[nidhikapoor]

Originally Posted by shyampsunder

Looks like the Creta EV is going with NMC and not LFP. It's a huge disappointment because we get all the drawbacks of NMC without the benefits.

Drawbacks:

1. Battery is sensitive to degradation if it's charged to 100% often or drained too low.

2. Regular calendar degradation is much higher than LFP.

These could've been offset with fast DC charging speeds but Hyundai has knee capped this car with less than 1C charge speed. With more and more high speed DC chargers becoming prevalent on our highways, this car will feel outdated from day 1.

At the risk of repeating myself, it's so sad to see that Hyundai is not even able to match the charging speed of the Kona that they launched in India 5 years ago.

Unless Creta is launched with a starting ex-showroom price of under 15 lakhs, this is a huge disappointment on the core EV bits of the car.

NMC are much maligned but will last long enough for ALL buyers. Without a doubt.

[Guna]

Originally Posted by chohan

NMC use expensive raw material, are more energy dense, charge faster and deliver better performance.

But that doesn't seem to be the case here with the Creta EV taking 1 hour for 20-80% charging.
There are also other alleged problems like the child labour and environmentally harmful chemicals associated with NMC batteries.

[shyampsunder]

Originally Posted by nidhikapoor

NMC are much maligned but will last long enough for ALL buyers. Without a doubt.

NMC is a competent chemistry used by all the top EV manufacturers including Tesla. My concern is more to do with the tradeoffs for the customer.

Hyundai has some of the fastest charging EVs in the market with their eGMP cars like the Ioniq 5 and EV6 and we have seen that they have decent degradation as well. Then why is it that they have drastically limited the charging speed of this car when one of the advantages of NMC is the fast charging speed?

At highway speeds with efficiency of 6 KM/kWh, you are looking at ~42 mins of charging to get 150 KMs of real world range. On the ZS EV it takes 27 minutes to do the same and the ZS EV is due for a refresh.

For cars with very long range, both the degradation and charging speeds aren't a big issue unlike in mass market cars like the Creta which has a 42 kWh and 51 kWh battery. The degradation hurts more and I can see the real world impact of degradation on highway driving for the OG ZS EV owners who have the NMC battery.

Does it indicate that Hyundai is skimping on the battery cooling etc which can amplify degradation? Not sure but there is something that doesn't meet the eye here.

[KeepItSimple]

Please check out the real world experience of bhpian user ADI7YAK with the hyundai kona after doing 160,000 kms.
I am not sure how to link to his thread.

Many of your doubts on NMC chemistry, battery degradation, fast charging speed can be clarified.

The interiors of the creta ev look a lot like the recently released inster ev in Europe which is a good thing.

The inster or casper ev in Korea gets a 42 and 49 kilowatt hour battery pack.

Hyundai has upped the battery pack to 51 kilowatt hours for the creta ev which is a bigger car.

I expect a range of 12 to 15 kilowatts per 100 kms for the creta ev depending on driving conditions.

To me the creta ev is looking like an upgraded inster or casper ev which are global models not likely to be released here.

The drawback is the pricing which is likely to be higher than anticipated.

Let's see how hyundai handles the competition.

[07CR]

Originally Posted by nidhikapoor

NMC are much maligned but will last long enough for ALL buyers. Without a doubt.

Lasting long enough is one thing, but I am concerned about battery degradation. With just 51 Kwh battery even though as of now the car might deliver 350 KM ~ real world range, but with NMC the degradation could be higher at 2 % per year. So in 5 years time you could be looking at about 10% degradation. That means just about 315 Kms realistic range in 5 years. This is a very small number and considering the resale value of EVs is pathetic, I would ideally like to keep car for 10 years.

Correct me if I am wrong in the above analysis.

[FlankerFury]

Originally Posted by chohan

Exactly! People hyping up LFP batteries really bother me. The hype largely stems from its affordability for mass application.

Affordability is not the only reason LFP has become popular. There's safety reasons too.

When it comes to safety, LFP batteries take the crown. Their chemical and structural stability makes them highly resistant to overheating, even under extreme conditions like punctures or high impacts. The worst you might get is some smoke. NMC batteries, while generally safe, are more prone to catching fire or exploding under similar circumstances, particularly at high temperatures

EVLithium | LFP vs NMC

LFP batteries have a reputation for superior safety and thermal stability due to their robust LiFePO4 chemical structure. They are less prone to thermal runaway and combustion, making them an excellent choice for applications where safety is paramount.

aichelin.at | LFP vs NMC

Then there's ethical considerations as well.
LFP batteries have an advantage over NMC batteries, as they do not rely on cobalt. The Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), responsible for 70% of the world's cobalt production , has been associated with widespread human rights violations, including forced and child labor.

Originally Posted by KeepItSimple

Please check out the real world experience of bhpian user ADI7YAK with the hyundai kona after doing 160,000 kms.

Here's the link to that thread.

ADI7YAK's Hyundai Kona

[DIY410]

In terms of C rating of the battery.

