Anyone who has consciously experienced people asking each other for their 'ping' will probably remember the fear of a lazy battery. The idea was that the lifespan of your mobile phone would decrease if you charged it before the battery was empty. Those who were careful with their Motorola or Nokia would first empty the battery with the camera light. No one cares about that anymore, we think, but this could easily change with electric cars in the future.
While many EVs now have a lithium-ion battery, manufacturers may be able to switch to lithium-metal batteries in the future. This battery has a different material for the anode and according to the scientists, the range of EVs can double with this battery. The only problem is that the batteries become lazy very quickly, and researchers have to work on that Stanford University came up with something. A trick that millennials and boomers remember from the past.
The university discovered that if you completely discharge a lazy lithium-metal battery, it regains its lost capacity. By leaving the battery without any voltage for an hour, it (partly) came back to life. “We previously thought this energy loss was irreversible,” says one scientist, “but our research shows that we can restore the lost capacity by simply letting the discharged battery rest.”
Will you have to drive the battery completely empty in the future?
Figuring out exactly that you come home with 1 kilometer of range and then wait in the parking lot with your lights on, that's no problem. If lithium-metal batteries become commonplace, you may be able to power your home until the car runs out of power. Or discharging becomes part of the routine. Anyway: interesting that a forgotten method can make a comeback in the future.
#completely #empty #battery
