Why Tesla batteries are better than everyone else’s. - Page 1
Forum section: electronics / general

author: DougSpindler
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: September 04, 2020, 10:35:16 am
content: Interesting interview on why Tesla’s batteries are better than everyone else’s.Along with what Tesla is doing right and how all of the other EV car manufactures suck.Video is well worth watching.What are solid state batteries?https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WigjD2CZAJE&feature=youtu.be&ab_channel=EforElectric

author: Marco
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: September 04, 2020, 05:23:21 pm
content: Quote from: DougSpindler on September 04, 2020, 10:35:16 amBatteries with solid electrolytes.

author: f4eru
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: September 04, 2020, 11:44:11 pm
content: Yes, Munro makes impressive studies, and he points his customers (tradidionnal OEMs) to their weak spots.Tesla will remain unbeatable for a few years, at least, given how fast they improve compared to old school development.

author: NiHaoMike
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: September 05, 2020, 12:38:42 am
content: Quote from: DougSpindler on September 04, 2020, 10:35:16 amQuite a long ways to go before they're practical for EVs.

author: DougSpindler
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: September 05, 2020, 12:45:38 am
content: Quote from: NiHaoMike on September 05, 2020, 12:38:42 amTesla recently purchased a company working on solid state batteries and then went dark. This is suppose to be the "fusion" technology of batteries. The technology is "just" about there, right?

author: sibeen
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: September 05, 2020, 01:28:32 am
content: Well that was a complete waste of 25 minutes. The video is content free unless you really want to watch a Tesla ad.Not one figure quoted in a video purporting to explain why Tesla batteries are better; instead we get gems like:"Their electronics are decades ahead of everyone else" and when talking about the pcbs "you have to invent new physics sometimes".Unsurprisingly the show was sponsored by a mob that sells Tesla ad-ons.

author: DougSpindler
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: September 05, 2020, 01:34:01 am
content: Quote from: sibeen on September 05, 2020, 01:28:32 amYou are mistaken. The show might be selling Tesla add-ons, but the guys they interviewed do not. What they sell are tear down reports and the guy selling the Tesla tear-down report is selling it for just $10. You might have missed that. Other posters have said the guy they interviewed, Sandy is very well respected.

author: sibeen
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: September 05, 2020, 01:38:44 am
content: Not a single figure quoted. It's an ad.

author: DougSpindler
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: September 05, 2020, 01:54:07 am
content: Quote from: sibeen on September 05, 2020, 01:38:44 am@sibeen I found this video where he talks about the detailed report with all of the number you want. It’s $90,000. He also mentions another report he would charge $140,000. This video is an ad for the reports he created for Tesla. How can you say the video you watched was an ad? He mentioned a report you could buy for just $5.00.https://youtu.be/ls6nGG7s7JU

