special thanks to aura for sponsoring the show the future with the metaverse and nfts can seem daunting but protecting your digital identity doesn't have to be with aura when it comes to vehicle efficiency weight is a major factor the heavier an object is the more energy it takes to get it to move if you've ever lifted weights at the gym you know what i'm talking about i do all the time this creates a bit of a paradox with vehicles especially battery-powered ones bigger batteries weigh more meaning they will eat up more of the power they provide it's a vicious cycle right now eva batteries consume a large portion of the car's overall weight take a tesla model s for example their batteries weigh about NUMBER_TOKEN kilograms just under NUMBER_TOKEN pounds with a total vehicle weight of NUMBER_TOKEN kilograms the batteries alone comprise almost a quarter of the car's total mass and that's with no passengers or payload of any kind the problem isn't just the battery's weight it's that the weight doesn't contribute any load-bearing functions to the rest of the vehicle so if we need more energy storage and less weight we have a few choices use more exotic materials to lower the weight of the car leaving more weight for batteries or develop more energy-dense batteries with more energy per unit of mass the sensitivity to vehicle weight is so great that the epa estimates that just a NUMBER_TOKEN reduction in vehicle weight could result in six to eight percent boost in fuel efficiency but what if there was a way to take better advantage of all that dead weight what if the batteries themselves could literally do more than just pull their own weight around that is exactly the idea behind structural zero mass batteries where typical ev batteries today are built in sequence and stored at the bottom of the chassis a structural battery is as the name suggests worked into the overall structure of the vehicle these batteries are often dubbed zero mass because in essence the battery's weight disappears as it's woven directly into the load-bearing structure major breakthroughs in structural battery technology have recently been achieved by a team of researchers at the chalmers university of technology in sweden before we dive into this team and talk about their breakthrough let's talk a little bit about where the idea for structural batteries came from structural power sources have been utilized in aerospace technology for decades transport and high performance aircraft commonly have their fuel source built into the wings or fuselage of the craft an airplane in flight is kind of like a gymnast with outstretched arms supporting their weight on the rings if they could just cut off their legs and torso and stick that way closer to their arms then maybe even i could be a gymnast this is in essence what fuel in the wings does for an aircraft so if we have already seen this technology in action why haven't we applied it to evs yet so in essence either an aircraft in flight or a gymnast on the rings have their load bearing forces on the wingtips and all the mass in the center and that means that you have a lot more torque and weight and fatigue and strain on all the parts by putting the weight closer to where the lift comes from all that is decreased so if we have already seen this technology in action why haven't we applied it to ivs yet the quest for better integrating fuel sources into vehicle design is a rabbit that researchers have been chasing for a while back in NUMBER_TOKEN
START_SPONSOR_TOKEN special thanks to aura for sponsoring the show the future with the metaverse and nfts can seem daunting but protecting your digital identity doesn't have to be with aura END_SPONSOR_TOKEN