Tesla Model 3

Status
Not open for further replies.
billvon said:
Cost of the Powerwall. It has the lowest $/kwhr of any lithium based home power storage system. (And uses the same technology/assembly methods as their EV batteries.)

In Germany battery systems from BYD, LG or Sonnen (for example) are cheaper (and most likely better) than a Powerwall II.

Tesla uses NCM cells in the Powerwall, not NCA like in their cars (NCA wouldn't survive enough cycles)

Tesla Powerwall warranty is substandard for the home storage market.

Market share of Tesla Powerwall in Germany has been around 2% in 2017:

marktanteile-fuer-heimspeicher-grafik-eupd-research.jpg
 
With the resulting fire hazard we cannot tolerate dead cells in a pack. Which is easier to remove? One of many thousands of cells welded deep in a massive pack, or one of a couple dozen in a bolted set? The future is not moving toward more parts in the system.

Tesla is making do with what is cheaply available now. They use money to force manufacturing ahead of it's time. It is fast but it is not efficient. They are not inventing the batteries of the future. They are just making existing stuff (and variations on them) in larger quantity. That's not where the true solutions lie.

Long range technology will change the way we do things. It always does. Fewer parts to get the job done. This is the early phase.
 
Alan B said:
With the resulting fire hazard we cannot tolerate dead cells in a pack. Which is easier to remove? One of many thousands of cells welded deep in a massive pack, or one of a couple dozen in a bolted set? The future is not moving toward more parts in the system.

Tesla is making do with what is cheaply available now. They use money to force manufacturing ahead of it's time. It is fast but it is not efficient. They are not inventing the batteries of the future. They are just making existing stuff (and variations on them) in larger quantity. That's not where the true solutions lie.

Long range technology will change the way we do things. It always does. Fewer parts to get the job done. This is the early phase.

When 1 cell shorts in a Tesla pack it blows the fuse and the 1 single cell is no longer part of the pack. This is far safer then a Set of bigger cells with 1 shorted making the other cells in series have to take a major overcharge. As well when the lager cell format shorts or drops off it will risk being reversed. As a fuse which is not common on a large cell would have to be rated much higher and might not pop as easy allowing energy to flow into the now very dangerous cell.

Its hard to say what will win out long term but for now I understand why Tesla is going the rout they are. And in the next 2-5 years you will see many others come to market with something similar.

Its hard to compare companies who make compliance cars and their 3rd party cells to what Tesla is doing and truly think its an apples to apples comparison.
 
Arlo1 said:
When 1 cell shorts in a Tesla pack it blows the fuse and the 1 single cell is no longer part of the pack.

With modern cell production failure rate of cells should be less than 1 in 1 million.

There are different kind of internal shorts in a cell. In most cases its not aa "zero Ohm" shortage, but a slower drain. In that case the cell "fuse" does nothing and the entire pack is defective.

This is far safer then a Set of bigger cells with 1 shorted making the other cells in series have to take a major overcharge.

It could be safer when one cell enters therma runaway, because large cells store more energy than small cells.

Cell overcharing will not happen. Any modern battery BMS in a quality good enough for cars will report a failure and stop charging. And overcahrging will not cause a fire in modern 18650 cells, the CID in the cell will activate (thats the thing tesla removed from the Panasnonic NCR cells). I don't know how the large pouch cells work.

As well when the lager cell format shorts or drops off it will risk being reversed. As a fuse which is not common on a large cell would have to be rated much higher and might not pop as easy allowing energy to flow into the now very dangerous cell.

wild speculation.

For myself I have only seen open Tesla batteries and open Daimler batteries and I would take the Daimler battery if safety is my concern. But that's just out of my stomach, how those packs lock on the inside...

It's not that the mayor brands do not have their own problems with cells and battery assembling, but they did not need to rush their packs and electric cars to the market.

Its hard to say what will win out long term but for now I understand why Tesla is going the rout they are. And in the next 2-5 years you will see many others come to market with something similar.

