NEW BATTERY TECH COMING FOR E-BIKES?

[Litehiker]

Most of us with e-bikes have likely read or heard about the frantic search automakers are undertaking currently to make "solid state' batteries for their vehicles. Japanese makers are underwriting Panasonic, Korean Hyundai/Kia with Samsung and VW/Porsche/Audi with an American company.
Q: Will any of this new tech "trickle down" to e-bike batteries? We can only pray, light votive candles and make burnt offerings (i.e. cook dinner) in hopes that it happens and we have lighter batteries that are faster charging, greater range and, dare we hope, less expensive. Or will it be "pick one"?

Anyway gentle riders, let us make a 2023 Christmas/New Year wish that this comes true and we MTB riders can get these Unobtanium batteries for our bikes as our Li ion batteries gradually crap out.

And for those of us who car camp with our E-MTBs we can pray that new battery tech also finds its way into our "solar generator" batteries.
We remote E-MTBers already have an extremely efficient solar blanket (to charge those "generator" batteries and thus our bike batteries) in the 220 watt Off Grid TREK unit.
"Technology marches on". EXCELSIOR! EUREKA! and all that.

 

[Bummers]

Less expensive....

 

[PennywiseTheDancingClown]

`

Less expensive....

Was also my reaction.

There will be trickle down, but only for old tech (at any given point in time)

 

[Litehiker]

MY! What Grinchy responses!
Have a dram of 12 year old single malt Scotch and think it over.
On second thought have 4 drams.

Hey, a boy can dream.

 

[Monkey Dog]

We should be getting the new tech first, not the bloody cars
We're far more important

 

[Alexbn921]

What! No new tech is coming anytime soon.

 

[#lazy]

MY! What Grinchy responses!
Have a dram of 12 year old single malt Scotch and think it over.
On second thought have 4 drams.

Hey, a boy can dream.

Santa got me this and it’s rather tasty ! Happy new year

Penderyn Madeira 70cl

This whisky is the original Penderyn ‘house style’, aged in ex-bourbon barrels and finished in ex-Madeira wine casks to bring out its full gold character. It is bottled at 46% abv.

www.penderyn.wales

 

[Mikerb]

any new battery tech needs mass production before it even becomes viable in terms of cost our little market of bikes will not cut it. Cars will get it first but not until all the investment in lithium powered battery production is forced to migrate due to lithium supplies running out........as they will quite quickly!

 

[Litehiker]

I wonder if perhaps e-bikes will see another type of improved battery tech than the automotive industry gets.

 

[Alexbn921]

I wonder if perhaps e-bikes will see another type of improved battery tech than the automotive industry gets.

They will not. Battery tech is slow moving and it's a game of refinement of current tech and lab research into future 10+ years off stuff. Solid state is 10 years away from matching future lipo batteries. Even then it will just be stating to scale production.

What you got is what you will get for the next 10 years at least. +3% per year on current tech.

 

[steve_sordy]

any new battery tech needs mass production before it even becomes viable in terms of cost our little market of bikes will not cut it. Cars will get it first but not until all the investment in lithium powered battery production is forced to migrate due to lithium supplies running out........as they will quite quickly!

Hydrogen is the way to go for cars and trucks.
That will leave Lithium and all the other rare earth elements for bike batteries.

 

[2WheelsNot4]

BETTER !! FURTHER !! CHEAPER !!

Backwards compatible ?

No.

 

[Bones]

I recon i will be 104 by the time it filters down to bikes. So there is a chance it will be of no use for me

 

[steve_sordy]

Battery supply chain reform should be at the top of everybody's wish list. Batteries dirty secret in the Congo is largely unknown or ignored by the end users at the top of the chain.

Modern Slavery: The true cost of cobalt mining

See my appeal for hydrogen as a fuel, (post #11)

 

[Mcharza]

Battery supply chain reform should be at the top of everybody's wish list. Batteries dirty secret in the Congo is largely unknown or ignored by the end users at the top of the chain.

