Lithium vs Solid-State vs Hydrogen – What is the future of electric

While most consumers are driving and continue to drive gas vehicles, there are some companies, including GM, that would hurry the transition to electric cars. However, there are some issues with the adoption of electric vehicles.

Currently, electric vehicles have a limited range of only three to four hundred miles, and they take much longer to charge than it would otherwise take to fill your car tank with gasoline. Once ranges can be extended and charging time significantly sped up, they will be considered more practical. The important question is, how far away are we from fixing these issues?

In this blog, we’ll be looking at different battery technologies currently in development, how close they are to being implemented, and the potential challenges each has that must be overcome.

Lithium batteries

Unsurprisingly lithium-ion is the most common battery used in electric vehicles today. They are essentially scaled-up versions of the batteries found in consumer electronics. Instead of using a single unit like the one in your smartphone’s battery packs, electric vehicles are made of thousands of lithium-ion cells. Those batteries give them a much greater capacity to provide enough energy to operate a large vehicle. Lithium batteries have a much higher energy density than traditional lead-acid or nickel-cadmium ones and are not only able to hold a larger charge but have a longer life span too.

While you may be familiar with lithium as being the lightest of all metals, lithium-ion batteries don’t actually contain any metal and instead contain lithium ions which can be manipulated to store or release the charge within the battery unit. There’s a positive electrode normally made from a lithium compound, a negative electrode made from graphite, and a liquid electrolyte material that fills the rest. When an electrical charge is added to the battery, lithium ions move from the positive electrode to the negative one. Then when energy is released from the battery, they move in the opposite direction.

Cons of Lithium Batteries:

There are problems in using a battery of this design, the most dangerous of which is the risk of overheating, exploding, or even catching fire under certain circumstances. Electric vehicle manufacturers have had to invest heavily in developing features to reduce these dangers, making them safe for use on the roads. Features like including cooling mechanisms to regulate the battery’s temperature help improve vehicle safety. Still, it will always be an ever-present risk because they contain liquid elements that undergo frequent temperature changes during regular operation.

Another issue lithium batteries present is their usable life. In phones, for example, you only expect the battery to continue functioning for a year or two before its maximum charge cycles have been met. This only becomes a bigger problem when you make larger versions. Currently, most electric car manufacturers offer a guarantee that the battery will continue to work effectively for a minimum of eight years. Current estimates suggest that they should last between 10 and 20 years, but they will at some point need to be replaced. Of course, this has implications for the vehicle’s resale value as it ages, but there are even bigger concerns for the waste this will produce.

After trying to improve the situation for the environment by using an electric vehicle in the first place, the last thing you want to do is create batteries that will eventually end up in a landfill.

Usability problems with lithium batteries are that they will always have a relatively limited range, and there’s very little that can be done to increase the speed at which they can be charged. So while they’re certainly suited to short-distance journeys, those who drive more than a few hundred miles at a time will be faced with extended charge times of up to an hour in some cases.

That’s a hard sell when traditional combustion engine vehicles only take a few minutes to refuel.

There are, however, two other promising types of battery technologies that will eventually pass lithium-ion for vehicles of the future.

Hydrogen Fuel Cells

You may have seen that hydrogen-powered cars are already available, like the Toyota Mirai. While they aren’t yet as prevalent as lithium power, they offer several advantages that mean they will likely become a viable alternative once enough infrastructure is available to operate them.

From a user’s perspective, they work similarly to gas-powered cars, which is one of their greatest advantages. The vehicle’s tank is filled with liquid hydrogen, which is fed into a fuel cell with oxygen. The reaction that takes place within the cell converts the chemical energy contained within the hydrogen to mechanical energy to operate the car. The only waste product created in the process is water vapor.

With the ability to refill a tank in just a matter of minutes and with a far greater range than lithium vehicles can offer in a single charge, there are several obvious benefits of using a hydrogen-powered car.

Cons of Hydrogen Power

There are, however, several disadvantages too. Not everyone is convinced this is a feasible technology for mass adoption, and various improvements will need to be made before large-scale use is possible.

The first thing that needs to be addressed is simply the cost of building hydrogen fuel cells in the first place. For example, installing the required infrastructure, gas stations will need to offer pumps that dispense hydrogen—fuel, which will require a massive investment upfront.

A particular concern is whether hydrogen-fueled cars have the energy credentials that consumers expect from an electric vehicle. They use, for example, an estimated three times as much energy to operate as lithium cars do for each mile driven. The energy that must come from somewhere and liquid hydrogen production is somewhat controversial. It’s an element that doesn’t exist in its liquid form in nature, so it must be manufactured, and more than 95 percent of the hydrogen created is done from natural gas. This means that fuel production releases just as many greenhouse gases and potentially even more than a traditional combustion engine.

The technology is essentially moving the problem from one place to another. There are other ways to produce hydrogen, such as the electrolysis of water but this is currently so cost-intensive that it’s nowhere near being realistic. For everyday use as fuel for a vehicle, demand for hydrogen would have to significantly increase to make it worthwhile.

There’s an element of a gamble involved in this technology. It is uncertain if zero immission hydrogen will become a thing or if companies like Toyota are willing to heavily invest in such a gamble.

Solid-State Batteries

Probably the most exciting development for electric vehicles is the solid-state battery. While not ready for mass adoption, solid-state will be a complete game-changer when it is. Samsung is currently leading the way with numerous companies jumping on board.

By reinventing how a battery is made, engineers believe the range of an electric car can be doubled compared to its lithium alternative. Solid-state batteries have actually been in use for a long time in small devices such as pacemakers and RFID tags, but currently, it’s impossible to recharge them.

What’s new is that they’ve designed a way that allows the movement of the ions within the battery to be reversed, which is needed to add extra charge to them. They’ve done this by changing the electrolyte used inside the battery. In lithium-ion batteries, the electrolyte is a liquid, while in a solid-state battery, the electrolyte is solid.

This means the battery is the same power at about half the size. So manufacturers will have the option to double range or half battery size to reduce weight. For the most efficient vehicles, this could mean a range of up to 600 miles or more on a single charge, making most trips viable without having to schedule an hour to recharge midway. As a further advantage, researchers at Samsung also claim these batteries will have a longer usage life than Lithium-ion. They expect them to be able to be recharged more than 5,000 times before needing to be replaced.

This gives each vehicle an operating life of more than a million miles before significant maintenance is required. They take up less space, but they’re also far more stable and don’t have a significant fire concern. Without the extra cooling surrounding them, solid-state batteries weigh significantly less. Solid-state batteries are safer because they don’t contain any liquid parts, so even if they’re punctured in a crash, there isn’t the same risk of being further injured from their contents.

Larger vehicle manufacturers have said that they see solid-state batteries as the future of electric vehicle technology. Toyota just announced a pretty major update on their solid-state battery technology.

Solid-state isn’t quite ready to be incorporated into designs on a mass scale, however, and probably won’t be for several years. Researchers are still trying to find the perfect atomic and chemical compositions for the solid electrolyte that can deliver enough power for the reliable operation of a vehicle. In addition, the batteries that are on the market are still far too expensive to produce at a mass scale for commercial use.

The most likely outcome is that solid-state batteries will first enter the luxury end of the market on vehicles that cost upwards of a hundred thousand dollars. However, once they’ve been proven to be effective and desirable, costs will eventually fall and become attainable within the price ranges of most consumers.

With such attractive battery technologies on the horizon, the future of the automotive industry is undoubtedly electric.

Have you gotten an electric vehicle yet, and if not, what’s stopping you from making the transition? Let us know on the Facebook post.

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