Elon Musk: Boeing 787 battery fundamentally unsafe | Hacker News Reader

Elon Musk: Boeing 787 battery fundamentally unsafe

flightglobal.com

369 pointsaaronbrethorst242 comments

This is a very smart move by Musk from a PR point of view. By accusing Boeing's batteries of being fundamentally unsafe, he garners the maximum amount of trust from people who are concerned about battery safety, so that, when he immediately follows up with an explanation of why this couldn't happen on a Tesla, those very people are already leaning towards believing him. This goes over much better than attempting to defend the safety of high-density batteries in general.

I think he probably saw it as a defensive move: He doesn't want li-ion technology to get a bad name, and that doesn't mean only explaining why Tesla's approach is safe, but also trying to help others avoid mistakes that could hurt the whole industry including his company.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_best_defense_is_a_good_offe...

> Generally the idea is that offensive action preoccupies the opposition and ultimately its ability to directly harm.

That makes sense.

> This is a very smart move by Musk from a PR point of view.

This is an awful PR move if he's wrong. I hope he's sure.

an MIT professor already backs up what he is saying, he is not on his own with his opinion

Not just any MIT prof-- Sadoway is an expert metallurgist and leading researcher on energy storage in batteries. The article is also incorrect: Sadoway is part of the Materials Science Engineering Department.

As an aside, his intro chemistry lectures are excellent, entertaining, and available online. http://ocw.mit.edu/courses/materials-science-and-engineering...

Except they're both clueless about battery use in planes.

Do batteries start working differently when they are placed in planes?

Well, they might do - temperature, pressure etc.

Eh, I can't imagine either Prof Sadoway or Musk is only familiar with batteries at room temperature at sea level.

...and on what basis do you make that claim?

Is this like that magic ink that patents are printed in that makes inventions something entirely different when you add "in planes" or "on the Internet" to them?

It's a smart PR move in either scenario. It's unlikely this will matter if he is wrong.

If he is correct, this will become an even larger main stream news story and there is a good chance that his prescience will be picked up and included in how it is reported.

More importantly, if this becomes a major story, he has preempted the inevitable look at other products (tesla) which include li-ion batteries by describing the distinction between the two. This could become a major shitstorm that Tesla gets rolled into but by making this statement he's getting out in front of it and shaping how that story will be told.

If he is wrong, the batteries are fine and there is no story.

No one ever remembers the predictions you got wrong, just the ones you got right. It's the basis of all punditry.

this is hard to swallow when someone posted a list of half a dozen horribly incorrect technology predictions in this very thread

http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5138247

Which were all urban legends or misquotes, though.

That makes me wonder what the next public and private PR moves should be for Boeing. My first guess is that their strategy should:

A) Mention the tradeoffs involved with any engineering project

B) Quickly accept blame instead of pushing it off to a supplier, a single employee and/or group (i.e., even if they have excellent reason and evidence for doing so)

C) Make known their official stance on Elon's technical assessment

I also think that they should first respond to Elon privately and later make a public statement--when they are ready. I happen to think they should make a public statement about what Elon's statement rather quickly. However, I realize that their executive staff and PR department may need some time to discuss this.

Because Elon is so "high-profile," if they don't handle this wisely, the press will give them two black eyes instead of one.

D) Invent a time machine and qualify two different battery types, as they should have done in the first place.

Everything else will keep the 787 on the ground for a very long time, I'm afraid.

E) Replace with proven technologies (NiCd or AGM) which weigh more and accept a small hit on fuel efficiency until the lithium problems are sorted out.

Trouble is, any such change, even to a "proven" technology, will trigger an avalanche of red tape from the FAA. They don't issue slipstream patches in that business.

D) take EM's offer and source the batteries / solution to a joint boeing-spacex/tesla project and proudly proclaim that they're going to the world's experts on batteries, the same people that NASA trusts - SpaceX. This provides positive press for both companies and (provided they fix the problem) resolves any long term problems that might completely destroy their business (like having multiple planes catch fire or blow up).

All it will take is to swallow their pride for a moment and go to their competitor to help solve the problem.

They can't do that since Boeing are in a joint venture as direct competition to SpaceX, as stated in the article.

There may be the perception that they "can't" - and it is realistic to state this - but they actually can.

Bad use of language on my part, it would probably be more accurate to say that they won't, because of the politics involved.

FWIW it was absolutely not the intention to criticise you, what you said, or how you said it – I'd have said the same thing as you did. I felt the need to put the distinction forward as I'm in the eternal process of removing "can't"'s from my mindset.

Tesla's /cells/ are also "fundamentally unsafe", but they make the /batteries/ as safe as possible.

Fundamentally _safe_ would be LiFePO4 chemistry:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lithium_iron_phosphate_battery

Longer lifespan and significantly cheaper than cobalt, manganese, etc; but 20% lower specific mass. Survives having a nail driven through a fully-charged cell with only some smoke and a small bit of flame -- not a meltdown like the more active chemistries.

"Tesla's /cells/ are also "fundamentally unsafe", but they make the /batteries/ as safe as possible."

While it's certainly true that the Li-ion chemistry used in the Tesla's batteries are flammable, keep in mind the current common alternative to those potentially burning cells is carrying round a metal or plastic tank with 10 or more gallons of gasoline in it. If there weren't a 100+ year history of people doing just that and getting away with it most of the time, you surely wouldn't be allowed to do it in today's safety-conscious society.

Gasoline is not all that dangerous in the vast majority of failure modes. Li-ion is both corrosive and easier to set on fire which is a real issue for hybrids and aircraft.

Vast majority, yes. But I've seen failure modes where it was dangerous on more than one occasion.

Gasoline isn't dangerous? It's ten times as easy to light up a gas tank than a battery pack, and the energy release is instant.

You can drop a lit match into a bucket of gasoline. It needs to be aerosolized to be explosive.

You can indeed, and it ignites the gasoline. Gasoline vapors in air have relatively wide explosive limits which can be attained in a wide variety of ways, not only by aerosolization.

Then the multiple times I've seen that done, by multiple different people, all happened with something other than gasoline.

I'm not saying it can't happen, and I'm well aware that gasoline vapors are extremely dangerous. I'm just saying that the gas tank in your car isn't "10 times as easy to light up" as the newer, super-energy-dense lithium chemistry based batteries.

Diesel fuel and kerosene are good candidates for the "something other than gasoline". They'll both happily put out a lit match.

May I suggest, by the way, that you think twice and double-check your facts before posting potentially fatal fire-safety advice on the internet? You'll probably never know if you've killed somebody. If you want to try the gasoline-bucket experiment, I recommend doing it in a small coffee can on a large concrete pad that you don't mind discoloring.

I think the critical difference is how long the bucket full of gasoline has been sitting there. If you just filled it up, there will be a lot of vapors hovering above the surface. If it's been sitting, undisturbed and uncovered, for a good long while, there won't.

In the former case, you're going to lose your eyebrows, at best. In the latter, the match will go out.

Gasoline vapors are several times heavier than air, so they tend to stay in buckets, crawl across basement floors, and so on. Maybe if you let the bucket sit there long enough, they'll displace enough oxygen that you won't get a fire at the surface.

Another crucial variable is the temperature. If you do the experiment with the bucket sitting in a snowdrift, you probably can get it to snuff out a match, regardless of how long it's been sitting there.

Yup, it works out fine almost every time.

I don't know. I could see it getting to a less tech savvy media outlet and become Founder of Tesla openly admits batteries in their cars are fundamentally unsafe.

A smart move would be waiting for the NTSB report instead if assuming that you can divine what is happening with a minimal set of facts.

I've had my share of "experts" opine on their imagine root causes of problems based on whatever bullshit they made up while the incident response folks were figuring it out using real data.

The problem is, the folks figuring this out aren't talking, because they aren't done. So now a bunch of people will remember what Elon Musk said, and the whole process is tainted.

IMO, good PR is talking about how your company implemented battery technology in a safe way. Not this.

it makes strategic sense to taint your competitor, if there is no repercussion for doing so, but lots of advantages.

Boeing is not a competitor. If there is any strategy behind this move it is to make the public think it is just Boeing's batteries which are at fault and not lithium batteries in general.

United Launch Alliance competes directly with SpaceX. ULA comprises Lockheed and Boeing.

While I have enormous respect for Elon Musk, I would hope that Boeing engineers have just as thorough an understanding of the workings and safety implications of Lithium-ion batteries. Though Tesla's engineering is admittedly much more focused around battery technology, Boeing has decades of experience with aircraft electrical systems.

It would appear that Boeing had a small oversight. Building a plane is not like building a car. There are different requirements. While some requirements overlap there are clear fundamental differences.

