" CATL has thrown its hat into the ring with the Naxtra sodium-ion battery, with 175 Wh/kg and 10,000 lifetime cycles along with operation from -40°C to 70°C. CATL is planning a start-stop battery for trucks using the technology. It has the potential to replace lead-acid batteries. CATL has announced battery pricing at the cell level in volume at $19/kWh. "

  • Overspark@piefed.social
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    17 hours ago

    Replacing the batteries with new ones on my $50k when it was new car (BMW i3) would cost me about $10k. Which is roughly what the car is worth on the second-hand market right now. The chances of me ever having to replace said batteries are basically zero. The chance of an ICE car spontaneously setting itself on fire are actually much higher, so this is a massive nothing-burger. When owning a car you should ALWAYS think about what happens if said car is suddenly total-loss the next day. Usually the answer is to replace it with another second-hand, not buy a new (!) battery from the dealer. Hell, second-hand battery packs are a thing too now, and much cheaper. On most EV’s you just drop them from the bottom and pop in the replacement, much less work than replacing an ICE engine.

    • boonhet@sopuli.xyz
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      16 hours ago

      That’s not a particularly big battery, that’s why your battery is so cheap.

      Even so, there’s nearly always someone willing to buy an ICE car off you to fix it, unless it’s a Stellantis product or something. Gets trickier with EVs because, again, cost.

      Second hand battery packs are an option, but when I looked at ones for the car I was looking at, they still cost roughly the value of the car, unfortunately. On a car that entered production like 7 or 8 years ago.