GM tells some Bolt owners to park 50 feet away from other cars • Hacker News Board

Re: GM tells some Bolt owners to park 50 feet away from other cars

#391

Post by xmcqdpt2 » Thu, Sep 16, 2021, 12:28 PM UTC

avernon wrote: post #185

Animats wrote: post #42

Maybe lithium-ion batteries in mass-market vehicles aren't such a good idea. We may need a battery technology that can survive poor maintenance less than perfect battery construction, and low-cost vehicle designs. Tesla had to put a titanium plate under their battery. That's not a mass-market solution. BYD is converting over to lithium iron phosphate, which is much better behaved when damaged. Toyota is working on so…

The problem here is the form factor of the cell as much as the chemistry. Pouch style cells are very difficult to regulate temperature in. This is a key reason why other automakers like Tesla use the small cylinder cells. Chinese companies like BYD have always used lithium iron phosphate. It has less energy density than lithium nickel batteries like NCA and NMC, but is cheaper. The patent was never taken out in China…

FYI nickel is plentiful and unlikely to ever be in shortage. It's just so cheap right now that most nickel deposits are "non-economic", and thus not counted as part of proven reserves. The same thing is true with uranium for example.

see here for the difference between resources and reserves,

http://minesqc.com/en/informations-sheets/what-are-mineral-r...

We are currently extracting 2.5 MT of nickel a year, from reserves of 94 MT. Resources are estimated at 300 MT, which is definitely a lower end, as prospecting tends to concentrate profitable ores. If the price of nickel went up, we'd see more resources becoming reserves and more discovery of new resources.

Re: GM tells some Bolt owners to park 50 feet away from other cars

#392

Post by ddtaylor » Thu, Sep 16, 2021, 12:35 PM UTC

karussell wrote: post #328

OT: a cookie banner showed up and after I agreed it stated "preparing your Cookie preferences can take minutes". And it took indeed very long (a minute?), I was even able to do a screenshot: https://user-images.githubusercontent.com/129644/133563621-6... What a time ...

This exact company (TrustArc) was covered a few days ago in a story about Starbucks doing this kind of UX failure designed to keep users from disabling their cookies.

Re: GM tells some Bolt owners to park 50 feet away from other cars

#393

Post by mschuster91 » Thu, Sep 16, 2021, 12:37 PM UTC

martin_a wrote: post #369

mschuster91 wrote: post #367

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They do require a lot more water to be put out though. > "Improvise. Adapt. Overcome." it is. And here is the problem: most fire departments are horribly underfunded, meaning their machines are old, water tankers don't have enough capacity, water lines are un(der)maintained and the firefighter training has been ... spotty to put it lightly.

Don't know where you're from, but for Germany this is mostly solved, but those tactics are obviously still "new" for most and need to be refined, yes. edit: > They do require a lot more water to be put out though. As OP was mentioning garage fires, I was expecting urban neighborhoods, where getting enough water should (hopefully) not be a problem in 2021.

> Don't know where you're from, but for Germany this is mostly solved

German here as well. For the Berufsfeuerwehr (for the Americans here: professional, full-time firefighters in big cities) yes, for Freiwillige Feuerwehr (volunteers, mostly in rural areas) not, which has been the subject of numerous media articles (e.g. https://kommunal.de/feuerwehr-fehlen-einsatzkraefte).

> As OP was mentioning garage fires, I was expecting urban neighborhoods, where getting enough water should (hopefully) not be a problem in 2021.

I was talking about electric car fires in general... and in rural areas, that is a problem (see e.g. https://www.nordkurier.de/uckermark/kontaminiertes-wasser-be...).

Anyway I'm not interested in fearmongering, just pointing out that even in Germany the situation isn't as decent as one might hope - and the US is even worse off.

Re: GM tells some Bolt owners to park 50 feet away from other cars

#394

Post by usefulcat » Thu, Sep 16, 2021, 12:53 PM UTC

TeMPOraL wrote: post #346

usefulcat wrote: post #307

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> a 200 lb hot-swap battery would get you 40 miles. According to one report, for a Tesla Model 3, a supercharger can add ~100 miles of range in ~10 minutes. It's hard to see how any improvement over that could possibly justify the immense additional complexity of physical battery swapping for only 40 additional miles of range. https://insideevs.com/news/506520/tesla-model-3-supercharger...

Does the Supercharger network come with a fleet of drones that can autonomously repair a charger in the middle of nowhere, that broke down one late evening of a particularly snowy winter Sunday? That said, it's probably a UX problem. Once EVs stop competing on range so much, it'll make sense to just designate the last 10% of battery as "reserve" and not count it in the battery level indicator.

I thought we were comparing fast charging to battery swapping. Surely a machine that physically swaps out a battery is going to be significantly larger and more complex than a supercharger, and therefore also much more likely to break down..

Re: GM tells some Bolt owners to park 50 feet away from other cars

#395

Post by FartyMcFarter » Thu, Sep 16, 2021, 1:11 PM UTC

codeulike wrote: post #377

FartyMcFarter wrote: post #339

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> And Tesla has basically already solved the fire problem Have they? So why did a Tesla Model S Plaid (a new car) catch fire while being driven just a few months ago? https://www.theverge.com/platform/amp/2021/7/2/22560662/tesl...

There are 1.5 million Tesla cars out there on the road. Most of them, nearly all of them really, are not on fire.

I understand that. But if I tell someone at work that I "solved the XYZ problem", I mean that XYZ doesn't happen any more.

If there's a claim that Tesla has "solved the fire problem", I would hope there's a good explanation for why fires still happen with the newest model delivered 3 months ago.

