Waiting on Tesla Battery Day News Today

[NW-Bound]

Quote:

Originally Posted by aja8888 My neighbor with a Model 3 (yes, there are some in Texas!) is still waiting for the call for his to be used as a taxi. He's 75, so maybe he should not get too excited about this and use his "remaining time" for a better purpose?

Promises not backed up with a written contract are worthless and easy to make. Used car salesmen do that all the time.

I am very interested in battery technology, the same as I am with self-driving car technology. I will wait a few days, and watch the Youtube video covering today's Tesla event to see what transpired.

I have read about "nanophosphate" battery, and also lithium ceramic cells that are already in production. There is already a technology called lithium-titanate that has some advantages such as long life and fast-charging capability. However, this LTO battery is expensive and does not have the energy density of the common lithium cell. The earlier mentioned battery types also have some drawbacks. I like to know about the technology that Tesla is working on.

About the term "million-mile battery", it is funny how people can be hyped up due to their own ignorance. For example, I saw the following published just now on a business Web site:

Quote:

Tesla founder and CEO Elon Musk is expected to unveil a "million-dollar battery" soon — perhaps during the company's Tuesday "Battery Day" event. The new battery is speculated to last for a million miles after one charge.

Good heaven! A battery that could propel a car for 1,000,000 miles on a single charge needed to store more than 300,000 kWh. That means this super battery could hold 3,000 times more charge than the currently largest Tesla car battery. I could use it for my home energy storage, and its charge would power my home for 18 years! Its stored energy would be worth $36,000. Such a battery would be extremely valuable, even if it were disposable and not rechargeable.

NO!

The following is a good explanation for people who are still mixed up about this (there are plenty of people who do not know about this subject, but some of them don't know that they should not be writing articles about it).

Quote:

A million-mile battery does not mean you can drive a million miles between recharges. It means a battery that will last for 1 million miles or more before it can't hold a charge strong enough to power an electric car anymore. Regular recharges every few hundred miles would still be needed to keep a car or truck powered. Today's batteries face limits on the number of times they can be recharged. Right now, most car batteries are rated to handle about 1,000 full charges total. Manufacturer warranties on car batteries top out at about eight years and 150,000 miles — which is proving conservative, as car batteries in general are outlasting their warranties. A battery that lasts 1 million miles could handle 4,000 full recharges or more.

A "million-mile" battery will be useful for energy storage, not just for cars. And that's what the world needs to go green.

[cbo111]

My shareholder friend just reported this from today’s meetings:
54% increase in range (in 2.5 to 3 yrs).
Less cost. $25,000 car is coming in 3 yrs. Tesla/Elon are dedicated to affordability.
Model S Plaid by end of 2021: 200 mph. 2 sec, 0 to 60 mph. Less than 9 sec in 1/4 mile.
I cannot imagine the feeling of driving 0-60 in 2 seconds!

[cbo111]

Shareholder meeting and battery day can be viewed on https://livestream.tesla.com

The interesting stuff starts at about the one-hour mark.

[bobandsherry]

Here's the market response in AH trading.Screenshot_20200922-194348.jpg

Guess market didn't find it exciting.

[gerntz]

Quote:

Originally Posted by cbo111 My shareholder friend just reported this from today’s meetings: 54% increase in range (in 2.5 to 3 yrs). Less cost. $25,000 car is coming in 3 yrs. Tesla/Elon are dedicated to affordability. Model S Plaid by end of 2021: 200 mph. 2 sec, 0 to 60 mph. Less than 9 sec in 1/4 mile. I cannot imagine the feeling of driving 0-60 in 2 seconds!

How does 200mph & 2 sec 0-60 help the average person? I mean how many are drag racers or care to be so? Seems like a waste vs. improving range & affordability imo.

[aja8888]

Quote:

Originally Posted by gerntz How does 200mph & 2 sec 0-60 help the average person? I mean how many are drag racers or care to be so? Seems like a waste vs. improving range & affordability imo.

After going from zero to 60 in 2 seconds, I'd like to see how the average driver can stop the thing before all hell breaks loose.

[Texas Proud]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Midpack The “industry” didn’t change direction, customers did by losing interest in the Volt - partly because tax credits ran out. No PHEV/plug in hybrid models have been successful that I know of. We looked at the Prius PHEV, it made no sense whatsoever for the price.

I think the media played an important part of the failure of these cars... they were not shown as 'sexy' or as environmentally friendly as all electric... and Tesla was getting big time air time... which means lots of free advertising...


Who knows what the industry would do if it were even, but that ship has sailed... it looks like all electric in the future...

[Texas Proud]

Quote:

Originally Posted by aja8888 After going from zero to 60 in 2 seconds, I'd like to see how the average driver can stop the thing before all hell breaks loose.

Yea, the previous neighbor on the corner can tell you about that...


You can see the black tire marks on the street in front of his house... you can see them starting to turn as he was running the stop sign maybe 100 feet up... you can see them cross each other as they were going across the street and over the curb...


