Panasonic to begin mass producing new 4680 Tesla battery by March 2024
reuters.com
reuters.com
But for LFP or iron based batteries which don't have such issues, the blade design should be cheaper, more maintainable, more space and weight efficient etc. There's no glue so you can actually just switch individual blades. Cooling channels can be straight.
You can see that the cooling channels in the Tesla pack are these hollow undulating aluminum shapes. Can imagine they're not very cheap. Also the Tesla packs are filled with some kind of bonding foam, making repairs near impossible.
Is that maybe to reduce the spread of fire? I know Tesla put a lot of work into that. Others too, I hope.
They don’t bother with smaller secondary batteries because the extra manufacturing cost and operational complexity isn’t worth it for a 5%-10% bump in volumetric energy density.
You could probably ship them staggered, but I’m betting they are at a weight limit anyway so making them more dense doesn’t save you anything.
If there any single car that has made the general public comfortable with very expensive batteries in their car: it’s the Prius.
Just Toyota doing Toyota things.
Also I would strongly disagree on the Prius comment. A lot of "HV battery fault" cars out there back in the day, refurbing them was a pretty good business for a while. The NiMH pack in the Prius was the basis for so many slack jawed comments "EVs will never work! You're just going to have to replace the battery every 5 years!"
Your quote about rollout of the Prius is exactly my point. That opinion was widespread when the Prius was introduced. The reliability of the Prius since then has changed public opinion greatly.
NiMH infamously has HORRIBLE self discharge performance in comparison to pretty much any lithium chemistry.
Multiple lithium chemistries outperform NiMH in low temperature performance. Even LFP which is generally not recommended for unregulated conditions below about -10 degree will function at reduced capacity at -40c. Nearly all chemistries, except maybe LMO, have superior high temperature performance.
I also don't understand what you mean by more forgiving chemistry?
Production yields? Modern lithium cell plants can easily do 80%+
Tolerance to production variations? Multiple lithium chemistries are just as tolerant.
Fire/puncture resistance? Multiple lithium chemistries areas as safe or safer
Voltaic efficiency/Energy Efficiency/etc? Lithium chemistries are SIGNIFICANTLY better
Memory effect or reduced voltage? NIMH yes while lithium none
Cycle life? Once again nearly every lithium chemistry is superior. Some even still have acceptable performance after an order of magnitude more cycles than a NiMH cell.
At this point there is literally no reason someone would chose NiMH for a ground up design in a consumer vehicle other than cost ....seriously like none.
Also yes Prius reliability is pretty good, but the reliability and performance of the NiMH battery packs were not even in the range for what would be acceptable in a commercially successful EV.
At the time when commercial lithium batteries were $1000-$5000/kwh hour sure they were a fantastic compromise, but it's not even close now.
If Tesla had started with NiMH they would have been dead meat right out of the gate. Gone out of business in a couple years at most.
There are, for sure, a tons of great lithium chemistries in existence. But, outside of some very specific markets, they are not used in cars yet.
That said, I wish there was a site that simply told me now's the right time to buy an EV. With supply chain issues, long waits for a new car, government rebates, and the influx of new inventory/models, it's hard to keep up when's the right time to transition!
Also it is always a good time to buy a new car*
*according to ads
Indeed, and in reality it's probably better (as far as the planet goes) to keep on using the same car as long as possible because that means no new one has to be produced. Kinda hard to offset that with an EV even. At least I seem to recall that was the consensus but I cannot find where I got that. HN, I'd guess :)
In late '22 there will likely be a wave of car buying, from pent-up demand, dumping lots of used cars on the market. Might be a good time to shop used. You might be able to find some good deals on used EV's (Leaf, Bolt, older Teslas).
You need to be careful with old Leafs. 70 miles would very good, 30 is common.
If you're in North America are you really going to be 'stranded' or just footing the cost of a one-way rental and waiting for the check from the junkyard which will almost certainly cover it?
Highly unlikely the average HNer can't come up with $1000 for an emergency (nota bene: for sure some can't, that why I didn't say "every HNer").
Can't we be lackadaisical anymore? :-p
[1] Let me specify "passenger vehicles" and "US roads" lest someone jump in to point out that box trucks last longer or that cars get shipped to foreign markets at end of life, etc...
https://www.cnbc.com/2021/09/28/cars-on-american-roads-keep-...
> The average age of a car on U.S. roads rose to 12.1 years in 2021, according to IHS Markit. The average age had been 11.9 years in 2020. In 2002, the average age was 9.6 years.
And in most of the rest of the world, it's even longer, as the vast majority of the rest of the world is poorer.
Anybody who has to stiff someone to scrape up the lump sum to replace a transmission is probably going to replace the transmission rather than roll the dice spending the same or more on a different car that might need something else in short order. Those people also aren't the same people who rack up big bills for random suspension wear parts because they don't have those parts replaced until they start impeding the vehicle's ability to get from A to B <clutches pearls> because they can't afford to indulge in that kind of maintenance.