10 years ago Panasonic had forecasted significant problems selling more 18650 cells to their main consumers, the laptop industry (because laptop have become to thin to house 18650 cells)
And there was a new car company that wanted the cheapest battery with a high density and that's how it came that Tesla uses 18650 cells. It is what was available to them.
The new 21700 cells can be produced on the same assembly lines with little modification, that why they use this format now and not something larger.

Whats better in the future, cylindrical or pouch (or prismatic?) is hard to predict imho. I wouldn't bet on either technolgy, both have advantages and disadvantages.

Its hard to compare companies who make compliance cars and their 3rd party cells to what Tesla is doing and truly think its an apples to apples comparison.

Tesla is burning week by week through investors money. What they depseratly need is that the show must go on. Part of that show is to claim, that they have some magical technological advantage.

I see no "overall advantage" in small cylidnric cells now (when large pouch cells have become much cheaper, too)
I see no "overall advantage" in using asynchronous motors
I see no "overall advantage" in using the proprietary Tesla Supercharger grid based on the MID DC connectors which already have problems at 120kW

They had been the first to produce a premium BEV for the "mass market". That's quite an achievement in itself.
 
I thought the advantage of induction motors over BLDC was lower cost due to the lack of rare-earth magnets? Torque density for BLDC is supposed to be greater than induction.

Increasing the number of components in a battery (or any system) ought to decrease reliability, but I was under the impression that, like microchips, it is cheaper and easier to manufacture defect-free small cells than larger ones. Or at least, it becomes practical to measure, detect & reject defective cells during manufacture. If someone has perfected making large-format pouch cells of equal reliability as 18650s then they would make more sense in an EV battery for reliability and ease of manufacture. As long as they can be adequately cooled.
 
Alan B said:
With the resulting fire hazard we cannot tolerate dead cells in a pack.
Why? Once the fusible link is blown and the cell is at zero volts, why is there a fire hazard?
 
Cephalotus said:
In Germany battery systems from BYD, LG or Sonnen (for example) are cheaper (and most likely better) than a Powerwall II.
Interesting. Here in the US they are much cheaper than their local competitors -

Tesla PWII: $437/kwhr
BattleBorn - $741
LG RESU10 - $735
Iron Edison - $1225
SimpliPhi - $956
Sonnen 4kW - $2400
Sonnen 16kW - $1425

Would be interesting to see how German subsidies support those prices.
 
Cephalotus said:
Tesla is burning week by week through investors money. What they depseratly need is that the show must go on. Part of that show is to claim, that they have some magical technological advantage.

I see no "overall advantage" in small cylidnric cells now (when large pouch cells have become much cheaper, too)
I see no "overall advantage" in using asynchronous motors
I see no "overall advantage" in using the proprietary Tesla Supercharger grid based on the MID DC connectors which already have problems at 120kW

They had been the first to produce a premium BEV for the "mass market". That's quite an achievement in itself.

It will always be cheaper to produce round cells then pouch cell the process it simple less labor intensive.
But as a whole pack one day pouch cells might become cheaper and safer but for now they are not.

Tesla is using Synchronous motors in the Model 3

Tesla has been profitable before and they are going to be again in just a few months. This type of growth always needs money.

Tesla superchargers are working fine! I had a model S for the winter and I know many people with Model S and X's they have no charging problems to speak of. IN fact they have raised the Supercharger to 135kw in some places. In time that will go even higher. Like when the 200kwh Model S comes to market.
The limitations in charging is all in the battery. It can only take so much depending on temp and SOC.
 
Small cells are like small chips. They only make sense until you know how to make big ones. It is a stopgap solution.

It is surprising that Telsa is moving to rare earth magnets, this is not good for mass production or green manufacturing. The only reason is to increase the range slightly, at a considerable cost and reduction in "green value" for a vehicle that is supposed to be green.

A bad cell sitting there with stored energy is not something you want in your pack. Safety procedures would call for removal, not allowing it to sit in the pack, getting temperature cycled and vibrated. You don't know if or when it may turn into a fireball. How many Teslas have incinerated? How does it compare to other electric cars?

Disconnecting the bad cell in the short term is fine, leaving it in the pack is a risk. How does the insurance industry feel about this approach?

Subsidized pricing is not easy to compare.
 
