this post was submitted on 25 Dec 2023
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Fixing car and e-bike batteries saves money and resources, but challenges are holding back the industry

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[–] AnneBonny@lemmy.dbzer0.com 194 points 8 months ago (3 children)

Jacking Up a Car Is Dangerous. Here's Why Mechanics Are Doing So Anyway

[–] gibmiser@lemmy.world 62 points 8 months ago (2 children)
[–] WHYAREWEALLCAPS@kbin.social 30 points 8 months ago

Yep. Other than thrill seekers, the only reason any business does something is for the money. If you can go, "Hey, you don't need to spend $12k on a new battery pack! Bring it down to Bubba's Batteries Bazaar and we can fix it for less!", you will get business.

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[–] remotelove@lemmy.ca 16 points 8 months ago (3 children)

I suppose jacking off a car is also dangerous.

[–] SkaveRat@discuss.tchncs.de 11 points 8 months ago

Depends. Are you a dragon?

[–] altima_neo@lemmy.zip 8 points 8 months ago (1 children)

Wasnt there subreddits for that?

[–] AnneBonny@lemmy.dbzer0.com 3 points 8 months ago* (last edited 8 months ago)

Not that I know of.

There is dragonsfuckingcars.

[–] Snapz@lemmy.world 3 points 8 months ago

You wouldn't download a car... And if you did, you wouldn't jack off a car...

[–] circuscritic@lemmy.ca 10 points 8 months ago* (last edited 8 months ago) (4 children)

Eh. That's not really comparable to lithium-ion batteries. Lithium-ion batteries are similar to bombs in that they're highly dense stores of energy. If something goes wrong and that energy storage medium gets exposed to air, or there's a failure in a charging safety mechanism, that's a chemical fire at best, explosion at worse, but no matter what, it's extremely toxic.

[–] AntY@lemmy.world 22 points 8 months ago

Acetylene and oxygen is also explosive, but you’re still allowed to have it and use it. Battery acid is extremely corrosive and poisonous. Gasoline is extremely flammable. A garage is filled with dangers. If you can’t service a lithium-ion battery in a safe way, you shouldn’t do it, just like you shouldn’t service your brakes if you don’t know what you’re doing.

[–] AnneBonny@lemmy.dbzer0.com 4 points 8 months ago

Lead-acid batteries also present a risk of explosion.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lead%E2%80%93acid_battery#Risk_of_explosion

That's why you attach jumper cables to the dead battery first.

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[–] Lophostemon@aussie.zone 120 points 8 months ago (5 children)

The whole repair thing should made super easy if we want EVs to succeed.

  1. Make all batteries use an easily swappable set of standard cell sizes.
  2. Make battery controllers standardised and swappable.
  3. …. Er… that’s it.
[–] cmnybo@discuss.tchncs.de 58 points 8 months ago (4 children)

But that will never happen because the EV manufacturers couldn't charge ridiculous amounts of money for proprietary batteries.

[–] jabjoe@feddit.uk 23 points 8 months ago (4 children)

That why we need regulators. The market doesn't magically deal with "Tragedy of the Commons".

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[–] Lophostemon@aussie.zone 9 points 8 months ago

God forbid that they concentrate on the quality of the basic vehicle instead.

[–] buzz86us@lemmy.world 5 points 8 months ago

Yup.. If you can't compete add tariffs.

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[–] LazaroFilm@lemmy.world 41 points 8 months ago (4 children)

Make all cars rechargeable with a single charging port. And that port should be USB-C

[–] altima_neo@lemmy.zip 39 points 8 months ago (7 children)

like 50 USB-C cables tied together to output enough of a charge lol

[–] TonyTonyChopper@mander.xyz 3 points 8 months ago

The highest available now is 240 W, so with 50 in parallel you get 12 kW. Fast chargers go up to like 300 kW but at home 12 is good enough actually.

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[–] jol@discuss.tchncs.de 6 points 8 months ago* (last edited 8 months ago)

Can't wait for all power cables to just be USB-C. I dream for the day where I can charge my phone with the same plug my induction stove uses.

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[–] buzz86us@lemmy.world 16 points 8 months ago (1 children)

I've said it before, and I'll say it again allow.. cars with CATL or Nio battery swap cassettes into the US.. It is so dumb that there are different battery setups for every manufacturer .. In a Nio I can swap batteries for less than a pack of beer.. Why not do that instead of this current BS system where you have only one pack and once that is done it is $10k

[–] PsychedSy@sh.itjust.works 8 points 8 months ago (1 children)

Looks like for some Ioniq 5's it's 60k - more than a new car.

