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Elon Musk Says Larger Batteries Might Be On the Way
mknewman writes "Elon Musk intimated that more-powerful batteries could be on the way for the Model S. The most potent battery pack currently offered in the Model S holds 85 kWh of juice, or enough for 265 miles of driving. Musk wasn't terribly specific, however: 'There is the potential for bigger battery packs in the future, but it would probably be maybe next year or something like that. The main focus is . . . how do we reduce the cost per kWh of storage in the battery pack?' In other words, Musk seems less concerned with stronger battery packs than making cheaper battery packs for the upcoming mid-size sedan, which is expected to be unveiled at the 2015 Detroit auto show. 'Our goal is to drop the cost per kWh by 30 percent to 40 percent.'"
Just strap it into the passenger seat, plug it into the lighter socket, and head straight for the HOV lane!
.
Prisencolinensinainciusol. Ol Rait!
Don't forget when 3D printing this car at home, print out the battery separately in case it catches fire while printing.
The electric utility companies have so much excess capacity at night, mostly idling or off line. If they could come up with special meters and sell electricity cheaply overnight, the break-even point calculations vis-a-vis gas cars will shift dramatically. The utility companies will get a piece of the transportation energy market, currently shared only between oil companies. That is the motivation for the utilities. We need to set dog against dog, thief against thief and coal burning utilities against oil companies.
I wish someone with the charisma of Elon or pig headedness of Jobs would make the top honchos of these organizations and companies to pay attention.
sed -e 's/Chuck Norris/Rajnikant/g' joke > fact
Of course he's concerned about cost. The battery cost is a significant percentage of the cost of Tesla cars.
Reduce cost of batteries -> lower price -> increased sales -> more profits to be funneled towards development of better batteries with greater storage.
Thankfully, still not as big as the fuel fire you get when one of those goes up.
Why do people insist that batteries have to be at least 2-3 times as good as hydrocarbons before they can be useful?
You know, where when you're on the highway you pull your energy from the road itself which would have power cables in it. Unfortunately I think I've read that would be really expensive. (Plus I think doing an induced current is less efficient. Been awhile since I've looked up anything on that though.)
Did you know 80 to 90% of the moderators on slashdot wouldn't recognize a troll even if one dragged them under a bridge.
You want a dead end? Hydrogen is as close to a dead end you can get.
it would probably be maybe next year or something like that.
Sounds like he has a handle on making accurate project estimates
"First they came for the slanderers and i said nothing."
Elon Musk says larger batteries might be on the way
And monkeys might fly out of my butt.
Now that would be news.
systemd is Roko's Basilisk.
You'd do fine in the onion.
I don't care if I'm wrong. I only care about everyone obtaining something from the discussion.
zillions of miles per charge... unless we use inter-stellar mode? you go mr. musk. free the innocent stem cells never a better time to consider ourselves in relation to each other & our new clear options.. stop dreaming?
"Why do people insist that batteries have to be at least 2-3 times as good as hydrocarbons before they can be useful?" ..you might have noticed he used "kilometers"
because in europe, cars that go 1000 km on a tank aren't really that uncommon(and current world record for production car being somewhere around 2000(!) km though that takes some preeetty careful driving)...
but let's say 6 liters per 100km. 60 liters tank. what do you get? 1000km.
that's not really the point though, the point is that it has to charge under 15 minutes while eating after 500km to do another 500km for it to be a long range replacement.
world was created 5 seconds before this post as it is.
I don't see people saying that, mostly just that they expect parity with ICE vehicles before it will truly be useful outside of limited circumstances. For example, even that fairly generous 265 miles just isn't enough to make an electric vehicle attractive to me. I would require somewhere on the order of twice that, a little over 500 miles, to match the typical single-day range of my mid-size sedan. Right now, my personal, lay opinion is that electric vehicles are currently suitable for short commutes and major metropolitan usage. Until the range approaches that of a typical 4-cylinder equipped compact or mid-size sedan, use outside of those circumstances would periodically require a supplemental vehicle. Plus, there is the whole question of recharging on long trips. Once one can get an electric car with a 400-500 mile range that can recharge overnight at basically any hotel, then I expect to start seeing mainstream, suburban drivers picking up EVs.
This is easily achievable with battery swap stations at a much lower density than current petrol / diesel pumps. Or build cars so a variety of range extenders can be added when needed. The one demo'ed by Phinergy gives 1600km range and weighs 25kg. Or a fuel cell or small ICE unit, preferably one that's better than the REx in the BMW i3.
Pain is merely failure leaving the body
The problem with this assertion is that you've used the fuel efficiency of a typical european mid sized car (around the size of a jetta or something like that), but the fuel tank size of a very large car/SUV. I don't know of a single small-mid sized 4 door car with a 60 litre fuel tank. Most are closer to 30 litre.
