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The first EV with a lithium-free sodium battery hits the road in January
(www.engadget.com)
This is a most excellent place for technology news and articles.
We've only got a stated range out of this (252km/157mi) but there are a lot of factors where this could do well. Sodium batteries should be cheaper, so it'd be great if that translated to the final sale price. Depending on charge times and where you live, this could be a perfectly practical vehicle. If it doesn't degrade like lithium batteries, then that'd be even better. Might make for a great secondary vehicle (or everyday driver, depending).
I'm expecting to see dual battery EVs in the not too distant future. A Sodium battery for the primary that gets the most charges and discharges which can be easy and cheaper to replace. Beside that a Lithium battery which would only be drawn from after the Sodium battery was exhausted. This way if you're doing shallow discharges for your "around town" driving then charging at night, and deep discharges for longer road trips where the energy density of Lithium shines.
Lithium batteries dont like being stored fully charged they will degrade over time.
This is a solved problem. Most EVs won't let you charge it to the actual 100% level or discharge it to 0.
Exactly. Really, "fully charged" should just be conceptualised as being at a sensible safe point, with the acknowledgement that it's possible to "overcharge" the batteries to an even higher level, chemically speaking, but that all sensible devices don't let you do this.
So only charge it to 80% and pretend 80% is 100%, like iPhones do. Why is that a concern?
Or you could just use all of the space for a sodium battery and fully charge it as it won't need long term storage in that state.
You're right. Forgot about that. Shoot.