It's the Batteries, Stupid!

[JRP3]

You can't tell either way, I believe.

Panasonic supplies cells, Tesla makes battery packs. It would make no sense to specify the "safety stock" if it were packs, which Tesla builds. Once it's in a pack it's Tesla's product, and responsibility, not Panasonic's.

 

[Cosmacelf]

That's kinda the point of the original article. The author is proposing that Panasonic would no longer deliver finished cells as currently understood, but instead a partially finished cell and Tesla would then finish it in its packs.

I don't see why the safety stock couldn't be finished packs or pack modules? And the new contact language indicates the safety stock is indeed Tesla's responsibility, not Panasonic's.

 

[JRP3]

It's conceivable that instead of "air" they might end up using Direct Expansion of coolant ala BMW. (Sorry for the click-bait headline, the article is actually pretty good)
BMW and LG Chem Trump Tesla in Battery Thermal Management - HybridCars.com

Simpler, better heat transfer, and lower cost. What’s not to like?

I'm not sure their conclusion is accurate. What works for a different, less energy dense chemistry may not be appropriate for a more energy dense chemistry. I use no cooling at all with the LiFePO4 cells in my car, but I'd never try to do that with other lithium chemistry. (Maybe Li titanate). Not to mention the typical anti Tesla bias from that website.

 

[JRP3]

The author is proposing that Panasonic would no longer deliver finished cells as currently understood, but instead a partially finished cell and Tesla would then finish it in its packs.

Right, which I find to be ridiculous, as I explained. Sure I could be wrong, but Randy is the one creating incredibly unrealistic scenarios and stacking them on top of each other to build a technical house of cards.

 

[JRP3]

A reasonable counter to Randy's premise:

There's simply no good reason for Tesla sacrifice production efficiency, the performance of the Model 3, and possibly brand quality, all while increasing costs, just to implement a cooling system that takes up more space and is considered to be inferior by both Tesla's insiders and most observers.

Liquid cooling is inexpensive and higher-quality. Thus, I fully expect Tesla to instead stick with the tried-and-true liquid cooling system.

http://seekingalpha.com/article/3983572-teslas-model-3-will-use-liquid-cooling#alt2

 

[EVie'sDad]

SA is a tesla bashing site aimed at diminishing the stock price, I would not rely on anything they write about, it is completely biased against tesla and more than likely inaccurate.

 

[JRP3]

There are some reasonable articles posted on that site, and, there are commenters, such as myself, who also post accurate information to counter the FUD.

 

[Jeff N]

For what it's worth, LG experimented with using chilled air via a connection to the A/C compressor instead of liquid cooling as part of a DOE grant.

Notably, the Bolt EV does not use this design. Instead, it uses a simplified version of a Chevrolet Volt-like design where every large format cell has complete contact on one side with a thin aluminum heat transfer fin. The Volt find are slightly thicker and contain small channels for circulating liquid coolant. The Bolt EV fins are thinner and passive. They are attached to a liquid heat exchange base plate. The Bolt EV design is less aggressive about heat transfer than the Volt design but is more space-efficient, cheaper, and less prone to coolant leakage. This works because the cells in the Bolt EV are said to be somewhat more heat tolerant.

While this strategy may work for the Bolt, the Model 3 pack supports higher-performance configurations like dual motors and various performance options which will require aggressive thermal management of the Model 3 pack.

You can find an overview on slides 15-18:

http://energy.gov/sites/prod/files/2014/03/f12/es002_alamgir _2011_p.pdf

 

[Doug_G]

Here's another amazing battery breakthrough announcement...

Lithium-Ion Battery Inventor Introduces New Technology for Fast-Charging, Noncombustible Batteries

Believe it when I see it of course.

 

[Electroman]

"“Cost, safety, energy density, rates of charge and discharge and cycle life are critical for battery-driven cars to be more widely adopted. We believe our discovery solves many of the problems that are inherent in today’s batteries,” Goodenough said."

John Goodenough is not your average battery scamster. He is a prof at UT @Austin and the original inventor of Lithium Ion battery technology. He was working on the next generation batteries for quite sometime, and this announcement on Solid State battery technology I am sure is a real break through just going by the credentials of who he is.

Whether this can be mass produced or not, is a different question. But an announcement from Prof. Goodenough is very exciting.

 

[RobStark]

is.

Whether this can be mass produced or not, is a different question. But an announcement from Prof. Goodenough is very exciting.

His version of the lithium ion battery was never commercialized.

Building on his work it was Sony that took Goodenough's science and engineered a solution to the mass production and mass adoption problems.

 

[Doug_G]

Yes this does look more credible than the typical announcement. Still have to be cautious because there is a long road from a laboratory prototype to a production cell.

 

[JRP3]

No mention of specific energy, other than the vague "3 times as much as current lithium ion". 3 times better than some 60Wh/kg LiTi or 3 times better than Tesla/Panasonic 260Wh/kg NCA? I'm pretty sure it's not the latter.
Also: "In experiments, the researchers’ cells have demonstrated more than 1,200 cycles with low cell resistance." Not impressive.

 

[tomas]

Just have to take these for what they are. Battery research is a GOOD thing. We need more of it. Announcements are always optimistic. 90% will come to nothing, but several will advance the science, and one day we WILL have a breakthrough. And several years later, it will be hardened and commercialized. I don't understand our tendency to be so dismissive.

 

[JRP3]

Because many of them are misleadingly promoted as the next big thing/game changer/Tesla killer with inaccurate information. It's not hard to provide relevant data points, when they are missing it needs to be pointed out.

 

[bxr140]

Ok the flip side, every one of them is negatively received on tmc, some of them significantly more so than is warranted. It's all in interpretation--some folks see 'could be better/cheaper than Tesla' as a hopeful statement. After all, it's no crime to measure yourself to the benchmark.

The unfortunate part is that some, if not many people on tmc that respond to those kinds of statements view any mention of Tesla as nothing short of offensive blasphemy, and immediate dismiss any shred of legitimacy to those claims for doing so...

 

[Doug_G]

Referring to any technology as a Tesla killer is just click-bait. Obviously Tesla can also adopt any new technology.

Obviously battery R&D is a great thing. Announcing every new formulation as a breakthrough is also misleading and self-serving.

That said, this latest development sounds potentially promising and hopefully it will eventually lead to something.

 

[JRP3]

The unfortunate part is that some, if not many people on tmc that respond to those kinds of statements view any mention of Tesla as nothing short of offensive blasphemy, and immediate dismiss any shred of legitimacy to those claims for doing so...

If they don't provide actual data to support their claim they probably don't have legitimacy. I'm sorry but over the last 10+ years I've seen countless breathless announcements of "super fast charging" batteries which turned out to have terrible energy density and batteries "with twice the capacity of lithium ion" which turned out to have less capacity than what Tesla is already using because the announcement was comparing to "conventional" lithium ion at 110Wh/kg. Statistically the proper response to a battery "breakthrough" article would be to dismiss it outright, but even more so when further investigation of the announcement finds the holes in it.

 

[bxr140]

Referring to any technology as a Tesla killer is just click-bait.

For sure. On the other hand, at least the vocal folks here interpret every new announcement as "WE'RE A TESLA KILR!!!11!"

Announcing every new formulation as a breakthrough is also misleading and self-serving.

Self serving is the point. Its tough to get funding. Not everyone is a megalomaniac billionaire pushing their own technology forward.

 

[Electroman]

I want to be a megalomaniac billionaire !! Not just any John Doe billionaire, but a megalomaniac one.

Then I will purchase TMC and shut it down.