Tesla Cybertruck Charging Curve Confirms Poor Charging Performance | Hacker News Reader

Tesla Cybertruck Charging Curve Confirms Poor Charging Performance

autoevolution.com

41 pointsaddaon32 comments

I had wondered what neat trick Tesla was going to use to cool those chonker 4680 cells. There is a reason you can't buy rechargeable C or D size batteries even though there are hundreds of options for AA and AAA batteries. Electrolyte is a pretty crappy thermal conductor.

You can buy those though. They may be harder to find in physical retailers, but there are plenty of options out there.

My experience with those is that they are a AA cell in a plastic shell.

> My experience with those is that they are a AA cell in a plastic shell.

Several years back (2016) I had some EBL NiMH C-size cells that were obviously not AAs in a plastic shell. They were significantly heavier than a AA cell (around the weight of a C-size alkaline) and had a higher MaH rating.

Here's the current product listing: https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00FHVM7GC/

as others have mentioned, C & D cells in rechargeable format always have been a AA or similar sized cells. Even back in the nicad days this was true.

My 4x4 RadioShack remote control car from 1989 would beg to differ.

This thing looks like the most inefficient vehicle of all time. You can see with your eyes that it's poorly engineered. Why did anyone believe any of the positive claims made about it?

I mean, every serious review out there places the cybertruck as a solid choice for electric truck, on par and reasonably priced against alternatives. Surely not as hyped as originally planned, but still a solid choice.

What amazing eyes do you have that spot "obvious poor engineering"...?

The body lines in various places have been misalined for some time. Before I got into IT, I did body and paint for years, and it seems a running joke about the body panel misalignment in the cybertrucks for some time. Even from afar you can see when panels don't align.

Can you link to some example pictures?

https://imgur.com/a/eNCRZQn

https://imgur.com/a/XZUv8Gr

https://imgur.com/a/Xmat5TH

This is a frequent, but fairly disingenuous attack on cybertruck. All these pics are from preproduction models and the most recent models basically don't have this issue at all.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aerodynamics

Related Cybertruck forum thread complaining about low efficiency and estimated 178.5 mile range:

https://www.cybertruckownersclub.com/forum/threads/178-5-mil...

Tesla owners have a lot of reasons/excuses, ranging from "Teslas only get 75% of their claimed range in optimum conditions anyway", to cold weather, fast driving, HVAC use, open tonneau cover, inefficient all-terrain tires, driver ineptitude, preheating for Supercharger usage, non-availability of V4 Superchargers, and on and on.

The whiplash is severe as people are still quoting the imaginary 500+ mile range from 2019.

689Wh/mi is 428Wh/km... that is utterly insane energy use. My Zoe (small car) needs 150Wh/km in winter and I wouldn't get a car above 200 or 250.

They spent all their time trying to make the stainless body panels actually align, and a shoddy battery got through.

It's really interesting how, every time a negative point about Tesla appears on this forum, there's an instant chorus of defenders who jump in and punt it how 1. biased 2. incorrect and 3. ignorant, the original post is.

It's almost like Tesla has hired a top tier PR agency to manage negative social media content and protect its reputation.

There's nothing illegal about that of course. It's just really impressive.

As my grandma said, better late than exploding in a ball of fire.

This is a sample of one. Not many of these things out there.

It will get a software update and will charge faster in no time.

I feel like at this point any v1 Tesla should come with a warning. Some people don’t mind being beta testers, others do.

The current Superchargers are not even 800v yet.

> It will get a software update and will charge faster in no time.

This is certainly possible, especially if the reason for the slow charge is that the cells were rushed into production so fast that Tesla didn't have time to characterize them, and don't know what charge conditions will damage them. On the other hand, the 4680s have been in production, in one form or another, for quite a while now, including in Model Ys which show the same slow charge performance, so it's also certainly possible that the cell quality is such that they can't be fast charged without damaging them, regardless of software tweaks.

This brings up a newbie question that Ive been wondering about for a while - Is it feasible to design an EV platform that can be upgraded to other battery chemistries? The idea of purchasing an EV that a few years down the line can be upgraded to the latest battery tech with a Software update to the BMS is very exciting!

The BMS is usually part of the battery assembly, so swapping batteries (to a different chemistry, or not) would generally involve swapping to an appropriate BMS. If the battery voltage is close enough to the design voltage (so no going from a 400 V system to a 900 V system without also changing out inverters, etc), and if the new BMS provides any necessary interfaces, why not?

Nio has some battery swap models that let you drive into a bay and it swaps the battery out for you in 5min or so.

That design is likely the only one that would really work with a "change the battery chemistry" option. All other electronic vehicles seem to use the battery ad the base of the car in a sled design, so updating the battery would be a 10k kind of affair, if possible.

> Is it feasible to design an EV platform that can be upgraded to other battery chemistries?

Yes. Nio's cars can both charge and swap the battery. They can swap between 75 kWh, 100 kWh, and 150 kWh packs, all of which have the same physical dimensions. The 150 kWh pack is a new semi-solid state battery chemistry and only adds an extra 20 kilos of weight versus the 100 kWh pack:

https://carnewschina.com/2023/12/17/nio-et7-with-150-kwh-sem...

Do you have any info to back up that claim or is it a guess?

It’s a guess. Software fix is cheap.

Every other Tesla model has had numerous software updates improving the charge curve. They always start out conservative and get more aggressive with more data.

> Every other Tesla model

Except for older Model S cars, which received an update a few years ago that massively reduced supercharging speed.

For 2024 you could consider to to form a habit of pointing to sources that support your statements (or mark them as things you want to believe) — this is better for everybody involved.

Or, you know, just don't submit the post after writing it unless it really adds something to the discussion.

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