Right, I have no problem with expecting an electric car to be able to drive for an entire day without charging. But then expecting it to be able to charge in 10 minutes is ridiculous. For me, as soon as it can make it for 12 hours without a charge, it's good, as I can go to bed, and charge it for 4-8 hours without any issue at that point.
As the other responder said, the danger of fires with batteries is far less than that with fossil fuels, but even more - there is tech a few years off that will make them even safer. Just the other day someone developed a form of lithium ion battery that is significantly less prone to fire, which is amazing given how much energy is stored in those things. It's nearly impossible to design something that holds such an enormous amount of energy without it being dangerous if damaged and accidentally discharged.
"We must hold the just balance and set ourselves as resolutely against improper corporate influence on the one hand, as
I don't see people saying that, mostly just that they expect parity with ICE vehicles before it will truly be useful outside of limited circumstances.
I don't hear people saying that either. Mostly they just say that electric vehicles are too damn expensive.
I don't know of a single small-mid sized 4 door car with a 60 litre fuel tank. Most are closer to 30 litre.
Even better! A 30 liter take fills faster. But you know the best part about a car that uses liquid fuel? If worst comes to worst, you can hike a short distance to a gas station to bring back a small can of fuel. You CAN'T do that with electric. Sorry, Elon Musk is as gay as his name and don't forget he's from South Africa. Electric cars are not new, they were never really the answer before, and this pasty face bastard can't fix that. He makes expensive toys, that's it.
The Jetta has a 55litre tank, as do most other European sedans. 1000km range is the top end, but 850 to 900km is common.
Also, bear in mind that in Europe the Jetta is considered a large car.
"there is tech a few years off that will make them even safer.there is tech a few years off that will make them even safer."
Just like the singularity it seems that improved battery tech is always about 5-10 years down the road.
http://www.rootstrikers.org/
It will be capable of delivering 1.21 jigawatts
Wha? My Ford Focus hatchback routinely gets below 6l/100km, and has a 55l tank. Not sure where you'd put the Focus in your classification, but either way having both below-6l perfomance and a over 30l tank is clearly not so uncommon.
The awesome thing is that it really is always 5-10 years down the road -- and things are rolling off of that 5-10 year timeline into production all the time.
If you don't think batteries have been getting better, you aren't paying attention.
Right, because we continue to invest in the science and engineering behind them.
Batteries are vastly better than they were 10 years ago, because they've been in continual development. The batteries of a decade ago were similarly much more advanced than the ones that came before.
Batteries are one of the easiest areas to see the "in a few years this tech will be amazing" future speak actually pay off.
Unless you can come up with battery tech that offers at least 700-800 kilometres range and a maximum recharge time of 5-10 minutes, electric cars are a dead end. Hydrogencars ftw. That is all.
The vast majority of commutes already happen well within the range of current electric cars.
It is hilarious to see all the naysayers claim that electric cars are doomed because they don't fit 100% of all possible uses cases for vehicles.
Also, as someone who works on hydrogen research, don't lump us all in with the anonymous idiot above me. Electric cars definitely have a strong future.
To be fair, my Xsara Picasso has a 60 litre tank.
The Ford Focus has a 55 litre tank, which is the next size down.
The battery swap idea is a dead end... I am not going to swap out my nice new $30k battery for some random unknown age battery from a stranger. Just not going to happen. The towable range extender is also stupid and not going to happen, the average driver sucks at driving without a trailer, with one, look out...
Even better! A 30 liter take fills faster. But you know the best part about a car that uses liquid fuel? If worst comes to worst, you can hike a short distance to a gas station to bring back a small can of fuel. You CAN'T do that with electric.
Yeah, we'd have to build a network of electric pipes around the country, pushing electrical power all over the country as if it were as light as air.
Oh heavens how will that be done, when we can't even convert heat to electricity with reasonable facility, making simply burning something impossible to make electricity from, or even I don't know, pedaling with a bicycle. And even solar is no help, because you might be driving your car underground in the cities of the Mole People!
90% of the trips of 90% of the population can be met with existing battery vehicles.
The problem is that people will not buy something that cannot do 10% of what they want to do, when the importance of doing that thing they do not do often is around 80% to them.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
It would probably be a service you subscribe to, not a barter economy. Who cares about owning a "nice new battery"? It's a consumable anyway. A guaranteed minimum quality of service is all that i would require, and this is easily enforced.
"They were pure niggers." – Noam Chomsky
I find the perception that battery tech is not improving rather bizarre. You realise we have laptops that last 12-24 hours today, when only a decade ago the very best laptops lasted only 4 hours, right?
As a Jetta owner, I can assure you, it's manual is where I got the 30 litre figure from.
I prefer to keep my trucks for 6-9 years, I buy them new and keep them in great condition, it is a pride of ownership thing.
