Tesla Could Use Up All The World's Laptop Batteries (18650's)

This had better not affect my addiction!

Will this make Panasonic 18650 even cheaper maybe? Instead of harder to source…

I can’t wait for the Kipkay hack on the Tesla

I hope a severe shortage becomes eminent (but it wont). With all the promising new ultra high density cell technologies that have never made it past the laboratory proof of concept stage, its time to up the ante and bring some of them to mass production. IMO, the current offerings are rather pathetic considering the potential.

Don’t try this at home boys&girls, you do NOT want to try and salvage a 85KW battery.

However, it is VERY unlikely ANYONE will EVER see a used Tesla battery, as they will surely be recycled into the nationwide network of Super Charger stations that Solar City and Tesla are now building:
http://www.teslamotors.com/supercharger
Or the battery swap program that is about to get going:
http://www.teslamotors.com/batteryswap

Every Tesla owner gets “Free” electrons —- For Life, and them thar electrons got to get stored somewhere.

Trivia: When you put enough gas into most full size cars to travel 300 miles you increase the car’s weight by about 120lb. When you charge up a Tesla 85KW battery, for the same trip, you increase it’s weight by 1 gram.

There must be something magic about the 18650 battery size / container in the Lithium Ion world.
Tesla could have used ANY other chemistry or size it needed, but they used this 18650.
I think it was chosen for output capacity and optimum cooling efficiency, but I don’t know for sure.

The “real life” Tony Stark , alias Elon Musk is busy working on the battery supply problem and I believe it will be resolved, shortly.

I’m still waiting on Panasonic NCR26650B’s to come out :stuck_out_tongue:

It’s 2020 and Tesla is buying all available Li-Ion cells in every size and cells are in short supply. CPF has cut a deal with major-brand light manufacturers - in return for supporting MAP, CPFers with support level 3 or higher can buy rejected cells and discards from those manufacturers. Panic in the streets! Rioting e-cig fueled mobs raid brick and mortar stores for anything that holds a charge… Meanwhile, sitting at home in the darkness, BLF’s finest organize a group buy for a late model, low milage Tesla. Weeks later, when the car arrives after shipping delays, BLF’s skilled pack pullers dissect the Tesla. Sweetness and light are restored.

Oh, I do, I really do. Either I get 7000 cells or I go out with a bang like I've always wanted.

Anyone good enough at math to figure out if this would be pack more power into a given space?

haha that is great. though my ecig runs off stacked lifepo4 rcr123a's. not much demand for those lol

the flashlight scene will be pushed to using 26650s. everyone will sell off their 18650 lights for cheap once cells start to deteriorate. I will buy them up for cheap. once a few teslas have a 7k li-Ion thermal runaways, 18650s are back on the streets and I get rich selling back btu shockers and fire foxes

No self respecting BLFer will be sitting at home on the dark!

We'll all be basking in the warm glow of our AA lights while counting our returns from our investment in Eneloop stocks. A 4 pack of 6th generation eneloop AAs is now selling on ebay for as low as $50!

Good jokes, guys :D!

I wonder the same, how this will tranform battery industry?! Will it bring some of those promised fast-charge, super-capacity battery technology to the market or will it drive up the price due to lack of supply and growing demand?

Anyway, it looks like my D40A and EA8 and recently bought 18650 are worthy investments in that regard :D!

wrong and wrong

assuming an average of 0.725kg/l for gasoline density (wikiepdia says 0.71–0.77 kg/l) makes 165L of fuel to travel 473km equals 34.88l/100km or 6.74mpg, i don’t think so

electricity has no weight, i bet the 1 gram is testing error if it were ever actually tested

Greater demand will lead to greater production meaning the market will balance itself out and prices won’t rise appreciably if at all, and if competitors start making batteries then this should lead to lower prices for all of us. Assuming no shortage of material resources and no market failures

In the long run it leads to better technology, but in the short term there may be fluctuations due to demand not anticipated by suppliers.
E=mc*2 is the most famous equation in the world. c is 3 10*8 meters per second. Without working it out in detail, the factor of about 10*17 shows that the 1 g is an error, unless the volume change displaces that weight of air.
I read that the subsidies for electric cars are not justified, because of the impacts of generating electrical power and of mining and processing the materials for the electrical components. I am not against cars, just big cars carrying one person. I like the Tesla roadster, except that I am not rich, but the S is really just another big car. If any of you are in places like Iraq, don’t be mislead by this electric nonsense and keep the oil underground until it really becomes valuable.

That ‘magic’ is safety. When interviewed about the problems with the Boeing 787 battery, Musk specifically said that the reason why he went with small cells in his cars was safety. Because the 787 uses a larger form factor cell, this means that, if there is a problem, the consequences are going to be more dire. Larger battery = more electride material and electrolyte = bigger bang if the battery vents with flames. Also, having a large number of individual smaller cells mean that bad cells can be more isolated from the rest of the cells, both physically and electrically.

Admittedly, using larger prismatic cells would allow the battery pack to have a higher capacity for a given pack size. But from a safety standpoint, this isn’t a good idea unless a safer chemistry can be found which will still allow a similar energy density (like if, say, a way was found to increase the energy density of LiFePO4 threefold).

your not converting energy into matter when you charge the battery, your increasing electric potential by converting a lower energy chemical to a higher energy one (that goes back to the lower energy chemical as it discharges)

Yes, you are converting energy to matter! Chemical reactions are no different, than nuclear. Mass conservation si only simplification, becouse mass change in chemical reactions is very small :wink:

Surely they will increase production and the cells will become cheaper? Note also that laptop sales are falling fast.

so your telling me there are nuclear reactions happening in a battery?
So the chinese preoccupation with lead ending up in food and other products is just for our safety?

This is all irrelevant, as I hoped was clear when I posted it, but. It’s like you said, electricity has no weight, except energy always has some weight as given by the famous equation. If no matter moves but chemical and electric energy changes, only the relativistic mass of the energy changes. That is less than a gram but not exactly zero. Part of why the equation is famous is that in nuclear reactions, so much energy can be given off or absorbed that the difference in mass is measurable, even though the number of protons, neutrons and electrons does not change.