There are some fascinating new cell applied sciences which have come to market in the previous couple of years, and some extra on their means, which can be value reviewing. Regardless of their vanishingly small market share proper now, they usually entice extra consideration. May they be the subsequent large factor, or will they only be a distinct segment product or doomed to be a historic curiosity?
Within the phosphate world, swap somewhat iron for manganese and also you get LMFP with a barely greater vitality density (primarily resulting from a considerably greater voltage) and principally related different properties to LFP. The reasonably greater projected price of the LMFP is meant to be offset by the rise in vitality, offering a internet profit general. It’s subsequently offered because the ‘best’ improve, however there are nonetheless some challenges to be overcome. Firstly, you possibly can’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 collection which adjustments your module design. So, engineering prices to swap are usually not zero. The extent of information about how LMFP behaves, can be decrease. Growing the manganese content material is critical to forestall a double plateau and achieve the upper voltage, however there are issues it will result in shorter lifetimes resulting from 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 sort of cell. Sodium has a number of claimed benefits, with the argument most frequently primarily based on price and security, with the principle 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 idea 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 greater vitality density model being commercialised but, regardless of that being its most essential USP. There are some large names backing and growing the expertise, comparable to 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 price is unlikely, and there are some basic scientific the explanation why energy goes to be arduous, and security hazards are going to be totally different at finest or difficult at worst, leaving vitality density the one smart justification for investing on this new tech. As LFP has taught us, vitality density is barely the principle driver for a portion of the battery market. Due to this fact, 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 enhance the number of choices on provide.
Affecting all these applied sciences, practically each time I hear a minimum of somebody declare will probably be safer. This demonstrates a basic misunderstanding of security as an idea. There is no such thing as a such factor as a ‘protected’ or ‘safer’ cell kind. It’s the job of the engineer to find out how a lot it’ll price to make the product protected sufficient. For some new cells this can be cheaper to realize, however the engineers received’t know the way to do that with out data, and that requires prototypes, testing, and ultimately subject knowledge from years of scaling up. It’s this knowledge that offers us the educational charges for a brand new expertise, and sadly there isn’t any technique to pace this up with out shed a great deal of money. Due to this fact, 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 direction of these studying charges.