That's simply not the case. The smallest tank I ever had in an european car was 50 liters, and this was a compact with a small 1,2 liter 3-cyl-engine. The company car has 55 liters, and my previous car had 74 liters. I have yet to see an european car with a 30 liter tank, the only one that came close was the old East German Trabant, which indeed had only a 25 liter tank, but this was a car with a 600 ccm 2-cyl-two-stroke engine.
Sorry for the second reply, but...
Also, as a european, no, a Jetta is not considered a larger car. A Passat is, a golf is considered a small car, a jetta is considered a mid sized car.
Odd that Ford's web page on it's specs claims it's got a 45 litre tank.
I find the perception that battery tech is not improving rather bizarre. You realise we have laptops that last 12-24 hours today, when only a decade ago the very best laptops lasted only 4 hours, right?
How much of that is improved batteries and how much of it is improved computation per watt of modern laptop hardware?
The problem is that people want a car that covers all their uses, not just 90%. Most people own one car. For families that own two, one could be all electric, but not both.
The future is in cars with range extension, then when batteries come out that can drive 1,000 miles, you can start to drop the range extension.
If you follow this rule, there's no problem. Also, store it outdoors so it if blows itself up overnight it's not a problem.
Avoiding problems is easy, so long as you follow the rules.
The battery lease model does sound interesting on paper. Where you buy the car, but lease the battery and share it with everyone else. Spread the cost over 10 years, and charge a dollar or two to swap batteries. Maybe at the end of 10 years you get the next generation of battery or a deal on a newer car model that comes with it...
You do need to be able to recharge with level 2 chargers at home though. That is how it would work 90% of the time.
Which is true, the ones that an average person can afford (Leaf, for example) without stretching their finances have much more limited range. Suitable for someone living in a major metropolitan area who never needs to drive further than to an airport at the periphery, but not really for your average suburbanite. Hell, I live in a medium-sized city, and because different neighborhoods have different things I want, it isn't uncommon for me to rack up the range of a Leaf over the course of a day's errands without even thinking twice about it. For the price, the bang just isn't there yet. When it is, I'm in, because all environmental issues aside, electricity is just cheaper.
As a Jetta owner, I can assure you, it's manual is where I got the 30 litre figure from.
Current model is 68 litres.
When is your Jetta from?
http://www.carpages.co.uk/guide/volkswagen/volkswagen-jetta-sport-2.0-tdi.asp
All current UK spec models are between 53 and 60 litres.
http://www.carsite.co.uk/car-data/ford/focus/2013/estate/mpg
Directly from the Ford Focus brochure, 2013, from here: http://www.ford.co.uk/Cars/Foc...
Ford Focus 5 door (the hatch):
Fuel tank capacity (litres)
Petrol: 55 (62 for 2.0 litre)
Diesel: 53
For the Renault Zoe, you buy the car but lease / rent the battery. The car cost is about the same as the gas version
Pain is merely failure leaving the body
The battery swap idea is a dead end... I am not going to swap out my nice new $30k battery for some random unknown age battery from a stranger.
So instead you buy gasoline from a stranger?
Oh wait, the point is you don't buy a battery, you buy a service, and they handle the age and maintenance. Just like the gasoline you buy is from work done by somebody else. Now you may be one of the gasoline snobs who only buys from Chevron, but that's fine, it's still somebody else dealing with it.
Why can't you do the same with a battery?
36L for my Toyota Yaris Hybrid
44L for my Ford Fiesta
Mostly due to batteries. If you compare the power usage of laptops then, and now, you'll find that older laptops tended to use in the 10-20W range for their motherboard and CPU. Modern ultra books use a similar power level, while modern laptops use around 30-50W, and still get longer battery life.
Correction - there is no direct gas equivalent of the Zoe but it's about the same price after rebate as a similarly equipped Clio
Pain is merely failure leaving the body
Fair enough, that sounds like an option for many people as well, you do have to buy gas for cars anyway.
My 2012 VW GTI comes with a 14 (US) gallon (53 liter) gas tank. I'd assume same manufacturer, probably similar sized fuel tanks. If anything, the Jetta is a bigger car than my supped up golf, so I'd assume it'd have a bigger fuel tank.
Is that a manufacture rebate or government rebate? Something left off the conversation far too often is that once electric cars become popular, the government rebates will go away.
Agreed, for the price, they just aren't ready for prime time yet. Clearly that day will come, but it isn't today. For what a Nissan Leaf costs, you can buy a nicer, larger car, without the limits of electric. The price point of electric is just too high, for now...
It would be more accurate to say that I would buy the electricity from a stranger, not the battery. I don't swap out the gas tank on my truck at the station.
More like silicon chips.
The fact is that today's batteries are superior AND cheaper to what we had 10 years ago.
