EVs with 600 mile range

[KySerenity]

I apologize for this long post, but you should wade through the entire message and the attached links if you have any interest in an EV with 600-mile range. I bought my Model S in August 2016, just two months before Autopilot 2 was released. This unpleasant surprise could have been avoided if I had been active in the owner’s website and kept current with EV news through Insideevs.com. I am attempting to avoid a similar mistake in the future.

I am sure most of you are familiar with Our Next Energy (ONE), the EV battery company that modified a Tesla Model S and obtained 700 miles on a single charge while traveling 55 MPH. BMW has partnered with ONE and is in the advanced stages of development of a new battery that is cheaper and lighter with much greater range.

BMW quote: Gen6 batteries will give us 30% or more range than our current Gen5, but we won’t go over 1000km [620 miles] of range, even though we can. We don’t think that such a long range is necessary.”

The quoted range is WLTP (European standard). For a rough conversion to USA EPA, divide WLTP by 1.12. This ROUGHLY converts to an EPA range of 554 miles. BUT, as we know, BMW is conservative. Their iX 50 is rated for 324 miles, but real-world range at 70MPH is closer to 375.

THESE BATTERIES WILL BE AVAILABLE IN BMW EVs in 2025.

The following two links provide more in-depth information.
https://insideevs.com/news/609420/bmw-round-battery-cells-6-gigafactories/
https://insideevs.com/news/610586/bmw-gen6-battery-620-mile-range/


China’s CATL (Contemporary Amperex Technology Company Limited) is the world’s biggest EV battery manufacturer and also announced a new lighter, cheaper, and more efficient battery technology. The range of this battery also will be 1000 km/621 miles WLTP.

THESE BATTERIES WILL BECOME AVAILABLE IN 2023. CATL supplies batteries to Volkswagen, BMW, Nio, Tesla, and to Geely (the Chinese owner of Volvo and Polestar). Although the Polestar 3 and Volvo Embla most likely will not launch with this battery, Volvo already has stated their intention to utilize this battery soon (2024- 2025?).

The following two links provide more in-depth information.
https://insideevs.com/news/594134/catl-qilin-new-high-energy-density-battery/

 

[Coltonw011]

What they don’t tell you is how large of a pack it’s going to take to achieve that. The ONE battery in the MS was a 200 kWh pack that’s charging speed was laughable.
Now, if they can get it down to a ~100 kWh pack, that would be great. As many manufacturers have said, stacking batteries for the sake of range doesn’t make much sense, especially from a weight perspective.

 

[KySerenity]

What they don’t tell you is how large of a pack it’s going to take to achieve that. The ONE battery in the MS was a 200 kWh pack that’s charging speed was laughable.
Now, if they can get it down to a ~100 kWh pack, that would be great. As many manufacturers have said, stacking batteries for the sake of range doesn’t make much sense, especially from a weight perspective.

If you take the time to read the links, you will discover the new BMW batteries will be 20% lighter than those currently in use (Gen5 versus upcoming Gen6). This is a BMW modification on the ONE battery.

 

[joec]

THESE BATTERIES WILL BE AVAILABLE IN BMW EVs in 2025.

If there's one thing I've learned about the EV industry (and tech in general) it's that "available" in 2025 means you'll be driving it in 2028 at the earliest.

 

[Bill55]

I work at an inverter company and there is a new battery every week that is going to be the next thing. I have no doubt there will be a 600+ EPA rated car at some point. The best EVs on the market now are all at least a 6month wait and many are a year or more. In fall of 2025 when BMW has a new 2026 EV model I’ll have been driving a Lucid for 4 years. If your going to wait to buy an EV because of how much better they are going to be in x years, you’ll wait forever. It’s not as if Lucid is going to stand still. Lucid will benefit from the advances as well. Then Lucid can increase range or reduce weight and cost.

 

[Sandvinsd]

You can get a 1000 mile car. Although it is not in the same class as a Lucid Air.

Aptera Motors

Aptera is the world’s first Solar Electric Vehicle that requires no charging for most daily use - giving you the freedom to do more with less impact on the planet.

aptera.us

 

[hydbob]

The Lucid did 687 miles already though...

 

[Bill55]

The Lucid did 687 miles already though...

I wouldn’t recommend planning a road trip with 600 miles between chargers.

 

[hydbob]

I wouldn’t recommend planning a road trip with 600 miles between chargers.

Just drive 23mph, problem solved!

 

[Boomer AZ]

Just drive 23mph, problem solved!

Oh, like driving in Florida when the snowbirds arrive.

