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@jj4211@lemmy.world

2026-04-13 16:10 UTC

One thing to keep in mind is that the car may outlast the battery, by a fair amount. If you look at Prius, there's been a fair amount of battery replacement there. I vaguely recall seeing that first gen Nissan Leaf batteries degraded enough to need replacement fairly quickly. On the flip side, seems the more carefully managed solutions with liquid cooling and maintaining buffers have been more robust than expected. Still, I ultimately agree with the assessment that the volumes aren't going to be there for a long time, just that batteries coming out can happen before the car is scrapped. But in terms of volumes, prior to 2019 there just weren't enough batteries going to be expecting much either way yet.

Replies (4)

  • @HumbleExaggeration@feddit.org 2026-04-13 17:42

    But isn't this exactly the thing the article is talking about? Using the degraded batteries that are no longer fit enough to be used in cars, but might still have 60-70 % capacity and be well suited for slow charging and stationary energy storage.

    Open ##1288510

  • @rainwall@piefed.social 2026-04-13 16:31

    They discuss this in the article. Used batteries are not their bottleneck, at least for this company. The issue is incorporating all the different designs/chemistry's/states safely: >The company has more than one GWh of batteries ready to go and expects to add another five GWh this year. Ultimately, the bottleneck to scale isn’t battery supply — Redwood takes in more than 20 GWh of batteries each year. is the safety qualification process required to put batteries out in the field. Sun explained that the core architecture, racking, pack manager, and software can handle multiple chemistries and form factors, but getting them past hurdles like the rigorous UL 9540A fire safety testing Redwood recently passed in-house is another matter.

    Open ##1288511

  • @bluGill@fedia.io 2026-04-13 16:40

    Maybe, but that isn't clear. Like I said, I don't have fuel source statistics, even though that is important. I suspect it is too early to gather those statistics. The Prius has some battery replacement, but my impression is most of them the battery lasts for life, only in a few cases is it seen as worth it to replace a battery (or just a dead cell?). EVs have not been around long enough to really develop this industry - if it ever will develop. The leaf is an outlier - their battery management system was poor and it killed the battery in ways that nearly every other make avoids. The leaf sold in enough numbers, long enough ago, that I'd expect to see an industry to replace the battery if one will happen and it doesn't seem to be as large as one should expect. This is a sign of something - but what it is too early to tell.

    Open ##1288512

  • @kalleboo@lemmy.world 2026-04-14 00:38

    Hasn't the Prius also generally used NiMh batteries rather than the Lithium-based chemistries?

    Open ##1288515