Welcome to Tesla Motors Club
Discuss Tesla's Model S, Model 3, Model X, Model Y, Cybertruck, Roadster and More.
Register

Cringely article on electric vehicles (refers to Model S)

This site may earn commission on affiliate links.
Elon Musk of Tesla says he is going to make that happen by building a $5 billion lithium-ion battery factory, driving down the cost of manufacturing. This will work, I’m sure, and I applaud Elon for his commitment. But I strongly suspect that it will end up being a $5 billion boondoggle. The better approach would be to abandon lithium-ion for a superior battery technology.

You have to start somewhere. Elon's primary objective is to bring Gen III car into production ASAP. There is no alternative to starting from (an incremental variation of) today's 18650 cell with Li-ion chemistry, if you want cars on the road in 2018. High demand for Model S&X seem to endorse that there is market potential for performance electric vehicles at +$35k price point.
 
A good article (When I read the thread title I thought "why does he write 'cringely' article? It's 'cringeworthy'! Lol) but 1/10th the charging time for future batteries, presumably with much higher capacity, too? That's unlikely, just the charging cable alone sets limits.
 
Read the article and disagree with his battery analysis. Tesla is taking the right path in investing in a battery technology that is proven and reliable. Recent history is littered with announcements of dramatic "advances" in battery technology that turn out to be failures in real world use and large scale production.
 
A good article (When I read the thread title I thought "why does he write 'cringely' article?
Cringely has written some interesting stuff on the computer industry over the years. IIRC, he had a computer-related show on PBS a number of years ago.

Re the batteries, I can't believe they would build a battery factory that cannot change gears as battery technology/chemistry improves.
 
Even if someone came out with a breakthrough battery discovery tomorrow it would still take 10 years to test it, prove it, refine it, scale it, certify it, manufacturer it, and test it again in order to bring it to market.

Not sure where people get this idea that the time from "Eureka!" to "Here it is for purchase at quantity" is overnight.