"Best potential" room for improvement

[renim]

So the bigger the battery, quicker you get the reasonably needed range. So if we could get (and I know I'm shooting far) a 120kWh battery pack with the Model 3, we could spend time at supercharger stations as much as we do at gas stations now. However Tesla probably is focusing on tighter and lighter batteries for future cars.

Toughest part on making people go electric despite them being able to clearly see electric is a far better technology when it comes to both efficiency and performance is convincing them that charging won't be a hassle. Now, I know that it is supposed to charge at night and you wake up to a "full tank" etc. but in countries where vast majority of the population lives in apartment complexes, that becomes very difficult to do so. Most people don't have garages and park on the streets. You'd need a whole structural change where municipalities start putting outlets everywhere on the streets.

Or be able to get like 100-200km range in 5-10 minutes, put superchargers everywhere and solve the issue of road trips as well.

Don't get me wrong I'm all in for the status quo as well put people feel constrained when they 'have to' spend 20-40 minutes at that exact point because there's a supercharger there. The inability to be spontaneous is what makes them anxious about EVs. This is partly due to lack of infrastructure too it is not all on the technology.

Honda already made and sold an EV that could charge really fast, but why bother, the Nissan LEAF sells for profit, the Honda Fit EV did not.

For the next decade or 2 expect the focus to be on bigger/cheaper batteries rather than 5-10 minute recharge times. Effectively for the same price, given the choice between a fast charge or double the range, the market chooses double the range. (its not presented that way, but 5 minute recharge batteries probably are more than twice the price per kWh compared to standard high power/energy lithium ion batteries.

 

[Saghost]

More efficient air conditioners... Go to the "how far can I go" section on the Tesla web site. In the city, at 90 degrees (which is 80% of the weather in southern CA), you loose almost 100 miles in range. One would think there should be more efficiencies there.

J

Not that much room to improve the air conditioner itself. However, with additional cost and weight the power requirement for both AC and heat can be radically reduced.

Take a second to compare your typical car (or even your modern electric car) with a modern house.

The house has 6 inches of insulation in the walls - more in the ceiling, and double or triple pane windows with shades.

The car? single pane windows, little to no insulation.

Is it any wonder the car has a bigger A/C unit than the house does? (or at least, than some houses do, in terms of capacity.)

So with money and weight, someone could build a better insulated car, which would then hold temperature better and need less heating/cooling. Further, fresh air could go through a heat exchanger first - transferring 90% of the heat/cold to the incoming air (some versions will even transfer humidity if so desired.)

A better insulated car would also damp sound more, making for a more serene driving experience.
Walter

 

[green1]

Not that much room to improve the air conditioner itself. However, with additional cost and weight the power requirement for both AC and heat can be radically reduced.

Take a second to compare your typical car (or even your modern electric car) with a modern house.

The house has 6 inches of insulation in the walls - more in the ceiling, and double or triple pane windows with shades.

The car? single pane windows, little to no insulation.

Is it any wonder the car has a bigger A/C unit than the house does? (or at least, than some houses do, in terms of capacity.)

So with money and weight, someone could build a better insulated car, which would then hold temperature better and need less heating/cooling. Further, fresh air could go through a heat exchanger first - transferring 90% of the heat/cold to the incoming air (some versions will even transfer humidity if so desired.)

A better insulated car would also damp sound more, making for a more serene driving experience.
Walter

It doesn't have to be that hard to do better insulation in a car. My 20 year old mini-van has power sunshades on all the skylights (has about as much glass in the roof as the pano roof model s) and they are remarkably effective at keeping heat in and/or out. Mercedes also used to do dual pane windows about 15 years ago (I don't know if they still do or not). a small amount of insulation added to the door panels and such is also relatively easy.

All these things do add a bit of weight, but not all that much in the grand scheme of things.

 

[Saghost]

It doesn't have to be that hard to do better insulation in a car. My 20 year old mini-van has power sunshades on all the skylights (has about as much glass in the roof as the pano roof model s) and they are remarkably effective at keeping heat in and/or out. Mercedes also used to do dual pane windows about 15 years ago (I don't know if they still do or not). a small amount of insulation added to the door panels and such is also relatively easy.

All these things do add a bit of weight, but not all that much in the grand scheme of things.

I read a couple years ago that Chrysler had adopted an insulated windshield on the 300 series when they redesigned it - for sound reasons, I believe, and I'm not sure if it has the same sorts of R values as a double pane house window achieves.

Also, advanced materials and techniques might play a role here. In aerospace, we use a lot of carbon fiber or fiberglass structural skins - some are stabilized with stiffeners, but a lot are built with a honeycomb or foam core sandwiched between two skin layers.

The ones with cores built in to them are still much lighter than aluminum or steel of equivalent strength - and also have substantial insulative properties.

The materials and manufacturing techniques generally used in aerospace are probably too expensive for mainstream automotive applications, but I've been reading that VARTM is making a comeback (now often described as resin infusion because the fragile resins of early VARTM systems gave the technology a bad reputation,) and that can make parts much cheaper to build.
Walter

 

[green1]

I read a couple years ago that Chrysler had adopted an insulated windshield on the 300 series when they redesigned it - for sound reasons, I believe, and I'm not sure if it has the same sorts of R values as a double pane house window achieves.
Walter

doesn't need the same R value as a house, only better than the current setup.

I should also note that I have a grey tint on my mini-van (I don't want to call it "silver" because it's not the annoyingly mirror like stuff that blinds other drivers if the sun hits it wrong) and it is also amazing at keeping the heat out (it's also the best privacy tint I've ever seen, it's quite opaque from outside while being barely noticeable from inside, I think the lighter colour does a better job at getting rid of heat than the normal black tint on most cars.

The point is that we just need some thought put to insulation for heat/cold. I don't expect as good as a modern house, but I find it amazing how little thought is put to thermal insulation in most vehicles.

 

[CHG-ON]

Charge much faster and hold more capacity. Plain and simple.