Just think of what a laptop battery cost 10 years ago and how long it lasted.
People do not. Oil companies, their investors, and paid trolls insist on that.
You shop at the flea market???
Do you have any sources for this claim?
Every source I've been able to find estimates a 2-3x increase in Lion capacity in the last 25 years.
http://www.enevate.com/eart/ca...
http://www.technologyreview.co...
You're also very wrong about laptop battery life. The increase in laptop battery life is almost entirely due to the huge advancements made in frequency scaling, advanced idle states, and fine grained power management (ie shutting down individual cores when not in use).
You'll find that new laptops (and cell phones) will still run their batteries down very fast when actually under load, but when doing normal desktop tasks all of the advanced power saving features on the silicon are vastly cutting down laptop power consumption. Lion capacity has very little to do with it.
Elon Musk Says Larger Batteries Might Be On the Way
Making batteries larger is easy and pointless,
storing more energy without making them larger would be great.
Disclaimer:
I didn't read TFA, of course.
Just judging from the headline, which I assume is an accurate summary.
and let it react with oxygen - which is abundand in our atmosphere! Bam, instant power with only ~50kg overhead to be transported!
"but let's say 6 liters per 100km. 60 liters tank. what do you get? 1000km."
Fuel economy is measured in miles per gallon, the metric equivalent of which is kilometres per litre
I can't get my head around an inverse measure..
Anyway not everyone needs to be able to go 1000Km in one trip, but 300 - 400Km would be useful, since cities are farther apart in the USA than EU
FWIW its 300Km from here to The Cities, and 400Km from FM to The Cities
And after 4 - 5 hours you'd probably want to stop for a meal, so your batteries can be recharged then (assuming a restaurant meal and not McD's or KFC)
One of the negative aspects of the leasing arrangement is that Renault is able to disable recharging the battery is the consumer stops paying.
That policy and especially that level of access is worrying - leaving EVs open to hackers, law enforcement or other 3rd parties.
Pain is merely failure leaving the body
2 words: Charge time.
Batteries are nowhere near as good as hydrocarbons on that front.
2 minutes vs 8 hours.
European cars all show fuel economy in liters/100km. I don't know why. Seemed odd to me at first, too.
Since everything does it that way, it's an easy lower-is-better comparison.
I'd be curious if anyone knows why it caught on to measure it that way. Maybe it's easier at the pump? If I put in 5L, then I can go 100km... ?
Yes, because your gas tank isn't made to be removed at the station without spending a couple of hours on it.
The swappable battery is another story. It will be designed for quick removal and replacement.
So why can't you do the same with a battery? You can trust their gas, kept in their tanks. Sometimes that may be to your detriment.
Tesla's announced battery swap option requires you to pick up your original battery on your return trip; if you don't, they'll bill you the price difference taking depreciation into account.
Fuel economy is measured in miles per gallon, the metric equivalent of which is kilometres per litre
I can't get my head around an inverse measure..
Living in a metric country (Canada), I refute your statement. The metric equivalent is litres per 100 kilometres.
It's more like 4 minutes versus 30 minutes, but the point is still fair. Luckily, Tesla's battery swap option should take about 90 seconds (beating refuelling), assuming they ever actually deploy them. So far, Tesla's battery swapping has been a paper launch.
People say the vast majority can operate within the range of a electric car. But I question that validity in many areas. Yes in a big city your average commute may be well within the range. But what about this range they all talk about? Just like my laptop battery its hours of life depends on what I do with it. Do I watch a movie, just surf the web or play a 3D game. Electric will remain a niche simply because it will not attract as many drivers as many proponents of all electric vehicles think.
When you buy a Tesla you are the same person who bought a Delorean or who buys a Leaf or a Corvette. You buy them because you know they are worthy of history and of value down the road. You know they won't be mass produced and they are unique. It will be very much the same for a self driving vehicle, a flying car or a hydrogen powered car. Does not mean they will be successful, just that some will find them important in history.
Mostly due to batteries. If you compare the power usage of laptops then, and now, you'll find that older laptops tended to use in the 10-20W range for their motherboard and CPU. Modern ultra books use a similar power level, while modern laptops use around 30-50W, and still get longer battery life.
No, mostly due to higher IPC, agressive power gating and deeper sleep stages. Here's the extended battery pack from my 2002 UltraPortable, 3600 mAh in 330 grams. In 2014 the extended battery for the Sony Vaio Pro 11 is 4690 mAh in 290 grams, that's about a 75% increase in power/gram in 12 years. There have not been any major revolutions in battery technology, it's still the same lithium-ion technology just a little more refined.
Live today, because you never know what tomorrow brings
How come it takes 60 days for ebay sellers to collect their funds on paypal when they sell a product and yet Elon Musk rides around happily in his spaceship laughing at them from space?
