Waiting on Tesla Battery Day News Today

[aja8888]

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]

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]

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]

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]

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]

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.

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.

Here's the market response in AH trading.View 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]

Heck I put more gas in my pontoon boat than my car this summer.

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

 

[ERD50]

... 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]

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

 

[Gearhead Jim]

Our doctor owns a Tesla and says "It's a good car if you like to read":

Drive a few hours, sit around reading for a few hours while charging. Repeat as necessary.
Not my cup of tea, but they'll get better. Whether they will get enough better in my remaining time will decide whether we go EV.

 

[FIREarly]

It's looking like electric may finally get us out of the fossil fuel age.

Electric Vehicles (EV) have been around since Nikola Tesla was alive. It seems like the money maker of the gas-powered car (ICE) prevailed. We might be at the very beginning of a major change from ICE to EV. It will take time, probably multiple years, but it already started.

IMO, it makes sense to convert to EV and, yes, price is an issue for many people. When Tesla/Elon comes out with the $25,000 EV it will help and it will probably take a few more years beyond that but we are on the way.

Next stop, Mars!!

 

[FIREarly]

Our doctor owns a Tesla and says "It's a good car if you like to read":

hahaha, there is more work to do to make Full-self drive (FSD) better but we are getting there.

Your post reminded me of when I saw a stranger parking a brand new red Model Y, not long after its release, outside Costco and my wife let me know about it. I politely asked her to see the car and, like any normal person in a parking lot, started talking to the stranger. Really nice guy! He is the owner of an auto-mechanics shop (hahaha). He said he loves the car and there is almost nothing that his shop can currently do for the car... due to the dramatically less car parts, etc...

Found it funny to meet an owner of an car mechanics shop buying and loving an EV, Tesla Model Y.

 

[aja8888]

hahaha, there is more work to do to make Full-self drive (FSD) better but we are getting there.

Your post reminded me of when I saw a stranger parking a brand new red Model Y, not long after its release, outside Costco and my wife let me know about it. I politely asked her to see the car and, like any normal person in a parking lot, started talking to the stranger. Really nice guy! He is the owner of an auto-mechanics shop (hahaha). He said he loves the car and there is almost nothing that his shop can currently do for the car... due to the dramatically less car parts, etc...

Found it funny to meet an owner of an car mechanics shop buying and loving an EV, Tesla Model Y.

Well, the car has drive axles and these wear out (CV joints). Also, the gear case on the back of the drive motor and inverter has an oil filter and the oil needs replacement on on occasion. There's also brake pads, rotors, master cylinder, a large amount of mechanical parts associated with the doors and body, the usual wipers, window regulators, etc.

These are nice cars, but they are, except for the drive motor, very mechanical in nature.

 

[MRG]

Well, the car has drive axles and these wear out (CV joints). Also, the gear case on the back of the drive motor and inverter has an oil filter and the oil needs replacement on on occasion. There's also brake pads, rotors, master cylinder, a large amount of mechanical parts associated with the doors and body, the usual wipers, window regulators, etc.

These are nice cars, but they are, except for the drive motor, very mechanical in nature.

First regular service is 2 years for brakes. Not sure how you wear the pads as they're seldom used. Occasionally I make sure to use them so the rotors don't rust.

No transmission, drive shafts, how many parts are there in an ICE?

 

[Mr. Tightwad]

Well, the car has drive axles and these wear out (CV joints). Also, the gear case on the back of the drive motor and inverter has an oil filter and the oil needs replacement on on occasion. There's also brake pads, rotors, master cylinder, a large amount of mechanical parts associated with the doors and body, the usual wipers, window regulators, etc.

These are nice cars, but they are, except for the drive motor, very mechanical in nature.

2000 moving parts in the typical ICE drivetrain.

20 or so in an EV. Per Forbes.

More moving parts means more things to go wrong.

