The Story Of Electric Vehicle Batteries
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Published 2020-05-25
HOW BATTERIES WORK
The modern incarnation of the electrochemical battery is credited to the Italian scientist Alessandro Volta, who put together the first battery in response to the misguided findings of his colleague, Luigi Galvani. Volta suspected that the electric current came from the two dissimilar metals and it was being transmitted through the frogs’ tissues, not originating from it. Volta had developed the first electrochemical battery, known as a voltaic pile.
Individual cells can be combined into configurations that can both increase the total voltage and current capacity. This is known as a battery. On primary batteries, the electrodes become depleted as they release their positive or negative ions into the electrolyte, or the build-up of reaction products on the electrodes prevents the reaction from continuing. This results in a one-time use battery.
In secondary batteries, the chemical reaction that occurred during discharge can be reversed.
FIRST RECHARGEABLE BATTERY
In 1859, the French physicist Gaston Planté would invent the lead-acid battery, the first-ever battery that could be recharged. By the 1880s, the lead-acid battery would take on a more practical form with each cell consisting of interlaced plates of lead and lead dioxide.
In the early 1900s, the electric vehicle began to grow in popularity in the United States, after thriving in Europe for over 15 years. Within a few years, most electric vehicle manufacturers had ceased production.
NiMH
In the late 1960s, research had begun by the global communications company COMSAT, on a relatively new battery chemistry called nickel-hydrogen. Designed specifically for use on satellites, probes, and other space vehicles, these batteries used hydrogen stored at up to 82 bar with a nickel oxide hydroxide cathode and a platinum-based catalyst anode that behaved similarly to a hydrogen fuel cell. The pressure of hydrogen would decrease as the cell is depleted offering a reliable indicator of the batteries charge.
Though nickel-hydrogen batteries offered only a slightly better energy storage capacity than lead-acid batteries, their service life exceeded 15 years and they had a cycle durability exceeding 20,000 charge/recharge cycles. By the early 1980s their use on space vehicles became common. Over the next two decades research into nickel-metal hydride cell technology was supported heavily by both Daimler-Benz and by Volkswagen AG resulting in the first generation of batteries achieving storage capacities similar to nickel-hydrogen, though with a 5 fold increase in specific power. This breakthrough led to the first consumer-grade nickel-metal hydride batteries to become commercially available in 1989.
REVIVAL OF ELECTRIC CARS
Almost 100 years after the first golden age of electric vehicles, a confluence of several factors reignited interest in electric vehicles once again. This initiative intersected with the recent refinement of nickel-metal hydride battery technology, making practical electrical vehicles a viable commercial option to pursue. By the late 1990s, mass-market electric vehicle production had started once again. Taking a more risk-averse approach, many automakers started to develop all-electric models based on existing platforms in their model line up.
MODERN ELECTRIC CARS
Despite lithium-ion batteries becoming a viable option for electric vehicles, the second half of the 1990s into the mid-2000s were primarily dominated by the more risk-averse technology of hybrid-powered vehicles. And even these successful early models such as the Toyota Prius were generally still powered by Nickel-metal hydride battery technology.
At the time lithium-ion batteries were still relatively unproven for vehicle use and also cost more per kWh. Around 2010, The cathode material of lithium-ion cells would once evolve with the advent of lithium nickel manganese cobalt oxide cathodes or NMC. Curiously, Tesla is known for being the only manufacturer who does not use NMC cell technology but rather much older lithium nickel cobalt aluminum oxide cathode, or NCA.
COBALT
With the surge in consumer adoption of electric vehicles, comes a rise in the demand for the lithium-ion batteries that power them. While roughly half of the cobalt produced is currently used for batteries, the metal also has important uses in electronics, tooling, and superalloys like those used in jet turbines. More than half of the world’s cobalt comes from the Democratic Republic of the Congo. With no state regulation, cobalt mining in the region is also plagued with exploitative practices.
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All Comments (21)
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This is just a consolidated re-upload of my two-part episode on electric vehicle batteries. It was initially supposed to be a single video, but due to it taking a month to produce I was forced to initially split it up in order to keep the algorithm happy with timely uploads. 😛
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2m into video: umm this seems familiar 7m into video: its not that i've heard some of this elsewhere is it 11m into video, sees picture: Hey! This is? a re-release? 12m into video, power tools: This is a re-release! I've seen this vid before, from you. Oh well, still a good video, i keep watching.