Alan B said:
It is surprising that Telsa is moving to rare earth magnets, this is not good for mass production or green manufacturing. The only reason is to increase the range slightly, at a considerable cost and reduction in "green value" for a vehicle that is supposed to be green.
The car being something that is green is considered a garbage notion to a lot of people who study this stuff instead of blindly accepting bad media.
Even the extreme-pro-renewables website theconversation in Australia put out an article proving that there are more CO2 emissions from a Tesla than other combustion cars if charged anywhere in Australia other than charging in hydro-electricity based Tasmania.
https://theconversation.com/teslas-in-victoria-arent-greener-than-diesels-40834
And if you take end of life recycling of the car it just gets worse for Tesla.
After much debate and to just make everyone happy, Tesla cars get a subsidy in Australia anyway even if they do emit more co2 than fossil fuel cars when charged off the grid.

So all the radio-active sludge by-product created via the processing of ore for rare earth elements being used in new Model 3 make no difference to the masses who buy these cars thinking they are helping the world, its no different than the Australians who viciously attack a new coal-mine being opened to make viably priced electricity in India, even after the Indian prime minister made a plea that affordable electricity in India would save 2million children from dying each year by lifting them out of extreme poverty.
These people do not care as long as the truth is too complicated to be easily absorbable by their peers.

https://youtu.be/w87LBiXwwdE
[youtube]w87LBiXwwdE[/youtube]

Its the easy absorbability of information that dictates what most people do, the facts for example of those people who refused to buy anything at a Starbucks, and refused to leave, ignored the issue that it was a frequently used as a meeting place of drug dealers/dealing goes past the majority of people because the information complexities are not easily absorbed in the seconds they saw an inequality meme on Facebook that entirely made their decisions on the issue. https://youtu.be/qpWDINXzzDI
Da_L2oBUwAEW2om.jpg



Thought this was a good article on Tesla's health.. Folks have to understand that even big companies with huge debt and when the debt issuers are strongly convinced they will never pay it back can cause companies like Tesla to suddenly disappear faster than folks can load up their share-trading app and hit the sell button.
https://thenewdaily.com.au/life/auto/2018/04/21/tesla-financial-performance-uncertain-future/
1524103238-tesla-losses-680x445.png
 
billvon said:
Would be interesting to see how German subsidies support those prices.

There is only subsidies for the end consumer and this is not included in the selling price and independent of the manufacturer. But I do include all peripheral components plus installation cost in the price.
One factor of the Tesla Powerwall II is its weight. Most battery systems are installed somewhere in the cool basements in Germany, which generally is a very good idea. If your Tesla battery weights 120kg you need two people for transport over steps and for the installation process (and it is still shit on their health).
Good storage systems are modular and single components should not weight more than 30kg.

Saving one person in the installation process saves several hundred Euros. Making a product that does not destroy the health of workers is a good thing, too.

US consumers pay 2-3 times more per kWp for their average PV system (compared to Germany), so I'm not surprised to hear that you also pay 2-3 times more for your average battery systems.

Another factor is battery size. Tesla Powerwall II is only available at 13kWh. For German homes this is unnecessary large and you are asked to pay for something you do not need. A much better battery size for typical German households is 4-6kWh, some energy efficient homes consume around 2.000kWh/year (4 persons) and for them even 2kWh would be enough or maybe no storage system at all.

(That's not guessing. I know that because I made simulation tools for solar battery systems and have access to 15 min data on hundreds of different battery storage systems)

13kWh is more interesting for a US household that still needs heavy AC after sunset and consume 10.000kWh+ per year.

On the other hand I estimate that 70-80% of the private consumers of battery systems have simply no idea what they need or should buy
 
Alan B said:
It is surprising that Telsa is moving to rare earth magnets, this is not good for mass production or green manufacturing. The only reason is to increase the range slightly, at a considerable cost and reduction in "green value" for a vehicle that is supposed to be green.

Rare Earth are not "rare"....

slide_7.jpg


An electric motor can easily last millions of km, so real recycling is possible. I assume that recyclling of the materials used is possible, too. So is there enough materials for 2-3 billion cars (not that I like to see that many, but this is a likely scenario)?

if yes, where is the problem?

