TESLA to Plans to Build World’s Biggest Battery Factory!

maybe,..whilst i would like to believe they will push battery technology forward, it will be one huge gamble to commit to a new unproven technology for the largest battery production plant ever built.!
I guess they have a few months to prove/debug the technology.
 
Hillhater said:
maybe,..whilst i would like to believe they will push battery technology forward, it will be one huge gamble to commit to a new unproven technology for the largest battery production plant ever built.!
I guess they have a few months to prove/debug the technology.
I don't think any EV company would survive without looking forward to new tech with battery chemistry. Imagine Microsoft still making the computers they did in 1994 and not changing because of cost of retooling the plant....
One of the best ways to get cost of the battery pack down is to make it more energy dense.
 
that was what was so great about the high precision charging and discharging that professor demonstrated. his grad student did that work and now is head of the tesla battery chemistry lab so they have built identical equipment to evaluate different chemistries of the electrolyte and most probably all the different sintering profile of the NMC cathodic granules too. and that professor mentioned how they were gonna pursue use of those microcalorimeters to evaluate the heat of reaction of the parasitic reactions of the electrolytes with the anode material too. since that was several years ago then i would expect all of this research is fully involved right now and by the time they get the building and manufacturing equipment installed they will have a formulation that will be literally years ahead of all other developments. elon is smart like that. he did the same thing with dragon and spaceX. he does not waste time. his business model makes sense too because he focuses on the ego factor, the prestige of having an exclusive car so he can charge enuff to make money instead of losing money like the other manufacturers selling to the mid level market where they cannot recover the cost of manufacturing the BEV.
 
Microsoft made computers in the 90s???

I think Tesla will go with an evolution of current technology, a single step improvement. Their current batteries are sufficient for the job, I can't see a company completely abandoning that to bet the farm on a high-risk, high-return option. We see "break-through" press releases each month for new battery technology that will offer 2-3x more "something". They're too big a leap to bet everything on at an early stage because most come to nought.
 
Don't think so. Tesla has partnered with Panasonic. Hence all battery tech will be their call. He's just one investor in a gigawattfactory. Sure there are others, but its all private issue stock right now. By the time the robots are in action at the factory, battery tech will have advanced significantly. So its all just conjecture what it'll be. My only guess is that it will still be Lithium-ion. But the anodes & cathodes will be different. Electrolyte will be different. Cell formats produced will be across the spectrum, because Panasonic is a major. Tesla may or may not sitck with 18650 cylindrical cells. For sure, capacity will be up, C-rate will be up, cycle-life will be up. Costs will be same or slightly down. That's all the speculation I'll wager.
 
Punx0r said:
I think Tesla will go with an evolution of current technology, a single step improvement. Their current batteries are sufficient for the job, I can't see a company completely abandoning that to bet the farm on a high-risk, high-return option. We see "break-through" press releases each month for new battery technology that will offer 2-3x more "something". They're too big a leap to bet everything on at an early stage because most come to nought.
They don't just sit there and wait. They test the next best thing behind closed doors and get data for 1-2 years before marketing them. They can have something 2-5 times more energy dense right now and you would never know. Then a couple years from now when they have all the proper Data they can go to production.
 
i don't think anybody actually watched that lecture by that professor now. all these comments about everything but what they are working on in Tesla's battery lab.

they will not use panasonic's current designs and panasonic is only in this deal so they can be part of the production. i think they are only gonna invest about $600 million out of the $2-3 billion of the total cost.

like i said before the reason this is not gonna be built in china or japan is to prevent the loss of trade secrets inside Tesla. he knows he can trust the US engineering staff to keep their mouth shut because people who work for elon are totally devoted and loyal to him because of how he treats them and how they know what they are doing is on the cutting edge. when you do advanced research, as an engineer or physicist like i did, there is no incentive to steal the trade secrets and give them over to the chinese. just like the young people who run spaceX, they are all totally devoted to him so that is the best guarantee he has that the trade secrets about the electrolyte composition and additives will not be leaked to the competition.

the high precision charger/discharger equipment gives Tesla the ability to do life cycle testing in a few days or weeks instead of years or decades like the other manufacturers so they will be able to tweak the exact electrolyte chemistry so far in advance of the competition that they will be able to command the market, and panasonic is tagging along to be part of it.

if you have not listened to that lecture, you should go listen because it is very clear from that where Tesla is going. mitch had hung it up again a month or so ago.
 
dnmun said:
i

the high precision charger/discharger equipment gives Tesla the ability to do life cycle testing in a few days or weeks instead of years or decades like the other manufacturers so they will be able to tweak the exact electrolyte chemistry so far in advance of the competition that they will be able to command the market, and panasonic is tagging along to be part of it.
I will watch the lecture later. But I am pretty sure to get proper data you need to cycle at 1c to get the actual numbers. This means 12 cycles a 24 hour day max.
 
Arlo1 said:
Punx0r said:
I think Tesla will go with an evolution of current technology, a single step improvement. Their current batteries are sufficient for the job, I can't see a company completely abandoning that to bet the farm on a high-risk, high-return option. We see "break-through" press releases each month for new battery technology that will offer 2-3x more "something". They're too big a leap to bet everything on at an early stage because most come to nought.
They don't just sit there and wait. They test the next best thing behind closed doors and get data for 1-2 years before marketing them. They can have something 2-5 times more energy dense right now and you would never know. Then a couple years from now when they have all the proper Data they can go to production.

Yep, so if they had a 2-5x viable product now, some research lab must have demonstrated a working prototype 2 years ago, making it even less likely than the 2-5x claims we see coming out of labs today.

This is why consumer and industrial products always seems to use yesterday's technology rather than the exciting stuff of today - because the technology was selected two years ago so the product design could be completed and validated.
 
