Lots of questions remain. Fast charging is 1 of them. But if it charges in 5 seconds and costs $40k and only lasts 3 charge cycles, it’s completely pointless.
If it were legit they’d be screaming at the top of their lungs for people to come and test them, and they’d be handing them out to journalists.
It’s still very early days for all batteries that are not Li-Ion or Li-FP. Plus there’s a political aspect. Some countries, like China, have invested heavily in lithium and cobalt mining, increasing influence in Africa. CATL is a big innovator in batteries, but I wouldn’t be surprised if the Chinese government pumps the brakes on CATL developing solid state or sodium on the scale of lithium.
In the end, it’s inevitable because both lithium and cobalt are finite resources. Lithium especially is becoming increasingly difficult to come by. We are in need of new tech, but it could still take 10 years for it to be fully developed and adopted. What we need now is devices that just cannot be powered by lithium, so that they will require something more dense like sodium sulfur. The lack of need for graphene, cobalt and lithium is a huge pro.
Lots of questions remain. Fast charging is 1 of them. But if it charges in 5 seconds and costs $40k and only lasts 3 charge cycles, it’s completely pointless.
If it were legit they’d be screaming at the top of their lungs for people to come and test them, and they’d be handing them out to journalists.
It’s still very early days for all batteries that are not Li-Ion or Li-FP. Plus there’s a political aspect. Some countries, like China, have invested heavily in lithium and cobalt mining, increasing influence in Africa. CATL is a big innovator in batteries, but I wouldn’t be surprised if the Chinese government pumps the brakes on CATL developing solid state or sodium on the scale of lithium.
In the end, it’s inevitable because both lithium and cobalt are finite resources. Lithium especially is becoming increasingly difficult to come by. We are in need of new tech, but it could still take 10 years for it to be fully developed and adopted. What we need now is devices that just cannot be powered by lithium, so that they will require something more dense like sodium sulfur. The lack of need for graphene, cobalt and lithium is a huge pro.