Now, with that said, it could be that SpaceX and Tesla were allowed to focus more on batteries while Boeing had to improve jet engine efficiency as well as electrical battery usage.

SpaceX and Tesla try to keep as much of this in-house as possible, so they can maintain full oversight and make changes without unnecessary cost overhead.

Boeing had 10 layers of contractors involved in this SNAFU. WWED = What Would Elon Do.

Pedantic: Boeing subcontracted the jet engine efficiency improvements to Rolls-Royce (Trent 1000) and GE (GEnx).

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rolls-Royce_Trent_1000

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/General_Electric_GEnx

In this case it is pretty pedantic I'm afraid. Engine subcontracting is pretty standard in aviation. Nearly all of the engine types I can think of are either GE or Rolls-Royce.

It's kind of like Rotax for motorcycles and Snowmobiles... give the designs or specifications to a supplier and have them do all of the heavy lifting.

I'm sure Airbus engineers are also great with wing design, yet they recently had problems with the A380 wings because it was something new with which they didn't have as much experience. The same could be said about these advanced lithium-ion batteries, I believe.

no doubt Boeing know that even if the batteries smoke and fail they wont be a threat to safety, but Musk has a better handle on marketing. If there is smoke on a plane or car people expect the worst, regardless of if it is actually a safety issue.

I don't know, don't Li-ion batteries tend to fail fairly spectacularly? Those melted cars after Sandy come to mind.

From my limited experience with smoke in cars, sadly they often turn to fire. Because, you know, like the first humans that did create fire, very often when a fire starts there's smoke...

I've seen a Saab in which the ashtray started to smoke and then before we could pull out (on the highway) the dashboard had flames and started to melt.

And I've seen a very nice and shiny Porsche 911 Carrera model 964 whose alternator belt did broke and then started "burning" on the engine. We smelled it and then we could see smoke. By the time we opened the engine trunk (with our fire extinguisher in hand) it was on fire. Funnily enough the repair were under warranty and there wasn't much to change (the trunk needed to be repaint and one or two pieces changed).

When there is unexpected smoke on a plane it is a safety issue.

Seen that a Boeing supplier's factory went up in flames due to a battery that took fire, I'm not exactly sure there's "no doubt Boeing know that even if the batteries smoke and fail they won't be a threat to safety". Same for the 16 hybrid sport cars that burst into flames on that parking lot due to batteries shorting.

I think that: "There's no smoke without fire" may be the sentence you're after ; )

yes in a Petrol car there is a problem with smoke = fire. My whole point is that smoke in a petrol engine usually means something as either caught fire etc. Smoke in a Battery compartment may or may not.

Is it a safety issue? Probably, but not definitely. Do the general public have a problem with smoke on a plane? Hell yes.

Our experience with traditional cars and planes is that where there is smoke there is fire. That may or may not be true with the batteries, I dont know but I do know that Boeing do a LOT of testing, so would be suprised to see a plane go down due to these problems.

I believe the cars you were talking about were completely submerged in sea water and then caught fire. Presumably any car or plane submerged in sea water will get written off which is probably why they dont worry too much about it.

Li-ion fires tend to generate oxygen and so they are quite hard to put out. At 30,000 ft in the air I would consider this a fairly significant threat to safety.

Lot of shipping companies won't even handle Lithium batteries (over a certain size or quantity) on their flights.

FedEx's shipping guide, as an example: http://www.fedex.com/downloads/shared/packagingtips/battery_...

The batteries actually went up in flames though, it wasn't just smoke (I'm recalling the the adage about where there's smoke there's fire). The new flagship plane from Boeing wasn't grounded worldwide because there was no threat to safety.

I have enormous respect for Elon Musk, and he's right, large cells without thermal barriers between cells are dangerous.

Boeing doesn't have a "decade of experience" with Lithium-Ion batteries though. The particular type of batteries have an elevated risk profile, but are light weight. The 787 has a larger APU than previous aircraft, and requires a larger battery to start the APU.

These particular batteries are Lithium Cobalt Oxide. One of the sub-contractors, Securaplane, who made the battery controller/charger, had their factory destroyed by fire, after a battery malfunction in 2006.

Edit: Cessna had problems with their Lithium-Ion batteries in some Citations, and had to replace them with NiCADs in a emergency airworthiness directive.

It's not necessarily Boeing's engineers. A lot of the 787 design (not just fabrication) was subcontracted out, so it's just as likely to have been whatever subcontractor had the combination of low bid and business connections to win the contract.

Ref: http://www.newyorker.com/talk/financial/2013/02/04/130204ta_...

The 787 electrical design was subcontracted to Thales, who then subcontracted the battery work to GS Yuasa:

http://www.gsyuasa-lp.com/content/thales-selects-gs-yuasa-li...

I shouldn't be surprised if there aren't several people within Boeing with exactly the right expertise. Whether they were identified and listened to by management is a separate question.

If Musk is right (IANA Battery Guy), I would presume there are cost / design trade-offs involved. And some exec had to evaluate those against safety issues. Those are engineering decisions, they're also business decisions. If the execs deciding that didn't have the proper background to make an engineering evaluation himself, they are left trying to decide which engineers to trust. It isn't at all hard to see someone getting that wrong.

I'm an aeromechanical engineer, not an electrical one, but I suspect the fewer-cells design was chosen to save weight. Many unconventional design decisions in aerospace (everything with holes, novel materials which trickle down to cars and golf clubs) are driven by the need to reduce weight.

These systems replaced hydraulics for surface control, right? On a weight advantage? Making good on a decision like that is exactly what confirmation bias is all about.

The hydraulics are controlled exactly the same as any other fly by wire aircraft like the 777 or a modern airbus. The computer takes the pilot inputs and combines them with a flight computer that controls electric motors which move the flight surfaces with hydraulics.

The big increase in electrical supply (4x over the 777 i believe) is the result of the bleedless air architecture that boeing chose. There was a big push by boeing to make the system work as it was a selling point for the public and carriers. I think that decision didn't receive the scrutiny that it probably should have.

Yes, the situation you describe is not unlike the one at Morton Thiokol prior to the Challenger accident. You should look up the story of how Feynman (who was not an Aerospace engineer, gasp!) managed to bring the Challenger accident cause to light, despite some of the accident investigation committee's best efforts.

Elon seems to really want to get involved in this. Make no mistake, Boeing and SpaceX are fierce competitors for government contracts with very dubious selection processes.

I'm saying this because he is a businessman, not an engineer. He seems to be getting a lot of information about the 787s batteries inner workings when the number of airplanes and suppliers are very limited.

Edit: I'm not trying to be cynical, but I do think that if Elon really wanted to help he should contact Boeing and do it instead of playing politics.

while not a PE he is no slouch, he has a bachelor's in physics

Which covers 0 information about Li battery vs other kinds, especially considering when he earned his Bachelor's.

Then there's that small matter of his founding an electric car company that uses Lithium Ion batteries. Oh and the rocket company. I can't imagine many people more qualified to talk about LiIon and aerospace.

Is a Professional Engineer certification relevant here? All the PEs I've met work in the civil engineering field.

Sounds like you only know people with Civil PEs, then. There are different examinations and qualifications for different disciplines.

Source: my wife is a Naval Architecture PE.

Naval Architecture, that's fascinating! That's Naval Architecture as in ship hulls or decks, not harbors etc?

Have to say, I poked around at a number of PE certification links first and found a lot of state PE offices linked with Land Surveying. Other sources like wikipedia note that PE certs in the US exempt many interstate industries such as Mechanical, Chemical, and Aerospace Engineering.

Yeah that's the only kind of PE I've met. As a profession they do not impress. These guys are incapable of imagining anything they haven't done before a hundred times, let alone doing it and putting their seal on it.

Generally speaking, you don't want creative processes for the construction of overpasses, highways, and building construction. You want something that is structurally sound, safe for the application in question, and of a design suitable to being bid on by multiple contractors.

I can't say that I blame them, if I recall correctly, putting their seal on it implies the assumption of legal liability for the fitness of the design by the PE. Under those circumstances, I would make strongly conservative decisions too.

My understanding is that Elon Musk, a physicist by education, is indeed an engineer and was very hands on in the engineering processes at SpaceX, so I'd assume he wasn't out of the technical loop that led to design decisions at Tesla.

Maybe a little OT but:

Can you be considered an "ist" by having just a BS degree. That is, physicist, computer scientist, etc...

If no, what is the requirement? Masters or PhD?

You don't even need formal qualifications for those, just the actual skill, and then it's up to people to asses if you have them.

Right. A bit like an artist. You don't need an advanced degree in art to be an accomplished artist. Plus the idea of formalized education with narrowly focused advanced degrees is fairly recent, and for most of the history of the discipline Physicists have not been so qualified.