With what, though? Not a new part. A transmission from another vehicle that got scrapped. That's the point: these cars don't "last" on their own, they're just the winners in a cannibalism race.
Of the 40 cars on my block, 8 are over 10 years old and it’s 7 toyotas, a vw, a miata and a subie.
Assuming you have an acceptable parking/charging solution available, a plug-in hybrid is a good option. The Chrysler uses gas more often in the winter to run the heater but even before the pandemic, we'd go a year on five tanks of gasoline (four of which were in the winter months).
Your lawn equipment with its poorly sealed fuel tank and carburetor is a different story.
I usually do a 180 mile round trip once a month in mine, so I don't need to worry about bad gas.
Who knows, though, maybe one-plug-per-spot will become enough of a selling point that apartment owners will start to deploy the infrastructure. I don't think it will affect EV adoption one way or the other, however, at least not for a number of years. Apartment dwellers are just a fraction of car owners.
I live in SoCal which has high EV adoption with loads of chargers everywhere and off the top of my head.
Off-peak home charging costs about 7 cents / KWh. My car's battery has about a 71KWh capacity so that's about $5 for a full charge.
Super charging prices vary on the time of day and region, but let's pick the worse time. You'll see about a 20-40 cents charge / KWh. That will cost me about $15-30. You can see those prices go down if you're charging at good hours though. Tesla will have morning incentives for instance.
Supercharging costs are higher because:
* Supercharging stations (for Tesla) cost about 300-400k USD per unit.
* Electricity providers charge a premium for higher amps/volt service.
As far as I know, Tesla doesn't try to make a profit with chargers. They keep it close to cost.
This can somewhat vary and can depend on your time horizon and usage. Energy providers like reliable usage, they don't usually like massive swings in usage. If you're able to reliably tell the energy providers how much energy you're going to be using at which times, you can sometimes get your per-kWh price cheaper than the regular wholesale rates even though you're pulling a large amount of energy. Then if you're timescale is long enough the higher upfront cost of the equipment to deliver the power really isn't crazy expensive compared to the full cost of all the energy you've pulled through it over a decade.
Obviously this varies quite a bit even in the US, there's lots of variations between the states and even then there can be some variation within a state. I can definitely say though that the datacenters down the street from me pay waaaaay less per kWh than I do. I know because I know the retail prices they charge, which is still way less than my residential service meanwhile they've got redundant grid connections, generators, and giant batteries to pay for as well.
Also, I don't think EV prices have really changed that much. Chip shortages haven't really affected it. High gas prices and inflation are probably the only numbers you really need to worry about.
https://www.oliver-krischer.eu/wp-content/uploads/2020/08/En...
https://www.eia.gov/environment/emissions/co2_vol_mass.php
The math: standard/long-range Model 3 batteries are 62 and 82 kWh. First link puts GHG byproducts of production at 75 kg/kWh- 4650 and 6150 kg. Mazda 3 gets 30 mpg combined and the second link gives 8.78 kg CO2 per gallon.
and extracting oil and turning it into gasoline and delivering it has GHG byproducts, as well as producing and delivering electricity.
edit: this report https://www.ucsusa.org/sites/default/files/attach/2015/11/Cl...
EV prices have shot up along with other new cars. Probably the 2 best known EVs, the Tesla Model S and Model 3 went from $77.4k to $99.5k and from $38.1k to $46.1k in 2021. 28% and 21% increases respectively.
I understand you are comparing driving an ICE vehicle vs. production of an electric one. But it seems a little misleading to ignore the co2 impact of driving the electric car which is far from 0.
Obviously EV comes out on top over a very long period of time. I'm just suggesting that period of time is longer than suggested by the parent.
Personally I'd love to buy an EV but in our climate battery life is reduced by 30%, renewables are a low portion of our electricity, EVs cost a lot more than ICE vehicles, and many aren't built to drive in snowy/icy conditions. I've been patiently waiting for these variables to change before my next car purchase - driving my current ICE into the ground.
The ideal scenario would be to just drive less. I put around 3k miles per year on my car and having been trying to reduce that.
The parent's estimates track with adjustments made to the "Polestar 2’s LCA (Life Cycle Assessment)". The assessment originally stated the break even point was somewhere around 50,000 miles but it was quickly pointed out that the paper was neglecting to take into account the carbon impact of ICE vehicles and fuels at several stages. As well as identifying discrepancies due to geographic production and completely unsubstantiated irregularities.
After taking those things into account the break even point was estimated to be 16,000 mi.
https://insideevs.com/news/458458/legacy-automakers-backed-s...
Why the disparity? Just look at who published the assessment and where their interests lie.
You sure there is no burning of biomass?
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2018/jun/30/wood-pel...
The largest source of "renewables" ( ~40% )in the US and I'm betting it's higher in europe is biomass.
Biomass is 1.4% of US electricity.
You mean gas plants. Gas in a powerplant produces .41 kg of CO2 per kWh[1]. A Model 3 gets 4.37 miles per kWh, so 2.81 kg of CO2 per 30 miles.
