Wrong yet again. The LR is the only model sold right now. The shorter-range SR is the one that won't be on sale for a few more months. The pricing on both is already present and fixed.
It's one thing to dislike EVs, but you don't need to live in a fantasy world while doing so.
Please keep your models straight. The Model S 100D has a 335 mile EPA range. the P100D has a 315 mile EPA range.
And you don't need to spend that much to get 300+ miles range. The base Model 3 LR is 310miles EPA range, at $44k.
driven slowly gets X. yeah that's funny. my honda civic can roll downhill for a 100 miles on a teaspoon of gasonline too.
For the record, it was flat land with no net elevation change, and beyond that, where exactly are you expecting to have a meaningful average slope over 670 miles?
Your second link was for "theoretically" if you drove a Roadster (which never had a 300+ mile range) full out on a track. And guess what, if you drive a gasoline car full-out on a track, it will also have terrible range.
I'm sorry, but EVs do average their EPA ranges in real-world highway driving. This isn't a hypothetical, it's a fact. Slowing down makes you go much further than that - as mentioned, 670 miles for a Model S 100D. If you want to see how speed will affect your range, go here and scroll down. And yes, that is accurate. Or you can use this or this rangefinder, both independent projects unconnected by Tesla, based around real-world collected data in different conditions downloaded straight from the vehicles.
So a 10 year old tesla's range would look like 80% of original range?
I have no clue where you got from "a pack declining 2-3% total between year 1 and year 5" and the pack declining 13-14% between year 5 and year 10.
Degradatiion is fastest in the beginning (as mentioned, about 4% in the first year) and slows with time. Basically what you're doing is that the most vulnerable structures in the anode and cathode become unusable (such as due to swelling) early on, but after that what's left is the more durable surfaces that tolerate the swelling better and are less likely to degrade. There will always be some continued degradation, but the rate slows with time.
It's important to note that this is for climate controlled packs only. Passively cooled packs, like the Leaf, will degrade much faster when stored in adverse weather conditions. Fast charging with poor heat removal is also a big degradation factor for poorly designed EV packs. Li-ions are finicky, and you have to baby them if you want them to last well in all usage conditions. Some manufacturers do, but some don't.
It depends on what the ion mobility is. You have to two main limits on charging - ion mobility (the limit to how fast you can charge before all excess energy turns into heat), and heat removal (if you're pumping hundreds of kilowatts in, even 10% losses is still dozens of kilowatts of heat). Ion mobility is a customizeable parameter - you can get it as low as seconds, but it's a tradeoff vs. other parameters in design (primarily energy density); there's no point to improving it if you're heat limited. Heat removal is currently limited by onboard hardware (Teslas can sound a bit like an airplane taxiing for takeoff when supercharging at present;) ). This is two parts - getting heat out of the cells (aka, delta-T between the cell core temperature and the coolant temperature - aka, you need your coolant cold - as well as keeping the cell format small), and getting heat out of the pack. External coolant is the obvious way to improve both of these. It's particularly a big help during equalization, where some fraction of your cells are turning most or all of the incoming energy to heat.
This is a problem with all new technologies: people with no experience with it create worst-case scenarios in their mind and inflate them, while making little of the problems of the technologies they're replacing.
Yes, you can make your occasional trips, using the sort of break times that you're supposed to take when driving on long trips (regardless of whether you actually take them or not). But that's not your everyday life. EVs start every day with a full charge and you never need to randomly detour from your life to go to a gas station. Now, in your mind, the "taking breaks on trips" thing is huge (because it's unfamiliar), while the "detouring to go to gas stations" thing is little (because it's familiar). But for people who own EVs, that situation rapidly becomes reversed. They get totally used to the luxury of having a full charge every day, and whenever they for whatever reason (maintainance, accident, etc) are forced to use a gasoline car, they end up griping bitterly about the inconvenience of going to gas stations. I've seen it time and time and time again.
And unlike you, they all have experience with both owning gasoline and electric cars. But the conveniences of electric cars become a second-nature expectation very quickly.