I did a BSc in Physics. I consider myself a Physicist by education, just as I consider Musk to be. You are trained to be a Physicist whether you pursue a career in that field or not. As I mentioned on a post recently talking about research projects, my final year project in 1995, without going into too much detail, was modeling the expansion of the universe assuming a non-zero cosmological constant and tracing the paths of light through such an expanding/contracting/whatever universe, depending on assumed values, and studying the likely distribution of hydrogen absorption lines as it passed through a posited foam-like structure of walls and filaments of matter. This was a relatively off the wall topic at the time, but for anyone studying Physics today you'll know a lot of these things now represent the state of thinking in many ways. People might pursue these topics to a much deeper level in order to get a Masters or PhD but you still need to be a Physicist at any level to dive into such a project and produce a result.

At least that's my 2c - it's all just semantics, and as such there are many possible answers here :-)

If no, what is the requirement? Masters or PhD

Launching payloads to the ISS is good enough for me.

That was done by Musks company, not Musk alone.

There aren't many achievements that are truly solo efforts - there is usually someone keeping the home fires burning at the very least.

Go look up Ed Fredkin or Amory Lovins.

Maybe a little OT but:

By law, no one can practise as a "professional engineer" in Canada or the United States without a licence. The BS is just one part of becoming a professional engineer.

"I'm saying this because he is a businessman, not an engineer."

Musk is the Chief Designer at Space-X, Product Architect at Tesla Motors, and a member of the Stanford University Engineering Advisory Board. He has previously served as a member of the United States National Academy of Sciences Aeronautics and Space Engineering Board. - Wikipedia.

Elon Musk is not an engineer. He does not have an engineering degree and does not hold an engineering license.

I'm a huge fan of the guy, but he is not an engineer.

No, but he has a bachelor's in physics along with his business degree. And from personal experience I can say that if you hang around enough with engineers you pick up a lot of things.

He did offer his help initially, although that may have been a political move as well.

"Desire to help Boeing is real & am corresponding w 787 chief engineer." https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/295162137297428480

This a month and a half after Boeing/Lockheed was derisive about Musk publicly:

http://go.bloomberg.com/political-capital/2012-12-18/musk-vs...

Good link. One would hope that had nothing to do with it, but....

Wow, a $70 billion market dominated by essentially only two major players. Sounds like a market ripe for disruption.

If you have the ability to put together a team that can raise a few hundred million in venture capital to go after a few big government contracts, then maybe. There's a reason why some markets are dominated by essentially two major players.

Not sure where the $70 billion valuation comes from either, but if you add together the market capitalization of Boeing, Lockheed Martin and SpaceX you're still under $100 billion. Boeing and Lockheed Martin also make other stuff.

I've found that humans are much better at doing than they are at thinking. Humans can generate countless hypotheses and evidence to support those hypotheses, and yet most human theories are flat out wrong. This is why we have the scientific method, which verifies hypothesis with good old fashioned elbow grease.

The real "five whys" question here is: "Why did this battery get through Boeing's (most certainly exhaustive) certification process and win FAA approval?" Boeing is well aware of the risks of lithium ion batteries and must have "proven" to themselves and the FAA that this design was sound through rigorous testing.

I suspect there is an "unknown unknown" here; something so unexpected a test couldn't be fathomed to exercise it. How does one find unknown unknowns? It's a fascinating question.

Forbes is running an article [1], suggesting it is in Boeing/SpaceX/Tesla's goint best interested to prove/make safe lithium ion batteries. Reason being, they all have products that use them, and they should have a great reputation, and there should be zero stigma attached to them.

[1] http://www.forbes.com/sites/davidewalt/2013/01/29/why-elon-m...

While I can't dispute anything that is being said I think it is unfortunate that this is playing out the way it is.

I can't dispute it because there's virtually no reliable publicly-available information on the design of this battery pack. I think it is unbecoming of an engineer or scientist, particularly of prominence, to voice such opinions without access to design data from the source.

Before I could even begin to dare to voice opinion I would need to study CAD models, electrical and electronic diagrams and test data. I would also want to have access to representative samples of the packs for inspection. Even then, unless there was something so obviously wrong with the design that a conclusion was inescapable I'd refrain from rash public comments and redouble evaluation efforts to make sure every angle was evaluated exhaustively.

Having designed high-performance, high-current chargers in the past I know a thing or two about battery technology, particularly when it comes to failure modes. When you are doing that kind of work you purposely test designs to induce and document failures and design around them when possible. Yes, I have blown-up lots of batteries and chargers. And, yes, this means that if you've worked with high-energy battery technologies (and electronics in general) you get a good general sense of the good, the bad and the ugly. I get it. And I would still want design and test data from the horses-mouth before uttering a word.

The problem here is that the engineers at Boeing are not clowns. Unless you consider people with advanced degrees from the top engineering schools in the world to be clowns. This is an industry that takes what they do very, very seriously. A lot of work, simulation and testing goes into all of their projects. I could not imagine the engineers at Boeing slapping together a battery pack for something like the 787 project without years of work and testing. I just can't see it. Yet, they are human beings which means that mistakes and miscalculations do happen. That's true of any human endeavor.

And so, making such comments is also disrespectful. I understand competitive forces very well. But there's a time and a place for that.

If he is wrong he'll have a lot of explaining to do. If that is the case I hope he'll devote just as much energy to issuing the necessary apologies and clarifications as he does being critical.

EDIT:

If you ever get a chance to visit the Boeing factory in Seattle it is a must. I did many years ago. As an engineer it was fascinating. I remember one test they showed us where they clamped down (I think) a 747 wing in this huge structure and used incredibly large hydraulic jacks to bend the wing up and down repeatedly for failure-mode testing. I could be wrong, but I think I remember the peak to peak bending at the wing-tip was in the order of ten stories. I could not imagine designing and building an electro-mechanical structure that could do that and survive with enough functionality to get people safely back to ground level.

I think this might be it: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WRf395ioJRY

Here's video on the 787 wing: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sA9Kato1CxA

Also: http://www.wired.com/autopia/2010/03/boeing-787-passes-incre...

So, yes, please, I think it might be wise to remain quiet and let those who actually have real data go through a proper investigative process and get us real answers. If anything out of respect for the work, talent and dedication that goes into designing and building such amazing products.

I could not imagine the engineers at Boeing slapping together a battery pack for something like the 787 project without years of work and testing.

Assuming you're right in regards to the skills of their engineers, wouldn't it only be relevant if Boeing designed the battery pack themselves?

Anything that goes into a new model of jumbo jet should have reams of test documentation. Multiple people at Boeing would have examined and approved this stuff. If they were fooled they shouldn't have been.

Even if the engineers at Boing are REALLY good (and that's not guaranteed by any means) then you've still go the subcontractor problem to deal with. Boeing didn't design, engineer, fabricate, test and qualify these batteries in-house.

Saying that they have advanced degrees from prestigious institutions makes it less likely that they have made mistakes is a non-starter. There ARE PROBLEMS with the batteries FULL STOP. The degrees of those involved make no difference anymore. How seriously they take things doesn't matter.

I don't see that any Tesla cars have caught on fire according to Google (probably not accurate) but in terms of any metric you'd like to see, they're doing much better. Fires per passenger mile, fires per car per year, etc.

> Boeing didn't design, engineer, fabricate, test and qualify these batteries in-house.

Are you implying Tesla does?

http://www.teslamotors.com/about/press/releases/panasonic-en...

All he did was invalidating this argument from the parent.

> The problem here is that the engineers at Boeing are not clowns. Unless you consider people with advanced degrees from the top engineering schools in the world to be clowns.

"Panasonic and Tesla together have developed a next-generation battery cell based on this nickel chemistry and optimized specifically for electric vehicle quality and life."

Tesla and Panasonic designed it together. Panasonic is just the manufacturer. I would be curious if Boeing engineers were also helping to design the internals of their battery.

No, not at all. The parent was making an appeal to authority (the engineers are not clowns, they have advanced degrees from prestigious schools). That's fine, but that only matters if those folks did all the work I talked about.

I don't care how Tesla got their batteries as the track record of their success makes the credentials of those involved in designing them irrelevant.

> There ARE PROBLEMS with the batteries FULL STOP

Because Elon Musk says so? Do you base your trust in him on his degrees?

> Because Elon Musk says so?

I'm not the guy you're responding to but I think it is safe to say there are problems with the batteries. Because, you see, they are catching fire, which is why all of this became an issue to begin with.

The problem may or may not be what Elon Musk thinks it is, but if an airplane's batteries are catching fire mid-flight, those batteries certainly have problems, unless catching fire was one of the design goals of those batteries, but I'm going to have to guess it wasn't.

Yeeeah, I apparently live under a rock. Hadn't heard about the fires, only skimmed the Elon Musk article.