Hi,

they will not use panasonic's current designs and panasonic is only in this deal so they can be part of the production. i think they are only gonna invest about $600 million out of the $2-3 billion of the total cost.
Tesla provides the specifications for Panasonic to build the cells. They have had at least three other manufacturers build cells for evaluation. Tesla has stated that they believe, Panasonic said that they agree, that due to economies of scale the new factory will reduce their pack costs by 30%. Have seen no evidence Tesla is very concerned is concerned about their proprietary battery technology being leaked. Part of the beauty of the new factory, is that it does not matter if it does it leak because even if somebody else has the same technology, they will be able to produce packs for 30% cheaper than anybody else.
 
With a 30% reduction in costs due to scale of operation and being able to immediately incorporate vast numbers of incremental improvements, a 50% reduction in battery costs is a realistic goal in the near term (first few years). Huge competitive advantage never mind the quality and density improvements that are certain to come about also.
 
While giving an appearance Musk recently said that they were up to 300 watt hours per kg. He specifically mentioned that this was a cell without drawbacks.

dnmun is correct, Tesla will have already tested all the battery chemistries on the market. All that long-term 1 C, capacity cycle testing is redundant and unreliable.

Now it is all about measuring coulombic efficiency and calories. And that information can be obtained in as little as 15 or so cycles. Tesla is probably simultaneously testing hundreds of batteries at once. If they test 200 cells at once that means in a month they can test 12,000 different chemistry and additive combinations at 23 cycles. In a year that is potentially 144,000 unique cells. If you like you can divide that number for batteries tested at different temperatures.

If someone gives Tesla a sample of their new chemistry in less than a day they will know if it is any good, how long it will last and more importantly its coulombic efficiency.
 
dnmun said:
i don't think anybody actually watched that lecture by that professor now. all these comments about everything but what they are working on in Tesla's battery lab.

they will not use panasonic's current designs and panasonic is only in this deal so they can be part of the production. i think they are only gonna invest about $600 million out of the $2-3 billion of the total cost.

like i said before the reason this is not gonna be built in china or japan is to prevent the loss of trade secrets inside Tesla. he knows he can trust the US engineering staff to keep their mouth shut because people who work for elon are totally devoted and loyal to him because of how he treats them and how they know what they are doing is on the cutting edge. when you do advanced research, as an engineer or physicist like i did, there is no incentive to steal the trade secrets and give them over to the chinese. just like the young people who run spaceX, they are all totally devoted to him so that is the best guarantee he has that the trade secrets about the electrolyte composition and additives will not be leaked to the competition.

the high precision charger/discharger equipment gives Tesla the ability to do life cycle testing in a few days or weeks instead of years or decades like the other manufacturers so they will be able to tweak the exact electrolyte chemistry so far in advance of the competition that they will be able to command the market, and panasonic is tagging along to be part of it.

if you have not listened to that lecture, you should go listen because it is very clear from that where Tesla is going. mitch had hung it up again a month or so ago.
Key note at 36 minutes. You need to cycle the batteries a number of times 100s of times of even 1000s at different max charge voltages to find where they fail after a cycle number VS peak charge voltage.
 
Arlo1 said:
Key note at 36 minutes. You need to cycle the batteries a number of times 100s of times of even 1000s at different max charge voltages to find where they fail after a cycle number VS peak charge voltage.

You were a bit premature on posting this. It took them just 16 cycles to determine which would die first (41 minutes).
 
No matter what test procedures you employ, rapid cycling, multi unit parallel tests, etc etc....
You cannot say wity any confidence what the effect of TIME is on the chemical, stability, electrical performance, or the physical attributes of the cell,
Field testing is the most valuable process in product development.
Testing may give you some indicators,.....but it may not !
Many products thought to be proven, tested, technology, have failed after TIME worked its unforeseen magic !
Not saying they won't go with something new, but it would be a huge $5bn gamble !
They would not want to have a repeat of the Dell/Sony laptop cell episode with an 85kWhr pack. :shock:
 
Hillhater said:
No matter what test procedures you employ, rapid cycling, multi unit parallel tests, etc etc....
You cannot say wity any confidence what the effect of TIME is on the chemical, stability, electrical performance, or the physical attributes of the cell

i don't think anybody actually watched that lecture by that professor now. all these comments about everything but what they are working on in Tesla's battery lab.
Hillhater obviously either did not watch it or did not understand it...
 
hei,

this is very enjoyable video to watch about tesla.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EDCYoAQmmAA

in 6 years i'll buy the newest Tesla model.:D
 
Newz re Gigafactory:
https://screen.yahoo.com/videos-for-you/tesla-gigafactory-spending-far-50-102128172.html
 
he did not understand. it is pretty clear. nobody has actually understood what this guy is saying. everybody talks about how charging to 4.1V is the key and yet this guy explains why that traditional legacy interpretation of the data is explained entirely by examining how the experiments were done.

he makes it very clear that is the length of time that the electrolyte is charged to high voltage is what eats up cycle life. the voltage had little to do with it. it was length of time. he even talked about how he had batteries from 1999. never charged until now.

it is like the meaning is totally missed by everyone and few even watched. or even watched the utube video where the guy showed the experiments to show where the lipo went into thermal runaway at a specific temperature in the calorimeter he was demonstrating.
 
Hmm.. I do not have bandwidth to watch video but I can picture chemistry experiment in my garage involving electric current, fluid, and probes.

Turn dial up really high and leave it there... probes get eaten up... sad pile of non-reactive material created.

Turn dial up really high for a while... maximize potential reaction... smile.... cause some wear... get many cycles.

Turn dial only half way all the time. Fart sound.

-methods
 
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