Battery tech and range
 

January 20,2009.'(The)(u)ltimate practical limit of chemical energy storage approx. 6-9 MJ/kg.'
Re: Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists.
Should chemists ever bring something like this to fruition,we'd be looking at a Tesla Model S with a range of 2,796-miles,to,4,194-miles on a charge.

Even half that with 80% efficiency, would be killer.

I am still thinking that super/ultra capacitors combined with batteries will improve cars, mostly for regen and starting from a dead stop (or hard acceleration).

super capacitors
 

Tesla has already purchased a super capacitor manufacturer,and has an up-coming meeting/announcement, about the hybrid energy storage system,not too far off now.
Back when the EV1 debuted,seems like Honda was already using the state-of-the-art Russian super-capacitor in their little SUV EV.

People would still claim range anxiety.

How long would that take to charge? :)

50kw is practical.
So an insane super 1mwh battery would take around 20 hours to charge.
I will be all set with a 62kwh battery. Charge it every 2 or 3 days during the summer, probably every other day during the winter.

Yes, many people think Tesla bought Maxwell for their dry catalyst technology, but I think they wanted them for that and the super capacitors.

As far as I know, Maxwell makes the best supercaps, and they cost a fortune. The best one goes for $90, and it's just aluminum and carbon (and probably other things, but the materials cost is low). I think the potential applications for supercaps as they exist now are mostly untapped. There's room for innovation in that sphere, and that's what Tesla does. Bring in economies of scale, and we might see supercaps in a lot more things.

time to charge
 

No mention of it.I presume that,with this sort of range,you'd charge overnight at your final destination,as you would at home.A couple hundred miles range/hour would do quite a bit overnight.A weekend's charge on holiday would be good for a New York to Los Angeles trek.Non-stop if your bladder was up to it.

range anxiety ends around the 500 mile mark charging stations is the issue i don't want to wait 30min to charge it up

(unless the car could drive it self there)

(charging up at home is not really an option unless the complex i live adds charging stations) they could upgrade the solar panels to add such a thing there is not a single electric car here and hybrids there is only a few of them

we would have to run a 100ft electrical cord to get 240v

I think apartments will add charging points like they did cable and internet. Drag their feet until the competition adds it. Once people are moving to locations that have these features, then the apartments will have to add them to compete to draw back tenets.

Not going to be as quick as we all know it would be possible. Battery storage (and maybe PV if the orientation/hours of sunshine make that feasible) and some connectors, plus a connection to the grid.

If in a location that has a highly differentiated rate for power (from day to night), it could be a source of income for the apartment. recharge at night and if by mid-day to late afternoon still have over 50% battery, sell it to the grid until down to 25%, then charge that night... with self adjusting algorithm, it will dial itself in and more so with PV, as that would give even cheaper 'rate' for charging the battery.

Plus, they would be able to put a surcharge on the power those tenets consume...

But most apartment owners will not want to be first, so it will take new construction or a landlord willing to gamble.

I would certainly have L2 charging spaces if I were building a new apartment complex. Not sure if I'd supply the EVSE, or merely have some outlets to plug into; probably the latter to save on cost since they are expensive and most people don't need/want charging. The problem though would be billing for use, so maybe the EVSE would need to be installed along with a way to bill the user.

PV either makes financial sense now or it doesn't, regardless of EVs.

Battery storage might make sense now for those with wide swings in TOU pricing, but as I understood it, the law currently doesn't allow for charging up at night and feeding it back at peak hours. At least one could use the battery for all energy consumed during peak times and avoid that cost.

Yeah, if they wanted minimum complexity (low upfront cost), it would be a socket tied to the unit, which would work great for those that have assigned parking... or those that are like townhomes and just put a socket on the front/back that the renter can plug into.

For 'festival' parking, without giving the power away (or spread out over all units or all units with plugin vehicles), would require additional complexity. There are charging stations meant for more commercial customers that have fobs to indicate who should be billed...

Like the JuiceBox Pro 32 (I found at this url: https://evcharging.enelx.com/store/commercial).

$1300 for the unit, have your complex electrician install it (or hire someone to)... I would only put them where I would not have to make long runs for power... or setup an area (the less popular parking spots) if I needed to run power and put the chargers all there.

Charge them a $25 to $50 'setup' fee to deal with managing the system, etc. I would guess that the JuiceBox Pro would allow me to input what I paid for power and how much I want the user to pay... and either have it billed directly to them (site they can pay with an app) or add it to their rent.

