New Battery Range & Pack Architecture [Announced at Battery Day]

[ajdelange]

If you understand how to wire a house.....

If you understood how to wire a house you wouldn't make such a suggestion. Please remove it. I have reported it to the administrators.

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[zxylene]

I watched the Battery Day presentation, and understood Elon to indicate that high nickel batteries would be used in the new Semi and the Cyber Truck. This would lead me to believe the new 4680 battery would indeed be used in the Cyber Truck.
With the new tables design which allows the electrons to flow out , or discharge the battery faster, one assume the battery would have similar characteristics when charging.
I believe Tesla is working right now on the means to charge the CT faster than current methods.

As for range: I believe it is KING!

I also believe with the new 4680 battery we should see close to the 50 percent increase in range due to the new design and integration into the Exoskeleton frame. I believe this will happen, and I believe it will happen by the time the CT comes out later next year. I see this happening because Tesla is already making these batteries by the tens of thousands now.

One thing Tesla was quiet about was the expected battery life. I think that was smart. However, one might think since the new 4680 will be structurally part of the vehicle it should last a very long time. Let’s say maybe a million miles? Who knows? Stranger things have happened when Tesla is involved!

With a 520 mile range that is 780,000 miles with the current 1500 cycle life. over a million with just 2000 cycles. Longer battery life is one very good reason for a larger battery you can keep charge to 60% for even longer life. There are batteries with over 3000 ( think even 4000) cycle life if they get that a trimotor cyber truck would get over 1.5 million miles and a dual motor would be around 1 million.

 

[Crissa]

Yep, if you know what you're doing, you just need one of these: https://www.amazon.com/EGS107501G2KIT-10-7501G2-Detailed-Instructions-Flexible/dp/B005FQJD7K

But we don't know the ratings on the Cybertruck yet, so we'll have to wait.

-Crissa

 

[Frank W]

I don't get all the comments about range I guess a lot of long haul travelers. I do get and understand towing it will likely decrease range 40% maybe 50% but for me and many people I know I tow a trailer over 150 miles never and if I needed to do that a 15 min stop to charge would not be a big deal. I have standard range model 3 and I rarely charge it above 60% for daily driving 70 mile commute and various store and sports trips for kids. I drove to FL from PA for the first time in my life. (always fly) it was a great trip with wife and kids the stops broke up the hungry and bathroom breaks and the car was ready before us every time. We drove to Tenn a normal don't drink anything and hope you don't have to pee so you can drive almost straight to a great non stressful trip. We also went to OC, MD 2 times and we could have drove without charging barely, we still stopped for food and bathroom. This is the most we have ever traveled in one summer. Normally it is one trip to beach (drive) visit friends in Tenn every couple years (drive) and normally any trip over 6 hours driving or so we fly. It could be a group of people that drive long drive straight thru alot. but I think for most people that in reality is rare and a few 15 - 20 min stops would not hurt or might happen anyhow. I drove a good bit we got the car in April and have over 13,000 mile on it already. And because of the stuff going on our usual sports tournaments and commutes are way less I would say easily half of what we normally drive. Normally put on about 40,000 miles a year.

The last sentence threw me for a loop after reading your post!! 40k in one year???

 

[Turtle]

I don't get all the comments about range I guess a lot of long haul travelers. I do get and understand towing it will likely decrease range 40% maybe 50% but for me and many people I know I tow a trailer over 150 miles never and if I needed to do that a 15 min stop to charge would not be a big deal. I have standard range model 3 and I rarely charge it above 60% for daily driving 70 mile commute and various store and sports trips for kids. I drove to FL from PA for the first time in my life. (always fly) it was a great trip with wife and kids the stops broke up the hungry and bathroom breaks and the car was ready before us every time. We drove to Tenn a normal don't drink anything and hope you don't have to pee so you can drive almost straight to a great non stressful trip. We also went to OC, MD 2 times and we could have drove without charging barely, we still stopped for food and bathroom. This is the most we have ever traveled in one summer. Normally it is one trip to beach (drive) visit friends in Tenn every couple years (drive) and normally any trip over 6 hours driving or so we fly. It could be a group of people that drive long drive straight thru alot. but I think for most people that in reality is rare and a few 15 - 20 min stops would not hurt or might happen anyhow. I drove a good bit we got the car in April and have over 13,000 mile on it already. And because of the stuff going on our usual sports tournaments and commutes are way less I would say easily half of what we normally drive. Normally put on about 40,000 miles a year.

Great! If range isn’t important for you, we range people are happy for you.

 

[ajdelange]

charge speed is basically defined by the battery resistance, they GREATLY decreased this, which means speeds could be faster.

Battery internal resistance is a consideration of course but I wouldn't say it is the determining factor. The determining factors are the capacity of the charger and the maximum rate at which the cell can be safely charged. The biggest charger Tesla has now is rated 250 kW and the biggest battery it puts in its cars is 100 kWh That's 2.5C (at low SoC). It would take 0.4 hr to charge it fully. The CT will have a 180 kWh battery (probably) and it will, therefore, from this same charger charge at 250/180 = 1.39C. It would take 0.72 hr to charge it fully. Each cell charges at this rate. For a given cell internal resistance each cell in the CT dissipates (1.38/2.5)^2 = 0.309 times as much power as the cells in the S but there are 1.8 times as many of them so the total power dissipation ratio is 0.56. The CT needs a more modest cooling system but simply because the charge rate is slower.

