Another Step Towards All of Us Driving E-Cars....Don't Buy GigaFactory Stock Yet.
 

Found THIS hot article today in Science Daily. Golly, it sounds impressive, I've always wondered why we need Tootsie Roll sized batteries and have to weld em all up. The article describes how a German company is figuring out how to make batteries that are sheets instead of tubes.

My now obsolete AMP20 LiFePO4 cells are flat like sheets.
Then let me guess they want to roll the sheets into cylinders too?

Affordability, I would presume. It was a lot easier/cheaper to start building Teslas with off-the-shelf batteries than to spend $$ reinventing the wheel.

I'm a bit surprised they're still doing it the same way after all this time.

There are some other considerations. Cooling channels and structural rigidity, off the top of my head.

AGM-batteries are basically sheets rolled up.

Tesla may stick with the small cylindrical cells because of cooling.
Making a huge solid block of lithium batter would be great for power density but there would also be no way to cool it.

The Volt has flat cells. It has cooling plates that go between them for thermal management.

http://i1198.photobucket.com/albums/...pse5c43f5c.jpg

http://insideevs.com/wp-content/uplo...e-4-via-gm.jpg

If the cooling plates are so great then why doesn't tesla use them?

Knowing chevy they will start leaking after about 10 to 15 years.

Considering the charge and discharge rate of the batteries I really don't understand why they didn't add capacitors to take up a lot of the work from the batteries while driving!?!

The volume isnt the problem. The problem is weight, making the batteries take up less volume wont help. EV's are typically weigh 500kg-1000kg more than gas counterparts so adding more weight isnt an option.