author: Siwastaja
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: September 05, 2020, 06:06:50 am
content: Didn't watch the video; but I think I know the answer to the question. And it's simple engineering and management, no battery chemistry voodoo involved.Tesla batteries fundamentally have no special secret sauce - at least this was the case some years ago, when they already were better than everyone else's. Today they probably do have their "own" chemistry-level tricks, but these are just fine-tuning and play no fundamental role in their success.Tesla just made fundamentally right - I would even dare to say obvious choices, and others made stupidly wrong choices. I never understood why this happens because for me, the Tesla way was just obvious. I actually ran the same design process (in my head, and on paper) before I knew about the fact that Tesla is doing it.Before going into the top-secret design procedure that led to the original Tesla battery pack, let me show you whatothersdo.1) Management: create a lot of power points. Find a lot of partners. Create a lot of research projects, and agreements to buy the results. The goal is to invent a wheel.2) Engineering, as instructed by the management: Read a lot of academic studies. Do your own basic research. Invent a wheel! Or in this case: invent a battery.The focus is in "innovating", not in results. The result is mediocre and expensive battery technology.What Tesla did, is obvious to any engineer, actually it helps if you donothave a background in battery science. At that point, Tesla didn't want to develop their own battery chemistry. They didn't want to look at how batteries worked internally in university research labs 10-20 years earlier. When you need an opamp, what do you do? You go to Digikey and sort by specs that are important to you, and buy the freaking opamp. Surprisingly, Tesla was the only (succesful) one that applied the same to the battery pack:1) Scan through the whole market of existing battery cells. Pick one with the best energy density (Wh/kg) available.2) Scan through the whole market of existing battery cells. Pick one with the best price ($/kWh) available.Step 3) would be, choose whether to optimize for energy density, or price, and create some weighing function to select best compromise.BUT, it happened to turn out, that certain cells areboththe best available regarding energy density, and price, at the same time! You know the feeling when the opamp with your requirements also happens to be the cheapest. So the cell selection function becomes very easy; you have a few very good options that shine on all metrics. Just buy 'em! In around 2010, Panasonic's new flagship product NCR18650B would have been one of them. (Maybe this wastoo easyfor the others? I mean,Iwas able to build near Tesla-spec battery packs at my own lab, far exceeding anything else on market but Tesla! And I'm just an individual with very limited budget.)The result is, as seen around 2010, to buy 18650 cells from Panasonic. They got some 240Wh/kg right from the start; others were aiming for some 150Wh/kg with some weirdo chemistries. They probably had a good deal with Panasonic (such as $200/kWh at the time); at similar time (or a bit later), I went with Samsung cells becauseIcould get them with significantly lower price, but I have to go through multiple middle-men.All of this success is completely based on the fact that companies like Panasonic (and their competition like Sony, Samsung, LG; competition keeps things going) had done their own extensive R&Dover two decadesand concentrated all the results in their 18650 cell product lines, and ramped up production enough to bring unit costs down. This was the highest high-tech available at the time, and still is.Tesla likely understood the significance of energy density and took it really seriously. My opinion still is you need around 400Wh/kg cell-level for a really successful EV that can replace the gas vehicles in 99% of cases. When you compare whether to use 150Wh/kg, or 250Wh/kg, as was the case in early 2010's, this becomesthemain parameter. 150Wh/kg sucks so much it's a total showstopper. You can work with 250Wh/kg. This defines whether your car has a range of 250 or 400 km. Some management people behind Powerpoints won't necessarily understand how important this single parameter is, it can't be compromised.tldr is, if you want state-of-the-art battery, just buy state-of-the-art cells from the established manufacturers, instead of talking with people you think might develop the state-of-the-art cell for you.Of course,nowTesla has their own cell manufacturing, and probably have done research on cell chemistry. But theirstarting pointwas to use the state of the art off-the-shelf technology. Which often really is far ahead of what's seen on limited-budget research labs, quite frankly. In a similar way, if you want a state-of-the-art smartphone, you buy a Samsung or Apple, instead of going into the local university to look what they have in their research lab.

author: DougSpindler
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: September 05, 2020, 12:30:02 pm
content: @ Siwastaja. You got about 30% right of what’s in the video, but you missed several key points of what Tesla is doing “right” and what the other card companies got wrong with batteries, technology, designing and the way they manufacture cars. One thing you missed is Tesla manufactures their own chips, something the other car companies should be doing but they aren’t.The video is worth watching as the guy in the video sure seems to be one of the Worlds experts on auto batteries. These guys do tear-downs and tear-appart. Something that Teals brilliantly designed for battery technology is the octovalve.There is another video where they put the octovale in a CT scanner to study how it works and designed. This is a key component of the battery system.Watching the video you really have to appreciate what Tesla has accomplished. This is something the other car companies management would never have allowed. One really has to appreciate what Elon and Tesla designers has created. Tesla is the iPhone of the car industry in a sea of dumb cell phones.