Re: GM tells some Bolt owners to park 50 feet away from other cars

#396

Post by cptskippy » Thu, Sep 16, 2021, 1:16 PM UTC

Animats wrote: post #42

Maybe lithium-ion batteries in mass-market vehicles aren't such a good idea. We may need a battery technology that can survive poor maintenance less than perfect battery construction, and low-cost vehicle designs. Tesla had to put a titanium plate under their battery. That's not a mass-market solution. BYD is converting over to lithium iron phosphate, which is much better behaved when damaged. Toyota is working on so…

Tesla is using Lithium Iron Phosphate in Model 3s and Ys manufactured in China. It's giving buyers of the SR+ in North America the option of the LFP version if they want faster delivery.

The downside of LFP is lower energy density which means an LFP Model 3 has a slightly reduced range compared to the Lithium Ion version.

The upside is the LFP likes to be charged to 100% where as Lithium Ion prefers 90% charges.

Re: GM tells some Bolt owners to park 50 feet away from other cars

#397

Post by falcolas » Thu, Sep 16, 2021, 1:32 PM UTC

stryker7001 wrote: post #301

falcolas wrote: post #274

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I’m not sure, it’s 24 hours of constant monitoring and fire suppression from a trained fire crew. Not something that’s scalable.

Where did you hear 24 hours. Sounds anecdotal. All fire crews are trained. Are you saying there are untrained firefighters? Do you think that you in your tech job are more aware of fires than a firefighter.

> Where did you hear 24 hours. Sounds anecdotal.

Tesla.

https://www.tesla.com/sites/default/files/downloads/2016_Mod...

Re: GM tells some Bolt owners to park 50 feet away from other cars

#398

Post by Reubachi » Thu, Sep 16, 2021, 1:38 PM UTC

martin_a wrote: post #382

ikurei wrote: post #372

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Electric car fires are no big deal anymore. > Easy solution: Put them in a tub full of water for at least 24 hours How is this not a big deal? This forces firefighters, which sometimes are small departments without a lot of resources, to transport the cars. It's a nuissance if it's 1 car, but a parking lot caching fire would be an absolute nightmare. If a car catches fire in a narrow street in the middle of a city,…

> How is this not a big deal? First of all sorry for my English, I sometimes fail to find the right words, so it's sometimes hard to explain what I mean. It's not a big deal in the sense that you'll call the control/dispatch center and tell them that you'll need a tub for an EV. They'll then take care of getting it to you and that's what firefighters worry about. How the car leaves the place? None of the firefighters…

I think your thoughts speak to how public services operate in US verus other western countries.

In the US, such a process would (in my naive understanding)cripple my small-mid sized coastal towns FD, and throw the town leadership into a headspin for 20 years until the next solution is paid for by the next group of decision makers.

Re: GM tells some Bolt owners to park 50 feet away from other cars

#399

Post by throwaway0a5e » Thu, Sep 16, 2021, 1:41 PM UTC

clusterfish wrote: post #324

MrFoof wrote: post #153

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yep. Moreover, the issue isn't new cars today. You know when you saw that old Chrysler Grand Caravan burning on the side of the road, and you hear the story that the person has been holding it together solely with thoughts and prayers and maybe $500 between tires and oil for the last 7 years of its 19 year life? That's the current inevitability. I'm not worried about someone's 6-month old Bolt or 2-year old Model 3.…

Some countries have mandatory regular inspections for critical vehicle functionality like brakes. We will probably require EV battery checks like this as well, if the BMS / firmware is not enough to keep the battery pack safe.

Safety inspections are close to worthless for safety on a macro level (they are great if you own a BHPH dealer or are a government regulator trying to give shops a reason not to fudge emissions inspections though).

You implement mild inspection laws and they do nothing because people can just pay the fine or whatever.

You implement invasive inspections where people are rich and they do nothing because rich people already don't drive on bald tires and whatnot.

You implement invasive inspections where people are poor and you create incentives to circumvent the law and hardship among those who don't ignore the law.

Mechanical failure is a negligible cause of accidents and injury so applying lots of effort co chase something that's only a source of the minority of problems is kind of a fools errand to throw a ton of societal resources at it.

If inspections really make the roads safer it would be an insurance thing and you'd see differences in premiums that reflect differences in law, insurers setting up their own programs where none exist and lobbying states for inspection programs. You basically never even hear a peep out of them about safety inspections unless it's in the context of getting people to upgrade to a newer car with better safety tech. Contrast with intoxication, distraction and driver training which are issues that insurers and their lobbyists constantly weigh in on.

Re: GM tells some Bolt owners to park 50 feet away from other cars

#400

Post by rapjr9 » Thu, Sep 16, 2021, 1:44 PM UTC

vbezhenar wrote: post #352

SamBam wrote: post #251

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Certainly no one should expect to be able to swap the main batteries that are embedded into the chassis of the car. The total weight of the batteries in a Tesla are around 1200 lbs. But it seems like there could be a hot-swappable portion of the battery, kind of like a separate "reserve tank" (although it wouldn't actually be reserved). Some back of the envelope math says that if 1200 lb battery gets you 250 miles, a…

What about small generator and a canister of gasoline?

A 2000W inverter generator could give a Chevy Bolt an extra 14 miles of range after 3 hours of charging. A 240V generator could shorten that time or lengthen the range but would also be larger and take up more room in the car. Carrying gasoline in the back of your car all the time in case you run out of battery is somewhat dangerous. The generator means less cargo space as well. For a long trip to the middle of nowhere it may make sense to carry a generator and some gas. For a trip into town it may not.