Hacker News Reader

Comment by ianai | Hacker News Reader

I’m confused by the differentiation of 100$/kwh at the cell level vs pack level? Does that mean they’ll still have more than that cost due to the non-lithium parts of the battery for the short term but not the long term? Ie their 74kwh battery might someday cost 7400$ but with the cheaper cost per cell its more like 7400k+X where X is the cost future tech may reduce?

View on HN

Packs need a radiator system like any engine. Tesla cooling systems are leading the industry. Nissan and many plugin battery companies use air cooling which doesn't work and which cuts the battery life in half. Many uncooled Nissan leaf packs failed before a hundred thousand miles.

I wonder how the I-PACE cooling (and general battery conditioning/preservation technology) compares?

I’ve thought about this. Why don’t they integrate better cooling? Maybe something that hooks into the charging cable as well. While the battery is charged the pack is cooled by the facility.

(One crazier idea of mine involves cooling by boiling off sea water. Have piping built to pump large amounts of sea water inland to charging locations. Perhaps each charging location also sits next to a pumping location for the sea water.)

This is exactly what they are attempting to do with solid-state batteries. Again, the whole point of the article is that Lithium Ion batteries will continue to improve and with the vast economy of scale, will continue to be a cost effective option

From the linked article [1]:

> Transforming cells, via modules, into the whole battery pack typically adds 30% cost per kWh on top of the cost of the cells alone.

And to get a bit more info on what a module is [2]:

> A battery module is more than just a mechanical frame that holds the cells - it also includes bus bars to connect the cells electrically, a cooling interface and a sensing harness, which sends information about the state of each cell to the battery management system.

[1]: https://cleantechnica.com/2018/06/09/100-kwh-tesla-battery-c...

[2]: https://evannex.com/blogs/news/learn-more-about-tesla-batter...

There is nonneglible cost in the pack. Tesla's have heating and cooling and individual battery wiring. Not sure of the cost difference, maybe 10%more wag

Reply on news.ycombinator.com