Another issue that quickly becomes annoying about gasoline cars can be well summed up by this article: Our Tractor Keeps Shaking Violently & Has A Sore Throat. That's not a one-off, that's an extremely common experience for people once they start driving electric. EV owner surveys have extremely high rates of satisfaction with EVs in general. This translates to brand loyalty as well - Tesla generally blows away all other competitors on brand loyalty - most recently with 91% "would buy again", vs. the next highest (Porsche) at 84%.
Again, though, you haven't ever owned an EV, so you have no experience with this. So your mind makes any perceived downside into an insurmountable wall, while making excuses for what you have to endure for your ICE vehicle and playing them down as if they're nothing.
Not true. EPA range figures are based on the 5-cycle, which is actually a pretty good representation of how people drive on the highway. Some people drive faster, others slower, but on average it's about right (including accessory loads like climate control). EV manufacturers can also approximate the five-cycle by taking the US06 cycle and multiplying the resultant range by 0.7.
And yeah, if anyone plans to drive all day without any breaks, do us a favour and let us know when and where so we can try to not be on the road at the same time as you.
Your words to Musk's ears. But of course you know why they do it - most people will say "oh that's too weird" and not buy it.
My "dream car" would be a slightly larger Aptera with the rear taper adjustable, so you can choose between extreme range / top speed / refill rate, or having more cargo space) rear seating. The long taper means that it's basically like an enclosed pickup. And such wing-shaped cars have a higher optimal clearance height to boot.
But I have little hope of ever getting to buy such a car:Ãz
Um, cars with real-world 300 mile ranges are on sale now. Driven slowly the Model S 100D has gone *670 miles*; 335 is the range you get in normal highway conditions for the average person (some less, some more... speed is the main factor, ambient temperature second).
In cold weather, the big range loss (at least warly on) is pack heating, esp if you don't use something like Tesla's range mode (which delays hearing). Cold packs can still discharge but they can't be recharged without damage, so you can lose regen. The energy consumption decreases when the pack is warmed; assuming you're not compacting fresh snow all the way, you may only lose 20-30% range, which can be made up for by slowing down . Preheating the pack and cabin on mains power eliminates the big heating draw early on.
As for degradation, that depends strongly on the vehicle and conditions. The Leaf doesn't cool its pack, for example ; in temperate conditions itsbdegradation can be moderate but in bad climates it's terrible. With a well-managed pack like Tesla's, you get about 4% degradation in year 1 and then it strongly declines thereafter; a five year old pack averages 6-7% total loss.
Tesla does that. Their heat flow system is an engineer's dream, capturing every bit if waste heat and shunting it to where it's needed. They recently patented (to be used in Supercharger v3?) a system for running offboard coolant through a separate path in the primary heat exchanger (which connects the battery, radiator, and ac coolant loops) so heat removal can be offload to the charger when supercharging. Should significantly improve max charging rates (while simultaneously cooling the charge connector). With essentially unlimited external coolant at just above freezing, flowing at high rates, their rate of heat removal would be tremendous, and a major step toward pushing the batteries to being only limited by ion mobility.
And that's where Tesla stands today, not where it'll be in 2021, 4 years from now. Its funny, these EV announcements from other companies acting as if they're not chasing a moving target. Their consistent failure to realize this and consistent undrestimation of demand for quality EVs and infrastructure is why Tesla is now the highest market cap US automaker, why the Model S and X capture nearly 10% (and growing) of their global market segments, and why Model 3 is about to do the same to the midrange.
To their credit, Hyundai's Ioniq is one of the best short-range EVs for its price point. But it's no Tesla.
With the quality of today's speech recognition, you'd probably doze off and wake up at "ThisTorres - Corretora de Seguros" in Rio De Janeiro.;)
Or, the "Jesus Christ Supercop" version:
Owner: "I'm looking for Nietzsche." Car: "How do you spell that?" Owner: "Exactly like it sounds. N-I-E-T-Z-S-C-H-E." Car: "I'm sorry, I'm not finding that person." Owner: "Try 'Father of Lies'. 'Lord of Darkness'. 'The Great Deceiver.' " Car: "I'm sorry, I'm not finding any of those names." Owner: "Son of a bitch...." Car: "I've found a 'Son of a bitch' on 5th and Clemson...."