Disregard, carry on.

Well, there have been at least 100 of them replaced so far, for either being discharged too far, expired, or had charging problems. Apparently, it's pretty easy for ground crews to leave something going that drains the battery to the point where it needs to be sent back to the manufacturer.

That's on 50 planes that have been flying in commercial service for less than a year.

Oh yeah, and that fire thing too.

Thermal runaway in high performance batteries? Musk is not exactly the first to notice this phenomena. His hypothesis is fairly straightforward.

No, the FAA says so, leading to a grounding of all the planes.

>unless there was something so obviously wrong with the design that a conclusion was inescapable

Isn't that exactly what both Musk and Professor Sadoway are suggesting in the linked article?

Sadoway is one of the world's leading geniuses in this field.

Mostly in jest:

    "I think there is a world market for maybe five computers."
    -- Thomas Watson, chairman of IBM, 1943

    "There is no reason anyone would want a computer in their home."
    -- Ken Olson, president, chairman and founder of Digital Equipment Corp., 1977

    "The concept is interesting and well-formed, but in order to earn better 
    than a 'C,' the idea must be feasible."
    -- A Yale University management professor in response to Fred Smith's paper 
       proposing reliable overnight delivery service. 
       (Smith went on to found Federal Express Corp.)

    "Heavier-than-air flying machines are impossible."
    -- Lord Kelvin, president, Royal Society, 1895.

    "Stocks have reached what looks like a permanently high plateau."
    -- Irving Fisher, Professor of Economics, Yale University, 1929.

    "Louis Pasteur's theory of germs is ridiculous fiction".
    -- Pierre Pachet, Professor of Physiology at Toulouse, 1872

    "640K ought to be enough for anybody."
    -- Bill Gates, 1981

    "The bomb will never go off. I speak as an expert in explosives." 
    -- Admiral William Leahy, U.S. Atomic Bomb Project.

I did come across an interesting letter that is not necessarily relevant to this discussion but might be worth reading:

http://chem.tufts.edu/answersinscience/relativityofwrong.htm

Well, here he's not saying that its safe, and never going to have problems.. He's saying its a bad design.. which I think he's competent enough to recognize the physics of

Bill Gates never said that.

There is no evidence for the Gates alleged quote. Same for the Watson alleged quote.

As far as Smith and FedEx goes, according to Smith himself he wrote one paper that touched on the idea while an undergraduate. He doesn't remember what his grade was. The "C" notion came about, he says, because a reported asked him what his grade was and he said "I don’t know, probably made my usual C". [1]

[1] http://campusentrepreneurship.wordpress.com/2007/05/06/inter...

The Ken Olsen quote is taken way out of context. He was thoroughly aware of personal computers in 1977. He was referring to behemoth home automation systems:

http://www.snopes.com/quotes/kenolsen.asp

The quote attributed to Lord Kelvin is a significant paraphrasing of a letter he wrote in 1896:

http://zapatopi.net/kelvin/papers/letters.html#baden-powell

In 1902 Kelvin was more blunt about (i) balloons being more promising than the idea of aeroplanes and (ii) neither of them having any viable future http://zapatopi.net/kelvin/papers/interview_aeronautics_and_...

I'd be very interested in what they are saying if --and only if-- they had access to Boeing and FAA design and test data.

You have to remember that the FAA had to approve these subsystems as well. I don't have any first-hand experience on just how detailed (or not) this certification process might be. Once again, how could anyone say anything at all without looking at data.

To make a really dumb analogy, it's like claiming to know what happened with a race horse that died clear across the country because you know race horses. Wouldn't you first have to see the veterinarian's records on that horse as well as such things as dietary and other data before really being able to say anything at all.

In other words, I am not detracting from the expert status some of these folks enjoy. Not at all. I think it is precisely because they might be domain experts at some level that they should behave with decorum and refrain from making comments without a full stack of the necessary data.

And the FAA seems pretty conservative?

"Finally, the FAA changes so slowly that if this were even all possible, the adoption and certification would all take at least 50 years." --Eric Schmidt, http://longbets.org/4/

Well, either we believe that government is the solution to all our problems or we don't. Right?

(In jest)

I'm not sure that erring on the side of caution is a bad thing when it comes to commercial jets, especially when "erring on the side of caution" means requiring an airline carrying large numbers of paying passengers needing to pay two qualified pilots to sit in a cockpit just in case things go wrong. I suspect most people underestimate just how many different separate electronic systems, usually developed and manufactured by independent specialists, are involved in controlling an aircraft (not to mention the new ones that would need to be developed for when things go wrong: there's a big difference between an autopilot landing an an instrument landing system and a pilot gliding his plane to a perfect stop on the Hudson River.)

Also worth pointing out that the CEO of Google (yes...I know his company tests driverless cars) isn't really more of an expert on the FAA certification process than the average person here. I think he's on the right side of the bet, but I'd also note that the avionics which assist the pilot in controlling the plane and monitoring what's going on have changed more in the last 50 years than any other aspect of commercial aircraft.

Commercial considerations are a bigger factor than certification in new aircraft programme inertia: airlines' economies of scale hugely favour existing models, and expensive radical innovation in aircraft programmes can often be improved upon at lower research cost by rivals.

context: Eric Schmidt is not the CEO, but is a commercial pilot (source: http://usatoday30.usatoday.com/money/industries/technology/2...)

Your points are common sense. You can therefore assume that other men, including the men you are criticizing, know them. Given this, and given that they are speaking publicly, I would wager that they have more access to data than you presume.

Except common sense is not very common.

Common sense is the collection of prejudices acquired by age eighteen. -Albert Einstein

Or they are inserting themselves into the news cycle on this story for purposes other than strictly engineering.

I don't know if that's what is happening here, but it is certainly not an uncommon PR strategy.

You think Musk is grandstanding in hopes that consumers will demand SpaceX rockets for commercial airline travel instead of Boeing 787's? Well, duh, I'd take a ride in a rocket over another boring commercial flight any day.

I for one think it likely that Musk talks with a good grasp of the facts.

But I will say on the PR angle, he does compete directly with the entrenched manufacturers in the space arena and all discredit and doubt cast would serve him well.

Youre focusing on what Elon Musk has to gain, which is very, very little. This is actual all about what he stands to lose. Tesla's business is predicated on the public accepting that cars packed with Li batteries are safe. If the public loses faith is Li batter mass power storage, Tesla is toast.

That doesn't mean Elon is either right or wrong, but it's sufficient to explain why he feels a pressing need to be involved in the debate.

Oh so obvious in hindsight! +1

This is exactly why he is out in front of this issue.

I worked in a hardware store after the first space shuttle accident in 1986. More than one customer thought the store should not be selling O rings since they caused the shuttle to blow up.

Did these seem to think that the o-rings were made of an explosive material, or did they seem to be worried that by selling o-rings the store was somehow enabling shoddy safety engineering?

Sometimes, I just have to try and convince myself that I'm missing the sarcasm and the general public is smarter than it appears.

Let's just say I don't think Musk emailed Flightglobal because he couldn't figure out how to get in touch with anyone at Boeing. It was not a mistake that his statement went to the press.

I do think Musk is a brilliant innovator, but that does not preclude him from also having an aggressive PR strategy.

FWIW, Boeing is a direct competitor to SpaceX for private launch contracts.

> it's like claiming to know what happened with a race horse that died clear across the country because you know race horses. Wouldn't you first have to see the veterinarian's records on that horse as well as such things as dietary and other data before really being able to say anything at all.

If the differential has 5 items, and the most likely is most likely by 99% just on demographics, then it's going to take a lot of lab data to refute that.

Similarly, heat dissipation is a first-order problem in battery design. Especially in these high-capacity designs using high-density chemistries. What else is on the differential?

What else? Shorting. Chemical impurities (less likely). Failed peripherals like fans (hopefully less likely to have this result, due to thermal cut-offs). Improper assembly. Those are my next candidates anyway, after a thermal design defect as you said (which is fairly broad).

Of course all of those potential problems would be compounded by having large cells with poor isolation.

>I'd be very interested in what they are saying if --and only if-- they had access to Boeing and FAA design and test data.

Bollocks. Your analogies are crap too. Getting an FAA type certificate is a complicated, drawn out process, note, that doesn't make it a good process.

I'm betting Musk has as much data about those batteries as Boeing, the FAA, or anyone else alive.

> I'm betting Musk has as much data about those batteries as Boeing, the FAA, or anyone else alive.

You're betting that, are you? Based on a couple of paragraphs in a news article, you're betting that Mr. Musk has as much data as anyone alive - including the Japanese designers and manufacturers of the battery?

If there were a viable way of determining the facts of the matter, I would be happy to bet pretty much any sum you cared to name against you.

