Comment on CATL unveils battery with 12-minute charging and 1.5 million mile life
Powderhorn@beehaw.org 5 hours ago
I first ran into this story on /r/energy (yeah, I cheated on Beehaw because I had to see what was going on in /r/journalism with the Post news), and while most comments were useful, there was also a tinge of “but it’s China, so that’s bad.”
Well, we were on our way to building up production and infrastructure here in the U.S., which I know because I fucking covered federal grants for green-energy projects and battery production until being laid off Jan. 20, 2025.
I mean, this is like complaining that another kid has a chocolate bar on the playground and you don’t. China invests for the long term. The U.S. needs quarterly returns. We did a lot better at advancing the state of the art in everything when we had robust corporate R&D departments than we do going with share buybacks.
We have lost our edge. Period, graf.
xoggy@programming.dev 5 hours ago
It’s not a “China so it’s bad”. Moreso to do with the fact this Chinese-based industry constantly make wild claims about batteries with zero backups to their claims.
livescience.com/…/betavolt-bv100-radioactive-batt…
No surprise when people are quick to dismiss a habitual liar.
Powderhorn@beehaw.org 5 hours ago
I’ve been living exclusively off Chinese-made solar panels and batteries for nearly two and a half years. I don’t exactly view them as liars.
xoggy@programming.dev 4 hours ago
No, CATL makes the same wild claims. Just within the last few months they’ve been overselling the capabilities of sodium batteries.
livescience.com/…/new-battery-breakthrough-could-…
The whole industry is polluted with these fluff claims. Of course we want them to be true, but waiting for results to make noise is wiser.
Powderhorn@beehaw.org 4 hours ago
OK, but where are the data that they’re inflating claims? From where I’m looking, they keep iterating. Your approach feels like sinophobia. What are we doing here in the states? Certainly not announcing new batteries.
GreyEyedGhost@piefed.ca 4 hours ago
Wild claims? “’We did this thing in the lab.’ It could be a breakthrough provided they can scale production.” The only thing that would make this a wild claim is if they didn’t actually do what they said or if it didn’t work like they said. They didn’t even claim this could be commercialized.
Also, Professor Zhao works at Western University, in Ontario, Canada. Here’s an article about this same research on their website.