Do Tesla cars really have 6000 18650 batterys in the battery pack?

I think they do use protected cells, just a really crappy protection system. Why in the hell would they have a voltage cut-off that can't be reset by the charger? Even our protected 18650s can do that.

I like the idea of the Tesla but it is prohibitively expensive and has had way too many problems. Now the Fisker Karma...that's an EV I can actually see spending 120 large on.

I've got 32 BMW ActiveE cars sold, the first two come in this weekend. I think we use 18650 Li-ons as well, haven't heard about any of them getting bricked.

Source of free batteries?

Lennart

Tesla! By letting their marketing weasels bury necessary information about battery care because that might scare off potential buyers.

They use a protection circuit board that is for all the batteries that are in series/parallel, same as in laptops, tools or any custom battery pack.

The higher the current drawn from the cells, the lower the voltage they allow the cells to discharge, the higher the charging voltage make the battery pack last less, maybe 500 cycles. If they are careful and limit all by having 6000 batteries then they should last quite much more 1500 cycles.

It's a really simple problem to solve. First lose some of the batteries and make room for a small petrol or, better still diesel engine, 500cc should be enough (35kw). Therefore not only could the engine be programmed to automatically 'kick in' when the batteries fall bellow an acceptable voltage, but the engine would make the vehicles range virtually limitless.

We have had vehicles running this way in Europe for years. I read a story 10 maybe 15 years ago of a passenger bus, or fleet of buses, in Germany, that had a bank of batteries and a VW 1.9 TDI as a generator. It ran all day and never needed to be plugged in!

Electric cars, are useless in there current form. you will always need a generator to make them viable.

Marc.

Not just that, America is a very litigious place if they are not completely upfront about this, then it will cost them serious money in the future. A guy in the States has just successfully sued Honda because his hybrid did not do 50 mpg, as stated. And quite right to! As motorist we are often lied to about performance figures, but when it could cost you $40k.

Marc.

http://www.break.com/index/electric-vs-gas-powered-engine.html

From my (very fallible) memory the Chevy Volt uses even more 8192, I think. But its battery claims about a quarter of the Tesla's capacity so either my memory or the statements are wrong.

The Tesla pack claims 53kWh. A 3100mAh 18650 contains about (3.100A x 3.7V nominal) = 11.5Wh = a minimum of 4608 of them. If they are using lower capacity or a lower value for the nominal voltage (assuming 3.6V the number becomes 4750) the number of cells goes way up. Using 2000mAh cells at a nominal 3.6V means 7361 cells.

One of the reason diesel engines are so much more popular where I am from. Torque! Petrol's are a little out dated and Electric is simply unusable right now.

Marc.

Yeah that gets on my nerves when I see price differences like that, until I read an article by VW stating that the American Passat is a different car altogether! Whilst it looks identical, It has none of the fancy multilink suspension and is engineered in a different way for market in America. Hence the extra 10cm.

But I agree they get much better prices on cars in the USA. We get stiffed in Europe!

Marc.

Don't worry, the government is putting those taxes to good use ;) (we're next)

You guys must also realize there's already a large consumer demand for diesel vehicles here, and we call them pickup trucks. My dad wouldn't drive anything else. He needs the torque for pulling trailers and 5th wheel rv's. Right now diesel fuel prices are nearly 20% higher than gasoline, which doesn't bode well for a consumer market already weary of fuel prices in general. Before 2004 it was the other way around.

Now we are going to see exotic electric cars go missing, not for black market sales over seas or to be parted out, they will be found in a dark ally with the battery pack removed, and probably the hid headlights and ballasts

The reason Diesel prices are now higher is because the diesel passenger car was laughed at 30 years ago, in some parts of America they still are I've been told. So Refineries had a bias towards producing petrol, not Diesel. Now they are finding that the refineries are having to re-invest. Supply and demand.

Just a quick one that might not make sense if your not European. To prove my point about Diesel cars not being taken seriously, I bought a brand new Golf GT TDI and took it into an Audi centre. This was 2002ish. I sat in an Audi TT and asked when they would be putting a Diesel engine in there. The rather stupid looking salesman went to ask his equally smug and stupid looking friends. All I heard coming from their office was a burst of laughter and some dick shouting 'never, we get some questions in here'.

Oh how I wish I could bump into him now. As far as I know the TT TDI is the fastest selling TT in the UK and no doubt Europe!

Marc.

Here in the USA, our petroleum infrastructure is set up to produce less diesel and more petrol than overseas producers; it's a function of the plant design.

If diesel vehicles ever became as popular as they are in Europe (~50%) our system couldn't match demand - we would go from exporting diesel to importing it, at great expense.

electric, gasoline, diesel

doesn't matter to me - I walk to work - how else could I afford to own a V8 truck lol

well, I rent one from the bank ;)

I think the relatively recent requirement for diesel to have lower sulfur levels also has an impact, as well as the higher federal tax compared to gasoline. But yeah, our refining process isn't set up as well for diesel, even though we still have a large freight infrastructure.

However, with production booming in the Bakken Oil Fields (Montana and North Dakota) we should capitalize on investing more. Speaking oil infrastructure, the largest city in Montana has three refineries and they still pay more for fuel than the national average

Not sure about the number of cells in the Chevy Volt, but I did read that they are only using 30%-80% of the batteries SOC, to increase cycle life. So they are only using 50% of the cells usable capacity...