Speculation on Tesla's new battery technology

Is this actually battery theory or just a very well disguised drinking game? In both cases, Schoopage o/

The cells would last a life time, if they could figure out how to keep the "holes" in the carbon from becoming plugged by Lithium Oxide. (which formed the fastest, when the cell sits at full charge and is warm. below 80% charge, and cool, virtually none forms in that state. If they make the carbon more porous it plugs up slower, but the cell capacity is less. and vice versa. Most on Amazon from china are filled 50% with sand. Hard to find real 18650, we have a store here that gets them in, but the sell out by noon, the day they get them.

Firstly can we believe everything that Tesla has said / shown. Secondly have they shown enough for them to be available from China on eBay in a few weeks time!

John Russell

But is that going to make a good reliable connection between the spiralled layers? Especially at the aluminium end where they have to contend with its inherent tendency to use any oxygen available to form an insulating oxide.

Big Clive

Super interesting!

Michael Thompson

No shoopage. The Battery Day shareholder meeting video showed a shingled spiral which is cheap and annoyingly obvious.

evilution

I've always wondered why Tesla use thousands of conventional small cylindrical cells rather than developing larger rectangular batteries. It seems like that would improve energy density.

Dave Davies

They say 16 hours before recharging... But that's for ALL 4 BUSSES! It's actually more like 4-5 hrs...as 80kw per hour with 328kw capacity... Gives you about 4 hrs run-time and throw in the 30ish percent for braking recovery... Definitely NOT a "16 hour before recharging" !!! :)

I think the round cells have some manufacturing advantages and also inherently include that air space between cells. That said, the existing technology can be rolled or layered to make the standard flat cells in phones, laptops and racing packs.

Big Clive

Their info seems a bit "dodgy"... :)

I will just get a pack of

mj

Their talk about the cells starts at about 1 hour 47 minutes in this video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l6T9xIeZTds I should've shared this with you but didn't know you would make a video yourself. It's worth a watch for the pretty pictures and clips of the manufacturing process if nothing else, one of the goals is to make the production continuous rather than stopping to spot weld tabs.

Matt Tester

I wish I'd seen that link before I wrote my piece, below. Also very interesting, thanks. I suppose that parking *across* parking spaces is just Tesla owners defying convention, at their convention. :-)

Interesting that they say they'll glue the cells together and and make them a structural (i.e. sheer force-taking) part of the car's chassis. So no battery stretch then. And I supose the canisters/cell shells will be quite rugged.

Very interesting. Just wondering how wedded we are to cylindrical spirals. Given the benefits of Schoopage, it struck me that stacks of flat, layered "square" electrodes would double the scope for connection surface, with anodes north and south; and cathodes east and west, say. I'm assuming some other means of confining the layers, so separation would not occur. Theoretically, it would leave all of the corners accessible, for injection of the electrolyte, though with mention of "dry cells", maybe chemistry as well as geometry is a candidate for something radical. Definitely something worthy of keeping an eye on.

I've learnt something new again, thanks.

Andrew Donaldson

I think they have a process to apply a dry electrolyte directly - removing the soaking and drying process

Check out https://thelastdriverlicenseholder.com/2020/09/22/tesla-battery-day-and-more-2020/ for a good summary of the announcements - though they have only shown the old production process, not the new dry one sadly.

I didn't realise they had shared pictures of their research. That does indicate a different approach to what I was expecting.

Big Clive

https://cdn.motor1.com/images/mgl/BqNoR/s4/2020-tesla-shareholder-meeting-and-battery-day.jpg

The Griffiths Family

In the presentation the had a rather pretty image of the copper foil folded over itself in a sea-shell like pattern. It looked an awful lot like they left the extra extruded the copper foil out of the top and folded it down origami style so all of the copper layers were interconnected into one disc of copper foil. Imagine they’d do something similar on the bottom too for the aluminum layers. If they did the aluminum at one end to seal it, soaked in the electrolyte and folded and crimped the top, it should be a nice little package. Seems logical enough, wonder why they’re the first to do it. I’m intrigued by the charging possibilities for this. Seems like you could charge far faster dumping energy into the entire layer of battery material rather than through one tab. At the cost of heat transfer I suppose.

The Griffiths Family

Its almost 6am Shhhh