“With a new EV battery you can drive for 50 years without recharging”
The Chinese start-up Betavolt says it has developed a nuclear battery that provides energy for more than 50 years without having to be recharged. The battery could be used in electric cars, but also in many devices outside the EV sector.
The concept is not new and dates back to the 1950s. This type of battery uses radiation to generate its own energy. This means you almost never have to charge the battery. However, until now these batteries have been very large and expensive. Betavolt claims to have developed the nuclear battery on a small scale for the first time.
Core battery in your electric vehicle
The battery is smaller than a coin and houses 63 nuclear isotopes. The Chinese start-up will now test this extensively, after which the battery could go into large-scale production. According to Betavolt, the batteries could be used in smartphones and drones, among other things. You never have to charge such a phone again and can continue flying the drones non-stop.
The company assumes that the battery can also be used in larger numbers in electric cars. Not having visited a charging station in 50 years sounds like a breakthrough in the electric vehicle sector. There is no battery, not even the promising one solid stateBattery that imitates him. In theory, your electric car charges continuously.
According to Betavolt, the energy density is ten times higher than lithium batteries and the battery is fireproof. The battery would also work at temperatures from -60 to 120 degrees Celsius. Hopeful news for electric vehicle manufacturers.
Car scrapyard with electric cars full of radioactive waste?
However, the test sample is 1.5 centimeters by 1.5 centimeters by 0.5 centimeters and only has 100 microwatts of power at 3 volts. This won’t charge your phone yet. It’s a hundredth of what a simple power bank delivers. Although a first step has been taken, there is still a lot of work to be done before we see this battery in an electric car.
If you are fundamentally against electric cars, there is one objection: radiation. Many people worry as soon as the term nuclear power is mentioned. However, after all these years, when the battery has converted all the radiation into energy, Betavolt says all that’s left is non-radioactive material that “poses no threat to the environment.”
Diamond in the nuclear battery
Not much can be said about the price yet. Firstly, because new technologies are often very expensive at the beginning, but the costs fall quickly. In this case, diamond is one of the components of this nuclear battery. Sounds like an expensive joke. However, if you never have to charge your electric car again, you will also save a lot of money.