My rule of thumb when it comes to all breathless headlines around battery technology is that "I'll believe it when I see it". It's one thing to achieve these specs for batteries when n = (small number), but can they be affordably built at scale?
I suppose it depends on whether everyone is gone for the weekend on the day they are supposed to spot the asteroid that would destroy life on Earth in 2431
Sorry, Thursday.
[0] In The Year 2525
This should also be applied to all stories about new fission reactor technologies. Comparing a cost that's been validated across many units over decades with the "should cost" for a design that hasn't even had gone critical in a prototype is almost meaningless.
1. Battery capacity: Tesla had 100kw cars 4 years ago. 13% increase - easy, even within Tesla's grasp, they just have not bothered.
2. Efficiency and range - this is just a small improvement on what the Tesla model S has, add more batteries. The Lucid Air is bigger than a model 3 and closer to an S. The S already has 400 miles. Tesla improved on the original 2012 (yes, those are 8 years old!) model S' range by using the more efficient model 3 engines on the S. The S has 100kwh currently.
3. The model 3 has different batteries than the S, apparently they have a bit higher capacity in the 3 than in the S. All Tesla has to do to give the S another boost is switch to using the model 3 batteries, add a few more. The one downside of the 3 batteries is supposed to be they have less max power, so less acceleration? Tesla is going to have 'battery day' soon when they will talk about their next generation batteries, and perhaps talk about S improvements.
4. Manufacturing, and especially getting enough batteries - this is where Tesla is likely really ahead. It's hard to make cars in volume, even expensive ones. But getting enough batteries for a large fleet of cars is the early 21st century unobtanium. Every other car company that ones to make large volume EVs can't do it. Where everyone is at least Japan and Europe and the US. China might be able to pull this off, too soon to say.
However, that competitors are nipping at Tesla's heels is an absolute sea change compared to a few short years ago. They used to not only be ahead in every metric, but also improving faster than their competition further solidifying the lead.
Tesla sets a very high bar, but genuine effort is being made now to compete. It's fantastic, and great news for the EV movement. Reading EV news is finally fun again.
The poster is likely talking about new fission concepts like TerraPower [0] and other Gen IV types. See the Generation IV fast reactors section of [1].
[0] https://www.terrapower.com/about/
[1] https://www.world-nuclear.org/information-library/current-an...
There is nothing to indicate that they won't be able to achieve this in production of their low volume luxury vehicle.
See it: https://www.motortrend.com/cars/lucid/air/2021/2021-lucid-ai...
> can they be affordably built at scale?
The Lucid Air is an expensive luxury car. It's affordable in the same way that all luxury cars are affordable: not very. It's not a high volume vehicle.
They will be selling a smaller battery version eventually which will be cheaper but still at luxury car prices.
If it’s just a bigger battery, it’s not all that interesting. I’m sure Elon could build a prototype S with 1000 miles range if he felt like it. It wouldn’t make sense though.
Yes. This is discussed in the article.