I used to drive non-stop from Los Angeles to San Francisco all the time (around 380 miles). And that was in a 1992 Chevy S-10. With modern fuel efficient vehicles that get 40+ mpg it's even more reasonable of a trip. I don't think it's unreasonable to ask for a battery that can go the same distance. Especially when charging the battery is going to take longer than a stop for lunch at some fast food joint.
BTW, there are some advantages to L/100km. MPG is exponential, so as the numbers get higher, there is actually a diminishing amount of savings. So upgrading from a car that gets 14 mpg to one that gets 17 mpg is the same savings as going from one that gets 33 mpg to 50 mpg. With L/100km it is linear so the savings stays the same along the entire scale. All you need to remember when seeing it, is that the lower the number the better the fuel economy (and anything lower than 6L/100km is pretty good efficiency).
Have you considered switching careers to developing batteries? In 50, 500, 5000 or even 50,000 years from now, we'll be using batteries because their inherent qualities and convenience make them a better choice than anything else.
Why OpalCalc is the best Windows calc
I still don't understand why so many people have their head in the clouds about battery tech. Yes, it's an extremely important, key, vital piece of the puzzle in terms of a better future. However there is absolutely zero reason to believe that advances in energy storage will be in any way similar (in scope or in pace) to advances in microprocessors. It's not magic.
Electric cars, as they are currently being marketed, will simply not be competitive with their ICE brethren in any remotely near-term scenario without advances that are extremely unlikely. Furthermore, if such advances were to occur, the disruption to the global economy would be immense, and there are a lot of major players with a nearly unimaginably tremendous vested interest in slowing - if possible, even stopping - such disruption.
It sometimes almost seems like the public is being lulled into a false sense of security about what sorts of things are going to be possible in the near future (and what aren't).
Once electric cars become popular the government rebates aren't needed anymore. From the government's POV because they've already done their job of kickstarting the technology, and from the buyers POV because the manufacturers price has fallen though scale and improved technology such that it's a good buy even without the rebate.
Every source I've been able to find estimates a 2-3x increase in Lion capacity in the last 25 years.
Oddly, 12 hours is about 3 times longer than 4 hours ;)
You'll find that new laptops (and cell phones) will still run their batteries down very fast when actually under load, but when doing normal desktop tasks all of the advanced power saving features on the silicon are vastly cutting down laptop power consumption. Lion capacity has very little to do with it.
Nope, my laptop lasts about 6 hours even under very heavy load, I would have been lucky to get 1 hour, let alone 2 hours out of a laptop a decade ago.
well - they seems to tell us about new fantastic improved super batteries. Then give us a nice but not large improvement. Semantics or just reality imposing its view?
The battery that is coming will not be SOLD with the cars. They make ZERO sense for regular car driving. 40, 60, and 85 kwh is perfect (though 40 was killed) for running around town.
What the coming 120 AND 160 KWH battery will be used for is long distance trips. You will simply to to the local service center, and swap your battery out with one of the LD ones. Then do your trip. If you are going to spend time at a remote location that has a service center, you will be able to swap back to a lower KWH battery, which will costs you less for the week. Then when you are ready to go, you simply change out for a fully charged 120/160 KWH battery and drive the 450-600 MPC that it gives you.
I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
Just like the singularity it seems that improved battery tech is always about 5-10 years down the road.
Pretty much true.
I've had laptops that ran on Lead Acid batteries, followed by ones that run on NiCad, and Lithium, then Li-Poly.
Seems like they were all about 5 to 10 years apart.
Seems like each time, we knew the new tech would arrive about 5 years in the future.
We are doomed to always be in this cycle, of using the best tech we have while waiting for rumored better tech form the future.
We even develop government programs to ensure that this perpetual waiting game remains perpetual.
We've all gotten used to it.
You'll be happier when you do.
Sig Battery depleted. Reverting to safe mode.
Every source I've been able to find estimates a 2-3x increase in Lion capacity in the last 25 years.
Oddly, 12 hours is about 3 times longer than 4 hours ;)
You'll find that new laptops (and cell phones) will still run their batteries down very fast when actually under load, but when doing normal desktop tasks all of the advanced power saving features on the silicon are vastly cutting down laptop power consumption. Lion capacity has very little to do with it.
Nope, my laptop lasts about 6 hours even under very heavy load, I would have been lucky to get 1 hour, let alone 2 hours out of a laptop a decade ago.
You may think you are proving a point, but the previous poster is correct. Li+ battery technology peaked in the 1990s. It is limited by the actual physcis involved. Most likely, what you are seeing is improvements in CPUs such as scalable frequencies, more efficient HDs or even SSDs, and changes to screen technology. Of course, it's also possible that with the shrinking of electronics and the increased size of laptops (17" screens), there is simply more room inside the case for larger battery packs.