You could even see some on the bricks of the mailbox that he hit and destroyed as the car was crossing the yard to hit the tree... all in a Hellcat...



And this car cannot make 60 in 2 secs!!!


BTW, all this was done in about 100 or so yards...

[MRG]

Quote:

Originally Posted by gerntz How does 200mph & 2 sec 0-60 help the average person? I mean how many are drag racers or care to be so? Seems like a waste vs. improving range & affordability imo.

It doesn't, it proves the technology to some. I think the crowd it's meant for will love it.
Maybe not 200mph so much unless you compete , 0-60 in 2 seconds? I can do it in 3.5 and it doesn't get old, perhaps 3.5 is getting [emoji222].

You don't have to sacrifice range in an EV like you might in ICE. A performance model isn't necessarily less efficient than a long range if you drive the same(it might be more boring).

[aja8888]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Texas Proud Yea, the previous neighbor on the corner can tell you about that... You can see the black tire marks on the street in front of his house... you can see them starting to turn as he was running the stop sign maybe 100 feet up... you can see them cross each other as they were going across the street and over the curb... You could even see some on the bricks of the mailbox that he hit and destroyed as the car was crossing the yard to hit the tree... all in a Hellcat... And this car cannot make 60 in 2 secs!!! BTW, all this was done in about 100 or so yards...

Yeah, I just cringe when the Tesla owners talk about 0 to 60 stuff. I used to drag race a pretty hot Chevy and I had some real scares back in the day. We get our share of nut cases around the north side of Houston in the Vettes and big horsepower Dodges too.

[rocketjockey]

Quote:

Originally Posted by njhowie Price When the price of EVs come down to below $20,000 and the range is significantly increased, then I may consider one.

You can barely buy anything new below $20K these days. Only the very stripper, bottom of the line models get below that number.

[stephenson]

Hybrid good. All electric, except for city car, meh.

[NW-Bound]

As previously mentioned, I am interested to learn what Tesla is doing in the batter technology field. Hence, I watched the video of the Battery Day presentation. Following is the video, as shown in full on Tesla's own Youtube channel.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l6T9xIeZTds

I only watched the middle segment from 1:07:00 to 2:39:00, which has the battery talk that I was most interested in. The beginning segment was the quarterly report, and the end segment was Q&A, and I might watch these later.

Musk and a senior VP talked about how much battery storage would be needed to electrify all the vehicles and also residential usage. And they discussed their effort to speed up the battery production, not just to make the batteries less expensive, but also to reduce the capital cost of building the manufacturing plants themselves. They then proceeded to describe a few steps that they identified as being very helpful in the above endeavor.

Tesla is not embarking on any drastically different chemistry, such as lithium ceramic, lithium titanate, or pure metal lithium cell, etc... Instead, they are tweaking some mechanical design of the cell and the composition of the cell anode and the cathode. Perhaps most importantly, they are developing some new and innovative manufacturing steps. This sounds good, relative to counting on an earth-shaking breakthrough with a completely new battery chemistry like some other developers are working with.

They then proceeded to show how much performance and cost improvements that they expected out of each area. I am not an expert in these fields to question their projection, but one thing sticked out that simply could not be missed. Just with the mechanical design of the cell, by going from the 2170 cell size in the Tesla 3 to a larger 4680 cell size, they expected improvements of "5X energy, 6X power, 16% range". See video at 1:55:37.

Whoa! A 5x improvement in energy is HUGE. That is really earthshaking. How could that be, just by repackaging the same anode/cathode/electrolyte differently? And why a 5X energy improvement only provides a 16% range increase? It does not compute.

OK, so what exactly is this 5x energy increase? Is it 5x the old energy density (energy per weight), or is it volumetric (energy per volume)?

After pondering it a bit, I came to the conclusion that they had to mean that the new cell would hold 5x the energy of the old smaller cell.

For a quick check, the volume of a cylinder of 46 mm diameter and 80 mm height is 5.5x the volume of a cylinder of 21mm x 70 mm. Ah hah!

So, the new cell actually has less volumetric energy density than the old cell (nothing is said about the weight). It however has better power, due to less electrical internal resistance from the new tabless design that nobody has done in manufacturing. In fact, a larger cell using the old tab design would need to have its internal resistance reduced to 1/5 that of the old smaller cell, and that would not be possible with the cell tabs.

I did not follow the announcement Tesla made when going from the small 1865 cell size in the Tesla S/X to the larger 2170 cell size in the Tesla 3, so went looking for some info. I saw a similar development like the above. The 2170 cell does not provide a huge boost in energy density, but they did something to allow a 2x increase in current for a 1.5x increase in cell size. Lower resistance is always good, because it reduces power loss. Less heating means more power for acceleration, and faster supercharging.

To compare the traditional cell mechanical construction with tabs, see the video at 1:50:00. To see Tesla's new tabless design with lower internal electrical resistance, look at 1:53:30.

