A new chapter begins for EV batteries with the expiry of key LFP patents

The pace of innovation is furious, and companies are treating patents more as a way to ensure MAD (Mutual Assured Destruction) rather than as a tool to get income.

I think we'll start seeing the first large lawsuits once the losers start realizing that they lost the innovation race.

They never became available at a competitive price, and then China bought the rights....

Now I can buy them in bulk as a consumer for 1/15th the price.

Our system is not meant for innovation by small players or consumers. We want tech easily locked away behind a contract.

Doesn’t the thermal management system of the battery packs handle this?

LFP charging in cold has pretty much been solved by adding a heater to battery pack.

> (Sodium-ion) prices won't reach LFPs for another 10-15 years (unless you believe hype, not actual analysts).

Given CATL is scaling sodium-ion production to to GWh scale next year, it sounds like they are betting for a much shorter timeframe.

Also LFP prices dropped enough that shipping cost from China became a significant part of the price. This will be even more of a factor should the less energy dense sodium batteries ever reach the promised $30/kWh.

[https://www.eevblog.com/forum/projects/sodium-ion-battery-ev...]

Lithium’s curve is nearly flat, which allows for a pretty easy consistent power production (albeit nearly impossible to tell state of charge!) since you only need to target a pretty narrow voltage band.

Overall, that means sodium-ion has to be even cheaper to be competitive, and it makes even less sense in areas where power density matters like electric cars, as you’ll end up with far less power and/or needing much heavier motors and more expensive electronics to compensate when on the lower end of charge.

I don’t want to think of what it would cost to do a 100kw buck-boost power supply that can handle +- 25% (or more!) voltage differences. In reality, I don’t think anyone would try.

I do all of my charging way above 0K. :-P

If it gets people to pull the trigger on engaging with the firm - it’s likely to embellish how massive the changes are of these patent lapses

I think it's essential to always look at motive: The law firm posted this page for a reason. What was the reason?

I'd guess that it is to attract business. I think we can expect that they would include and exaggerate things that will bring more business, and omit and downplay things that don't.

And if somehow everything stops working I can book an uber which is still massively cheaper than owning a car.

Everyone prefers to live in a giant sprawling mansion (with personal private forest) in the middle of the CBD. But preference is useless data unless it includes their pricetag preference too.

NYC has a real cost problem. Digging a tunnel costs a lot - not anywhere near what it costs in NYC. You can also build bridges over the top for a lot less than digging a tunnel. Modern subways should be 100% automated saving the cost of a driver. (I keep hoping we see self driving buses since drivers are the large share of the costs)

This absurd notion that it "doesn't make sense" for america is propaganda. Not only does it make plenty of sense in America, it was essential to the development of America!

We had robust, reliable, used by everyone public transport before we had trains! Our local agricultural fair shows off horse drawn busses that used to run in a microscopic but 300 year old agricultural community every single year! They even had instructions about how to behave to not upset the poor woman sitting next to your dirty worker self!

Public transport was essential to the north being industrialized enough to defeat the south in the civil war. Every former mill town in new england had robust public transport to keep the mills full of labor.

It was only with significant lobbying and marketing from GM and Ford that America suddenly decided that all this public transport infrastructure that we had for generations "doesn't make sense here" and they even helped rip it all up!

Read a history book.

It's frankly laughable. If public transport "didn't work" in the US, we would never have been able to industrialize before the car. But we did. We did it before the train

That's bullshit. My whole childhood I went everywhere by train and bus. You can walk the last mile if the bus stop isn't close enough to where you need to go.

I know some (embarrassingly rich) countries are incapable of designing a halfway decent public transit system, but the problem isn't with public transit itself.

The last mile has more options than ever. E-bikes, sit-on scooters, golf carts, or that crazy trend of "walking" that I hear is good for your health. There's even the option for smaller, local mini-buses to serve the elderly and disabled. Those same vehicles could be combined with other services, like postal mail, food delivery (for elderly/disabled/infirm).

Where I live in a tiny town in the middle of nowhere, we have the mini-bus to serve vulnerable people. The mail is delivered by local people with Subarus and Jeeps. But there's no other public transit. The closest thing to it is a charter bus, which only runs through a town 45 minutes from here, once a week. There's thousands of people out here, disconnected from the rest of society. And they're poor, so the few vehicles they have are always falling apart, and mechanics shops are always full. There is a taxi service in a nearby town (45mins away), and it has a 1.5 out of 5 star rating, because no alternatives means you have no choice but to deal with how terrible they are.

Autonomous vehicles are a good idea, but it's unlikely they will pan out in the long term, unless via "corporate welfare" or similar funding. The cost to develop, maintain, insure, etc them is just way more expensive than a dude in a driver's seat. They are being floated by SV money in rich cities; they won't scale.

How are cars better with little kids? If I'm in the car with my kids and one kid suddenly really wants a snack, there's nothing I can do. They're strapped in the back, I'm in the front driving. On the train, I just grab a snack from my bag and give them a bite. Or if they're bored I can play with them, etc.

> it fundamentally just can't do the "last mile", pretty much ever.

I live in a suburb in North Texas. I walk out my door with the stroller and my kids. There's a bus stop super close by that can easily load a stroller (all busses are wheelchair accessible). I take that to the train station or the bus goes to the library or several other parks and rec centers. The train stops a very short walk to several museums, the convention center, the airport, the zoo has its own train station, the hockey/basketball arena has its own stop, etc. And this is all in an area where the mass transit isn't even that great.

The transit doesn't go everywhere we want to go. I agree that's the biggest pain point. But I truly don't understand the logic that it's bad for kids. My kids ride often, and they love it. What kid hates trains?

Driving is prohibitively expensive for young people, and in the UK you can't drive cars on public roads until you're 17.

Smells like second Nortel. Wonder who made that decision and where are they now.