>I'd be very interested in what they are saying if --and only if-- they had access to Boeing and FAA design and test data.

This kind of walled garden horseshit is what ensures no transparency in government contracts.

Just wowndering. Are you the kind of person who would consider convicting someone without looking at the evidence?

Publicly voicing concerns is comparable to convicting?

You seem to think that the burden of proof is on the critics. When an airplane has multiple failures, I'd say the burden of proof is on Boeing. Especially when the critics know a lot about the technology in question.

Furthermore, hindsight is 20/20. It's easy to rush in after the fact and make up reasons (even if those reasons are legit) to explain what is retrospectively obvious. Where was this warning before the incidents? As you stated, it's completely opportunistic and out of line to make this kind of claim without the due diligence.

Where was this warning before the incidents?

Where was the evidence that there was anything to warn about before the incidents? Everybody trusted Boeing to have a robust battery design. Now it appears that at least some aspect of it was not robust.

I agree. Elon Musk is amazing, but I doubt he has the time to review the battery design of everything manufactured in the entire Universe so that he can warn about design flaws.

On the other hand, if your kid sticks a fork in a electrical socket, anyone can say, "you really should have bought covers for your sockets". Does that really add anything to the conversation? Sometimes the incident itself make the previously underlying flaw so apparent that the armchair commentary and criticisms (which in the Boeding case seem to obvious in retrospect to all EE professors) almost provide no real value.

I've said it before... Musk just wants attention.

The investigators looking into this have already said they haven't found a problem with the batteries.. and they are turning their attention to the electrical system.

So who are you going to believe. Musk, who has no access to the details of these batteries, or the investigators who have access to everything and are looking at and testing these batteries themselves.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-21230940

The investigators looking into this have already said they haven't found a problem with the batteries.. and they are turning their attention to the electrical system.

You're missing a key point: they are turning their attention to the electrical system that controls how the batteries charge and discharge. That means that, even if the batteries themselves have no design problems per se, their failure modes under an overcharge condition are highly relevant. Which is exactly what Musk and Prof. Sadoway are critiquing: they're not saying the batteries were manufactured badly or designed badly for normal operation; they're saying the batteries were not properly designed to cope with the failure mode that the electrical control system is suspected of inducing.

Sure, you'd act real careful to protect the sanctity of your word.

But bear in mind this man leads two multimillion dollar companies. I can imagine the PR/marketing opportunity was difficult to pass up. Even if further data proves his assessment of Boeing's configuration ill-advised, a majority of impressions will remain in his favor. He may have even nipped any comparisons between Boeing's "dangerous" technology and Tesla in the bud.

A reader might walk away from the story with the idea that Tesla engineers are more skilled than Boeing engineers. Call it what you want, but that's a helluva branding opportunity.

Respect?

What respect is due to a design that puts people's lives in danger?

Yes, respect the engineers, and make sure to criticize the design and not the engineer, but please criticize the ever loving fuck out of the design.

This isn't about corporate pride here. This is about lives.

My life. Your life. Your family's lives. Everyone who flies in a plane is potentially endangered by faulty aircraft designs.

So please, Mr. Musk, and any other engineer who can level meaningful criticisms at any design that has significant human safety implications, make your voices heard.

When Ralph Nader does this sort of thing he is lauded, I don't think Musk's criticisms should be viewed in any different light.

> When Ralph Nader does this sort of thing he is lauded, I don't think Musk's criticisms should be viewed in any different light.

Just as a point of fact, Ralph Nader was hardly universally lauded when he entered the arena of public critiques: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unsafe_at_Any_Speed#Criticisms

Translation: the auto industry tried to attack Nader's reputation after he embarrassed them with his devastating report on the Corvair.

If you count an automotive journalist whose face was significantly damaged in a rollover accident[1] "the auto industry," sure. And maybe you do, his magazine ran ads from auto companies, but it's a pretty cold dismissal on your part. Possibly an incorrect one as well-- considering that he refused to back down from statements that angered various automotive corporations at the cost of ad revenue.

[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_E._Davis

The only reference to this that I can find is an article from just a few years ago in which Davis argues that Nader's focus on the Corvair had the effect of delaying the auto industry shift to more aerodynamic cars with front-wheel drives.

Try the Criticism section of the Unsafe At Any Speed article, i.e. the link you read well enough to translate into a snarky one-liner.

For some reason your comments are coming across with a lot of hostility. I'm not sure why, but my knowledge of Nader's book comes from having read about it when I was younger and took an interest in the topic. I'm happy to be proven wrong about the attempt by the auto industry to smear Nader - and his success at proving this attempt and defending his thesis - but I'm confused about why this discussion is starting to feel personal.

I'm not trying to prove you wrong about the auto-industry trying to smear Nader. I'm not arguing that Nader was wrong or deserved criticism. I was reacting to your dismissive flourish "Translation:" bit.

What respect is due to a design that puts people's lives in danger?

Competent, well-meaning people are due the benefit of the doubt. Also, your logic assumes what is in debate, ie you're using circular logic.

Pedant mode: we know the design is unsafe and faulty, so much so that the planes have been grounded. The question now is how much and in what way are they unsafe.

Regardless, I think my post was clear that criticisms which are well founded in solid engineering deserve to see the light of day, regardless of politeness. And even regardless of whether they turn out to be ultimately true. If they are solid criticisms they need to be rebutted with equally solid counterpoint arguments and/or evidence.

Failing to go about the process of safety openly and humbly is the sort of thing that costs lives. Especially now near the anniversaries of the 3 worst accidents in US manned spaceflight history I think encouraging a spirit of honest and open technological criticism is the right thing to do.

What respect is due to a design that puts people's lives in danger?

No lives are in danger, because the planes are grounded. They will not fly again until the cause of the present issue is found and resolved. It doesn't seem entirely unreasonable to me that that puts Musk's comments in a slightly different light for some people.

Note that if Musk were a (Chartered) Professional Engineer (which afaik he is not) he might well be called upon to explain these comments to an Ethics committee. Here is a snippet (from the IPENZ Code of Ethics) that I imagine is probably fairly representative of Professional Engineers' obligations:

    11. Not review other engineers’ work without taking reasonable steps to inform them and investigate

    (1)	A Member who reviews another engineer’s work for the purpose of commenting on that work must take reasonable steps to—

      (a) inform that engineer of the proposed review before starting it; and

      (b) investigate the matters concerned before commenting.

    (2)	Subclause (1) does not apply if taking those steps would result in there being a significant and immediate risk of harm to the health or safety of people, damage to property, or damage to the environment.

No lives are in danger (because the planes are grounded) but lives were in danger.

How about: If he would not speak up he would be remiss. Imagine the situation where an engineer at Boeing could be ignored but where someone of Musks standing would could not be ignored. If Musk has this knowledge and does not speak up that would be far worse than if he does.

After all, either he is wrong (which Boeing can prove, in which case Musk gets to eat some crow) or he is right (in which case his words force Boeing into more accountability, which in the case of air travel with multi-hundred-ton planes is a good thing all around).

This does not qualify as a formal review of one engineers work by another. This is simply commentary by one of the companies that has an extreme amount of knowledge about use of batteries in vehicular applications commenting on the implementation details of the structural arrangement chosen by another company for a similar (but of course still different in many way, but more critical rather than less) application. As such it is something that Boeing should - and probably does - take serious.

I highly doubt that they would take input like this and discard it either because the 'source' does not have his chartered engineers paper (the guy puts rockets into space, which I think might offset some paperwork) and makes his comments in a forum where he can't be easily ignored (which may very well be the whole point).

It doesn't appear to be in this linked article, but Musk has indicated that he is already in contact with Boeing's lead engineer in this area. I think even by the strictest interpretation of official engineering ethics Musk is doing everything right so far.

We don't know how much access he's had to relevant design documents: it's clear he has had some contact with Boeing (but not how much) and it's clear he has pretty substantial domain knowledge, but I don't think anyone here is in a position to assess whether he genuinely does have enough information at his disposal to have correctly diagnosed the problem.

Launching the whole debate with a Twitter comment announcing he could fix it wasn't smart, irrespective of ethics, because he's inevitably going to be accused of a publicity stunt there. Giving a more detailed explanation of where he thinks the problem might lie to the industry press after discussions with Boeing is rather different, and I don't see any ethical obligation for him not to do that.

Engineering ethics, PE licensure, both are an embarrassing shame to the engineering profession.

Besides, Musk might well get a pass via Subclause (2), because lives are arguably in danger, if Musk has a belief that the aircraft might be returned to service without the issue having been addressed.

These guidelines are clearly ab out not getting each other in trouble, not the interests of those using whatever a chartered engineer might be involved in.