Modern Slavery: The true cost of cobalt mining

New modern electric car batteries no longer use cobalt. Let's hope that the same development will also come to emtb.
And some of the electric cars already use LiFePo batteries, which gives better charge cycle times, even more than 3000 times.

 

[baddon]

New modern electric car batteries no longer use cobalt. Let's hope that the same development will also come to emtb.
And some of the electric cars already use LiFePo batteries, which gives better charge cycle times, even more than 3000 times.

I have watched a few items on this of late. Both Ford and GM are pinning their hopes on changing battery tech to a slightly older tech that will less Energy density due to many factors like above and that its more temperature stable allows it to be packed in closer therefore negating the density issue. Safer, less expensive, easier to obtain and less complex. Lasts longer as its stable for 3000 cyles. It may bring bikes lower cost and better safety but not so sure about range. So its the old adage - you can have any two of the three.....

 

[Litehiker]

The many auto companies that are betting heavily on SOLID STATE batteries may surpass GM and Ford in battery performance IF their gambles pay off.

One thing is for sure: The battery technology race will continue for at least a decade.

 

[TheRealPoMo]

See my appeal for hydrogen as a fuel, (post #11)

I hear you Steve. Just cannot figure why H2 struggles as a way forward. Especially in Australia where we could deploy massive arrays of solar panels with 300+ days of sunshine a year to make it (yeah water is scarce but plenty of desert close to the south western coasts). Gotta be special interest groups and lobbyists with alternate agendas.

 

[downunderdallas]

I hear you Steve. Just cannot figure why H2 struggles as a way forward. Especially in Australia where we could deploy massive arrays of solar panels with 300+ days of sunshine a year to make it (yeah water is scarce but plenty of desert close to the south western coasts). Gotta be special interest groups and lobbyists with alternate agendas.

There are massive plans underway for huge hydrogen production facilities certainly heaps in WA and other states too but it remains to be seen whether these + hydrogen distribution networks can be cost-effective with EV's at the moment it's just way too expensive to compete. I just all but plug our EVs into the panels on the roof - the cars themselves are super efficient and the fuel delivery system already exists.

 

[Alexbn921]

I hear you Steve. Just cannot figure why H2 struggles as a way forward. Especially in Australia where we could deploy massive arrays of solar panels with 300+ days of sunshine a year to make it (yeah water is scarce but plenty of desert close to the south western coasts). Gotta be special interest groups and lobbyists with alternate agendas.

H2 is a storage medium. It's not an energy source. You need to create, compress, store, and transport the smallest atom in the universe. It tends to leak thru solid walls. Depending on the production and storage methods you get 1/3-1/2 the energy as just charging a battery with the electricity.

On the other hand you can create H2 from oil and it's more efficient, but still no were as good as making gas or burning it for electricity.

 

[steve_sordy]

H2 is a storage medium. It's not an energy source. You need to create, compress, store, and transport the smallest atom in the universe. It tends to leak thru solid walls. Depending on the production and storage methods you get 1/3-1/2 the energy as just charging a battery with the electricity.

On the other hand you can create H2 from oil and it's more efficient, but still no were as good as making gas or burning it for electricity.

You appear to know more than most. Can hydrogen be added to the existing gas supply and use existing burners?
If pressurised tanks are added to the boot of an existing car, can hydrogen be burned in a petrol-engined car with minor mods to the engine? (A bit like LPG conversions).

 

[Alexbn921]

Yes you can, it's hard to do and a terrible idea. . H2 is very very hard to contain and it's energy density is less than gasoline. It needs to be kept at extremely cold temperatures and as it warms is vented. After a couple weeks, the tank is empty.