-----
GPS already leads people astray without voice recognition and self driving. Here in Iceland we had a tourist who was supposed to be staying at a hotel on Laugavegur, a main street in downtown Reykjavík, but instead they punched "Laugarvegur" into their GPS and ended up in Siglufjörður, a little fishing village 4 1/2 hours away;) I can only imagine what he was thinking during that drive.... "Man, the airport is waaaay out of town!";)
I'm not sure I understand. Is this an attempt to pretend she didn't fail miserably (intentionally) WRT Benghazi?
Right, because if there's one thing that defines a secretary of state's job, it's micromanaging security.
She rightfully took responsibility for the decisions made for people who worked for her regarding security for the compound. The buck always stops with the boss. But the scale of the witch hunt embarked on over that incident was just ridiculous.
That she didn't delete a bunch of e-mails and have the server (which shouldn't have existed in the first place) wiped with Bleachbit after receiving a subpoena?
You do realize that cobalt is found pretty much everywhere on Earth where nickel and copper are mined, don't you? It's historically been recovered most from the DRC because they have the richest deposits, but with prices rising from increased demand, it becomes justifiable to work recovery into the tailings streams of the majority of nickel and copper mines the world over.
Most people's impression when they hear cobalt is off because they think of cobalt 60, a radioisotope. But while it has some toxicity, it's not actually that toxic among metals, particularly when not in the form of soluble salts. Cobalt is even used as a major alloying agent in orthopedic and dental implants; it's not allergenic like nickel. As for the broader envirnonment, cobalt deficiency is much more common in soils than excess. Cobalt-deficient soils lead to a shortage of B12 in animals that graze there (B12 is a cobalt-based vitamin).
Solid electrolytes are a big promising tech in this front, where you have an ion-conductive glass that functions both as electrolyte and separator membrane. The separator is harder than the dendrites and so there's little damage during charge / discharge.
I'm sure dendrites will be overcome eventually. And that will help a lot of different techs, not just zinc (lithium metal is also bad with dendrites).
Careful, lithium-ion batteries aren't made using metallic lithium as a feedstock. You need to compare lithium carbonate or nitrate, and weigh the lithium fraction thereof. Refining costs to metal shouldn't factor in, because it's not refined to metal.
Not really. A while back, the big story on Slashdot, the story was silicon anodes. Guess what? Tesla uses them in at least some, if not all, of their battery packs.
The announcement generates hype. The commercialization does not. Most announcements ultimately don't pan out, but those that do change the world - but those changes quickly become our "new normal" and we forget about what a big deal they were. Look at old cell phones and the size of the batteries it took versus the more humble power demands they were facing. And be thankful that the pace of technology advances marches on.
What’s blanching, though, is the car’s ride and handling. If anybody was expecting a typical boring electric sedan here, nope. The ride is Alfa Giulia (maybe even Quadrifoglio)–firm, and quickly, I’m carving Stunt Road like a Sochi Olympics giant slalomer, micrometering my swipes at the apexes. I glance at Franz—this OK? “Go for it,” he nods. The Model 3 is so unexpected scalpel-like, I’m sputtering for adjectives. The steering ratio is quick, the effort is light (for me), but there’s enough light tremble against your fingers to hear the cornering negotiations between Stunt Road and these 235/40R19 tires (Continental ProContact RX m+s’s). And to mention body roll is to have already said too much about it. Sure, that battery is low, way down under the floor. But unlike the aluminum Model S, the Tesla Model 3 is composed of steel, too, and this car’s glass ceiling can’t be helping the center of gravity’s height. Nearly-nil body roll? Magic, I’m telling you. Magic. And this is the single-motor, rear-wheel-drive starting point. The already boggled mind boggles further at the mention of Dual Motor and Ludicrous.
