101–110 of 131 posts
It's an informative article, but the title is inaccurate. Tesla seems to be relying on plausible extrapolations for batteries in ~2020.
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Half of the stories about Musk projects are just rambling about how what he's doing won't work. I find that doing something that matters in life is not just hard because the task is difficult. It's hard because of all the people that gets in your way. It's already painful to see people doing nothing by themself. Or even not helping the cause of others. But it's infuriating to see how much energy they spend to go agai…
I'm just constantly surprised and exhausted at the kind of pessimism and cynicism on display in any Tesla thread. Even people who have no stake in the company or its competitors feel compelled to chime in just to say "it won't work!" I don't get it. For better or for worse, Tesla has made the idea of electric cars feasible to the mainstream. Surely, that can't be a bad thing. Why knock down the idea so aggressively?
One are the risk takers. Who know risks are involved, but do it anyway, sometimes against all odds, because the payoff (in any form) is big or huge. The risk is worth it for them.
Then you have the conservatives, who just don't want to fail. They take no risk, don't step out of their comfort zone, because they might fall down, they might fail. They want to be like all other people, average and safe.
I'm not saying either of them is good or bad. They just have a different take on life. I think conservatives are happier.
Problem is that when a conservative sees a risk taker in action, they don't understand it. They see all the possible ways on how this thing can fail. They ask why these risk takers don't see how this can fail.
Point is that the risk takers do know how things can fail, but do it anyway (ok, sometimes you do have stupid people who don't know). If it fails, they can proudly say "See I knew it! How stupid was that". Conservatives like to remain in their safe zone, where they know how things go. The risk takers always want to change things.
If anyone has another take on this, I would be glad to hear it.
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No, capacity of the battery isn't what determines the wattage at which you can recharge. It's the physical power supply constraints. If I have a 250v, 25 kWh battery, I can charge it at 250 V, 100 Amps for 1 hour or at 250V, 1000 Amps for 6 minutes. What charging rate I select depends on the voltage and chemistry in the battery. Can the battery support charging at such a rate. The charging current rate is limited to…
What makes it confusing is that the charging rates are given as 10C, meaning 10% of nameplate capacity.
The Tesla superchargers currently charge at around 2% a minute up until about 80% which is 40 minutes to hit 80%. Tesla is advertising 400 miles in 30 minutes which is 80% of the 500 mile capacity. What is so hard to believe about a 33% improvement over a couple year old tech that is a couple years from release? Here are current industrial/transportation/residential electric prices in US [0]. They think Tesla will pa…
Half of the stories about Musk projects are just rambling about how what he's doing won't work. I find that doing something that matters in life is not just hard because the task is difficult. It's hard because of all the people that gets in your way. It's already painful to see people doing nothing by themself. Or even not helping the cause of others. But it's infuriating to see how much energy they spend to go agai…
Can't you just have multiple super-chargers charging different banks of batteries in parallel?
Apparently the Bloomberg “expert” doesn’t grasp basic electric principles like wiring in parallel.
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The regulatory info only gives information on the way things should be with regard to how truckers and the interstate highway system works, but I would suggest that before you invest on this hypothesis, talk to some truckers earning $0.50 per mile. And look at where semis actually park when they're taking their 30 minute and 11 hour breaks, before deciding how fast this transition will occur and how much infrastructu…
I’d argue that these trucks would be a much better fit in Europe than the US. Here truckers can drive a maximum of 9.5 hours a day with a 45 minute break. These are mandated by law and the pentalties are severe for going over these limits. The range also lends itself nicely to this. Over the course of a day a trucker would drive a maximum of 855km (they are limited to 90/h), so with a short fast charge during their b…
Stupid question: Why is it no option to simply hot-swap the battery? (Possibly with mechanical assistance)
If you're already talking about a scenario where the charging happens at motels or gas stations, it seems easiest to have a stock of batteries that you can charge over longer time and swap them out whever a truck comes in.
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Already what happens. GM and Tesla use pumped liquid glycol for heating/cooling and some other companies use refrigerants.
Interesting. I did not know that. I always figured they must need to manage heat, at the bare minimum by preventing huge draw for extended periods of time. Do you know where they radiate the heat, given that most Teslas don’t (to my eyes) have visible grill vents?
> Musk’s claim that the truck will be able to accumulate 400 miles of charge in 30 minutes would allow the Semi to achieve the first true long-haul ranges in the industry. A driver might start the day with 500 miles of range, top off the battery at lunch, and be able to complete driving the U.S. legal limit of 11 hours in a day with range to spare. But doing so would require a charger unlike anything seen before. Stu…
Just who do you think would be the owner of the replacement battery packs?
If your answer is Tesla, then you've made huge and IMHO unrealistic assumptions about Tesla's capital allocations.
If you expect haulage companies to buy and charge batteries around their most likely needed locations then you are even further off. In nearly every case, their business demands extreme routing flexibility.