Tesla's "Secret" Battery

Well, I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again… electric is the future. Any time I ride in an electric car I’m reminded that internal combustion, while definitely relevant (easy and cheap) and practical, will not be the focus of great innovation in the long term. We have the motive power with brushless motors that have gotten smaller, lighter and simpler to make and virtually maintenance free, speed controllers and such, but the thing lacking is the batteries/storage capacity. We still need a huge, expensive, heavy battery with lots of cells to move an electric car and maintain the same practicality of a internal combustion engine vehicle. In the end, a $60,000+ Tesla 3 still can’t compete with the practicality and range of a $15,000 sedan. Maybe the new batteries will help bridge the gap?

Hopefully there will be an electric future.

I find Elon Musk to be both fascinating and strange but while we await his "secret battery"; no matter what you think of Michael Moore, his newest 100 minute long documentary "Planet of the Humans" is entertaining and examines why we are still addicted to fossil fuels:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zk11vI-7czE

electricity is the future, nikola tesla believed it over 100 years ago.

as far as magic batteries, ceo of dyson claimed his v10 model vacuum battery lifespan will be more than 10 years, well , i have v10 for 2 years and i’m on my 3rd battery

Just think about the old not really redundant US power grit and then 20 Million 100kW fast charging car charging ports
just do the math and calculate how many wind, solar, coal or nuclear power plants you have to build for that in addition to the already existing
centralized power producers come with a lot of conduction losses making them less efficient and more CO2 emission or nuclear waste

It sounds odd but the only option in more remote locations would be a wind turbine right next to the car charging on a spot where the power grit is already strong enough to handle power overcapacity or power shortage
But with the locals don’t want to see wind or solar parks or new high voltage pylons ruin their neighborhood it’s hard to get any of those come reality fast

Although I do believe he is very smart, I think he is more of a con man than innovator.

I’m very confused as to why there aren’t more IC range extended EVs [[different than traditional hybrids where the IC mechanically drives the wheels and runs at variable loads and speeds]] on the market. Think of a small steady-state (clean and ultra-efficient, relatively) generator that only kicks on when the pack reaches 30% or perhaps the driver elects a long-distance driving mode. Most people drive far, far less than 50 miles a day, but just the once a month 400 mile drive or weekend mountain retreat is enough to “range-anxiety” many buyers out of the purchase of say a 100mile range EV.

In a design with an IC generator / range-extender, packs can be much, much smaller and cheaper. More importantly, the need for “supercharging” virtually goes away since you can just add gasoline/ethanol/diesel and keep going on those less common long trips. This consequently means that the most dangerous and strenuous part of the EV cycle (fast-charging) is minimized. Another way to think about this is that your creating the required expanded ‘electrical infrastructure’ built into the EVs, 1:1.

Electricity infrastructure and battery chemistry is going to need a healthy number of years to properly support pure EVs as mainstream. Battery recycling is another large issue that we should really consider giving time to mature before going all in with EVs.

Like many here, given Teslas undeservedly high stock price, we have been waiting for this announcement. Clearly they’ve been touting something special to the big brokerage houses for some time. Increased range and being able to hotswap out battery packs at service stations would be EV game changers when it occurs.

If you take a look at even “residential” areas of NYC (or any city bigger’n a hamlet), you’ll see there’s nowhere to actually charge an EV, unless you have unfettered access to a driveway and/or garage.

Even with a shared driveway (property lines runs down the middle; pure idiocy), I’m the only one lucky guy on the block whose neighbor would “rather not” use the driveway to keep a car.

When I needed to run a charger/conditioner to my car’s battery, I had to run the big honkin’ orange extension-cord across the sidewalk for the better part of the day (and night) to still only get to maybe 80%. Can you spell “lawsuit”? Some idiot who trips over his own feet could claim he tripped on the cord and sue me out of existence.

And forget about all those who live in condos, apartments, etc.

Might as well tell all those people they’re just not allowed to own cars, period, if EVs become “the future”.

They do have plug-in hybrids and I think those are the real solution to pure electric for now or until we find a way to make portable fusion generators. A small, efficient diesel or gas engine or flex fuel like E85 or E100, LPG etc. with a electric motor. As Lexel said, there’s no way we can ever get away from fossil fuels without innovation in alternative energy.

There are some localities that seem like they dont want you to own a car. They either tax you to death on it with registration fees, inspections, or charge high insurance. Since the feds took away the tax credit for buying an EV, there’s not much incentive to owning one other than…quiet, no engine maintenance (oil changes, coolant, filters, etc), cheap to refill (about $6 for a full charge at night), instant startup, and feeling good you’re (somewhat) reducing your carbon footprint. Downsides? Slow charging (unless you install a 240 or 408 volt service in your house), about 1/2 to 1/3 the range of a gas/diesel car, more expensive to buy (upwards of $10,000 to $15,000 or more), use the heater amd ac sparingly, expensive battery packs when they wear out. Regen brakes and software updates along with better batteries helps, but EVs are still a ways off from beating dinosaur burners.

I agree with this. An example is the Chevy Volt, which they discontinued.