We throw away stuff like Indium with our smartphones and flat screens away forever.

Making a motor more efficient is significant, especially of you calculate that over 100.000km, 1 million km or maybe dozend of million kms (useable recycling time for that materials)

A Tesla S or X has never been a "green" vehicle. That's impossible with more than 2 tonnes of mass and average consumption of more than 20kWh/km.
 
Arlo1 said:
Tesla superchargers are working fine! I had a model S for the winter and I know many people with Model S and X's they have no charging problems to speak of. IN fact they have raised the Supercharger to 135kw in some places. In time that will go even higher. Like when the 200kwh Model S comes to market.
The limitations in charging is all in the battery. It can only take so much depending on temp and SOC.

I was told from someone who claimed to have knowledge on that, that Tesla is very frequently replacing the MID-DC connectors in its Supercharger stations over here because they have thermal problems.

No first hand information, so take that with a grain of salt, maybe it was FUD.

European CCS standard will work up to 1000V and up to 500A with cooled cables and connectors. 350A when not activly cooled. That's not something that mid-DC used in Tesla can do.
For practical use this traslates to around 150kW with 400V batteries and around 350kW with 800V batteries.

Future Tesla cars will get CCS connectors for Europe, I bet on that.

Porsche and Audi cars say that they will be able to charge at 350kW in 2(?) years, that's not something Tesla can do with its batteries.

If there will even be a production Tesla roadster with 200kWh capacity has to been seen. if it comes it will not be a car that is environmental friendly, it will not be a car that sells to the masses because of its cost.

For Germany a 100kWh battery, a efficient vehicle running at 25kWh/100km on the Autobahn and the capability to charge at 250kW up to 90% SOC is good enough for almost everyone.

I once made a 400km test drive with a Tesla S going up to 200km/h (of course I had to try) and I needed three recharging stops. I never charged full, because it takes so long, because the SC starts throttling way before hitting 90% SOC. Of course with my own car I would drive slower and 200km/h is usually not possible if you don't drive at night as we did.
 
A blanket statement saying that 200kwh in a single car battery is bad for the environment has no meaning as we don't know the production process of said future battery. If it's made at a solar power gigafactory than it might be 100% environmentaly friendly.
 
Alan B said:
Small cells are like small chips. They only make sense until you know how to make big ones. It is a stopgap solution.

It is surprising that Telsa is moving to rare earth magnets, this is not good for mass production or green manufacturing. The only reason is to increase the range slightly, at a considerable cost and reduction in "green value" for a vehicle that is supposed to be green.

A bad cell sitting there with stored energy is not something you want in your pack. Safety procedures would call for removal, not allowing it to sit in the pack, getting temperature cycled and vibrated. You don't know if or when it may turn into a fireball. How many Teslas have incinerated? How does it compare to other electric cars?

Disconnecting the bad cell in the short term is fine, leaving it in the pack is a risk. How does the insurance industry feel about this approach?

Subsidized pricing is not easy to compare.
There is no large chips lol if you compare TO220 to TO264 gets Shure but he modules have multiple small chips in them which is a lot like a Tesla battery module.
As for rare earths in the motor we don't know that yet. But with he IPM rotor it's not as much mass or volume of magnets as a smpm rotor.
 
TheBeastie said:
Alan B said:
It is surprising that Telsa is moving to rare earth magnets, this is not good for mass production or green manufacturing. The only reason is to increase the range slightly, at a considerable cost and reduction in "green value" for a vehicle that is supposed to be green.
The car being something that is green is considered a garbage notion to a lot of people who study this stuff instead of blindly accepting bad media.
Even the extreme-pro-renewables website theconversation in Australia put out an article proving that there are more CO2 emissions from a Tesla than other combustion cars if charged anywhere in Australia other than charging in hydro-electricity based Tasmania.
https://theconversation.com/teslas-in-victoria-arent-greener-than-diesels-40834
And if you take end of life recycling of the car it just gets worse for Tesla.
After much debate and to just make everyone happy, Tesla cars get a subsidy in Australia anyway even if they do emit more co2 than fossil fuel cars when charged off the grid.