The S has demonstrated that the cells can be safely charged at 2.5C. The rate of charge of the CT could probably be doubled safely to 1.38*2 = 2.76 halving charging time. Thus doubling charging rate does not run us afoul of the major consideration: the maximum multiple of C at which we can safely charge. The power dissipation would go up to 1.8*(2.76/2.5)^2 = 2.19 times that of the S and over twice the heat would have to be disposed of by the cooling system. Now if the cells in the CT had half the internal resistance that the ones in the S do that power would drop in half to 1.1 times the S's. This is where cell resistance comes into the picture and it is important. If we can't get the cell resistance down we have to double the capacity of the cooling system. That's not undoable but it is a burden. Even so, it is not the limitation. The limitation is that there aren't any 500 kW Super Chargers. At the moment. Putting two ports in the truck and pulling it up to a pair of V3's does in fact give us access to a 500 kW Super Charger so having lower cell resistance is indeed important as it means a smaller cooling system is adequate for charging at such rates.

The other side of the coin is discharge. Half the cell resistance means half the power loss and thus higher efficiency at any motor load level.

 

[ajdelange]

Great! If range isn’t important for you, we range people are happy for you.

Sandy Munroe resurrected an interesting perspective on this by recalling how his uncle would pull up to the pumps and say to the attendent "Hey Fred. Put in a bucks worth." I well remember doing that in my youth. A buck's worth was over 5 gallons (and you got a Flintstones tumbler) whereas a buck only got you half a gallon of beer. Obviously I needed the beer more than the range. But the system worked well. Until I had to make a long trip. The funny thing is that's how I fuel now. Every night I put in about a buck's worth. Weird.

The mind is strange and thinking of this reminded me that most of these $1 fueling episodes took place in New Jersey where I grew up and this got me to thinking of what I believe to be one of the most compelling questions of our time: "Why does New Jersey, that won't allow you to pump your own gas, allow you to plug in your Tesla?"

The question of range has certainly been hashed and rehashed on this and other fora to the point that pureed might be a better word than hashed but I think the most incitefull comment I have ever seen came from a pilot who likened it to extra runway. Most of the time you don't need it but when you do, you do.

 

[Frank W]

And you always got S & H Green Stamps. Oregon doesn’t let you fill your own tank either and some seem to think that it creates jobs but they still don’t offer to clean your windshield or check under the hood!

 

[Hoppi]

The mind is strange and thinking of this reminded me that most of these $1 fueling episodes took place in New Jersey where I grew up and this got me to thinking of what I believe to be one of the most compelling questions of our time: "Why does New Jersey, that won't allow you to pump your own gas, allow you to plug in your Tesla?"

Queue the new rules in New Jersey that mandate you to call the local gas station to get an attendant to come stop by your house to plug in your vehicle for you each night. And then to come back in the early morning again to unplug for you. LOL.

Or perhaps your local homeless person could go from home to home plugging and unplugging for the neighborhood in exchange for a tiny home and enough pay for food. Quite the government program that would be.

 

[Frank W]

Interesting to read Elon’s 26th Sept tweet indicating that they have been using the new cells for months. If that’s the case then they are getting real world testing in those vehicles, whichever ones they are in?

 

[Hoppi]

Interesting to read Elon’s 26th Sept tweet indicating that they have been using the new cells for months. If that’s the case then they are getting real world testing in those vehicles, whichever ones they are in?

Yeah, I was wondering if they are in some actual customer cars or if they are only in Tesla owned cars so far. It would be interesting if all of the new cars being built on one of the models were already getting the new batteries but we just don't know about it. At least till Sandy Munroe gets one and tears it apart to find the new batteries.

 

[Luke42]

Yeah, I was wondering if they are in some actual customer cars or if they are only in Tesla owned cars so far. It would be interesting if all of the new cars being built on one of the models were already getting the new batteries but we just don't know about it. At least till Sandy Munroe gets one and tears it apart to find the new batteries.

I took that statement mean that Tesla had been driving the new cells around in Tesla-owned prototype vehicles for months.

Changing the battery cell size is big architectural change to their vehicles, which Sandy Munro credibly suggests they can simplify how the rest of vehicle is constructed. Given how big the change is, it probably makes sense to make all of these changes together (instead of having to design two distinct battery packs, one of which would have a limited future). A customer probably would have noticed some of these changes.

 

[Turtle]

And you always got S & H Green Stamps. Oregon doesn’t let you fill your own tank either and some seem to think that it creates jobs but they still don’t offer to clean your windshield or check under the hood!

I remember those days!

 

[Crissa]

Great! If range isn’t important for you, we range people are happy for you.

The point is, you're probably making those stops to go pee, anyhow. Might as well on-board some electrons.

....but they still don’t offer to clean your windshield or check under the hood!

They don't offer because they're not allowed to. If a station doesn't allow attendants to handle cash but the station takes cash, I don't use those stations. I expect them to treat their employees well, and that's a sign they don't.

I live in California and my town's station is full-serve all day (and vend-serve all night) which is pretty cool. But.... They don't have backup power, so during the power outages, no has. On the other hand, my bike was charged (because I can plug it into anything). So my spouse kept borrowing my bike!

-Crissa

 

[Frank W]

@Crissa I understand your point regarding the employees and handling money. I just saw a article regarding Zero & Polaris with a 10 year partnership. Hopefully that turns into some good products.

I have lived in Monterey years ago and Santa Cruz was always a good destination to get out of the fog.