Uncovering China's Battery Breakthrough

This video looks at the new blade battery from the Chinese firm BYD, which beats Audi, Jaguar, and Tesla on pack level energy density. Due to its unusual shape, these battery cells can overcome some of the main challenges faced in the automotive sector. These include cost, charging time, sustainability, safety, and range!

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[ZirothTech]

INFORMATION: I stupidly forgot a key detail, which is the cells are thinner than usual, this means the surface area per volume of the cell is higher, and heat from the centre of the cell can escape quicker. Sorry for any confusion!

[alterego]

It makes perfect sense to create cells in shapes that are optimized specifically for cars. The improvements look very promising, I like it.

[MakeSushi]

the thumbnail looks like some kind of ZPM like in the tv show stargate Atlantis...

[EliteSparklz]

Without watercooling, I'm assuming humid and hot climates, the battery will suffer from the inability to transfer heat to a hot medium.

[joacoosi]

I’m glad to see china starting to come up with innovations in the field of sustainability. When I went to china it was amazing how common electric cars and scooters are, it’s not an “elite” thing for the rich, they all use it. I’m sure we will see more innovations from them soon.

[jesselejarzar]

Yeah I think you still need liquid cooling and heating because in parts of the world cold affects LiFePo and lithium ion batteries in similar ways so you need to keep them warm to avoid range loss from the cold, I don't think air cooling will cut it.

[grandpahand]

I’m curious, in the puncture test what will happen if the nail is wiggled? That video segment reminds me of when the lithium ion flat pack was first introduced and lab technicians punctured those cells benignly with a nail. They soon discovered, entirely by accident, if you wiggle the nail then things very quickly start to go wrong.

[jsmariani]

Interesting. building batteries into the car's structure sounds iffy though. what happens to the car when the batteries wear out?

[eugeneleroux]

Thanks for a good presentation. Optimum heat transfer has probably always been the area where improvements could be sought for all devices.

[apIthletIcc]

"It's totally not one of those time twister thingies, or wateva" -Carl

[thebunnisher]

“Batteries can act as structural components of the car” makes me nervous

[alexwang]

the reason why the LiFePO4 Cell didn't burst in flames is because they are intrinsicically safer, not due to their surface area. They are also lower in energy density which is usually a downside.

[MrRickyw]

This rectangular shape battery is a subset in the evolution of methods to supply energy to an electric motor. I wrote about alternatives to the internal combustion engine many years ago. The fuel cell back then was using Platinum as the catalyst(expensive). In recent years the cost to generate Hydrogen for fuel cell use has dropped.

[zackjoubert]

What about when you are driving in the cold and need the batteries warmed.

[marcusoutdoors]

Good to see a new good alternative to traditional batteries. Certainly after seeing Doug Munro’s tear dow of the overly complex cooling system on the latest Ford, this looks better. It would be interesting if you could do a comparison with the new 4680 batteries in the Tesla model Y as well as compare other factors such as recharging cycles / life expectancy. Very informative video that makes me think I’ll wait 3 more years before going electric.

[vrealzhou]

The blade battery is already in production for quite a while now. It's a invention on packaging battery but not the material improvement. It' using LiFePO4 battery tech which is cheaper than Ternary polymer lithium battery (Tesla's battery) and safer. But the problem of LiFePO4 is it has less energy density. The blade battery increased the energy density and made it easier to cooling off so the BYD electric car can catch up the mile range with Tesla. If there are some new battery material which has higher energy density and using the blade packaging, that will be a revolution of electric cars. Good news is many Chinese electric car companies (includes BYD) declare their new cars will have 1000km range on single charge. That may cause a booming of electric cars.

[pauleohl]

It would have been nice to see the construction and chemistry of the BYD blade battery. Hard to understand how a few foils can be structural.

[LilmissJ]

Just one note, you are aware that the new iron air batteries, out performed the best of the lithium batteries in the market.

[s.m]

I dont really see how a square block of battery could have a higher surface area than many cylindrical cells packed into the same space? And I guess that would be the fair comparison to make, since then both would have equal capacity.
In other words: you can only maximise one, either volumetric energy density, or cell surface area per storage capacity. not both

[indiandefensearena]

You forgot one thing to mention, the larger the surface area of single cell the more chances it's going to be difficult to maintain as in cells you can just replace the defective one but in a flat single module it's not that simple, that's why Tesla still use the cells bundled together instead of single flat battery assembly.