This took a few reads to parse. There are two kinds of batteries: (1) a low-density LFP that has a great lifetime, (2) a simulated manganese using Nickel manganese cobalt that has a poor lifetime but great density. The former cycles frequently for short trips, and the latter recharges it during the long ones.
Mercedes achieved a 1000km range with a regular 100kWh battery by making an extremely efficient car with a drag coefficient of only 0.17 [1]<p>[1] <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mercedes-Benz_Vision_EQXX" rel="nofollow noreferrer">https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mercedes-Benz_Vision_EQXX</a>
The LFP is also super cheap, and the NMC are expensive (C in NMC stands for Cobalt which is $$$). You can get 1000km in range with any chemistry, probably even lead-acid if you make it heavy enough. NMC life is fine, but it's just expensive/impossible to get. Tesla et al are trying to pass off LFP as acceptable, almost all Chinese EVs have LFP, but it's super heavy (F stands for Iron, which is heavy). Might be OK if it's flat where you live.<p>When the sodium batteries come out, it will be a similar story, sodium having an atomic mass of 11 vs. lithium's 3.<p>Anode-free is an interesting new direction, will be interesting to see if they can address the dendrite growth (dendrite growth causes short-circuit, thermal runaway and fires several months or years into service life and is notoriously hard to test for, because you might need to test for a decade under all sorts of conditions in order to see if dendrite growth occurs).<p>If you have the cash, NMC is certainly the better tech. If you want a cost-effective EV, the Chinese have figured this out already (LFP). Mixing them, well, it's somewhere in the middle!
A 1000km EV range is not news. Aptera is winning the 'range war' with a 1000 <i>mile</i> (1600 km) EV. And recent battery news should be taken as 'new ice cream flavor discovered' announcements. What is the actual interesting bit of news here? Their proprietary BMS doing DC to DC seems somewhat trivial.
I watched a youtube video on this recently, and I believe that they never mentioned battery lifetime in it. This article said that one of the chemistries only lasts a few hundred cycles, but, because of the use pattern of the dual chemistry is "expected to last the lifetime of the vehicle".<p>I really hope this turns out well, but given the current lack of specificity, I'm going to guess that overall pack longevity is going to be the Achilles heel of this battery.<p>Always happy to see people trying innovative new ideas though. Most of them won't work, but we can only find the ones that do if someone tries it. Hope this one turns out better than I fear.
How do the charging times compare? That’s the deal maker/breaker for long road trips greater than 500 miles, or shorter trips where you use all the accessories, encounter lots of hills, etc not possible on a dynamometer.
This seems like cool technology, but I can't help but to believe that people are concentrating on the wrong problem. Range is important up to a point, but the more important problems to solve are 1) a recharging infrastructure that makes it so that EVs don't need such huge batteries in the first place and 2) recharge speed needs to be at the level of plug-in, use the bathroom, un-plug and go.