 

[OCDC]

Adding more of the current generation of battery cells to get more kWh starts running into space and weight limitations. Lucid has some of the most efficient packaging available to get to 112/118kWh, but they still have 1000lbs of cells. Also, there are diminishing returns on how much more efficient the engineers can make a rolling chassis. Lucid was laser focused on those because no one else had been to this point. It’s paid off big time. But there are conflicting space and safety and cost requirements that limit how much more they can squeeze from a car in a given class.

When we start seeing 300, 400, 500Wh/kg battery cells en mass, that’s when things will get exciting again. Silicon-anode or lithium-air cells, and massive adoption of solar/wind/small nuclear power generation infrastructure; those are the kinds of step changes needed to get to broad adoption and 600+ miles.

 

[Bcovill]

I wouldn’t recommend planning a road trip with 600 miles between chargers.

I agree. We just did 350-mile trips between Phoenix and La Jolla, testing actual mileage and availability of EA stations along the way. Bad news: with mountains, 114-degree heat, and a full vacation load, we got only 60-65% of the projected mileage. Good news: charging at a 350 EA unit starting with only 50-mile estimated range, we sat in the car and watched it add 300 miles of charge in about 20 minutes. So that claim is true, if you start with very little charge in your batteries.

 

[magesh]

Innocent Q: Why do we need a 600+ mile range car? Is it for bragging rights? Or everyone here is planning to do a Cannonball run?

Even at, say 80% of the rated 600 mile and driving at say 70mph average, you will drive for approximately 7 hours.

What purpose will this serve, when our bladders will make us stop well before that? From range anxiety to bladder anxiety is my new mantra these days.

Oh well ...

P.S: I'm an engineer and fully understand that tech evolves, and we need to make advancements, etc ... But improved batteries use cases may be better served in other applications, than driving a car for 600+ miles non-stop.

 

[Whatchagot]

Greater range makes sense given the poor state of charging infrastructure in the U.S. But given the fact that the materials that go into these batteries are not infinitely available, I wonder if the eventual upper limit on battery capacity will be about the availability of things like lithium. With EVs becoming more and more popular, will a cap on battery capacity be a way to sustainably mass manufacture EVs?

Tesla has been slowly rolling out what appears to be an improved and fully-vetted battery tech. That roll out has taken Tesla years. And that is with a tried and true platform. BMW’s science may be there, but we may be a decade away from seeing these range innovations in actual BMWs (or any other cars for that matter). A decade from now, we could also have infrastructure that makes such higher capacities a complete waste of resources. [I remember reading about the potential for charging capacity that could be built into the roads themselves.]

This is fun to think about!

 

[Sam6062]

Greater range makes sense given the poor state of charging infrastructure in the U.S. But given the fact that the materials that go into these batteries are not infinitely available, I wonder if the eventual upper limit on battery capacity will be about the availability of things like lithium. With EVs becoming more and more popular, will a cap on battery capacity be a way to sustainably mass manufacture EVs?

Tesla has been slowly rolling out what appears to be an improved and fully-vetted battery tech. That roll out has taken Tesla years. And that is with a tried and true platform. BMW’s science may be there, but we may be a decade away from seeing these range innovations in actual BMWs (or any other cars for that matter). A decade from now, we could also have infrastructure that makes such higher capacities a complete waste of resources. [I remember reading about the potential for charging capacity that could be built into the roads themselves.]

This is fun to think about!

We need say a 300 mile range, very fast charging technology and # of Charging stations akin to the current # of Gas Stations.

Read somewhere that a company is trying to develop tech where your car could just be charging if wirelessly as it passes these charging pods wirelessly. That would be something.

 

[OCDC]

We need say a 300 mile range, very fast charging technology and # of Charging stations akin to the current # of Gas Stations.

That’s the rub. There are places along the interstates that have hundreds of pumps (think Grapevine on I-5 in SoCal). To support going full electric someplace like that, there needs to be local infrastructure in place with hundreds of megawatts of surge capacity. Even within city limits, the average gas station has, what, 8-16 pumps? That’s 2-3MW additional infrastructure capacity needed to support it properly in a pump-n-go model. That means more power generation and local storage to support surges. (I personally want to see this scheme happen, but I think it will be choked by NIMBY attitudes.)

Or… the alternate is longer range in the car, and the bulk of charging happens slowly at the destinations (home, work, hotels, etc.).

 

[joec]

That’s the rub. There are places along the interstates that have hundreds of pumps (think Grapevine on I-5 in SoCal). To support going full electric someplace like that, there needs to be local infrastructure in place with hundreds of megawatts of surge capacity. Even within city limits, the average gas station has, what, 8-16 pumps? That’s 2-3MW additional infrastructure capacity needed to support it properly in a pump-n-go model. That means more power generation and local storage to support surges. (I personally want to see this scheme happen, but I think it will be choked by NIMBY attitudes.)