Blah blah, appeal to authority... It's too complicated for you... etc etc. More appeals to authority, and a plea to patiently wait for word from up on high that they've figured out at last, whatever it was that they missed the first time.

Some of what you said may be true, but it's also a typical thing one might say after any engineering (potential) disaster. I'm pleased that some persons with appropriate knowledge have spoken out and I hope that it will remove any pressure Boeing engineers may feel to give their battery issue less attention than it deserves.

I have to say that if that's your best reasoning, I hope you stay far away from any life-safety critical engineering decisions for vehicles that I'm to set foot in.

I find it amusing that you are one-sidedly complaining about appeals to authority when so many comments, on both sides, in this thread boil down to "my preferred expert is better than your preferred expert".

Upvoted, to me Musk is being a publicity whore and scoring cheap hits over Boeing. I.e. his comments do not help us in advancing our understanding so can only be intended to publicise his own company's products.

He may well be. I can't say what is Musk's intent. What I can say, is that if Boeing handles their business properly, it won't make much difference what anyone has said or done this time next year.

Musk being a publicity whore has no relation to the safety of the batteries. The fact they catch fire during normal flight operation demonstrate they are not.

The difference is that, "my preferred expert" took the trouble to explain his reasoning which I will paraphrase as "Thermal runaway in Lithium batteries."

The thing that will "remove any pressure Boeing engineers may feel to give their battery issue less attention than it deserves" is heat from the NTSB and FAA, not self-serving pronouncements by some guy who happens to run a couple of tiny (compared to Boeing) high-tech engineering companies.

Companies (and their regulators) have frequently been shamed into doing what they should have in the first place by independent critics. Nader and automobiles as previously detailed, Rachel Carson and Silent Spring (ultimately resulting in the Clean Air and Clean Water acts and the EPA, created by Republican president Richard Nixon). Upton Sinclair and food processing.

Wikipedia's Whistleblower article notes a few other interesting cases: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_whistleblowers

Context is important here.

1. Elon Musk is not a whistleblower. He didn't bring this issue to light at the risk of persecution by Boeing or the airlines.

2. He's also not an "independent critic" - he's a entrepreneur who runs an aerospace company that competes with Boeing's space activities, another company that makes cars powered using batteries, and has no history as a critic of aircraft design.

3. I'm not from the US, so I hadn't heard of Upton Sinclair, but Carson's and Nader's motivations for what they did came from a desire to protect the natural environment and promote social justice respectively. I don't think that comparable motivations can be ascribed to Elon Musk in this case.

Musk definitely has a horse in the race. Still, he's independent to the extent that he's beholden to neither Boeing nor the NTSB/FAA. He's also critiquing Boeing on a specific technology on which he has substantial expertise and experience: lithium-ion battery storage. Including experience with aerospace implementations of that technology.

My point was that your assertion that working within the system is sufficient to effect change is demonstrably false.

As for businesses competing not only on dollars but mindshare and technological direction -- isn't that what the free market system is all about? Directed self-interest?

The problem is not the engineers.. The problem is most of the engineering was outsourced. http://www.forbes.com/sites/stevedenning/2013/01/21/what-wen...

You're misstating the wing flex test results.

The 787 Dreamliner saw wing flex of 154% of design maximum, at "approximately 25 feet", to quote your own sources. That's a 2.5 storey building.

The 747's wingspan, depending on aircraft configuration, ranges from 195 to 224 feet, which is approximately 19 - 22 storeys (assuming 10' per storey).

The point you make about design of the 787 is fitting. Many of us can appreciate its awe inspiring technological splendor. However, one does have to wonder if it's possible, that this feeling could be overly motivating your defense of Boeing, and criticism of Mr Musk?

We can probably agree that no one (Musk included), is without reproach. However historically we see a person willing to go all in, literally putting all his liquidity toward his new ventures. It does seem somewhat implausible he simply keeps striking it lucky.

I haven't the foggiest clue if he's right or not, but it does appear he's taken a calculated risk. Accordingly, he will be punished or rewarded as the story unfolds.

His approach seems somewhat harsh/brazen, but is that what really matters here?

When your're the unlucky patient strapped to the operating table, in need of critical surgery (assuming only two doctors were available), would want the specialist with the highest level of competency, or the one with the nicest bedside manner?

I think that talking about the battery pack being inherently unsafe is completely off-topic here. GS Yuasa manufactures batteries for 60 satellites and they haven't had a single failure there http://www.gsyuasa-lp.com/content/gs-yuasa-lithium-ion-batte...

In aviation people usually very thoroughly figure out what went wrong and why and only then suggest fixes. And the fixes are designed by the people who have access to the complete system.

GS Yuasa manufactures batteries for 60 satellites and they haven't had a single failure there

I wouldn't expect fire to be a common failure mode in outer space.

That's a hilarious observation, and I've upvoted it.

However, batteries (as opposed to capacitors) get their power from redox reactions. If we use a definition of "fire" that includes the rapid redox reaction between liquid phase propellant and solid phase propellant in a hybrid rocket motor in the vacuum of space, that definition would likely also extend to rapid redox reactions between liquid electrolyte and solid electrode in a battery during a particularly fast thermal runaway in the vacuum of space. In other words, under many reasonable definitions of "fire", any sufficiently rapid thermal runaway in a battery would be a fire, despite there not being any air present.

Musk's allegation is that the 787 battery is a poor design, not that it was manufactured incorrectly.

Your point would be a good point if Musk's allegation were that GS Yusa had manufactured the batteries incorrectly or if the satellite battery were of the same design as the 787 battery AND used under similar conditions.

However, my understanding is that the 787 battery is a new design and used under conditions rather different from a satellite.

So you're saying Elon Musk shouldn't have said this? Then how do you explain this?

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/01/30/business/boeing-aware-of-b...

If anything they should be called out for it.

I have seen the same wing bending test for the A380 at the Airbus factory in Chester. It is jaw-dropping.

The engineers have to climb into the wing to fit rivets and electrical wires. Sometimes it takes 20 minutes to crawl to the spot they want. Since they take a portable lamp with them, a popular prank was to switch someone's light off when they were well inside the wing.

Another anecdote from the Airbus engineer was Boeing had to cut a 747 wing apart because their engineer got stuck in there working on a wing. Can't verify this claim though.

Boeing batteries are overheating. Tesla batteries are not overheating. There are sufficiently similar requirements on their performance and safety that any layman can conclude there is something wrong with Boeings design.

  The problem here is that the engineers at Boeing are not clowns.

The problem here is that you think that is what is being alleged. It isn't: an enormous and old company like Boeing can have an entrenched culture that leads to decisions being made that do not follow the advice of the engineers. What makes Tesla and SpaceX competitive is not their technical knowledge: it's the fact that they can use that knowledge effectively.

NASA's engineers aren't clowns either, yet their shuttles exploded, unnecessarily. The Feynman committee tore their procedures, not their engineering ability, to shreds.

It was an engineer, Roger Boisjoly, who repeatedly warned about the safety of the o-rings, particularly in low temperatures. The decision to launch the shuttle came from management not the engineers.

http://www.space.com/14522-roger-boisjoly-shuttle-challenger...

Thus decisively proving the parent's point. Boeing might have the most talented engineers in the world, but if management ignores them then all their degrees and seriousness doesn't mean jack.

Feynman was on the accident investigation committee, and was critical to exposing crucial facts and making sure they made it into the report. Feynman even wrote an additional report to add to the committee's work. http://www.ralentz.com/old/space/feynman-report.html

Bolsjoy's ordeal is now in the curriculum of many engineering ethics courses.

Also nearly half of Feynmann's 2nd book "What Do You Care What Other People Think?" covers the shuttle enquiry in great detail.

Bingo - the engineers may have said one thing, and the project manager/board of arbitrary decisions may have said "my cousin makes batteries" or "fewer cells will mean easier part replacement".

Engineering is only part of making an engineered product.

In the specific context of engineering, the only thing I have ever heard about Boeing's "entrenched culture" is that they are obsessed with safety. A Boeing airliner is a modern miracle of overengineering.

Elon's comments have some validity, but there is a bit of grandstanding going on. Thermal runaway with lion batteries isn't a random event. It's very predictable and very preventable. 99% of lion batteries in use have a built in thermosensor so that they can charge correctly without exploding---because any lion battery will explode if charged too fast or if it goes into overvoltage.

So since all of the variables to prevent thermal runaway are know, it should make no difference how closely together they are placed. However in this case there is either a problem with the charging software---which isn't adequately performing and preventing the condition that is causing the batteries to overheat OR the batteries themselves (although in good working order) are not performing within the correct performance envelope that the software has been developed to use.