Li+ is still highly used, but most research has moved beyond it to more advanced technologies, if for no other reason than we are running out of lithium.
Well Chevy is apparently looking to combine those two types of fire:
http://ftw.usatoday.com/2014/0...
http://abcnews.go.com/Sports/w...
Sig Battery depleted. Reverting to safe mode.
For all practical purposes, advanced fuel cells are functionally indistinguishable from batteries. Beyond being able to "recharge" through electrolysis of water, transfer of hydrogen gas (or adsorbed hydrogen or hydrocarbons) is faster than high current transfer of electricity. Hydrogen research is battery research.
Have you considered thinking about what you're saying before you go ahead and say it?
As far as I know, fuel cells are not solid-state and require refueling from potentially high pressure gas. It also limits the fuel source type, whereas a battery can use any fuel type (as they can all generate electricity, from coal to solar to fusion).
Why OpalCalc is the best Windows calc
Distance/Volume. Don't see anything raised to the power of a variable there.
And one that does 40 mpg will use half the fuel of one that does 20. Yeah, totally unintuitive.
Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."
I like the idea of towable range extenders, but if you're renting one, what are the advantages over automated battery swapping instead?
You can use the existing gasoline/diesel infrastructure. Big advantage since automated battery swapping infrastructure essentially does not exist yet.
Take 30 mins to eat...enjoy LOL
Eh, that's what you get from reading press releases. :)
New chemistries frequently have some particular thing they do really well, and a set of drawbacks. The problem you get is when you read the articles about "new battery has X% more energy density", or "new battery has X% higher charge/discharge rate", and expect to get both of those things in the same battery (much less a battery that isn't making tradeoffs unamenable to consumer use).
And batteries for consumer electronics are getting better over time, they're just not keeping up with best-chemistry-for-X in every factor X. Which isn't a reasonable thing to expect.
Mostly due to batteries. If you compare the power usage of laptops then, and now, you'll find that older laptops tended to use in the 10-20W range for their motherboard and CPU. Modern ultra books use a similar power level, while modern laptops use around 30-50W, and still get longer battery life.
No, mostly due to higher IPC, agressive power gating and deeper sleep stages. Here's the extended battery pack from my 2002 UltraPortable, 3600 mAh in 330 grams. In 2014 the extended battery for the Sony Vaio Pro 11 is 4690 mAh in 290 grams, that's about a 75% increase in power/gram in 12 years. There have not been any major revolutions in battery technology, it's still the same lithium-ion technology just a little more refined.
You're not comparing just the weight of the energy storage element, but also the weight of the casing. And that has changed a lot in the last 10 years.
FWIW it seems you need to increase the surface area of electrodes to increase battery capacity and this can be done with nanotechnology. The issue so far is reproducing some of these in mass production.
Just like the singularity it seems that improved battery tech is always about 5-10 years down the road.
Just like american cars having decent build quality is just 5-10 years down the road. My beat up, 15 year old hyundai has better build quality than what comes off the production lines at GM.
From what I've heard the 'physics limits' haven't been reached.
that's not really the point though, the point is that it has to charge under 15 minutes while eating after 500km to do another 500km for it to be a long range replacement.
I don't stop to eat, so it needs to be charged up after everyone in the vehicle is finished with the rest room.
the good ground has been paved over by suicidal maniacs
I don't foresee them sticking to that policy when there are hundreds of thousands or millions of battery-swap capable EVs on the road, especially since a battery that's too degraded to be the primary in an EV still has perhaps a decade of usefulness as stationary storage.
If there are enough cars & enough demand for battery swap, they'll offer a subscription plan similar to what Shai Agassi envisioned for Better Place.
Pain is merely failure leaving the body
Perhaps, but if there were that many battery-swap capable Tesla EVs on the road, they'd probably be in the financial position to do something like that. I think the basic point is that the concern about getting a worn out battery from a swap isn't going to be a concern, either with the current system (where you get your existing battery back) or with a hypothetical battery subscription service.
For most people, though, battery swaps will be rare. You might need to drive far enough to justify one occasionally, but most people don't do so very often.
Take a look at metal air batteries. They are lightweight and powerful but non-rechargable. With an extra battery compartment for such batteries, you could just buy new batteries at a gas station and plug in when you need longer range than the rechargable battery can provide.
For all practical purposes, advanced fuel cells are functionally indistinguishable from batteries. Beyond being able to "recharge" through electrolysis of water, transfer of hydrogen gas (or adsorbed hydrogen or hydrocarbons) is faster than high current transfer of electricity. Hydrogen research is battery research.
"Practical purposes"?
Hydrogen is impossible to store. Hydrogen is one proton; you know what is bigger than that? Alpha radiation, also known as Helium atoms. Hydrogen is tiny, so tiny that it can fit through the lattice of metal atoms that make up the body of a storage canister; it is literally impossible to make a container for hydrogen which does not leak.