Like you say the battery pack could be much smaller (so much less resources needed per car) than a pure EV’s while still using purely electric to power ~90% of our trips. Gas would only be used for longer trips. This seems like it would go a long way towards reducing gas consumption and would be a lot cheaper in terms of battery costs than pure EVs.

I know about traditional plug-in hybrids and agree they are the best option currently on the market for the mainstream consumer. The part that I don’t understand is why auto-manufactures still use a complex and difficult-to-design hybrid drive-train. The only thing that should be driving the wheels is electric motors. When the IC starts up, it’s simply turning a generator that’s directly charging the pack and/or powering the motor>>wheels. Total thermal efficiency for the steady-state genset could be as high as 45. Comparing that to ~25 efficiency of a typical variable load IC engine/transmission powering the wheels mechanically is enough to garner attention. But to think of the packaging freedom that could result from not having a mechanical driveline really takes it to another level…

I just think of how clean a steady-state, lean-mixture, SPCCI/HCCI petrol engine could run. Then to consider alt fuels like ethanol or LPG and I can only imagine figures flirting with 100g CO2 / mile

Musk thrives on exaggeration and unachievable expectations. His fanfare over the Mars Colonial Transporter was followed up by quietly downscaling and significantly revising the design, in contradiction with the way he implied the design was nearly complete. Several years later, they’ve now reached the developmental prototype stage, where they’re batting 1 for 4 at even passing ground tests. Hyperloop, meanwhile, is now looking like it might be better compared to the space ladder or the Moller Skycar.

But Musk does also usually have substance behind the hyperbole. SpaceX did ultimately develop a disruptively low cost rocket, and improved it significantly beyond the original design specifications, while also making it resuable. Tesla has the leading electric car on the market, bordering on profitable sales volumes despite the fact that their production cost appears to be significantly higher than originally planned.

I’m sure there is something to this battery announcement, too. Reading between the lines, I get the sense it is more related to cycle life and production cost than capacity. Regardless, there’s a lot of money flowing into battery R&D over the last few years, so we should expect at least gradual improvements.

There are 168,000 gas stations in the USA, with about 10 pumps per station, so you have 1,680,000 refueling points, so what you are saying is that ev’s will need 12 times the amount of refueling points, even though most charging will be done at home/work ?

As far as the grid is concerned have you any idea how much electric power is consumed by refineries, how much oil is consumed just getting that gas to you (boats/trucks etc) all that will stop :sunglasses:

As far as people not wanting things “in their back yard” that is always the case, try to build a new coal fired power plant or a nuclear one, no one wants those any where near them, but they will happily use the power generated in someone else’s back yard.

Please look around the net and get the facts before posting :student:

Cheers David

All around the US, electric grids are already strained. A heat wave brings about exploding transformers as ACs increase peak usage well beyond their rather conservative ratings.

I can imagine a spike in EV usage and charging bringing the grid to its knees.

Oh, and I just love the idea of using EVs as local batteries to supplement the grid. Put that many more cycles on the EVs’ batteries… No thanks.

We get this question all the time, nearly every week somebody (usually not an EV driver) comes up with this “range extender” idea on the EV forums. The problem is that you can’t charge a battery while it is being used to drive the car—the duty cycle of driving an EV with both motoring and regen modes, results in varying voltage and currents in and out of the pack.

Imagine the complexity of a Charger that would be required to compensate in real time for these currents; as it is now no chargers exist that will sink current, they expect to provide either a constant current or a constant voltage for a lithium ion battery pack. (CC/CV)

The conversion losses would be huge: convert fuel to run an IC engine and turn a loaded generator, then to extract electrical power from generator, rectify the generator output (AC) to create a high voltage DC buss with PFC, chop this DC thru boost transformers and rectify to create the DC voltage and current to recharge the pack. Now add some non-existent protection control stage to account for the acceleration and deceleration of the driver’s foot.

That is why the hybrids have both electric and IC engines, it is an easier cat to skin.

Most commutes are 50 miles or less, the newer EVs have 100 miles or more of range. You don’t need a range extender for commuting, but for the several times a year when you need to make a long trip, then go rent a car. Keeps it all simple.

It’s true that power is lost through mechanical drivetrains. This is why electric motors are so efficient-direct drive, no transmission, clutch, torque converters or solenoids and valves to actuate. Also no drive shaft. Not to mention the power delivery of an electric motor (100% power available immediately). As far as a hybrid drive train, the best ones are a diesel electric configuration. For those to be most efficient, they need to be run at a constant speed.

I think understand your logic and it sounds right.
Could the car not have 2 separate packs though?
One to power the car now while it is in motion and another that is powered by the IC when range or excessive current demands are obvious (heat, AC, Mountains) so the reserve pack is always topped up, the packs would alternate usage as needed. Then you do not need fancy charging logic?
Still have the home charging deal, just talking about in motion charging usage with the dual pack.
Just a thought from a dummy.

The only EV with unlimited driving range is Tesla, due to (1) their network of fast supercharging stations and (2) the thermal control system of their packs. Nobody else even comes close. Look up their 0-60 times compared with exotic supercars.