Gone are the Model S’s projecting doorhandles in favour of nicely crafted aluminium ones that project manually like those on an Aston when you poke one end. Open the door and slide in, and the interior is beautifully simple and uncluttered. The steering wheel features two buttons that adjust everything from the traditional (volume, radio frequency) to the more unique (door mirror adjustment and steering wheel positioning). *** The car we drove was a Long Range model with all the options list ticked, including the Premium Upgrade Package, featuring leather seats (base models come with fabric), a wooden dash inlay panel that spans the width of the cockpit and the aforementioned glass roof that infuses the interior with a huge feeling of light and space. It’s all simple, elegant, uncluttered and nicely crafted. Before we set off, I jumped in the back and with the driver seat positioned for my 6ft frame, there was still plenty of room in the back for three adults. *** Our short foray highlighted that the Model 3’s quoted 0–60mph time of 5.1 seconds in this Long Range spec might be underplaying its performance a bit: it’s rapid, and the acceleration is delivered with that lovely linearity and unwavering torque that EVs deliver. The overall feeling of peace and quiet is helped by the minimalist interior but by impressive sound deadening and insulation – the road noise is minimal.
I felt like I was driving in an Eames chair. That was my first impression as I climbed into the driver’s seat of the Tesla Model 3 at the Fremont Factory on Friday afternoon. It took a moment to orient myself — no gauges, no speedometer, no airplane cockpit cues. Instead, one continuous smooth line between myself and the road ahead, offset by natural, unfinished wood. The premium model of the Model 3 caught me off guard. After hearing so much hype about this car, I was surprised that my first reaction was a profound sense of delight. It wasn’t bland, nor sterile, nor cheap feeling. Here was something different. Here was an exercise in minimalism. Here was the car Elon Musk promised to make 14 years ago.
it's much more similar in refinement to a Dacia or a Hyundai
Not according to literally every reveiwer who has been in in the vehicle, which is over a dozen. A base Model 3 is also more feature-rich than its competitors such as the 3-series (there are also comparisons to the A4 and C300 if you'd like)
Now, you can spout nonsense that doesn't correspond at all to any reviews, but that's not to your credit. Seriously, the concept that a soft-touch sports sedan with a 5,6 second *base* 0-60, eight cameras, a dozen ultrasonic sensors and a radar *standard*, automatic crash avoidance *standard*, and a ton of other things is equivalent to a Dacia... why not just call it a used Yugo while you're at it?
Tesla Model 3: 1740kg (claimed)
Wrong. The base curb weight of the Model 3, according to the official press kit, is 3549 lbs, which is 1610kg. 1730kg is the LR version, the heavier version. The BMW 3-Series ranges from 1475-1770kg. The A4 ranges from 1410-1695 kg. I can't find an official total range for the C300, but find values ranging from 1630 kg to 1688kg to 1695kg to 1715kg. While the 1630kg is described as the "base weight" (analogous to the M3's 1610kg), I have no clue what the heaviest C300 config is, there could easily be configurations heavier than the 1715kg one.
To sum up: Tesla Model 3: 1610-1730kg BMW 3-Series: 1475-1770kg Audi A4: 1410-1695kg Mercedes C300: 1630-1715+kg
I'll repeat: The Tesla Model 3's curb weight comes in at pretty much the same as its ICE competitors in its class (BMW 3-Series, Audi A4, Mercedes C300, etc).
10% loss after 60 cycles is actually terrible. Hopefully they can improve that by 1 1/2 orders of magnitude.
Energy density is not the issue. The Tesla Model 3's curb weight comes in at pretty much the same as its ICE competitors in its class (BMW 3-Series, Audi A4, Mercedes C300, etc). Energy density comes in at fourth on the list of EV battery priorities. #1 is cost. #2 is durability. #3 is recharging speed (both ion mobility and efficiency, the latter determining heat removal requirements during fast charge). Energy density is fourth. Ranges already can be increased far over what they are today, but there's no point because you price the vehicle out of their class. Cost is still king; the size of the market is very heavily dependent on what batteries cost. And if they're not durable, you can't back them with a solid warranty, and people won't buy your cars.
Slashdot Mirror
Wrong yet again. The LR is the only model sold right now. The shorter-range SR is the one that won't be on sale for a few more months. The pricing on both is already present and fixed.
It's one thing to dislike EVs, but you don't need to live in a fantasy world while doing so.
Please keep your models straight. The Model S 100D has a 335 mile EPA range. the P100D has a 315 mile EPA range.
And you don't need to spend that much to get 300+ miles range. The base Model 3 LR is 310miles EPA range, at $44k.
For the record, it was flat land with no net elevation change, and beyond that, where exactly are you expecting to have a meaningful average slope over 670 miles?