So all the radio-active sludge by-product created via the processing of ore for rare earth elements being used in new Model 3 make no difference to the masses who buy these cars thinking they are helping the world, its no different than the Australians who viciously attack a new coal-mine being opened to make viably priced electricity in India, even after the Indian prime minister made a plea that affordable electricity in India would save 2million children from dying each year by lifting them out of extreme poverty.
These people do not care as long as the truth is too complicated to be easily absorbable by their peers.

https://youtu.be/w87LBiXwwdE
[youtube]w87LBiXwwdE[/youtube]

Its the easy absorbability of information that dictates what most people do, the facts for example of those people who refused to buy anything at a Starbucks, and refused to leave, ignored the issue that it was a frequently used as a meeting place of drug dealers/dealing goes past the majority of people because the information complexities are not easily absorbed in the seconds they saw an inequality meme on Facebook that entirely made their decisions on the issue. https://youtu.be/qpWDINXzzDI
Da_L2oBUwAEW2om.jpg



Thought this was a good article on Tesla's health.. Folks have to understand that even big companies with huge debt and when the debt issuers are strongly convinced they will never pay it back can cause companies like Tesla to suddenly disappear faster than folks can load up their share-trading app and hit the sell button.
https://thenewdaily.com.au/life/auto/2018/04/21/tesla-financial-performance-uncertain-future/
1524103238-tesla-losses-680x445.png
The argument of an electric car vs gasoline car in terms of Co2 production has been beeten to death and the real data shows no matter where you charge an EV it's ALWASY CLEANER FOR THE ENVIRONMENT. All of the studies that say otherwise are funded by someone with something to gain from the sales of the dirty fuel in question. Most studies forget to look at the impact of making the gasoline or diesel it self which is a very dirty process.
 
Arlo1 said:
A blanket statement saying that 200kwh in a single car battery is bad for the environment has no meaning as we don't know the production process of said future battery. If it's made at a solar power gigafactory than it might be 100% environmentaly friendly.
How many solar powered Gigafactories are there ??
 
Hillhater said:
Arlo1 said:
A blanket statement saying that 200kwh in a single car battery is bad for the environment has no meaning as we don't know the production process of said future battery. If it's made at a solar power gigafactory than it might be 100% environmentaly friendly.
How many solar powered Gigafactories are there ??
The solar is getting installed on the first one right now. Where do you think Tesla would make the Roadster pack???
 
TheBeastie said:
So all the radio-active sludge by-product created via the processing of ore for rare earth elements being used in new Model 3 make no difference to the masses who buy these cars thinking they are helping the world, its no different than the Australians who viciously attack a new coal-mine being opened to make viably priced electricity in India, even after the Indian prime minister made a plea that affordable electricity in India would save 2million children from dying each year by lifting them out of extreme poverty.
Exactly! The few tons of radioactive sludge produced by rare earth mining is HORRIBLE! TOXIC! It kills children!

The 130 tons of toxic, radioactive ash produced by coal power plants every year, on the other hand, is a gift to children. Put it in their water or their air; they love it. Heck, put it in the walls of their schools and say you are helping them.
 
Cephalotus said:
I was told from someone who claimed to have knowledge on that, that Tesla is very frequently replacing the MID-DC connectors in its Supercharger stations over here because they have thermal problems.
Hmm. We haven't had to replace a single SC connector yet here - but Blink has had to replace all its J1939 connectors on the chargers here twice. But that being said, the charger industry is still fairly new (<10 years old) so I'd expect some churn as suppliers get their act together (for all chargers, not just Tesla or Blink.)
Future Tesla cars will get CCS connectors for Europe, I bet on that.
If you want to bet on a connector, the CCS connector is a better bet. We are slowly switching over here.
Porsche and Audi cars say that they will be able to charge at 350kW in 2(?) years, that's not something Tesla can do with its batteries.
It is entirely dependent on battery size. 350kW into 200kWh is no problem with existing batteries, which can handle 2C.
I once made a 400km test drive with a Tesla S going up to 200km/h (of course I had to try) and I needed three recharging stops. I never charged full, because it takes so long, because the SC starts throttling way before hitting 90% SOC. Of course with my own car I would drive slower and 200km/h is usually not possible if you don't drive at night as we did.
That "90% SOC" limit is going to be determined by C rate. The faster you charge, the sooner you will hit constant-voltage charging.
 