I drive an Opel Astra (two doors) with a 54 liters fuel tank. I used to drive a '92 Passat (reviewed as a compact on US sites) which had a 70l fuel tank.
2008 Honda Civic. Now you know of a mid size 5 door vehicle with a 52 litre fuel tank (closer to 60L than 30L).
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Isn't a Jetta just a Golf with a boot (trunk) ? So a Jetta and Golf are effectively the same size.
The Polo would be considered a small car, I think.
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From what I've heard the 'physics limits' haven't been reached.
Then you have heard wrong, at least for the practical real world physics involved, particularly those that involve cost/benefit. Li+ battery technology has peaked and it is unlikely for any new breakthroughs to occur that would increase the energy density provided. That's probably why most new research is being funded for other matrices than Li+.
Could a more efficient Li+ battery still be produced? Yes. Could it be produced at a price point that would make it a viable power source? No. The same could be said for lead-acid and carbon batteries. As long as there are chemical bonds still intact, there is energy to be derived. That's not the issue. It's how costly is it to eek out that additional energy? And, that is the physics that is at its limits for Li+ technology.
"...2002 UltraPortable, 3600 mAh in 330 grams. In 2014 the extended battery [amazon.com] for the Sony Vaio Pro 11 is 4690 mAh in 290 grams, that's about a 75% increase in power/gram in 12 years."
Most of the difference is that older batteries were pretty much just a set of AA-sized batteries wrapped into a plastic shell. Modern computers often use pressed and formed LiPo batteries that allow for more "battery" in the same amount of space.
Others, like Apple, carry it a step further and completely eliminate the plastic shell used in removable batteries. I'll leave the math as an exercise for the reader, but you'd be surprised at just how much volume you gain by simply extending your battery size by 4mm in every dimension.
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No, you would not own the battery. It would be more akin to renting a propane tank. You would buy the car which would come with a "rented" battery which you returned when it was empty to get your deposit back (or, more likely, to swap for another battery).
The battery swap idea is a decades down the line though as it would require standardization AND a massive infrastructure.
What this really means is bigger batteries, hotter fires!
Yea! Bring on the hotdogs.
The problem is that people want a car that covers all their uses, not just 90%. Most people own one car. For families that own two, one could be all electric, but not both.
But that's not true - we simply delegate tasks our cars can't do to something or someone else.
Car not big enough to pick up a new washing machine? Get the vendor to deliver.
Range not enough for a trip to family? Rent one - hell, the rental is probably better maintained anyway.
You only get a car that covers 100% of your use cases if your use case is 'school run, grocery shopping'. For the rest of us, it's enough to cover our regular needs, and improvise for the rest. Electric generators on the car solve the range issue in a way a bigger battery cannot (not having to stop and charge for hours midway on the route), which only leaves the size issue. Just like with gasoline driven cars, it then boils down to a choice between your default format - the big truck or SUV type vehicle that's probably too big for most of your needs, or the smaller car that's probably safer*, but means you're more reliant on commercial delivery options.
*probably. Not sure if the rollover risk in an SUV is a thing when you have the batteries mounted under the floor like in the Tesla. Extra weight means greater stopping distance, but may also mean greater traction.
And one that does 40 mpg will use half the fuel of one that does 20. Yeah, totally unintuitive.
Yes. But that's not the whole story. 40 will use half that 20 does. 20 will use half that 10 does. But 40mpg is 5.88 L/100km, 20 is 11.76 L/100km, 10 is 23.52 L/100km. So switching from a 10 mpg car to a 20 mpg car saves 11.76 L/100km, but switching from a 20 to a 40 mpg car only saves 5.88 L/100km. So that is why mpg is said to be exponential. This is not just me blowing smoke, see https://www.fueleconomy.gov/fe... and look at the section "Fuel Consumption Rate". Even the US department of Energy says Volume/Distance is a better representation (even though they stick to gallons and miles).
I agree that batteries are problem for electric car drivers. After I bought a Nissan Leaf, I have driven all my driving with it, and the battery in my gas Lexus is dead and it won't start. Again, actually, as it was revived once already for a friend visiting...
If you run out of electrons ask someone to tow the car for awhile. Regen that time lightly and you'll charge the pack. I've done this dozens of times during test driving and with prototype vehicles. After 10 miles of towing you can drive 6-7 miles with the charge. Maybe enough to the next service station with a plug.
While I believe that battery swap idea is possible and such fears might be possible to alleviate, by guaranteeing getting "your" battery back when returning as Tesla says, it is commercially difficult concept.