But I do not own apartments, so I am just speculating on all this.

I went from having a garage with an L2 charger I installed, to living in an apartment for 18 months. Basically in that time I let others use my plug in Prius so much, and got by without it, that I ended up selling it (last Sunday). I'm making room in my wife's mind to purchase an EV to replace it.

Anyhow, the apartment experience had me thinking of all the ways I would do things differently. Perhaps a 120v plug going to each units electrical meter and placed near the assigned parking spot would be a good way to provide a means of charging while limiting cost. People would get annoyed having to deal with their EVSE all the time, and they would either have to secure it, or be susceptible to theft.

I do not understand that the lessons learned in designing a fuel pump was not carried over for charge stations.
1) Why is there not an easy way to pay at the charge point without an app?
2) Fuel pumps have this neat thing where they manage the hose with a spring tension reel. Why do charging stations not manage the cable with such a reel? It would keep the cable from being all over the ground (I have see this at several charging locations) and also allow a decent cable length and be more flexible (Superchargers short cable).
3) Longer EVs/trailers/efficiency ofd pull thru charging locations over parking spots. If there was a fixed flow direction and the spots were you charged were not parking spots, but pull through spots, then time would never be wasted going into and out of a spot. The flow would be much more obvious and there would be less time spent backing up and manuvering to get out of the next person's way. This is why drive thrus, gas stations, and such are all designed this way. I understand charging takes longer, but for faster chargers, like Superchargers and CCS, where the time spent will be much shorter, flow thru will be more practical than parking.... in my opinion.

Sorry, jumped on the soap box and started ranting.

I like those ideas. I've never used a DCFC, so everything is speculation to me.

Cable lengths are kept as short as reasonable (and sometimes shorter). It gets more expensive having extra length, and more length probably means it needs thicker gauge wire, which adds weight and reduces flexibility. Maybe the weight is why they aren't on a reel. Something does need to be done about cable management though.

Vehicles probably should standardize the location of the charging ports. You've got them just about everywhere at the moment. Once that's done, you can standardize the layout of charging stations. The island layout makes sense to me, so that would lend itself to drivers side charging ports, either just ahead of the front door, or just behind the rear door where a fuel tank would be.

Yeah, gas ports got pretty standardized, usually right before or right after the rear wheelwell, on either side of the car. I have seen plugin vehicles with them in the front (like my leaf), in the back, on the sides (some Ford Plugins have them infront of the front door driver side)...

And I know some of the faster DC charging cables are actually liquid cooled, to help cut down on the amount of copper they use... but a hose full of fuel has to be pretty heavy as well, and I assume that since they have these reels at semi-truck pumps as well as car pumps, they can be made to accommodate a variety of weights...

I have used ChaDemo once with the Leaf, the rest has been Level 1 or 2 charging in the last 2.5 years.

Is this larger than Tesla insisting on doing everything their own way and not trying to learn from a century of automotive experience?

Three hundred miles of range starts getting into gas territory. While the 2018 Jaguar XF 20d should be able to go 731 miles with a 42 mpg highway rating, and a 17.4-gallon tank.

The EPA says the 2010 smrt car has 313 miles of range, the 2012 Scion IQ has 314 miles, the 2013 Fiat 500 iBarf has 315, and the 2016 Honda CRZ has 382 miles.

Doing things differently than established automotive companies isn't optional if you're a new company. How could a new company survive if they simply copy what big established players are doing? There is no competitive advantage to be found there.

Tesla does things differently because they have no other choice. Either the differences will be better and they will survive, or they will be worse and fail. If it turns out their ideas are better, all the other existing players will slowly adopt those strategies, or die.

Munro & Associates spent 6,600 hours disassembling a Model 3 and concluded they spent "$2,000 more to produce a Model 3 than BMW spends building a similarly-priced i3."

Are you about to point out that the i3 costs more than the 3, but is the size of my Accord, and only has 126 - 153 miles of range?

Too late!

Sandy Munro says that Tesla is inexperienced with manufacturing. The body’s design is too complicated and more expensive to build. “They’re just learning all the old mistakes everyone else made years ago,” Munro told Bloomberg. The steel and aluminum frame Tesla incorporates to enhance safety is unnecessary because the battery pack already lies in the floor and stiffens the vehicle, making the added stampings redundant.