Screaming that placing the cells too close together is bogus. You laptop has cells placed equally close together as do all Tesla vehicles---and they can burn and explode just like the ones on the 787---yet that is a very rare occurrence. Because all of the charging parameters are known. Same applies to the Boeing batteries, but something is not performing according to plan.

In space, the parameters are completely different. Fire is the absolute worst case scenario in space and everything that can be done to mitigate the chance of one will be taken. Which is why the batteries on the SpaceX vehicles are spaced out they way they are. Yes, they know all of the parameters for the batteries, but the logistics of changing a battery in space are much different than those of an aircraft.

Boeing's fault in all of this is that something is not performing according to spec---and they knew that due to all of the battery swaps the Japanese airlines were doing. At that point they should have grounded and figured out the problem. But past Elon, others have already stepped up and criticized Boeings move to lions in the first place. Nickel cadmium batteries would have weighed 40 pounds more and have barely 1/1000th of a chance of thermal runaway that lithium ion batteries do. They don't charge as fast, but they are still well within the performance envelope needed by the 787.

I'm going to disregard the bits about wings and the general engineering attitude at Boeing. It is simply not relevant.

Musk has one very important justification to make the statement he did: that battery caught fire. That alone is proof positive that he is right. If the charger should fail, is it then permissible that the batteries catch fire? If not then they are fundamentally unsafe.

For that reason alone this is a valid statement, and there are more justifications (such as BIG cells with LITTLE spacing which is problematic) for the use of the word 'fundamental'.

There is enough data available about the architecture for people with far more experience than you to make such statements, the amount of energy liberated from such a big cell should it go wrong is enormous and that alone is a reason to avoid big cells.

I'm sure Elon is picking up PR points here but you can't just discard what he is saying because he does not have engineering samples on his desk. The incident proves his point quite effectively, this design really does have problems.

I totally agree with this and I can tell you that I have been in the same position as Musk in an analogous situation. From what my competitor was saying about their own product it was several red flags. There is no way such and such can be true unless you are doing X and Y wrong.

A battery on fire is not necessarily an indicator of a problem in the design. It could be a manufacturing, software, or maintenance defect. It's too early to jump to conclusions. However, unless it's a maintenance defect, it's almost certainly an indicator of a flaw in quality control and verification.

It does not matter if the you have the best engineers in the world as long management's primary concern is not flawless designs, from an engineering pov, but striking a balance between that and some unrelated economic measure. When it comes to safety, such compromises are always /very/ dangerous.

I would think the people who designed the space shuttle's rocket boosters weren't clowns either. Didn't prevent http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Space_Shuttle_Challenger_disast... from happening.

But did Boeing design those or was it outsourced far away ? There was an article on how they misdesigned the building system, it might have been a integration hell, reducing chances of thorough testing.

I don't know a single thing about this domain, but SpaceX embeds the same kind of batteries in a much larger and complex constraint space, it's another point for Musk POV.

Too bad Boeing and SpaceX didn't work together, it could have been a very synergic, local partnership.

Information is being withheld. It's hard to expect respect while at the same time withholding critical information in the name of company secrets.

Take building designs, public accessible for any engineer to take a look. If a flaw is published like in this article, it can be verified by independent sources. If someone was hiding blueprint designs and a article like this was published, everyone would assume the architect was up to no good. The respect for the work, talent and dedication would only go as far as a courtesy phone call before publishing.

So regarding planes who's design and inner working is now days mostly regarded as company secrets, staying quiet would be worse than speaking out about a issue. Boeing should see this is an perfect time to publish their electrical and electronic diagrams, together with test data, and let independent engineers either verify the authors claims or denounce it.

Generally sympathetic to this point of view, but Lockheed/Boeing actually started this war by publicly calling SpaceX's tech into question. From Dec. 18 2012:

http://go.bloomberg.com/political-capital/2012-12-18/musk-vs...

  The Lockheed-Boeing venture, United Launch Alliance, has 
  launched “hundreds of billions of dollars” of satellites 
  on 66 consecutive missions, said Robert Stevens, 
  Lockheed’s chairman and chief executive officer.

  “I’m hugely pleased with 66 in a row from ULA, and I don’t 
  know the record of SpaceX yet,” Stevens said at a Dec. 14 
  Bloomberg Government breakfast in Washington. “Two in a 
  row?

A public statement like that probably means that both Lockheed and Boeing have been beating up on SpaceX as "risky" behind closed doors for a while. Musk saw an opportunity to turn the tables and took it, first by offering to "help" on Twitter and then via these comments. This is separate from the technical issue at stake, but looks like Musk may not have started this particular fight. Moreover, given that SpaceX and Boeing are going to head-to-head, it is likely that Musk/SpaceX has now made a fairly detailed study of Boeing's batteries to make their case in subsequent competitive launch bids.

>Before I could even begin to dare to voice opinion I would need to study CAD models, electrical and electronic diagrams and test data. I would also want to have access to representative samples of the packs for inspection.

Has Boeing shared this information and this access with anyone except regulators?

Are they under any obligation to do so?

If not, then the more people who follow your suggested rule of not saying anything unless they have all the info, the greater the incentive for manufacturers and the regulators to choose never to give out the information.

So Musk lays down his ideas for good battery design and is backed up by a guy from MIT. Seems fairly solid.

Boeing guy says something like "I design battery cells not to fail, then assume they will. I then design battery so if one cell fails others won't. Then I assume they will and design for that."

What we know is that the cells fail, then batteries fail, then noxious smoke blows into the cabin, so if what he says is true his designs have failed in three different ways. Seems to me Musk has more credibility here.

Now, is this guy a clown? No -- he's probably a smart, competent guy who is doing what he's required to do given the situation he's in, while he's probably just been in ten meetings where people screamed "I told you so!" at each other.

Musk probably isn't screwing around. I've been reading comments but no one has mentioned it: Who's to say he doesn't have access to one of the grounded 787s? He could have flown his MIT friend over to take a look with him and torn one of the batteries apart. He's the type of guy who could personally know the owner of a 787. Without schematics, he can tell a lot from the work Tesla has done. He could probably even see a near exact configuration they already tried.

"I design a cell to not fail and then assume it will and the ask the next 'what-if' questions," Sinnett, [Boeing's 787 chief project engineer] said. "And then I design the batteries that if there is a failure of one cell it won't propagate to another. And then I assume that I am wrong and that it will propagate to another and then I design the enclosure and the redundancy of the equipment to assume that all the cells are involved and the airplane needs to be able to play through that."

OK, maybe part of this is bravado, and it seems that the failure of one cell certainly has spread to another, but so far at least no plane has crashed as a result. I think Boeing's engineers should get some credit for that? One could imagine worse results than we've seen, especially in fields of engineering that don't have aviation's safety practices.

>>but so far at least no plane has crashed as a result. I think Boeing's engineers should get some credit for that?

There are a grand total of 49 planes total that have been produced and the plane has been in service for little over a year. The fact that no plane has crashed tells you nothing statistically about the safety record of the design.

The fact that aviation has a great safety record is MORE reason to worry about any issue, not less. Modern commercial planes are expected to fly for decades over tens of thousands of flights. Even a small issue that is incredibly unlikely is too dangerous when compared to the great safety record of existing airplanes.

There is a published picture [1] of one of the failed assemblies next to a normal assembly of the same type, sitting on a forklift pallet. It's easy to gauge the assemblies' physical size and count a minimum of 16 visible cells. Not visible in the photograph are bus bars or power connector.

I don't see a lot of paint discoloration, and a label of some kind is not charred or much discolored.

[1] http://phys.org/news/2013-01-overcharging-batteries-eyed-boe...

I'm just surprised there isn't more damage from the fire! I use similar chemistry batteries (although much smaller) in RC planes (they are very energy dense for their weight).

When they are damaged (normally through charging incorrectly but in some cases through puncture / crash damage) they burn extremely rapidly and very violently for their size.

The damage in the photographs of the 787 is not on the scale i was expecting.

This is a bit off-topic, but I have been considering retrofitting my roomba with Li-ion batteries but am a bit concerned about the fire risk (partly because I don't want to loose the roomba, but mostly since it is in my apartment.) Is there anything that comes to mind that I should particularly look out for or consider?

May be worth exploring the differences between "safer" cells such as LiFe / A123 vs the riskier Li-ion & LiPo types.

I understand the charging strategy for A123 is much simpler to implement than for Li-Ion (may not even need a micro controller) but i'm not 100% confident in that statement!

I'll look into that, thanks!

So what's the motivation for using these batteries in the 787 anyway? Can they just switch to whatever they've used before?

The new engine requires much higher-capacity batteries to start them. A battery with the old tech would be huge and heavy. The new battery technology is much lighter than the old ones.

