The advantage is not only cost but also longevity. LFP and sodium ion batteries might have decades of useful life. With thousands of charge cycles, you could be charging them on a daily basis and it would be fine. NMC only has about 1000-1500 cycles. Some LFP batteries do 3-4x better than that. Sodium ion even better.
The Ultium announcement isn't Li-S related but but number of battery plant announcements over the past 5 years in the US (as well as Japan) have been plants that can support both LFP and Li-S battery manufacturing.
Japanese, Korean, and American automotive and battery vendors have been aligned on this from a capital and IP perspective for a LONG time.
CATL is promising 10k cycles for their latest sodium ion cells.
> NMC only has about 1000-1500 cycles.
200 miles per cycle and you’re at 200,000 miles, which is decades for a lot of people.
https://www.jalopnik.com/chevy-and-motorola-teamed-up-on-a-c...
https://carnewschina.com/2022/03/06/the-big-read-saic-6-6-th...
https://www.scmp.com/business/china-business/article/3308575...
Coworker loves loves loves the corvette even though its one of the worst vehicles electrics wise. Two people he convinced to buy vettes traded them back in within a year of purchase for electrical issues.
Brand loyalty is a big part of the American mindset and I think GM rested on those laurels to the point where even after the bailout they still have the same mindset.
Why on earth would you take a bath on a trade-in instead of using the lemon law if there were unfixable electrical issues?
Also - this sounds pretty anecdotal to be honest, long-time corvette owner who follows the forums and I've not seen any widespread complaints of electrical issues with the c8 besides a battery drain issue caused by OTA updates that was resolved.
That being said, the C7 also had no known electrical issues. A certified pre-owned would still be covered under lemon law. "driving through a puddle" sounds like more than a bit of an understatment if it took out the entire electrical system. I have driven my car through many, many rainstorms and had exactly 0 issues. I'm also not clear how he traded in a car with a non-functioning electrical system, no dealer would touch that with a 30 foot pole.
>the other kept killing the battery at random.
That could literally be anything, and again wasn't a widespread issue with the C7 platform or there would've been a recall, just like with the C8.
I regrettably had to use a rental GMC of theirs, it seems car rental companies have quite a stock of them, to say nothing of their quality, felt like driving a wheeled takeout container.
Corvette can't admit to aspirations of a Pure EV this decade (thanks, politics), but in my opinion, that's the only way to absolve a lot of the GM executive sins on being wishy washy about EV futures.
(I say that as someone who still owns a 2012 Volt as my only car, but mostly not because I still think I need a hybrid but because I want an full electric, reasonably sized sedan or hatchback, and all the car companies decided Americans only want EV crossovers/SUVs/assault tanks/land yachts this decade.)
All hybrids (Prius included, and especially noted) are just sub-par Full EVs with extra weight albatrossed around their necks when gas gets hard to buy and it does seem like past time to stop sinking good money after multiple decades of sunk costs in ICE car engines.
I think it would be more obvious if the US had more of the cheap EVs that China and Europe are producing, but we all know the US right now isn't politically aligned to have nice things.
alephnerd•5h ago