Tesla currently employs 10,000 people at its Fremont plant and targets 5,000 Model 3s per week. At peak production, Toyota and GM build 450,000 cars a year with 4,400 workers--9,000 a week. Tesla may do more work in-house, but do they really need four times as many employees per car made? The Tesla Model 3 Is ‘Needlessly’ Complicated to Assemble, According to Analysts

The Model Y supposedly incorporates a lot of Sandy Munro's suggestions. I am hoping that Sandy does a cellphone-like tear down video of the Model Y... and I hope there are more things like the Superbottle.

I thought it was very interesting for Elon to admit in the Third Row Podcast interview that Tesla has fallen into the trap he used to point out other companies fell into. Like how the Model 3 has modules, but they are not interchangeable and really are only there because of inertia and that there was a battery module team and a battery pack team. And admits that making that change is needed.

Maybe the Model Y gets rid of the modules and just has a battery pack and the space & weight savings (either able to add more cells or makes the vehicle lighter) is where the extra range came from? Maybe we will know by April.

I am also curious to see if they were able to keep the reduced wiring when they went to production that Tesla had planned.

Of those that work at the Hawthorne facility, how many work on making cars and how many work on software, on the machines that make the cars, etc.

own way
 

Elon Musk's premise for Tesla Motors is,to produce electric cars.They can run on all-American energy.And zero-carbon potential,which grows on a daily basis.The overall cost of ownership,over the life of the vehicle is lower than ICE.People who buy them are good at arithmetic.
I believe that it was Ed Begley Jr. who said that the EV1 was only good for 90% of motorists.That was with an 80-mile range or so.There are already Tesla Model X owners getting more range towing trailers than F-150s.It's all about the trailer,not the tow vehicle.And if you still have a working bladder,it's not a bad idea to stay hydrated on a road trip,stopping periodically to 'rest',and catch some kWh's while your at it.Walk the dog.Let the wife out of the car.Smell the coffee.

analysts
 

Let's see what they say in 2025,when price parity is achieved,and Tesla still has a superior product.Aston Martin has never made a profit.Why don't analysts attack them.The spineless b..............s.

I expect price parity to be achieved eventually, but not in the oft-quoted 2025 timeframe. That would mean something being designed now incorporates the technology needed to hit price parity.

EVs don't just need to get a little more affordable, but $7,500+ more affordable. They already are barely selling with a $7,500+ tax advantage. Given this, pricing would need to come down about $10k for them to sell well. I don't know where manufacturers are going to find $10k in savings in 5 years. That's $2k per year.

2025
 

I can't become an analyst,just to be able to vet what other voices in the industry are saying,so I'm at a disadvantage.
Historically,some products went on the market,selling at a loss,and over time,manufacturing efficiencies improved such that,in the long run,the product ended up profitable.
Good design can mean long product cycles between a refresh,or body-in-white.All R&D is recovered,all tooling,factory is paid off.Ford is famous for it.Back in the day,investors made all their money back in a matter of months,and went on to become fabulously wealthy.That's with a 1908-to-1923 production run,with only small,iterative,modular modifications added throughout the time frame of manufacturing.
In 1992,Chrysler Corp.needed $750/unit on a 48-month product cycle to be profitable.Volkswagen only made around $48/car,but they sold millions.
With thousands of fewer parts/vehicle,EVs may be in excellent position for profitability.Advertising would help the legacy carmakers,as with the Super- Bowl HUMMER ad.Charging infrastructure would help.Tesla has gone on without any help to provide a complete infrastructure for their customer.
Tesla's also young.It will be a while before retirement pension/healthcare fees will have to be factored into their fixed-cost pricing calculus.
Software improvements.Hardware improvements.Manufacturing improvements.Global platform and component sharing.C.Edward Deming,'get it right the first time out.' Hiccups instead of wheels in the ditch.

The company making the most EVs sells all they make... how is that 'barely selling'?

Even other car companies, like Kia & Hyundai, got more orders than they can fill for their best EVs (waiting times on orders over a year)...

Now, some EVs are finding it harder to sell... but that could be due to issues with that model or the manufacturer and not EVs as a whole.

The Bolt EV would make a lot more sense at $10k less. But maybe if they didn't have to deal with their dealer network, sold direct, that would help them keep more profit for themselves? They might (but probably not) lower the cost of the car to consumers.

Unless dealers start making themselves more useful and see their business as helping car buyers instead of trying to get as much money as pssible, they will be cut out of the loop.

I am waiting for one of the traditional car companies to go 'bankrupt', get bought out by some company, and that being used to cut ties with the previous dealer network and try to sell direct to consumers... And I would not be surprised if the board of directors and stock holders look almost identical from before the bankruptcy and after... but that is complete speculation on my part.