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Goodenough repeatedly looked at the current products and said to himself: "This is not good enough."
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Just a note from an impressed lifepo4 user. I bought a 48V 10Ah lifepo4 battery for my electric bicycle, 16 Headway cells in 38120 format, claiming to hold 80% capacity at 2000 cycles against usually about 500 cycles of regular lithium cells. Had to look the invoice to refresh my memory about the date, because it was in 2012. That bicycle is my only vehicle, well, the type, because it is the second one, and over those years had to endure an average of one recharge a day, sometimes even 3 having to fast charge without let it cool. They are supposed to last about 5 years before aging degrade, but it performed pretty good until just recently. About 5 months ago dropped noticeable in performance and cant deliver more than 50% at the 23Amps the motor demands. Until that sudden drop was capable of delivery more than the 80% frontier. That's 10 years of intense work, about 24A continuous load and they are rated at 30A max sustained and 10A recommended. They are bigger and heavier than lithium ion, but they are also as safe as lithium can get, not causing fire even when punctured or hard shorted. But Men, even that peace of mind gets obscured against that endurance, 10 years of continuous hard service, hot summers, cold winters, and who knows how much it can give, as it still make 1/3 of the mileage, but 3/4 at half the constant load. What a difference, i still remember those poor cheap Pb batteries, what a nightmare. And they get easily more expensive than lithium if you want them to last more than 6 months. I hope the electric car nonsense don't make the batteries unaffordable. An electric SUV is not green, and moving 1,5 tons of metal to transport 80kg of meat doesn't matter if it's petrol or lithium. Ok, it's hard to switch to a bicycle, but please, please, why the growth of electric SUV sales? We want more range, but when improve batteries and motors we make the vehicles even bigger?...
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Battery tech is a really exciting topic to keep track of. Will be seeing massive progress real soon
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Hey, love your videos, they're informative and you pick good subjects and the relaxed use of visuals is nice too. A suggestion, if I may... you have a lot of content to cover and its technical content so its tricky to get it all out without a script to read from, so you're fighting against your VO sounding like you're reading from a script. If you break up your script into small chunks and record yourself delivering those from memory, without reading the script, after a few times, each segment will flow more naturally. This will help the main points that you're trying to convey to stand out, as you'll naturally emphasise what you know is important. Could be an easy win for an already great set of strengths you have. Thanks for the videos and keep up the good work!
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Stellar as always! Do one on radio! And by the way, you're one of the few channels that I must have the bell on
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Your video was great! It absorbed me as i absorbed the information. However, could you make slightly more detailed description animations for the electrical/chemical/scientific processes you narrate so well? That would literally make this channel pretty much a staple for science based learning!
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not forgetting cobalt is also used in the oil refining process where it is consumed and therefore unrecyclable unlike in EV batteries......
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It's a joy to watch (really nice synchronized pictures and music), and a feast for my curiosity.
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what I learned on this channel in few weeks is more informative than my 4 years of engineering school... Great content
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High quality, well researched information.
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Nice video... But I would love if you can do a video on different batteries and effects on their performance at different temperatures (especially temperature ranges that they are most likely to work in real world application). Thanks...
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I keep zoning out of this video but I just like to listen to it. Love the sci-fi vibes.
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Your work is absolutely amazing! Thank you for the adventure!
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Great video/documentary, youtube should put it on featured, deserves more views
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John B. Goodenough helped make a breakthrough that was more than just goodenough.
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@6:45 I believe Henry Ford intended his cars to run on alcohol (because he was a farmer and farmers can make alcohol cheaply) but he made the carburettors so they could run either gasoline or alcohol.
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Thanks for the video. Around 09:35 you mentioned that the most famous electric vehicle known to date was the lunar lander. You meant to say the Lunar Roving Vehicle, otherwise known as moon buggies. Though I notice others have picked up on this same minor point.
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I was reading a paper but not getting the things properly. This video helps a lot