author: Siwastaja
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: September 05, 2020, 12:52:48 pm
content: Quote from: DougSpindler on September 05, 2020, 12:30:02 pmWhat "chips"? I have seen the teardown photos of the Tesla model S battery pack PCBs, and I don't remember exact part numbers, but they used the most bog-standard and one of the cheapest 6-cell BMS chip on the market, with very small (relative to the pack size) balancing resistors, while others speculate about advanced redistributive balancing and all sort of shit. This is obviously the right thing to do, you gain nothing on overengineering battery management ICs.I don't know what they do havetoday, but their success inbatterieswas clearly started with the most ordinary COTS li-ion technology, basically building an oversized laptop battery pack. Roadster is a better example because there they didn't have such advanced cooling system yet and even the cells were completely off-the-shelf (model S cells were already custom ordered without the PTC cap), yet it showed superior performance and superior price-capacity ratio to any other player.Tesla seems to understand the boundaries when they should just use the best parts available on the market, and when they need to roll their own, and when they do roll their own, they do it big time. They pick the best solution thatis availableand then go on to refine it.

author: DougSpindler
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: September 05, 2020, 04:08:12 pm
content: @ Siwastaja. Tesla is getting million miles with their batteries. Which is double or triple the life of the car. Have you looked at their octovale design? Brilliant. The battery shape and battery bundling all are part of the success Tesla’s million mile batteries.

author: mzzj
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: September 05, 2020, 06:56:06 pm
content: Lots of talk and very little actual information in that video.

author: schmitt trigger
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: September 05, 2020, 07:33:52 pm
content: The answer is straightforward,It is a well known business adage that the large, dominant companies are slow to adapt to paradigm shifts which disrupt their current technology or business model.There are dozens examples that you can google.But I like an analogy that an economics prof once gave:If the railroad companies had realized they were in the transportation business rather than in the rail business, nowadays we would have Santa Fe airlines or Union Pacific airways.

author: DougSpindler
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: September 05, 2020, 07:37:22 pm
content: Quote from: mzzj on September 05, 2020, 06:56:06 pmThen spend the $90,000 for the summary report or $149,000 for the full detailed report.In the video Sandy says he's offer a $5.00 nearly 500 page executive report.You do realize the guy is in the business of making money tearing products apart and offering an independent analysis. From what others have posted he is very, very good at what he does.

author: DougSpindler
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: September 05, 2020, 07:44:45 pm
content: Quote from: schmitt trigger on September 05, 2020, 07:33:52 pmGood point. Look at what happened to Kodak. They invented the first digital camera and thought no one would want a digital photo. Or look at a photo that was not on paper.https://www.spectacularfailures.org/episode/2019/07/15/kodak-misses-its-moment

author: schmitt trigger
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: September 05, 2020, 07:52:36 pm
content: And of course; the way Xerox gave away the point-and-click computer interface to Apple.

author: mzzj
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: September 05, 2020, 07:55:13 pm
content: Quote from: DougSpindler on September 05, 2020, 07:37:22 pmSorry, based on the video not going to happen."They have custom chips" ..for christ sake.

author: DougSpindler
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: September 05, 2020, 08:13:45 pm
content: Quote from: mzzj on September 05, 2020, 07:55:13 pm

author: wraper
author_rank: Unknown
timestamp: September 05, 2020, 08:22:32 pm
content: Quote from: mzzj on September 05, 2020, 06:56:06 pmThen why don't you watch Munro videos where they actually disassembled model Y.

author: wraper
author_rank: Unknown
timestamp: September 05, 2020, 08:28:21 pm
content: Quote from: Siwastaja on September 05, 2020, 12:52:48 pmI don't know about their battery management chips but they designed their self driving chip in house which is an order of magnitude more powerful than one made by Nvidia other companies work with.

author: DougSpindler
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: September 05, 2020, 10:26:05 pm
content: @wraperThose videos are very informative. Especially the last one. Lots of good information on Telsa, BMW and Chevy batteries. I learned a lot and have to admit I get why so many engineers and technical people praise Tesla. I own a Volt and am very pleased with it. As the Volt is not being made anymore I thinking my next vehicle will be a Tesla, maybe a Cybertruck. It sure looks ugly, but functionality wise, it's brilliant. Hard to think this would be perfect for farmers.