If I'm a company that makes 1 unit of something, and that unit sells, does that indicate if the industry as a whole is selling a lot, a little, or no indication at all?

Companies that don't want to sell any EVs and have restricted production to some minimal number have long waitlists which are exacerbated by extremely high government subsidies, for these new vehicle models. Everything else that's been out for a year is basically available in markets it's offered.

The entire EV industry captures 2% of sales. That doesn't indicate a problem with the a particular model. It indicates an underlying intractable problem.

Sure, but the same applies to ICE vehicles too. It's not that EVs are too expensive, it's that they are too expensive in relation to alternatives (ICE vehicles).

The self-interest of dealers is the only reason they still exist. If they became benevolent, they would simply go away. It's not in their interest to "help car buyers..."

I expect a reconfiguration of a failing/failed company to be way more profitable to stakeholders. Dispensing with previous liabilities would give a huge advantage over the previous company.

There appears to be growing validity to this with the EV market directly. I found an article earlier today (don't recall where) saying that DHL has struck a deal with BMW to repackage their battery system for local delivery vehicles.

It is an interesting proposition if you are familiar with how their packs are constructed in the case of the i3, with 8 individual modules in series to make up the pack. It is a very adaptable system based upon Samsung prismatic cells which are themselves based on set design dimension. BMW did a bang up job with packaging that can relatively simply be scaled up or down as needed. Meanwhile, Samsung is continuing to increase Ah capacity of the cells themselves. So BMW isn't really having to devote massive resources to re-engineering the system as the cell tech changes.

Because of that, for the most part, an upgrade of the early 22kW capacity i3 to the new 44kW capacity is plug and play.

If carbon fiber is ever to become cheaper than steel we would need 10year + cycles

doubling Lithium's energy density
 

Nobel Laureate,John Goodenough,of the University of Texas at Austin,(co-inventor of the Lithium -ion battery),announced in 2018,that he'd achieved a doubling of energy density for a non-combustible,solid-state, powdered-glass,non-cobalt, Lithium-ion battery.Some controversy.We'll see.

10-years
 

How about 100-years?
If you get the design right,there's no future design to superannuate it in the future.The DC-3 is still flying around 85-years after its debut.Cars could be the same.

Thought they were claiming up to 10 times the capacity?

Here is a pretty good mansplanation as to why batteries as we know them can't hit 10× more capacity.
But 2 or maybe 3 times more capacity seems reasonable.

https://youtu.be/8RbwOhM6PUk
It would have to be radically different to get any where near 10× the capacity.

I still don't know what mansplaning is. There is only explaining, and that varies from being done effectively, to being done extremely ineffectively. Can someone mansplain this to me (that means effectively, right)?

Mansplaining: "explaining without regard to the fact that the explainee knows more than the explainer, often done by a man to a woman"

My wife is an engineer. She could tell you all about it.

10X
 

I haven't seen that yet.The atomic scientists mentioned a theoretical energy density cap,but I don't remember the specifics.
Doubling the current state-of-the-art would put a Model 3 Long Range at around 800-miles on a charge,and the top-tier Cybertruck at 1,000.

Density, we talking power to weight or power to volume?
Batteries are always going to to score pretty horrible in both you will need several things to make a battery work.
A structure to make up the anode, cathode and electrolyte. Then that will go in some kind of cell container. Those cells will need conductors to to connect them together. Then those conductors and cells will need support structures to hold them in place. Putting it all in a water tight box is a pretty good idea. And should probably add a cooling system if you want it to last a long time.

density
 

The way I'm interpreting the claim is,that at a given volume and mass,the new technology would provide twice the kWh rating.So a replacement pack would double whatever came out.
Goodenough said his new Lithium tech wouldn't catch fire, wouldn't require imported cobalt,and would use powdered glass.Sounds pretty sweet!

Yeah about that, the lithium won't catch fire, but if it starts smoking from damaged cells and water gets put on it there will be a hydrogen fire.

Yup it is the organic electrolyte that burns. Not sure if the lithium is an oxide most of the time.

I'm sure the coal that the anode is made of burns pretty good too.
A lot of lithium compounds still react violently with water.

damage
 

I suppose that battery makers will do all they can to manufacture a 'safe' product.After it leaves the factory though,there's no telling how creatively stupid users can behave.We never lost a crew member in an SR-71.
The Space Shuttle Challenger was safe until non-engineers were given authority over launch go-no-go.