There are some attention-grabbing new cell applied sciences which have come to market in the previous few years, and some extra on their means, which can be price reviewing. Regardless of their vanishingly small market share proper now, they typically appeal to extra consideration. May they be the following large factor, or will they only 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 resulting from a considerably increased voltage) and principally comparable different properties to LFP. The reasonably increased projected price of the LMFP is meant to be offset by the rise in vitality, offering a internet profit general. It’s due to this fact introduced because the ‘superb’ 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 you should change your BMS and/or energy electronics or have fewer cells in collection which modifications your module design. So, engineering prices to swap are usually not zero. The extent of data about how LMFP behaves, can also be decrease. Rising the manganese content material is critical to forestall a double plateau and acquire the upper voltage, however there are considerations this can 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 creating one of these 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 look like on a knife edge, if lithium costs are excessive, sodium is price 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 essential for the assumptions to be true. Nevertheless, from a geo-politics and diversifying provide chains viewpoint, perhaps an alternate provide chain for an alternate battery expertise does have worth and will justify the funding.
Strong-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 large names backing and creating 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 virtually a billion {dollars}. Competing with LFP or Sodium on price is unlikely, and there are some basic scientific explanation why energy goes to be onerous, 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 simply the principle 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 prevailing 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 at the very least somebody declare it is going to be safer. This demonstrates a basic misunderstanding of security as an idea. There isn’t a such factor as a ‘protected’ or ‘safer’ cell kind. It’s the job of the engineer to find out how a lot it’s going to price to make the product protected sufficient. For some new cells this can be cheaper to attain, however the engineers received’t understand how to do that with out information, and that requires prototypes, testing, and ultimately discipline information from years of scaling up. It’s this information that offers us the educational charges for a brand new expertise, and sadly there isn’t a option 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 price sufficient to offset the disadvantages of being the guinea pig contributing in direction of these studying charges.