I think more important than the higher power factor is the claim that the tabless design will allow the production machinery to run at a much higher speed, and crank out more cells per hour. Yes, I care more about reduced cost of the cell than the stupendous acceleration. The world can always use cheaper batteries. It does not need more hotrodders.


PS. By the way, none of the other EV makers uses the cylindrical metallic cell form factor. They all use pouch-style construction, or prismatic cells. I don't know enough about the intricacies of the design of battery assemblies for EVs, but an interested person can read on the Web about the pluses and minuses of each approach.

[P.S.]

NWB,

Thanks for sharing your reasonings. Much appreciated.

[NW-Bound]

I want to make another comment before I forget. And this is about the stock market response to the presentation.

Quote:

Originally Posted by bobandsherry Here's the market response in AH trading.Attachment 36272 Guess market didn't find it exciting.

Yes, the share price dropped in real-time in the after-hour trading about in the middle of the presentation. Investors did not like what Musk said?

When I watched the video, I noticed that Musk demurred a few times when talking about the battery development. He and his VP were proud that they were able to solve the manufacturing problem for the tabless cell construction. Musk however did not appear so gun-ho about the dry coating process for the cell electrodes.

This is something nobody has done, and it is obvious that it offers a huge cost reduction compared to the current wet process that all manufacturers are using. I am sure manufacturers all thought about a dry process, and if it is not done, it has to be because nobody has been able to make it to work. Musk himself said that Tesla got a process to work, but the yield was still low and they still needed a lot of improvements.

See video at 1:59:00 for this topic. It is interesting to note that Musk said the dry process used by Maxwell, a supercapacitor maker that Tesla acquired for $200M last year, was not advanced enough for mass production. At that time, it was known that Tesla bought Maxwell partly for the dry process IP, and it is now revealed that a lot of work is still needed.

Musk later said that Tesla had a plan to execute towards the stated goal of building its own cells cheaply, but there was a lot of work to be done. I guess because he appeared less cocky than usual, investors took it as a sign that success was not at all guaranteed. Additionally, the described time frame was 2030 for a full-blown battery plant. It is not something to happen next year or anytime soon.

[EdL3]

520 miles on a single charge will work very well for me. I don’t ever plan on driving that far in a single day, so the over night charge works. I’ve been hooked ever since an hour long test in a model S. Opening the wallet has proven to be the challenge.

EdL

[kgtest]

Quote:

Originally Posted by foxfirev5 Heck I put more gas in my pontoon boat than my car this summer.

That's what I call "doin it right!"

[ERD50]

Quote:

Originally Posted by NW-Bound ... they expected improvements of "5X energy, 6X power, 16% range". See video at 1:55:37. Whoa! A 5x improvement in energy is HUGE. That is really earthshaking. How could that be, just by repackaging the same anode/cathode/electrolyte differently? And why a 5X energy improvement only provides a 16% range increase? It does not compute. OK, so what exactly is this 5x energy increase? Is it 5x the old energy density (energy per weight), or is it volumetric (energy per volume)? After pondering it a bit, I came to the conclusion that they had to mean that the new cell would hold 5x the energy of the old smaller cell. For a quick check, the volume of a cylinder of 46 mm diameter and 80 mm height is 5.5x the volume of a cylinder of 21mm x 70 mm. Ah hah! ...

Yes. I was thinking the same thing, 5x improvement is just too good to be true, they must be saying ~ 5x bigger, so ~5x the energy. A 16% overall apples-apples improvement is significant and believable.

But how many people read/hear that and think it means a 5x improvement in energy density or some other ratio-metric performance spec? I'd bet quite a few. Like that headline from Volvo a few years back, about how all new models would be "electrified" in 2 years (or some date, forget the exact number). Many people thought that meant Volvo would only sell EVs in 2 years. But then the caveats become clear:

"electrified" included any form of hybrid/ICE, even the mildest of the mild hybrids.

And "new models" seemed to mean that it didn't apply to any existing models. And some models hang around for decades.

As always, Devil's in the details.

-ERD50

[pj.mask]

To me the biggest factor in internal resistance is to increase charge amps or decrease supercharge times. The lower resistance means less heat.

I think the goal is to get ever closer to gasoline fill up times.

[ERD50]

Quote:

Originally Posted by pj.mask To me the biggest factor in internal resistance is to increase charge amps or decrease supercharge times. The lower resistance means less heat. I think the goal is to get ever closer to gasoline fill up times.

True. Another factor in that is that Lion cells don't "like" to be fast-charged at below 20% or above 80% (rough numbers). So even with low internal resistance, the best you can do is get ~ 60% of battery charge done quickly. But odds are, you aren't going to time it to get to a fast charger right when you are at 20%, so on average it will be less than 60% range added with a fast charge.

But the good news there is, as range increases, something less than 60% is all you need for many cases.

-ERD50