There are some attention-grabbing new cell applied sciences which have come to market in the previous few 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. Might 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 little bit iron for manganese and also you get LMFP with a barely larger vitality density (primarily as a consequence of a considerably larger voltage) and largely related different properties to LFP. The reasonably larger projected value of the LMFP is meant to be offset by the rise in vitality, offering a internet profit general. It’s due to this fact offered because the ‘ultimate’ 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 collection which modifications your module design. So, engineering prices to swap should not zero. The extent of data about how LMFP behaves, can be decrease. Rising the manganese content material is important to stop a double plateau and acquire the upper voltage, however there are issues this may result in shorter lifetimes as a consequence 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 creating such a cell. Sodium has a number of claimed benefits, with the argument most frequently based mostly on value 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 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. Nonetheless, from a geo-politics and diversifying provide chains viewpoint, perhaps another provide chain for another battery know-how does have worth and will justify the funding.
Stable-state is a bit additional away, with no larger vitality density model being commercialised but, regardless of that being its most essential USP. There are some large names backing and creating the know-how, corresponding 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 value is unlikely, and there are some elementary scientific 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 wise justification for investing on this new tech. As LFP has taught us, vitality density is just 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 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 no less than somebody declare it will likely be safer. This demonstrates a elementary misunderstanding of security as an idea. There isn’t a such factor as a ‘protected’ or ‘safer’ cell sort. It’s the job of the engineer to find out how a lot it’ll 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 information, and that requires prototypes, testing, and ultimately discipline information from years of scaling up. It’s this information that offers us the training charges for a brand new know-how, and sadly there isn’t any method 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 know-how is value sufficient to offset the disadvantages of being the guinea pig contributing in direction of these studying charges.