I really don't grasp the obsession people seem to have with charging rates. It comes up even more frequently than absolute range in conversation. If you have a range that's >3x your 99th percentile requirements and it's at full SOC every morning, who cares how long it takes to charge? I care more about how many cycles it can complete, a factor that's inevitably reduced by charging more quickly than required. Current supercharging levels are more than adequate for my desired pace on long journeys.

Frankly if I needed to charge a model S more than once to complete an A-B trip I would just fly.
 
Ohbse said:
I really don't grasp the obsession people seem to have with charging rates. It comes up even more frequently than absolute range in conversation. If you have a range that's >3x your 99th percentile requirements and it's at full SOC every morning, who cares how long it takes to charge?
No one. But if you are driving to school and you have to charge twice along the way, then it becomes a very big deal.

I went to school in Boston; I lived in NY at the time. I'd go back 4-5 times a year to visit. In my first EV (a Leaf) I'd have to charge 3 times along the way. If I had to wait 3 hours each time, that would have turned a 4 hour trip into a 13 hour trip, which just isn't doable. But a 1 hour charge? Now it's 7 hours, which is barely doable.

Of course, there are other EV or EV like solutions - like a Bolt, which would only need to charge once, or a PHEV, which wouldn't need to stop at all (but would burn gas.) But as EV manufacturers try to appeal to a wider and wider market, fast charging becomes a significant selling point.
 
Arlo1 said:
A blanket statement saying that 200kwh in a single car battery is bad for the environment has no meaning as we don't know the production process of said future battery. If it's made at a solar power gigafactory than it might be 100% environmentaly friendly.

It is bad because a 200kWh battery will weight 700kg+ and that weight will cause more consumption It also casues more structural weight for the vehicle, more road damage, it will consume more space because it will be larger and so on...

I admit this is more a problem in Europe than in the US where everything is bigger.

A modern battery cell will last 2.000 to 5.000 full cycles. A 200kWh battery in a low efficiency vehicle will be able to drive lets say 600km/cycle.

so the cells could to up to 3 million km, which nobody will use on the car. So the cells will die of age, most of their potential will be unused.

No matter the energy consumption, the resources needed for a 200kwh are double the resources needed for a 100kWh battery and the main ecological problem comes from copper and aluminum, the most critical element will be cobalt. The electricity source for building the cells itself has an impact, but not a huge one.
And if a look at the Gigafactory 1 I see little public transport, no bikes, but hundreds of large cars from the employees that often drive many, many miles day per day to work somewhere in the desert.
Would be interesting to see a calculation on that.

Cobalt is scare and why waste it for 200kWh batteries for s sports vehicle that you can not allowed to drive at half its top speed in 98% of the world. It's just a Fetish product. That#s fine, but doen't call it "environmental friendly", it's a symbol on stupid waste of resources by Hiomo sapiens.

In my opinion a much wiser design would be a 100kWh battery that can be charged at 300-400kW of power.

Make a efficient vehicle that runs on 25kWh/100km at highway speed (98% of the world) and you are perfectly fine with 3 hours driving and 20 minute charging. Make good high quality cells and you can do that "forever".

An exception is the German Autobahn, if you want to drive 200km/h your 100kWh battery will only last for 60-90 minutes of driving, but that's 2% of the world and even here only 2% of the Autobahn drivers will drive 200km/h, most drive significantly slower.
 
Hillhater said:
Cephalotus said:
.....It is bad because a 200kWh battery will weight 700kg+ ......
:shock: :?: Tesla's 100kWh pack already weighs 650 kg !!s.

I included future improvements. obviously adding a 1300kg 200kWh battery to a "sports car" would sound even more nonsense to me.

Maybe Musk builds to many rockets to get a bit more realistic on the "fuel to freight" ratio of cars again.

But who knows if there will ever be such a car to buy from Tesla. First they have to build their model 3 and sell them on the price they promised. Andy maybe, maybe, they will be able to earn some money with it.
 
Status
Not open for further replies.
Back
Top