voltage) and largely related different properties to LFP. The reasonably increased projected value of the LMFP is meant to be offset by the rise in vitality, offering a internet profit total. It’s due to this fact offered because the ‘preferrred’ improve, however there are nonetheless some challenges to be overcome. Firstly, you’ll be able to’t simply drop in LMFP the place you had LFP earlier than. The upper voltage means it’s worthwhile to change your BMS and/or energy electronics or have fewer cells in sequence which adjustments your module design. So, engineering prices to swap should not zero. The extent of data about how LMFP behaves, can also be decrease. Rising the manganese content material is important to forestall a double plateau and achieve the upper voltage, however there are considerations it will 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 number of others growing this kind of cell. Sodium has a number of claimed benefits, with the argument most frequently based mostly on value and security, with the primary competitors being LFP. The issue for sodium is that the economics seem like on a knife edge, if lithium costs are excessive, sodium is value 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 crucial 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 expertise does have worth and will justify the funding.
Stable-state is a bit additional away, with no increased vitality density model being commercialised but, regardless of that being its most vital USP. There are some massive names backing and growing the expertise, reminiscent of 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 elementary scientific the reason why energy goes to be exhausting, and security hazards are going to be completely different at greatest or difficult at worst, leaving vitality density the one wise justification for investing on this new tech. As LFP has taught us, vitality density is barely the primary 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 supply.
Affecting all these applied sciences, practically each time I hear not less than somebody declare it will likely be safer. This demonstrates a elementary misunderstanding of security as an idea. There isn’t any such factor as a ‘protected’ or ‘safer’ cell sort. It’s the job of the engineer to find out how a lot it would value to make the product protected sufficient. For some new cells this can be cheaper to attain, however the engineers received’t know the way to do that with out data, and that requires prototypes, testing, and ultimately discipline information from years of scaling up. It’s this information that provides us the training charges for a brand new expertise, and sadly there isn’t a technique 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 expertise is value sufficient to offset the disadvantages of being the guinea pig contributing in the direction of these studying charges.