Bad News for Car Enthusiasts: YouTuber Explains the Shortcomings of Toyota's Hydrogen V8

Toyota seems to have heard the cries for help of car enthusiasts and they're working on hydrogen combustion, but it might not end up working

www.autoevolution.com

There are only a couple areas where h2 could be used and they will be displaced when batteries reach 500 Wh/kg . Hydrogen as a storage medium is a dead end. Batteries are the future.

 

[G-Sport]

It's funny how Cobalt being used in the refining of petrol is/was never an issue? But when the fossil fuel companies wanted something to sling at EV's it suddenly became an issue... (even though petrol production is STILL the biggest user of cobalt, not to mention all the oil pipelines leaking into various African nations poorest citzens land...)
Hydrogen has no real future. Shell took out all the H2 filling stations they had installed in the UK last year. It's horrifically inefficient to produce and poses big problems to store on a vehicle without taking up loads of space, and you STILL end up needing a battery to smooth out the supply. Things like planes might need to keep burning stuff, but why use Hydrogen which requires extensive modification when you can just use the hydrogen to synthesise more traditional liquid fuel?
Hydrogen got a lot of hype because the fossil fuel companies wanted to sell "blue" hydrogen, but I think even they realised how rubbish that was.

 

[G-Sport]

As to the actual subject of the thread though... It would be nice to think that a manufacturer will bring lighter batteries out, but I think it's doubtful. Would probably be better to focus on efficiency and have manufacturers give some sort of bench mark for efficiency that we can compare. Ideally a graph of motor-unit output vs input power for various rpm and torques so that consumers could easily compare.

 

[Zimmerframe]

It's not directly related, but about 10 years ago one of the farmers here branched out and they setup a composting company to take animal waste + waste straw/hay other products to make high quality compost to sell back to farmers instead ofthen using as much nitrogen etc.

At the same time they set up a methanisation plant to use some of the off gassing from that and from the waste from a pig farm.

The methane is collected and stored and then used to power a converted V8 (USA sourced) to run a generator. This now powers 500 homes. The heat from the engine is taken and used to heat the rooms in the mushroom farm next door and in winter heats the 4 nearest houses.

They're on Engine no3 now as they run continually.

More recently they've expanded to a new methane capture plant which provides all the gas to the next village of 2000 houses.

 

[Mikerb]

Yes you can, it's hard to do and a terrible idea. . H2 is very very hard to contain and it's energy density is less than gasoline. It needs to be kept at extremely cold temperatures and as it warms is vented. After a couple weeks, the tank is empty.

Bad News for Car Enthusiasts: YouTuber Explains the Shortcomings of Toyota's Hydrogen V8

Toyota seems to have heard the cries for help of car enthusiasts and they're working on hydrogen combustion, but it might not end up working

www.autoevolution.com

There are only a couple areas where h2 could be used and they will be displaced when batteries reach 500 Wh/kg . Hydrogen as a storage medium is a dead end. Batteries are the future.

Despite this You Tubers advice Toyota is continuing to develop a hydrogen powered vehicle ( not hydrogen fuel cell) and testing it in motorsport. Every "new" technology has issues to resolve but the automotive industry...if left to to its own ingenuity without having to follow an agenda...............has proved time and time a gain its a bility to resolve engineering problems.

 

[G-Sport]

Despite this You Tubers advice Toyota is continuing to develop a hydrogen powered vehicle ( not hydrogen fuel cell) and testing it in motorsport. Every "new" technology has issues to resolve but the automotive industry...if left to to its own ingenuity without having to follow an agenda...............has proved time and time a gain its a bility to resolve engineering problems.

Yes. They persevered with the hydrogen fuel cell car for the last 8 years and have managed to sell nearly 20k of them worldwide in that time. There's no reason to think that their internal combustion hydrogen car couldn't be just as big a success. In the same time Tesla have only managed to sell a few million BEV's with Hyundai, VW etc doing even less.
If we had had this kind of attitude when the Amphicar or the gas turbine powered cars from GM had launched we'd be sitting here now with zero gas turbine powered amphibious sports cars on the market!