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[–] dependencyinjection@discuss.tchncs.de 4 points 8 months ago (1 children)

I heard NIO has this technology already and are looking to standardise it.

[–] cogman@lemmy.world 12 points 8 months ago (7 children)

Every EV has this already. What they don't have is a standard. Not shockingly, every EV manufacturer will argue why theirs should be the standard.

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[–] SmashingSquid@notyour.rodeo 3 points 8 months ago* (last edited 8 months ago)

This was posted to one of the communities I sub to a day ago: https://spectrum.ieee.org/flow-battery-2666672335

This would probably be the best option if it takes off.

[–] StinkyDave@lemmy.world 47 points 8 months ago

Is it money?

[–] GentlemanLoser@ttrpg.network 44 points 8 months ago (1 children)

Is it money? I bet it's money

[–] reallyNaughty@lemmynsfw.com 20 points 8 months ago (2 children)

Mostly it's money for the consumer. I have a Prius so it might be a little different. But when the hybrid battery goes out costs something like $7,000 to have it replaced. A mechanic in town will repair it for $1000.

Now my car isn't worth $7000 so if I had to replace the battery then I would just get a new car and this one might end up in the scrap heap. In getting it repaired I have gotten something like 6 more years out of it, at least, and that's a pretty significant environmental savings.

And that's essentially what the article is saying.

[–] _Analog_@lemmy.world 3 points 8 months ago

A battery that is utter trash for driving purposes still has tons of life left for other uses.

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[–] breadsmasher@lemmy.world 41 points 8 months ago* (last edited 8 months ago) (2 children)

A Subscription Is Required to Continue Reading

[–] FrostyTrichs@lemmy.world 46 points 8 months ago (1 children)

A Subscription Is Required to Continue Reading

Interesting.

First of all apparently ublock, no script, or some combination of my add-ons kept me from seeing the message and I'm able to view the entire article.

Even more interesting is this text at the end of the article-

This story was originally published by Grist, a nonprofit media organization covering climate, justice, and solutions.

So this source basically spun an article from Grist and put it behind their paywall.

Following the link from Scientific American, the first line of the Grist article is-

This story was co-published with WIRED.

It's clowns the whole way down, yaaaaar.

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[–] BlackSkinnedJew@lemmynsfw.com 40 points 8 months ago* (last edited 8 months ago) (1 children)

Manufacturers will keep making their cars hard to repair cos they want all the money of the customers in original replacement parts. Their cars are specially designed to only be repaired by their own technicians, they want the whole business you know.

[–] minibyte@sh.itjust.works 5 points 8 months ago (1 children)

Unless it’s a Nissan, then forget a repair – it’s an all out replacement every time. Don’t buy a Leaf.

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[–] sndmn@lemmy.ca 19 points 8 months ago

Because that's literally a mechanic's job.

[–] Hyperreality@kbin.social 12 points 8 months ago* (last edited 8 months ago) (5 children)

I loved how Renault solved this for the Twizzy (and other cars). You bought the car. You leased the battery for something like 50 euros a month. (Probably more now).

Sure, that sounds expensive, but I suspect it worked out less than replacing the battery after a decade.

Suspect it also helped resale value. The most expensive repair to worry about for a second hand buyer, is the battery. Making that a lease removes that worry entirely. You know exactly how much it's going to cost.

Of course, having to pay that monthly lease fee for the battery, does make it more obvious that electric cars aren't necessarily that much cheaper to run than an ICE.

[–] spongebue@lemmy.world 14 points 8 months ago (2 children)

I've got enough subscriptions in my life. 50 euros a month would be 6000 euros after 10 years (figure a couple years more than the 8-year warranty in the US) that could be put towards a refurbished battery if the car needed one at that point. The reality is, on a 10-year-old car, a little range degradation isn't a huge deal, especially if that car is being driven around town and can be charged nightly. I'd rather own the things I buy, and not pay to be tied into yet another monthly bill.

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[–] TBi@lemmy.world 7 points 8 months ago (1 children)

We have an BMW i3. 8 years old. Battery is fine. But car is written off now because the inverter failed. 11k€ repair. Worst part is that due to BMW software locks it’s almost impossible for third party repair to work on the car. Any replaced part needs to be “blessed” by BMW.

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[–] metaStatic@kbin.social 4 points 8 months ago (1 children)

whatever happened to Teslas distributed powergrid? Now that was a game changer, offloading the cost of the battery entirely could have made EVs actually affordable.

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[–] TWeaK@lemm.ee 4 points 8 months ago (2 children)

Danger, Danger, High Voltage!

Although it annoys me that mechanics consider even 400V "high" voltage. HV is supposed to be 1,000V, minimum.

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