Your first link is a dead link.
Your second link was for "theoretically" if you drove a Roadster (which never had a 300+ mile range) full out on a track. And guess what, if you drive a gasoline car full-out on a track, it will also have terrible range.
I'm sorry, but EVs do average their EPA ranges in real-world highway driving. This isn't a hypothetical, it's a fact. Slowing down makes you go much further than that - as mentioned, 670 miles for a Model S 100D. If you want to see how speed will affect your range, go here and scroll down. And yes, that is accurate. Or you can use this or this rangefinder, both independent projects unconnected by Tesla, based around real-world collected data in different conditions downloaded straight from the vehicles.
Yeah, they'll do that ;)
I have no clue where you got from "a pack declining 2-3% total between year 1 and year 5" and the pack declining 13-14% between year 5 and year 10.
Degradatiion is fastest in the beginning (as mentioned, about 4% in the first year) and slows with time. Basically what you're doing is that the most vulnerable structures in the anode and cathode become unusable (such as due to swelling) early on, but after that what's left is the more durable surfaces that tolerate the swelling better and are less likely to degrade. There will always be some continued degradation, but the rate slows with time.
It's important to note that this is for climate controlled packs only. Passively cooled packs, like the Leaf, will degrade much faster when stored in adverse weather conditions. Fast charging with poor heat removal is also a big degradation factor for poorly designed EV packs. Li-ions are finicky, and you have to baby them if you want them to last well in all usage conditions. Some manufacturers do, but some don't.
It depends on what the ion mobility is. You have to two main limits on charging - ion mobility (the limit to how fast you can charge before all excess energy turns into heat), and heat removal (if you're pumping hundreds of kilowatts in, even 10% losses is still dozens of kilowatts of heat). Ion mobility is a customizeable parameter - you can get it as low as seconds, but it's a tradeoff vs. other parameters in design (primarily energy density); there's no point to improving it if you're heat limited. Heat removal is currently limited by onboard hardware (Teslas can sound a bit like an airplane taxiing for takeoff when supercharging at present ;) ). This is two parts - getting heat out of the cells (aka, delta-T between the cell core temperature and the coolant temperature - aka, you need your coolant cold - as well as keeping the cell format small), and getting heat out of the pack. External coolant is the obvious way to improve both of these. It's particularly a big help during equalization, where some fraction of your cells are turning most or all of the incoming energy to heat.
This is a problem with all new technologies: people with no experience with it create worst-case scenarios in their mind and inflate them, while making little of the problems of the technologies they're replacing.
Yes, you can make your occasional trips, using the sort of break times that you're supposed to take when driving on long trips (regardless of whether you actually take them or not). But that's not your everyday life. EVs start every day with a full charge and you never need to randomly detour from your life to go to a gas station. Now, in your mind, the "taking breaks on trips" thing is huge (because it's unfamiliar), while the "detouring to go to gas stations" thing is little (because it's familiar). But for people who own EVs, that situation rapidly becomes reversed. They get totally used to the luxury of having a full charge every day, and whenever they for whatever reason (maintainance, accident, etc) are forced to use a gasoline car, they end up griping bitterly about the inconvenience of going to gas stations. I've seen it time and time and time again.
And unlike you, they all have experience with both owning gasoline and electric cars. But the conveniences of electric cars become a second-nature expectation very quickly.
Another issue that quickly becomes annoying about gasoline cars can be well summed up by this article: Our Tractor Keeps Shaking Violently & Has A Sore Throat. That's not a one-off, that's an extremely common experience for people once they start driving electric. EV owner surveys have extremely high rates of satisfaction with EVs in general. This translates to brand loyalty as well - Tesla generally blows away all other competitors on brand loyalty - most recently with 91% "would buy again", vs. the next highest (Porsche) at 84%.
Again, though, you haven't ever owned an EV, so you have no experience with this. So your mind makes any perceived downside into an insurmountable wall, while making excuses for what you have to endure for your ICE vehicle and playing them down as if they're nothing.
Not true. EPA range figures are based on the 5-cycle, which is actually a pretty good representation of how people drive on the highway. Some people drive faster, others slower, but on average it's about right (including accessory loads like climate control). EV manufacturers can also approximate the five-cycle by taking the US06 cycle and multiplying the resultant range by 0.7.