Here is some math: 1 Tesla S battery stores approximately $15 worth of electric energy (number out of hat). The process takes 2 minutes, and they could have it in a very central location and could have 50% utilization rate during daytime (battery changed every 4 minutes during 10 business hours), total of 150 swaps per day. The battery wear could be assumed to be large as batteries are deeply cycled, so lets assume that they can be used for 5 years and they cost 20k a pop (investment cost today). Assume that the swapping system costs 1M per site (there won't be many of those, so development cost has to be shared with few sites, and it is rather complex system). Assume 10 year lifetime, by then we will have batteries with at least double capacity and the driver will need sleep before battery runs out (even if one would not see that happening, anyone doing business decision on this will account for that risk). The capital cost comes to 700k per year plus return on capital requirement of 5% (low) 200k = 900k. To break even on this one the battery swap would need to cost 16.5$ + energy. That, obviously assuming that the above numbers would not be optimistic, there is a market for such thing in a compact enough area and with enough Tesla S's who want to drive 800km per direction per day to feed it. I would think that this might be possible concept for, say, Taxis in a very large city, or long distance trucking, but I just cannot make a lucrative business proposal out of it for normal cars. Even highly optimistic figures would just make it break even, and it is a very small niche.
Tesla S 85 can already do around 400km per charge, which will take 4-5 hours to drive. Other than 24 hour racing I cannot imagine why any normal person would not feel like having a lunch or other food break every 4-5 hours. Most road safety organizations in Europe recommend having a break every hour or two. Other than very high speed run through Germany on unlimited Autobahns, benefit from drop of recharge time from 1 hour to 2 minutes is not that large, as gas cars will still need 2/3rd of the stops to gas up, and the difference per stop being that Tesla owner needs 1 hour stop instead of 15 minutes. Gas driver will still need top himself up and visit restroom, even it they eat while driving (I think eating sandwich at 200km/hour is a safety risk, and likely illegal in Germany). There are few people (mostly in Germany) who actually have any real time benefit. Would they pay substantial extra for that? Unlikely. Those very few people will get a large diesel car for intercity driving and use a city car such as Volkswagen Up electric for city driving instead. For them, it makes more sense today. The economics come even better for electrics in countries other than Germany, as top speed limitations will make electrics more competitive by making charging stops smaller percentage of the total travel times, as well as allowing longer per charge trips due to lower energy consumption per km.
My conclusion would be that battery swap is technically perfectly possible, but unlikely to be commercially viable.
Driving 4 hours in the morning, stopping 1 hour for lunch, then 4 more hours in the afternoon, sounds great, just charge for that hour, right? The Tesla doesn't have enough range for that, in 4 hours, at 85 mph (the real speed on most of America's highways), you'll cover 340 miles which is well beyond the range of the Tesla. Even if you cut it down to 70 mph, you're looking at 280 miles. You are simply not going to take off on a cross country drive in a car that might or might not make it to your next stop.
Now, this problem will be solved once electric cars have 500 mile ranges, that would probably be enough, assuming there are super charge stations that can fully recharge the car in 1 hour, in many locations.
That is likely 20 years away however...
A much more reasonable answer is the Chevy Volt technology, a series hybrid, a pure electric car with a gas range extender, is more likely to gain traction.
The battery swap idea is stupid, by the time that massive infrastructure was in place, batteries will have enough power to not need to be swapped. At some point, 10-20 years from now, I expect to see 500 miles as the standard range on an electric car, 700-1000 mile cars will not be out of the realm of reason. Either that, or series hybrids will be what takes off. Swapping batteries is just not going to happen at scale.
And after 4 - 5 hours you'd probably want to stop for a meal, so your batteries can be recharged then (assuming a restaurant meal and not McD's or KFC)
Yes, but the Tesla can't drive for 4-5 hours on a single charge. With a battery double the current size, it probably could, but could it be fully recharged in 1 hour? At a remote location, sitting next to 20 other Teslas also being supercharged?
We're a long, long way from any of that, power delivery to remote locations isn't as much as you'd think (it does have limits), and the cost of doubling the battery in the Tesla should not be underestimated.
It will come, in 10-20 years, but not today...
Does 30 minutes give you a full charge? Of the Tesla's battery?
Depends on the charge level. If you're going for maximum distance with minimum charging, you're not charging to 100% each time anyhow; the batteries charge slower the closer they are to full, so you'd probably charge to about 85% or something each time to maximize charge speed. 30 minutes gets you 170 miles of range at full speed.
Battery swaps address that, but they've been very much a paper launch. Tesla did a live demonstration during a press conference, but has not deployed any battery swapping stations in the wild, nor have they said anything about when that might happen.
Yes, battery swaps could address that, but by the time such stations exist in large enough numbers to actually matter, batteries likely will drop in price enough and improve in capacity enough to make them pointless.
How is a factual reply to the OP comment with a link to the source (which provides technical details) to support my argument , "overrated"?
Slashdot, words simply fail me. This place really has turned into reddit.