Bill Gates: Electric tractors, passenger planes? They will probably never be the solution.
Quite often in the history of Microsoft, it happened that when Bill Gates categorically declared that something was wrong, he was already calmly working on it. So if Gates says electric planes or trucks don't make sense and is investing in a solid-state startup in the background, that sounds interesting.
Heavy transport of the future – electric or biofuel?
Bill Gates is definitely not a battery and electric car specialist. And yet he invested in QuantumScape, which boasts solid electrolyte cells. Among other things, his money will be used for the stock debut of a startup worth 3,3 billion US dollars (equivalent to 12,4 billion zlotys).
Volkswagen and Continental also have stakes in QuantumScape.
Little is known about startup-developed cells. The company says they use a solid electrolyte and do not have a classic anode. Of course, single electrode cells don't make sense. This "no anode" means "no prefabricated anode", graphite or graphite silicon layer. The anode is formed at the junction of the second electrode and consists of lithium atoms released by the cathode during the charging process.
In short: we are dealing with lithium metal, lithium metal cells:
No anode preparation required at the factory means lower production costs... This should also be translated to higher cell capacityeven if the number of lithium atoms on the cathode is the same as in a classical lithium-ion cell. Why?
It's simple: without a graphite anode, the cell is lighter and thinner and can store the same charge (= because we assumed the number of lithium atoms was the same). Thus, the gravimetric (mass-dependent) and bulk (volume-dependent) cell energy densities increase.
Smaller cells that store the same charge allow more cells to fit in the battery compartment, which means higher battery capacity. This is exactly what QuantumScape promises.
Meanwhile, Bill Gates believes that electric cargo ships, passenger planes and trucks are likely never to be a viable solution due to the heavy weight of the batteries. Since there are a lot of them, DAF has increased the range of its tractor to more than 200 kilometers, increasing the battery capacity to 315 kWh:
> DAF has extended the CF Electric's range to over 200 kilometers.
We can easily calculate that increasing the range to 800 kilometers will require the use of more than 1,1 MWh of cells weighing at least 7-8 tons.... For Gates, this is a weakness and, as he claims, a rather insurmountable problem.
However, people dealing with this topic disagree with this. Elon Musk thinks electric airplanes make sense when we hit 0,4 kWh / kg. Today we are approaching 0,3 kWh / kg, and some startups say they have already reached 0,4 kWh / kg:
> Imec: we have solid electrolyte cells, energy density 0,4 kWh / liter, charge 0,5C
But the Microsoft co-founder believes biofuels will be a better alternative for large, heavy vehicles. Possibly electric fuels, hydrocarbons derived from water and carbon dioxide from the atmosphere (source). Is that why he decided to invest in a company that deals with solid electrolyte cells?
Editorial note www.elektrowoz.pl: QuantumScape links are an interesting topic. We'll come back to them later 🙂
Opening Photo: Illustrative, Bill Gates (c) Bill Gates / YouTube
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