4.5, not 5.5. Even less.
And yeah, if anyone plans to drive all day without any breaks, do us a favour and let us know when and where so we can try to not be on the road at the same time as you.
Your words to Musk's ears. But of course you know why they do it - most people will say "oh that's too weird" and not buy it.
My "dream car" would be a slightly larger Aptera with the rear taper adjustable, so you can choose between extreme range / top speed / refill rate, or having more cargo space) rear seating. The long taper means that it's basically like an enclosed pickup. And such wing-shaped cars have a higher optimal clearance height to boot.
But I have little hope of ever getting to buy such a car :Ãz
Um, cars with real-world 300 mile ranges are on sale now. Driven slowly the Model S 100D has gone *670 miles*; 335 is the range you get in normal highway conditions for the average person (some less, some more... speed is the main factor, ambient temperature second).
In cold weather, the big range loss (at least warly on) is pack heating, esp if you don't use something like Tesla's range mode (which delays hearing). Cold packs can still discharge but they can't be recharged without damage, so you can lose regen. The energy consumption decreases when the pack is warmed; assuming you're not compacting fresh snow all the way, you may only lose 20-30% range, which can be made up for by slowing down . Preheating the pack and cabin on mains power eliminates the big heating draw early on.
As for degradation, that depends strongly on the vehicle and conditions. The Leaf doesn't cool its pack, for example ; in temperate conditions itsbdegradation can be moderate but in bad climates it's terrible. With a well-managed pack like Tesla's, you get about 4% degradation in year 1 and then it strongly declines thereafter; a five year old pack averages 6-7% total loss.
Tesla does that. Their heat flow system is an engineer's dream, capturing every bit if waste heat and shunting it to where it's needed. They recently patented (to be used in Supercharger v3?) a system for running offboard coolant through a separate path in the primary heat exchanger (which connects the battery, radiator, and ac coolant loops) so heat removal can be offload to the charger when supercharging. Should significantly improve max charging rates (while simultaneously cooling the charge connector). With essentially unlimited external coolant at just above freezing, flowing at high rates, their rate of heat removal would be tremendous, and a major step toward pushing the batteries to being only limited by ion mobility.
And that's where Tesla stands today, not where it'll be in 2021, 4 years from now. Its funny, these EV announcements from other companies acting as if they're not chasing a moving target. Their consistent failure to realize this and consistent undrestimation of demand for quality EVs and infrastructure is why Tesla is now the highest market cap US automaker, why the Model S and X capture nearly 10% (and growing) of their global market segments, and why Model 3 is about to do the same to the midrange.
To their credit, Hyundai's Ioniq is one of the best short-range EVs for its price point. But it's no Tesla.
With the quality of today's speech recognition, you'd probably doze off and wake up at "ThisTorres - Corretora de Seguros" in Rio De Janeiro. ;)
Or, the "Jesus Christ Supercop" version:
Owner: "I'm looking for Nietzsche."
Car: "How do you spell that?"
Owner: "Exactly like it sounds. N-I-E-T-Z-S-C-H-E."
Car: "I'm sorry, I'm not finding that person."
Owner: "Try 'Father of Lies'. 'Lord of Darkness'. 'The Great Deceiver.' "
Car: "I'm sorry, I'm not finding any of those names."
Owner: "Son of a bitch...."
Car: "I've found a 'Son of a bitch' on 5th and Clemson...."
-----
GPS already leads people astray without voice recognition and self driving. Here in Iceland we had a tourist who was supposed to be staying at a hotel on Laugavegur, a main street in downtown Reykjavík, but instead they punched "Laugarvegur" into their GPS and ended up in Siglufjörður, a little fishing village 4 1/2 hours away ;) I can only imagine what he was thinking during that drive.... "Man, the airport is waaaay out of town!" ;)
Right, because if there's one thing that defines a secretary of state's job, it's micromanaging security.
She rightfully took responsibility for the decisions made for people who worked for her regarding security for the compound. The buck always stops with the boss. But the scale of the witch hunt embarked on over that incident was just ridiculous.
Snopes.
Oh yes, that reminds me, my fellow cucks and I need to get after him, our checks are late this month!
