the problem is that North American consumers don’t rationally buy vehicles. They buy $60,000 pickups to commute to office jobs, and they want 500 mile EVs because of “range anxiety” which is likely going to be in the next DVM.
Sodium batteries have a lower energy density, but they work better in cold temps. They are also inherently safer and last longer, longer than a car will last so they can be reused in the home battery market. Sodium is far less energy intensive to mine.
Of course, the big problem in NA is all this tech is from China, while we just spent billions on lithium cells. China is making 8K TVs and we’re just tooling up to make 12" Black and white TVs.
And that’s why the tariff situation pisses me off. I get that we don’t want subsidized EVs from China to ruin the local EV market, but we should at least take the tech that works and implement it here. Maybe we can estimate the amount of subsidies the Chinese government gives its EV market and charge that on import, idk, I’m not an economist so I don’t know what that would look like. I just know I want an inexpensive EV for commuting and I only need to go about 50-60 miles in a given day (call it 100 if I need to run some errands after work). If I can get that, during winter, for a low price, I’ll buy.
the problem is that North American consumers don’t rationally buy vehicles. They buy $60,000 pickups to commute to office jobs, and they want 500 mile EVs because of “range anxiety” which is likely going to be in the next DVM.
Sodium batteries have a lower energy density, but they work better in cold temps. They are also inherently safer and last longer, longer than a car will last so they can be reused in the home battery market. Sodium is far less energy intensive to mine.
Of course, the big problem in NA is all this tech is from China, while we just spent billions on lithium cells. China is making 8K TVs and we’re just tooling up to make 12" Black and white TVs.
And that’s why the tariff situation pisses me off. I get that we don’t want subsidized EVs from China to ruin the local EV market, but we should at least take the tech that works and implement it here. Maybe we can estimate the amount of subsidies the Chinese government gives its EV market and charge that on import, idk, I’m not an economist so I don’t know what that would look like. I just know I want an inexpensive EV for commuting and I only need to go about 50-60 miles in a given day (call it 100 if I need to run some errands after work). If I can get that, during winter, for a low price, I’ll buy.