Why The Biggest Battery Company Is Betting On Lithium Air. Subscribe to IEEE Spectrum Magazine and get 20% off: https://spectrum.ieee.org/undecided And check out @ieeespectrum on Youtube. CATL, the world's biggest battery maker, just named its bet for what comes after solid-state batteries: lithium air. Headlines claim this battery stores as much energy as gasoline. This lithium air battery breathes, pulling oxygen straight from the surrounding air instead of packing in heavy metal cathodes. Scientists say the design could push EVs past 1,000 miles on a single charge, and a startup is already chasing it for drones and aircraft. So is this air-breathing battery actually as close to gasoline-level energy as CATL claims? Or is that number just a headline that outran the lab? Edit: we're aware there's a slight issue with the audio, we're taking a look at the cause and apologize for the inconvenience! Watch The Battery the US Government Forgot https://youtu.be/jjKnDdsWoG8?list=PLnTSM-ORSgi7uzySCXq8VXhodHB5B5OiQ Video script and citations: https://undecided.tech/why-the-biggest-battery-company-is-betting-on-lithium-air/ Get my achieve energy security with solar guide: https://undecided.link/solar-guide Follow-up podcast: Video version - https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC4-aWB84Bupf5hxGqrwYqLA Audio version - https://undecided.link/stilltbd-podcast Join the Undecided Discord server: https://undecided.link/discord 👋 Support Undecided on Patreon! https://undecided.link/patreon Visit my Energysage Portal (US): Research solar panels, heat pumps, and more to get quotes for free! https://undecided.link/energysage For a curated solar buying experience (Canada) EnergyPal's free personalized quotes: https://undecided.link/energypal 👉 Follow Me Mastodon https://mastodon.social/@mattferrell Bluesky https://bsky.app/profile/mattferrell.bsky.social Instagram https://www.instagram.com/undecidedtech Website https://undecided.tech Some music provided by Epidemic Sound https://undecided.link/epidemic I may earn a small commission for my endorsement or recommendation to products or services linked above, but I wouldn't put them here if I didn't like them. Your purchase helps support the channel and the videos I produce. Thank you. Chapters 00:00 - Intro 02:49 - The Battery That Breathes 06:34 - The Hype Check 07:37 - The Two Tricks For Four Electrons
ADVERTISEMENT
something is wonky with your audio in this video
Congratulations on the IEEE Spectrum sponsorship. That's a pretty huge endorsement
The audio sounds almost like it was generated by AI.
3kwh/kg is enough to change the game completely
When they got 1.5 million to research, my reaction was, "that's all?" That's cheaper than the guy's ballroom, and more Americans are going to use this.
It is exciting to see serious engineering going on in the lab and NOT being overhyped at some tech convention. I think the serious commitment made by the US scientists and engineers and the Chinese CATL points to a real potential in the next years that could indeed be as impactful on battery engineering as the printing press was on book publishing. Thank you for keeping it real.
I wish videos and articles would discuss other battery metrics such as WH/Liter, cell voltage, cell current discharge/charge rates, operating temperatures... All these metrics are needed to understand if the battery will be usable.
Does anyone remember those emergency sealed zinc-air cellphone batteries that lived in your glove box that was never actually used? 🙂
"Lie to me about pie and we're going to have a problem" 🤣
What're your thoughts on CATL betting on a lithium-air future? Subscribe to IEEE Spectrum Magazine and get 20% off: /undecided And check out Spectrum on Youtube. If you liked this, check out The Battery the US Government Forgot /jjKnDdsWoG8?list=PLnTSM-ORSgi7uzySCXq8VXhodHB5B5OiQ Edit: we're aware there's a slight issue with the audio, we're taking a look at the cause and apologize for the inconvenience!
If this was only come at least 25% of estimated it will transition alot of transportation to electric which is super exciting
the donut lab footage was crazy xDDDD
even if this ends up at half the est wh/kg with evs superior efficiency it would still outdo gas. I hope it comes to fruition, but I wouldn't count on it sadly. I remember the ev1 and how the big oil companies stepped in and bought out the nickle hydrate patents which allowed for a pack which was surprisingly useful for that time vs lead acid. And then of course gm bought them back&crushed most of them!
Before watching the video, I'd be worried about the max discharge rate. But could still be good for recharging another battery over time in a hybrid system. Edit after the video: didn't address power density, but they said they're targeting drones, so presumably it's pretty high? Drones need a really high discharge rate for takeoff.
Something wrong with your mic? Sounds like you swapped it out for a really cheap one.
Hi Matt, love your videos. Just want to let you know that your audio quality on this video sounded like it had been run through a synthesizer of sorts. I double checked by making a comparison your previous videos. Hope this helps and keep up the great work.
Most impressive part of this video is the IEEE Spectrum sponsor spot, every engineer likes that.
I donut believe - maybe they can try a sodium air battery
The audio is easy to understand but sounds weird. Maybe it was re-processed through AI by YouTube somehow, for some reason?
Sounds like something that's aimed driectly at aircraft than anything else. The next issue is overall volume of the components.