You do realize that cobalt is found pretty much everywhere on Earth where nickel and copper are mined, don't you? It's historically been recovered most from the DRC because they have the richest deposits, but with prices rising from increased demand, it becomes justifiable to work recovery into the tailings streams of the majority of nickel and copper mines the world over.
Most people's impression when they hear cobalt is off because they think of cobalt 60, a radioisotope. But while it has some toxicity, it's not actually that toxic among metals, particularly when not in the form of soluble salts. Cobalt is even used as a major alloying agent in orthopedic and dental implants; it's not allergenic like nickel. As for the broader envirnonment, cobalt deficiency is much more common in soils than excess. Cobalt-deficient soils lead to a shortage of B12 in animals that graze there (B12 is a cobalt-based vitamin).
Solid electrolytes are a big promising tech in this front, where you have an ion-conductive glass that functions both as electrolyte and separator membrane. The separator is harder than the dendrites and so there's little damage during charge / discharge.
I'm sure dendrites will be overcome eventually. And that will help a lot of different techs, not just zinc (lithium metal is also bad with dendrites).
Careful, lithium-ion batteries aren't made using metallic lithium as a feedstock. You need to compare lithium carbonate or nitrate, and weigh the lithium fraction thereof. Refining costs to metal shouldn't factor in, because it's not refined to metal.
Not really. A while back, the big story on Slashdot, the story was silicon anodes. Guess what? Tesla uses them in at least some, if not all, of their battery packs.
The announcement generates hype. The commercialization does not. Most announcements ultimately don't pan out, but those that do change the world - but those changes quickly become our "new normal" and we forget about what a big deal they were. Look at old cell phones and the size of the batteries it took versus the more humble power demands they were facing. And be thankful that the pace of technology advances marches on.
As for reviews, let's go down the list. By all means, read the full reviews yourself.
Motor Trend:
Top Gear:
The Verge:
Not according to literally every reveiwer who has been in in the vehicle, which is over a dozen. A base Model 3 is also more feature-rich than its competitors such as the 3-series (there are also comparisons to the A4 and C300 if you'd like)
Now, you can spout nonsense that doesn't correspond at all to any reviews, but that's not to your credit. Seriously, the concept that a soft-touch sports sedan with a 5,6 second *base* 0-60, eight cameras, a dozen ultrasonic sensors and a radar *standard*, automatic crash avoidance *standard*, and a ton of other things is equivalent to a Dacia... why not just call it a used Yugo while you're at it?
Wrong. The base curb weight of the Model 3, according to the official press kit, is 3549 lbs, which is 1610kg. 1730kg is the LR version, the heavier version. The BMW 3-Series ranges from 1475-1770kg. The A4 ranges from 1410-1695 kg. I can't find an official total range for the C300, but find values ranging from 1630 kg to 1688kg to 1695kg to 1715kg. While the 1630kg is described as the "base weight" (analogous to the M3's 1610kg), I have no clue what the heaviest C300 config is, there could easily be configurations heavier than the 1715kg one.
To sum up:
Tesla Model 3: 1610-1730kg
BMW 3-Series: 1475-1770kg
Audi A4: 1410-1695kg
Mercedes C300: 1630-1715+kg
I'll repeat: The Tesla Model 3's curb weight comes in at pretty much the same as its ICE competitors in its class (BMW 3-Series, Audi A4, Mercedes C300, etc).
10% loss after 60 cycles is actually terrible. Hopefully they can improve that by 1 1/2 orders of magnitude.
Energy density is not the issue. The Tesla Model 3's curb weight comes in at pretty much the same as its ICE competitors in its class (BMW 3-Series, Audi A4, Mercedes C300, etc). Energy density comes in at fourth on the list of EV battery priorities. #1 is cost. #2 is durability. #3 is recharging speed (both ion mobility and efficiency, the latter determining heat removal requirements during fast charge). Energy density is fourth. Ranges already can be increased far over what they are today, but there's no point because you price the vehicle out of their class. Cost is still king; the size of the market is very heavily dependent on what batteries cost. And if they're not durable, you can't back them with a solid warranty, and people won't buy your cars.
Properly managed li-ions are perfectly safe.