 

[Mr. Tightwad]

Our doctor owns a Tesla and says "It's a good car if you like to read":

Drive a few hours, sit around reading for a few hours while charging. Repeat as necessary.
Not my cup of tea, but they'll get better. Whether they will get enough better in my remaining time will decide whether we go EV.

People often misunderstand charging times for an EV.

80% of Tesla owners charge at home. Often overnight while sleeping. You can do any activity you want, including reading.

5% charge at work.

If I charge on the road at a Supercharger, it takes 20 minutes to charge from 50% to 80%. The car is done before I hit the bathroom, get a beverage, and check my phone.

So sitting around for a few hours charging is not realistic.

Yesterday I went to the largest EV charging station in the Western US. 44 Chargers at Pasadena CA. Pulled in at 29%, had dinner at one of the restaurants (Outdoors) and drove off at 81%.

I've retired from work and retired from smelly gas stations.

 

[aja8888]

2000 moving parts in the typical ICE drivetrain.

20 or so in an EV. Per Forbes.

More moving parts means more things to go wrong.

I am a Mechanical Engineer with decades of engine and high horsepower field experience on 1,000 HP or more, diesel, gas and nat gas engines. I'm also very curious and took several hours to investigate the modern EV drive trains.

Beautiful stuff!

I saw a complete strip down of the Tesla drive train (one hour video). There are way more than 20 parts (Forbes needs to recount). That inverter board by itself looks like a very pricey item, and it lives in a hostile, but temperature controlled environment. Actually, Tesla has two cooling system on the drive train, one for the inverter and one for the gear case oil.

Nice design, and complicated.

I watched the total breakdown of several other EV drive trains (BMW, EV, Audi, etc). They all pretty much operate the same with variations in the motor type (PM or other), and gearing arrangement. There are no secrets here with moden EV's, Tesla included.

What is going to differentiate these "players" will be battery technology of which I am a novice on, as is most everybody else.

We have said the following before and it is easy to substantiate:

In today's ICE cars, those 2000 moving parts go well over 100,000 miles without failure. Most really go 200,000+ miles. My 2010 Hyundai went 186,000 miles before I sold it and it only had required maintenance (no repairs). This is pretty typical for 99% of modern cars if maintained properly (oil changes, filters, brake relines, tires).

I LOVE Teslas, but I am not buying one (or any EV) until they get cost competitive with gas cars. I am amongst millions of people who think the same way.

 

[braumeister]

If I charge on the road at a Supercharger, it takes 20 minutes to charge from 50% to 80%. The car is done before I hit the bathroom, get a beverage, and check my phone.

So sitting around for a few hours charging is not realistic.

I beg to differ. Let me explain the way many of us look at this.

I just got back from a trip, so I'll use those specifics. From Cincinnati, OH to Fort Collins, CO.

In each direction, I made four stops for gas. It was nice that I could stop just about anywhere for that, but essentially I spent under 30 minutes total at those gas stations.

With the routing on the Tesla website, I would have made nine charging stops for a total of 285 minutes (4.75 hours). Most of those stops were 30 minutes or less, but one was 40 minutes and one was 55 minutes. So on the full round trip I would have spent 9.5 hours waiting at chargers instead of the less than one hour I spent at gas stations.

 

[MRG]

People often misunderstand charging times for an EV.

80% of Tesla owners charge at home. Often overnight while sleeping. You can do any activity you want, including reading.

5% charge at work.

If I charge on the road at a Supercharger, it takes 20 minutes to charge from 50% to 80%. The car is done before I hit the bathroom, get a beverage, and check my phone.

So sitting around for a few hours charging is not realistic.

Yesterday I went to the largest EV charging station in the Western US. 44 Chargers at Pasadena CA. Pulled in at 29%, had dinner at one of the restaurants (Outdoors) and drove off at 81%.

I've retired from work and retired from smelly gas stations.

Maybe the doctor has an original Roadster? With only Level 2 charging.