Or… the alternate is longer range in the car, and the bulk of charging happens slowly at the destinations (home, work, hotels, etc.).

No one has a gas pump in their house.

The vast majority of EV owners will charge 80-90% of the time at home.

We do need more chargers, no doubt. We need them in far more convenient places for long road trips.

We will never need anywhere near as many chargers as we have current gas stations.

 

[Steveinarizona]

We need say a 300 mile range, very fast charging technology and # of Charging stations akin to the current # of Gas Stations.

Read somewhere that a company is trying to develop tech where your car could just be charging if wirelessly as it passes these charging pods wirelessly. That would be something.

If we had that, we wouldn't need 400 mile range. But if I had Paul Newman's good looks, maybe I would get Julia Roberts. But I don't and we don't have the volume of charging stations and those that we do have often have problems.

 

[OCDC]

No one has a gas pump in their house.

The vast majority of EV owners will charge 80-90% of the time at home.

Agreed, charging at home is one of the huge benefits for EVs. It will still require more local power generation once enough people have adopted EVs though. A 15-30kWh round trip daily commute will add considerable load to the grid when a large number of people are charging at night. A smart grid will alleviate some of that by staggering the loads, but it's still new infrastructure, and a big net additional load on the grid. The last heat wave we suffered had some localities ask that EV owners NOT charge their cars because the air conditioning loads were continuing well into the night. Winter months in northern latitudes (or Texas) will likely suffer similar issues. (Worse actually, since they won't have as much benefit from solar generation.) (And I know, EV battery as an emergency backup, but I don't want the grid operator taking that for granted. They sell at retail and buy at wholesale.)

We do need more chargers, no doubt. We need them in far more convenient places for long road trips.

We will never need anywhere near as many chargers as we have current gas stations.

Also generally agreed, with a few caveats. While locals can charge at home, procrastination is a very real behavior. Forgetfulness is a real behavior. Surprise EV inefficiencies due to the environment (think rain or extremes of temperature) is a real concern. Driving fast with an 800HP+ monster under the right foot is a real behavior. Having to drive out to an interstate or highway just to get a charge while running errands an hour away from home will lead to issues of cars stalled on the side of the road being much more common than today. That's not a good look. I think some, maybe most, of the existing gas stations should be converted to DCFC electric stations. To get a similar level of service as is expected today, the entire power grid needs to be upgraded to support that.

My overall point is that moving away from fossil fuels, but not changing our net behaviors enough, means that those watts consumed need to come from somewhere. The infrastructure to deliver electricity in the quantities we should be using it, and the places we do, will require a much larger investment than just adding chargers willy-nilly. I don't hear enough conversation or news about adding additional power generation and transport. Thinking about the environment 20-30 years from today, that is sticking in my craw.

I'll get off my soapbox now...

 

[Sandvinsd]

I’ll return to everyone (including many on this board) saying that my Lucid with 516 miles of range is overkill (one needs to sto for the bathroom, eat lunch, or that is too far to drive at one stretch, etc) when I say it is the minimum I wanted. First of all, this is EPA range, not real world driving. i can get 80-90% of that on trips, so assume 80%. That means real world range is only 413. And that is optimal, not counting weather, wind, elevation changes, etc. But unless you charged it overnight and are starting at a full 100%, the real range is from about 80% down to about 20% when you will want to charge (due to minimal availability and issues with the fast charging stations). That means one is only using 60% of that 413 miles of optimum real range. Therefore you are charging every 250 miles in practice. Sure, a lunch stop or long bathroom break will suffice. But my experience with the family is that they want to stop for those where there isn’t a charger, so another stop is needed.

Most of the EVs on the road today are in the 300 miles of EPA range. Using the same formula, 80% of EPA for real world, then using 60% of that between stops and one is charging every 150 miles or so. That is WAY TOO frequent and about the distance currently between freeway EA stations (I hope they all work and are not full as you need to hit them all. As a plus, you will become good friends with your fellow EV owners hitting the same stops along the way ). I would not take a car on trips that had less than 400 miles of EPA range and there currently are only two models on the market with that, the Tesla S and the Lucid.

If the infrastructure gets better and charging speeds are reduced, I could travel with smaller batteries and shorter ranges. However, as it is not, I want a car with 500 miles or 1000 km of EPA range for now.

it was nice to take this current trip of 270 miles one way with a full charge from home and arrive with 40% of the battery left. One quick charge here to 80% will suffice with another one halfway on the way back since I won’t start full)