2C for BE6/XEV9
1.49C for ZS EV
1.46C for Atto3 long range version.
1.2C for Curvv 55 kWh/Nexon 45 kWh
1C for Creta EV
0.7C for Nexon 30/40 kWh.

Some myths being said here on LFP, let me correct them. As a person who has built lot of lithium battery packs since more than 15 years.
The cell balancing is not hard for BMS when it's slow charged. If you fast charge both NMC and LFP will have minor cell imbalances, which the BMS will balance either by passing on the current from higher voltage cell to the lowest voltage cell or uses a bleed resistor to lower the voltage of the cells which are higher in voltage, all EV will do both of these.

Why it occurs mainly during fast charge is because the energy going into the cells is faster than what BMS bleed resistor can dispate. When this happens the charge speed drops, until the lazy cell can catch up.

LFP battery causes a issue only for range estimation and not the actual practical range that you will able to drive. Only Tata has botched this up due to the use of small capacity 33140 cylindrical cells connected in parallel.

In NMC, the battery cells which are of even lower capacity like 18650 and 21700, they are not always charged to 4.2V but rather limited to 4.1V or even 4V. In many cordless power tools that use NMC like Bosch, the cell is only charged to 4v and the battery pack doesn' t even have a cell balancing circuit.

In a LFP, the charger will reduce the current as it reaches 3.6V to 3.65V and will continue to drop till the lowest possible current that it can give based on the programmed settings.

[Venkatesh]

Closer look at the Creta EV.































Source : Evo India

[psbali]

NMC battery will make this car dead on arrival. Electric vehicle customers are more informed than an average petrol head. The moment I read NMC and 1C charging I immediately decided against this car.

Thank God that they atleast have a proper stick shift to change gears. Kudos!

[Lobogris]

Originally Posted by psbali

NMC battery will make this car dead on arrival. Electric vehicle customers are more informed than an average petrol head. The moment I read NMC and 1C charging I immediately decided against this.

NMC batteries have traditionally been used in higher end models and are much more reliable than LFP batteries.

[AVIS]

Battery safety is especially important for Indian roads - large potholes, poorly designed speed breakers etc. LFP batteries are known to be safer than NMC in extreme conditions like punctures.

[DIY410]

Originally Posted by Lobogris

NMC batteries have traditionally been used in higher end models and are much more reliable than LFP batteries.

In western countries LFP batteries are used primarly because of their sub zero temperature performance, where temperature fall below -20 Celcius. The NMC battery will have a 20% to 30% advantage compared to LFP.

But the longest range battery will always be a NMC due to the energy density advantage. But at pack level LFP blade style batteries have shortened the advantage that NMC had due to maximum space utilization and less area taken by cooling channels and thermal pads because LFP have much less temperature rise during charge and discharge cycle.

Also LFP cells have now overtaken the NMC battery in charge speed, just this week a 6C charge speed LFP was unveiled in China for a production ready battery with 5000 cycle life.

Compared to the 5C charge speed of the best NMC battery which is also production ready with much shorter cycle life.

[nidhikapoor]

Originally Posted by psbali

NMC battery will make this car dead on arrival. Electric vehicle customers are more informed than an average petrol head. The moment I read NMC and 1C charging I immediately decided against this car.

Thank God that they atleast have a proper stick shift to change gears. Kudos!

What stick shift are you referring to?

[shyampsunder]

Originally Posted by DIY410

In terms of C rating of the battery.

2C for BE6/XEV9
1.49C for ZS EV
1.46C for Atto3 long range version.
1.2C for Curvv 55 kWh/Nexon 45 kWh
1C for Creta EV
0.7C for Nexon 30/40 kWh.

The Creta EV doesn't have 1C charging. It's much lower.

10 - 80% in 58 minutes is ~36 kWh in roughly an hour.

Peak charge rate cannot be more than 40 - 45 kW.

Won't be surprised if it's around 0.8C closer to the OG Nexon's charging speed.

[DIY410]

Originally Posted by shyampsunder

The Creta EV doesn't have 1C charging. It's much lower.

10 - 80% in 58 minutes is ~36 kWh in roughly an hour.

Peak charge rate cannot be more than 40 - 45 kW.

Won't be surprised if it's around 0.8C closer to the OG Nexon's charging speed.

You could well be right, let's wait till the official figures are up. It's hard to imagine a manufacturer launching a vehicle with less than 1C in 2025, when most EV battery makers themselves do not offer batteries less than 1C for new orders sometime in second half of 2022. CATL and BYD only offer 2.2C and 2C has standard for OEM orders in 2024.

Even ZS EV when it was launched in India had a advertised 60 minutes charge time from 10% to 80% as per 2022 launch brochure in this post (MG ZS EV facelift launched at Rs. 21.99 lakh) because fast chargers with speeds more than 50 kW was rare at that time. When infact all the ZS EV models since 2022 facelift had a 76 kW peak charge speed or less than 40 minutes for 10% to 80% in a 150kW dual gun charger.