Even if a Model 3 is running on a 0% renewable, 100% gas grid, the 30 mpg Mazda produces 3.12x more CO2 per mile. 5.2x more on your grid, so only a 20% increase in the distance to make up for the battery.
Instead of 16k/21k miles you would have to drive 19k/25k miles.
https://cleantechnica.com/2017/06/22/swedish-ev-battery-stud...
Most people who own EVs have been loving them and working out well.
https://www.wsj.com/articles/a-new-brand-of-sticker-shock-hi...
For me the best next move is to wait for the car to give up the ghost in the road --just hoping I do not become a ghost inside it!
Yes, having the possibility of doing a fast charge in 10-15 minutes could do the trick. Still don't think the charger network is really that big here in Spain (what happens in Summer when everybody tries to charge their car in the same charging stations?)
Without an ability to do a full analysis of all the variables, I made my best guess. I hope it would be the same for a car.
I suspect it's somewhere around 2-3000 miles a year.
That said, I'm with the other people, when your current car is no longer worth it, that's when the right time to get a new car is, and if your car usage lines up well with EVs, it's a great time to transition.
https://dave.autonoma.ca/blog/2019/08/06/typesetting-markdow...
The variables are defined as interpolated values in a YAML file.
One, they have increased to some extent. The base Model 3 was announced as a $35k vehicle with 215 miles of range. Today, the closest trim to that has risen in price from ~38k a year ago to ~45k today, but also to 270 miles. The LR was RWD at launch and ~325 miles. It has since grown to AWD and ~350 miles.
Beyond that, they've really focused on margin expansion more than range expansion. The current LR vehicles are remarkably practical for the majority of their use case, especially as the supercharger network has continued to expand to allow charging at the most optimum times in most cases. They seem to have a realization that consumers will tend to choose the highest range, even when its past the real needs for their use case and have slowed range expansion as a result.
They aren't totally wrong. I do think they will resume expanding range once competitors really start to push them to do it. I think that situation is still 2-3 years away, though.
Was this detail added by the article writer? Unless something has changed, Tesla cells are produced at the Tesla factories. These 4680 production lines are for Panasonic to sell to customers.
Actual press release: https://news.panasonic.com/global/press/data/2022/02/en22022...
I'm just guessing as to how they might use these cells that won't be produced in volume for at least two years. To me, new vehicles that haven't yet been announced are the most likely candidates. That could easily turn out to be wrong, of course.
Oil creates a global antropomorphic environmental cataclysm.
The two are not the same and this is weak whataboutism.
Did the share price spike? If so who made money?
There's one thing that worries me about EVs: local pollution.
So, ICE cars release CO2 + they release local pollutants (NO, CO, etc), particulate matter, that kind of thing.
EVs obviously don't directly release CO2 nor do they release those local pollutants.
However, EVs are on average much heavier (probably 200-400kgs heavier), which means that they probably need bigger tires and they wear them out faster. They probably also wear roads faster.
For local pollution, is the extra tire & road wear and tear equal or worse to the ICE tire & road wear and tear + exhaust gases?
Does anyone know any studies about this?
The thing is, that's another aspect where I'd naively assume tires are a much larger factor. I'm probably wrong, though.
Though I did discover when I do replace them they won’t be quite as good because copper sintering has been outlawed due to metal pollution.
edit: it's the 4th power for road damage (!): https://www.denenapoints.com/relationship-vehicle-weight-roa...
Even the Model 3? That's more of an economy car, I'd expect it to have practical tires.
To EV fanboys: issues should be discussed, not hidden away because they're not nice or not solved yet.
I think EVs are a great idea, they're great for the environment and personally, I was hoping they'd also be great for air quality. But it seems the air quality part will not happen for quite a long time, until batteries become much lighter, unfortunately.
"This chapter estimates the non-exhaust PM emission factors from electric vehicles and compares these factors with those of internal combustion engine vehicles. Assuming lightweight EVs (i.e. with battery packs enabling a driving range of about 100 miles), the report finds that EVs emit an estimated 11-13% less non-exhaust PM2.5 and 18-19% less PM10 than ICEVs. Assuming that EV models are heavier (with battery packs enabling a driving range of 300 miles or higher), however, the report finds that they reduce PM10 by only 4-7% and increase PM2.5 by 3-8% relative to conventional vehicles. Additional simulations indicate that the uptake of electric vehicles will lead to very marginal decreases in total PM emissions from road traffic in future years. In scenarios where electric vehicles comprise 4% and 8% of the vehicle stock in 2030, their penetration reduces PM emissions by 0.3%-0.8% relative to current levels."
VW id.3 weight:
1,812 to 1,935 kg
VW Golf weight:
1,302 to 1,630 kg
That's 18% to 38% heavier, it's a huge difference.
And most cars are not luxury cars, across the world. Nor are they SUVs.
I fear we're both going to wreck roads much faster and affect air quality, at least for the next 5-10 years, until we improve battery capacity and reduce their weight :-(