My conclusion from reading this thread is this:

Slashdot is incapable of analysing new technologies, and decidedly incompetent at predicting the future.

When I watched Star Trek as a boy, I remember thinking how impossible the "comm badges" seemed. Just tap your badge and talk to anyone wirelessly. Yet these would be easy to implement now - we use watches instead because it's more practical. But in general the technologies we have available already are even more amazing. And for example tech like google glass we have even rejected, not because they're not amazing, but because of the way they make people around you feel.

You just can't think about how things are today, and use that to predict the future. You have to expect some progress that seems almost impossible right now. Not impossible according to physical laws, of course (teleporting), but everything that's just really hard, or requires us to do things very differently.... that's actually within range. And battery-powered flight is just a hop-skip and a jump away. Maybe the first 30 years it will be training, then short-haul. And in 50 years long-haul.

Eventually, you could have some kind of booster, that gets you to cruising altitude, then turns back to the airport and recharges for the next departure. Your flight cruises in energy conservation-mode, and charges up during descent to allow multiple landing attempts.

Or maybe most of the structure of the plane is battery. Who knows?

But technology advances, new ideas are proven, leaps in performance are achieved. That's technology.

> There's a reason to invest in Things That Work.
> Yeah "horseless carriages" are cool.... but most should be called "unreliables."
> They NEED the horses as a backup. The "horseless" backup is STEAM.
> It might not be what many want to hear, but plugging ears changes NOTHING.
> I am NOT saying "horsepower forever" but... recognize that even in a transition away from them, we'll need them for a while.
> I'd LOVE to be able to rely on non-equine sources... alas, we are NOT there yet - and not even close.

There's no need to be such a Luddite. Plenty of countries are going to 100% renewables. Batteries are so cheap and so EFFECTIVE that they can fully replace and improve on the performance of peaker plants, both in physical performance and financial.
It might not be what you want to hear, but plugging ears changes NOTHING.

The world is going renewable - the world HAS to go renewable. Because fossils are not renewable, they'll run out, and destroy us on their way out the door.

We are seeing the first effects in storms, droughts, wildfires, floods. No need to go down that road - renewables are cheap and abundant.

It really sounds like youâ(TM)re trying to define socialism as only the parts of socialism that arenâ(TM)t very successful. And of course anti-capitalists will do the same. The truth is that both need robust ethical frameworks and anti-monopolistic oversight. Socialist tyranny and capitalist tyranny both have horrible outcomes. And both systems have value in a modern civilization.

Hydrogen sucks for multiple small and surprising ways.

- pernicious molecule: embrittlement of metals means expensive installations, heavy maintenance and explosion risks
- it's also a greenhouse gas
- needs to be stored at high pressure and low temperature, so you can't just put it in a tank and forget about it, it requires energy input to store.
- each time you transfer it from one pressure vessel to another, you need to pressurise and cool again

All these small problems add up to make it uncompetitive with other solutions.

Intermittent energy sources are so cheap, you just build more of them. Use all the different kinds, and the gaps get smaller and smaller. And with batteries, you can cover the gaps. Eventually, hydro and similar will be filling in the last gaps. And we'll keep a few gas peaker plants that'll run on biogas from garbage and manure.

It's ok to be a bit paranoid, but not everything is a conspiracy against you.

Also, you think they're talking about consumer batteries? And even if consumer batteries were cheap, you think the hardware store would sell them to you cheap?

We're not talking AAA batteries. These are EV battery-size and bigger.

You can't buy this: https://www.tesla.com/megapack ... at a hardware store.

Real world figures are 25% or less for average US vehicles, 40% for a modern coal plant. Those two are not equivalent, if you ask me.

Yes, best-case for an ICE vehicle is close to 40%. But that assumes perfect conditions, perfect maintenance and other things that are rarely true.

You don't speak for us. I would never buy anything else.

The trust and security plus durability of the phones and platform is better than the alternatives, IMO.

> your statement does not sound plausible at all.

that smelled a bit "claimy".

Go look up "hybrid synergy drive", my friend. Then you may bring back a few crumbs of humble pie.

That's exactly what we mean when we say "a lot more complex". Other than the battery itself, and some battery management software, electric vehicles are (can be) extremely simple compared to combustion. No turbo, no timing belt, no catalytic converter, no hot exhaust, no emissions sensor, no variable valve timing, no cam belt, no crank-shaft/piston vibration, no cold starts, no high-pressure fuel injection, no high-voltage spark-plug, no head gasket that leaks, no piston rings, no hydraulics. Modelling and designing fuel/air injection, piston shape etc. alone is hugely complex.

It's just because so much effort has been put into it through the years that you don't notice most of the complexity. Except when things break.

And on top of that, you need technology to know when to use one or the other, and sometimes both. Electrics simplify all that shit.

> There are people with 2013 Leafs

And I'm sure there are people with Ford Pintos that can't get replacement engines. My point is 1 bad car doesn't mean all cars are bad. Electric or gas or diesel.

In 2013 there were only about 3-4 electric cars on the market. And Nissan, for some crazy reason, chose not to put active cooling on their batteries, even after Tesla showed that it was crucial for battery longevity.

This is huge. Most were lamenting that the COP was hosted by UAE and so many oil-lobbyists, but maybe that was what was needed.

I just hope this "compromise" wasn't just giving all our money to oil nations, and allowing them to continue to dominate us in other ways.

The cynical voices are shouting loudly in my head, but hopefully this will guide decision-makers for the coming times.

The aluminium industry news seems to think so.

https://www.alcircle.com/news/...

And every other industry pundit I've heard talk about it thinks so.

You can get more details from the wikipedia article: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...

So the article you link lists a bunch of companies that have "plans".

The most promising one, and only one that is actually producing batteries right now Qing Tao Energy, has this description from the linked article:

Quote:
> No one has managed to produce them in volume at an attractive price point yet.
>
> We don’t know Qing Tao Energy’s price point and to be fair, they are not quite at
> volume production.

> 100 MWh is a decent capacity, but it would result in less than 2,000 long-range
> electric vehicles per year.

> I’d file this in “interesting development”, but it definitely doesn’t mean that
> solid-state is taking over just now.

You said:
> They are.

Did you mean they are dominant, or they are a new idea? Either way, if you read my comments, I am saying:

* New battery development takes a long time
* There's no guarantee your new tech product will lead the market, even if it's better on paper. For example if it costs 5 times as much to manufacture.
* Solid state won't lead the market for the next 5-10 years.
* People shouldn't wait to buy an electric car because of some tech they are waiting for. The current state of the art is plenty good enough. But buyer beware, make sure you buy a decent EV.

Or maybe you should just accept that youâ(TM)re not motivated to learn, and just trust the experts.

Itâ(TM)s too easy to assume something you donâ(TM)t understand is wrong.