That's interesting - why are the batteries onboard and not ground equipment? Obviously restarting a stalled engine would be handy, but is this something that actually happens? And if it is, couldn't the running jets provide the power somehow? I seem to remember that some old WW2 prop aircraft had ground equipment requirements to start them from cold (power or warmed air or something?) Obviously this isn't an area I know about but I am curious about it. Thanks.

I found a Boeing technical publication that discusses the power architecture of the 787 and how the battery comes into play. Kind of interesting:

http://www.boeing.com/commercial/aeromagazine/articles/qtr_4...

Page 4 says this:

"The power source for APU starting may be the airplane battery, a ground power source, or an engine-driven generator. The power source for engine starting may be the APU generators, engine-driven generators on the opposite side engine, or two forward 115 VAC ground power sources. The aft external power receptacles may be used for a faster start, if desired."

So the battery seems to be very important when you're somewhere with no ground generator. The battery starts the APU, then the power from the APU starts the engines.

So the battery seems to be very important when you're somewhere with no ground generator.

Like in the sky? After your engines have stopped for some reason? That could be exciting!

That's what I was wondering, but does this happen? And if the other engines can start it as Joezydeco suggests, does not having them matter? Surely the number or airports without decent facilities to help start them must be small?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/British_Airways_Flight_9

Its not without precedent...

That case is already addressed by ram-air turbines on many aircraft, including some from Boeing: http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ram_air_turbine

I was wondering about that. They could probably fly the things without APU start batteries, as long as they avoid having to do a cold start at a grass strip. So, new AD, no landing 787's at podunk facilities with no ground carts, or, electrical service.

On a large jet airliner, the engines are not started by battery power; they're started by the APU, which is basically a much smaller engine (if you look at videos of airliners, you can see it venting out the tip of the tail). The APU also provides emergency backup power and cabin pressurization in-flight if the engines fail.

The 787 is unusual in that it's a "bleedless" aircraft; it uses other systems -- some of them electrically-powered -- to supply compressed air for various purposes, rather than "bleeding" compressed air from the engines. The batteries are part of that, and have to be onboard because the plane needs compressed air while in flight.

Do you know if there's anything unique about the electrical system that would cause a greater load than a comparable aircraft?

I'm thinking high-tech radar, wifi, photon torpedoes, etc.

No bleed air from the engines. Pressurization, hydraulic actuators, air conditioning and accessories are all electrical. That uses 1.45MW on a 787

Not exactly. The larger battery is because the APU is larger. The engines are started on APU power, not directly from battery power. You are correct that Lithium Ion batteries are significantly lighter than older NiCad batteries.

Quick, get ahold of the engineers at Boeing! Tell them to switch to whatever they used on their older planes! Surely they haven't considered that idea yet!

Have you ever been in a situation where a manager proposes a technical solution that everyone else has already dismissed as preposterous? Now you know how it feels to be on the other side of that.

With that mockery out of the way, I'll give my understanding of the situation: The lithium ion batteries on the 787 are much smaller and lighter than their predecessors. They also take up less space and require different input and output voltages and currents. They have different charging profiles. Swapping them out with an older battery technology is infeasible. It would require redesigning other components to make room, building new transformers and voltage regulators, and writing new software to charge the batteries safely. It would also reduce the range, capacity, and/or efficiency of the 787.

I do apologize if I went overboard with the mockery. Please don't take it personally; it's fun to write.

You certainly do live up to your name there, Parsley.

I think Elon is justified for taking a public stance to protect his own interests. As his companies develop products with the same battery technology, it is likely that the hazards of the Boeing battery design could become associated to the entire battery technology. This would be disastrous for his organizations. I consider this a pre-emptive defensive move against technically ignorant public and media. Boeing has a strong reputation and will surely weather this mess just fine by identifying corrective action and doing the right thing.

The public doesn't see this as Larry Ellison criticizing Bill Gates, but that is essentially what is happening.

What do you mean by this analogy?

One fierce competitor in an industry publicly criticizing another. (Their motives may not be completely pure.)

Everybody thought Musk was grandstanding when he first made the offer, but it sounds like he's got the answers!

This article makes it sound like it could have been an issue more with the human factors surrounding battery user than with the battery itself. http://seattletimes.com/html/businesstechnology/2020241385_7...

I think this is a very smart move by Musk. Grow the Tesla brand at very little cost, and potentially win a new client to sell batteries to.

Surely a Boeing contract would bring decent margins (they will now pay a premium for a quick fix) and much bigger scale economies for Tesla to further decrease their operating cost base.

From a complete position of ignorance, I have never felt comfortable with these batteries in aeroplanes.

On of my wastes of time is RC modelling. These batteries have been used now for quite some time for power. What we RC people know is that while these batteries have great performance, it very easy to make one blow up if not handled correctly. Enough burned out sheds can testify to this. So, even if the engineers say they they can use them safely, I will always feel nervous of their use. Fine for things like RC models, laptops, phones, real cars even etc, but the plane use, to me, has a question mark against it.

OK, Im 100% sure engineers can make a great defence of their use, but there will always be a nagging doubt for me.

I think people have exaggerated feelings of insecurity about planes versus cars. Maybe it's because heavier-than-air flight just doesn't jive mentally, or maybe it's because you have very little personal control when flying. Either way, you carry these batteries on your person, in your coat pocket, in a bag, leave them in your study downstairs, hell, drive around in a big box made of them. Fisker Karmas were in the nasty habit of bursting into flames, but that was viewed as a one-off design flaw, not a crushing blow to 'batteries in cars' as a concept. I think the collective anxiety we feel towards planes, as a culture, shapes our views of these incidents too much. If your car was on fire on the highway you may not have handled it as well as the pilot in this scenario.

Even old-fashioned gasoline cars carry with them a tank of incredibly flammable fuel, a battery that can dump hundreds of amps into a short circuit (and that vents explosive gas in normal operation), and a much higher risk of colliding with other things on the ground. IIRC car crashes kill on the order of 30,000 people a year in the US.

That said, I have had my engine catch fire while driving down the Interstate. It took me a few seconds to pull over and get out of the car. The best pilot ever isn't about to land a 787 from cruising altitude anywhere near as fast. I can only hope the design keeps the battery fire from endangering life or taking out anything else important in the meantime.

But my understanding is the rate of spectacular li-ion battery failures is phenomenally low. Incidents happen, but the vast majority of batteries behave themselves. From the early reports I've heard, the Boeing situation sounds like one of abuse.

But like I said with the Fisker situation, we won't really know anything about Boeing's situation until the investigations are complete.

Either way, I'll drop my phone in my pocket today with confidence, right before doing something else far more likely to hurt me: driving to work.

> Japanese inspectors have cleared the maker of the battery, GS Yuasa, of any defects before the unit leaves the factory. But both Japanese and US investigators continue to examine and test the batteries to understand why they failed after they were integrated into the 787 electrical system and operated on commercial flights.

So it's not the batteries but how they are integrated into the plane? How is this any different than how Tesla has packed their cells? Their cells looked pretty densely packed from my POV.

Elon might know a thing or two here, as just last year Tesla's battery testing facility caught on fire [1]. In the absence of more information, allow me to publicly speculate that perhaps that facility is fundamentally unsafe. <g>

[1] http://abclocal.go.com/kgo/story?section=news/local/peninsul...

Being a bit snarky there?

Fukushima reminded me that there are some designs that required active safety systems, while others like thorium reactors can be designed with passive safety system.

Musk was not offering to help out with designing a new plane. He was offering help with battery systems. This, he has more expertise than Boeing or its direct subcontractor did.

Musk did not strike me as a person who have actively sought out publicity for publicity's sake in the past. Personally, I'd rather more eyes went through the design of a plane that I might ride in one day. Teslas are too pricey for me.

So basically Boeing chose to use the cheaper kind of batteries, instead of the more secure kind. I imagine isolating thousands of tiny cells is quite a bit more expensive than isolating much larger ones.

in addition to NYT story, Seattle Times, which has a reporter fulltime on aviation

http://seattletimes.com/html/businesstechnology/2020241162_7...

They should switch to LiFePo4 chemistry which will not burn.

My bike battery is made of that.

LiFePO4 and LiMn2O4 chemistries aren't magic, although they are less prone to 'rapid disassembly', there is always a possibility. LiCO4 does have advantages though, mainly related to energy density. For something like a car, or a plane, higher energy density in cells means greater efficiency for weight vs. energy potential. Also, it isn't like lithium cobalt is going to explode if you look at it wrong. Nearly all the risk can be prevented by proper cell management, via electronics.

LiFePO4 and LiMn2O4 have the advantage of larger output potential, which for your bike, allows a large amount of power to be put into the electric motor from a small battery. Electric cars/planes get around this by putting lots of cells in parallel, but requires quite a lot of regulation.

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