GM's new electric car battery tops Tesla's | Hacker News Reader

GM's new electric car battery tops Tesla's

cnn.com

20 pointsprostoalex18 comments

This is an incredibly misleading article They conveniently left out the fact that GM's proposed battery for their 400 mile car is double the size of the battery Tesla currently uses to get 390 miles. GM said that they will offer a 200 KWh battery that will give their vehicle 400 miles of range at some point in the next year or two. You can buy a Tesla today with a 100 KWh battery that get 390 Miles of range. This isn't a positive thing for GM it means their cars are going to be more expensive for the same range.

Maybe, but GM is also planning to use that battery for their electric Hummer, which is a significantly bigger car than any Tesla. Teslas have weird, non-mainstream shapes to boost efficiency.

I’d also note that Tesla EPA range is extremely aggressive (they set their own dyno multipliers) while other EV manufacturers are more conservative. That means roughly 75% range for Teslas in the real world.

To second this, on a closed loop track at constant 75mph, Car and Driver found that the Taycan Turbo S (EPA 192mi) and Model S Performance (EPA 326-346 mi) had similar range in real-world testing. You can probably argue with the methodology but achieving Tesla's 70% EPA range advantage would not have been realistic in that test.

The Taycan is double the cost of the Model S so even if they are the same range under this one use case which is probably not typical driving for many mean the Taycan is over priced for it's capabilities at best.

You don't know if GM was talking about Hummer or Bolt when they were talking about 400 miles batter.

You don't know how big (or small) the electric Hummer will be because it doesn't exist. GM didn't even show a picture and they didn't share any specs.

Not to mention that Tesla's Cybertruck will be 500 miles next year, almost certainly with a battery smaller than 200 kW.

No matter how you slice it, Tesla's cars are vastly more efficient today than what GM is hoping to do few years from now.

So good to see competition and progress on this front - regardless of where it comes from. I wonder how the scale of GM vs Tesla's R&D spend compares. Also didn't Tesla open source their battery tech?

The press release is more informative than the current link:

https://media.gm.com/media/us/en/gm/home.detail.html/content...

Nothing really mentioned about longevity of this new pouch design. The impressive thing about the Tesla batteries is not only are they efficient when it comes to range but they are also built to last 100s of thousands of miles.

You mean like the thousands of Model S/X owners who had a software update significantly reduce range due to battery issues:

https://chicago.suntimes.com/2019/10/18/20919396/tesla-batte...

If you look at companies like Audi, Porsche etc you actually find that they reserve more of the battery capacity for future degradation than Tesla.

> If you look at companies like Audi, Porsche etc you actually find that they reserve more of the battery capacity for future degradation than Tesla.

But their range is pathetic. Audi e-tron is 204 miles, the Porsche Taycan Turbo is 201. My 100D Model S is 319 miles at 100% SOC (down from 330 miles after ~36k miles), and I get pretty damn close to that if I don't cruise at 80-90 mph (versus the more efficient 70mph). This is with a non-Raven drivetrain; a Raven drivetrain with front permanent synchronous reluctance motor from a Model 3 gets even more range (assume 390 miles is highly optimistic from the EPA test cycle, you're still going to get around 350 miles from it at high speeds or stomping on it). And I get a Supercharger network, which I don't get with non-Tesla vehicles.

I don't much care about long term degradation though; data shows Tesla packs have longevity for hundreds of thousands of miles, and at the rate of battery cost decline [1], I'll be able to swap out the pack for a cheaper, better one in 8-10 years. Why can't legacy automakers do this? Because they don't build the batteries, they're stuck with contracts to folks like LG Chem.

I agree with your link about those older 85kw battery pack owners; Tesla should make them whole instead of nerfing the packs for safety reasons through voltage limits. I assume it'll be resolved with compensation resulting from a class action, which it should be. Looking at public data from a larger cohort of the Model S and X fleet, degradation is typically not substantial.

[1] https://about.bnef.com/blog/battery-pack-prices-fall-as-mark...

Kinda interesting that they were bragging about capacity retention and accelerated charging then 85/90 packs started their combustion processes worldwide.

Chevy Volt battery degradation in terms of percentages has not been bad at all. I understand that GM used LG-Chem and now its bringing whole battery tech in-house. Tesla may be 2-3 years ahead of others in battery tech but GM has been in the game for a while since 2011 Volt. So, the gap is lesser than many think. Now Software and Auto-pilot that is a different ball game and even there the gap is 3 or so years.

Teslas lose 5% of their range after about 20K miles. That’s the number that should be on the window sticker.

Glad to see more competition - but let's see these in production before saying they "top" anything else.

I think GM gets some leeway here for having the bolt, being an established car manufacturer, etc. Yeah, there's always a chance it ends up not materializing, but that chance is far lower than the chance that one of those random new car companies that show up as CES every year don't materialize. I think that from the perspective of a customer looking to buy a new vehicle in the next 2-5 years, this is serious enough to consider maybe holding off on getting a model 3 after getting a raise or something and keeping that beater for a year or two longer in case GM comes out with something compelling, or the threat of it gets tesla to up their game even more.

GM also did the material science for the magnets everyone uses today. They also worked with semiconductor companies to advance the state of the art in IGBTs back in the EV1 days. Yes, they are an old global behemoth in the rust belt, but that doesnt mean they can't innovate.

Smart move to invest in production capacity for batteries developed in house. There are now several car manufacturers securing large amounts of battery capacity and several that clearly have issues with this. VW announced they have secured enough volume for 1m cars until 2023. That sounds like a lot until you realize that Tesla volumes are probably hitting that a lot sooner. Hence their other announcements that they are merely trying to keep up with Tesla as opposed to beating them (which is not a realistic goal for them short term).

Basically there are several companies who at the same time are trying to secure battery supplies while still peddling hybrids and hydrogen as well because they know they don't have enough batteries. E.g. Hyundai and Honda have a few popular EV models that are pretty hard to order (long delivery times/waiting lists) because production volume is limited. The reason is not because the manufacturer doesn't want to sell more but because they are unable to produce more; mainly because of a lack of access to batteries.

GM making this move means they mean business. They announced lots of different EV models a few days ago and to ship them in volume, they'll need batteries. Obviously they seem confident about their technical ability. We'll see. But getting production volumes up is going to be key for them. The demand is currently being served by their competitors (Tesla mainly).

Awesome! Competition improves everybody's game.

On to the next step!

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