121–130 of 200 posts
Why this is important: If successful, this contributes towards the reduction of national security risk around rare earth supplies and supply chain located in a possibly unfriendly nation state (major deposits are in Russia and China) and also means you don’t have to establish rare earth mines or supply chains in your own countries (capital and environmental concerns). It’s a big deal! Also, just as newer battery chem…
But battery research is ongoing from a century at this point, we can't possibly think that Tesla just came out of nowhere and thought a solution nobody considered before such as using less rare elements. It is most certainly a trade off and I'm not seeing where the cons are mentioned. Moreover, lithium-ion batteries have by far the most efficienty energy density, so what is tesla getting rid of, most certainly not li…
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I think a lot of this stuff boils down to Elon Musk being absolutely ruthlessly uncompromising in his hiring and technology vision and management. His management style may not be agreeable to people and he gets criticized for that a lot obviously. But the technical vision that he drives at Tesla, SpaceX, and his other companies are undeniable what makes these companies so valuable. And it's exactly where his competit…
I notice there is a company missing from this list where Musk has been stepping on rakes left, right & center.
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> You don't want alluminium wires in your car Why not? I^2*r says that running 75% less current will generate 94% less heat. Existing copper wires would be a disaster if cars ran on a 3V system. Aluminum at 48V will be fine, as long as it’s sized appropriately the same way copper is today.
> Why not? I^2*r says that running 75% less current will generate 94% less heat. Thats not the argument, you can do that now with copper cables. Aluminium is a good conductor, but it is reactive, brittle and not as malleable as copper. also, copper has almost half the resistance per meter than aluminium. So even for solid bus bars, it doesn't make that much sense, unless you have structural bus bars.
But 4 times the weight
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Is it? Or is that just hyperbole? I mean, they announced every product they do deliver too, and they're selling a lot of objectively very successful products. I just don't understand the hate around this company. It's not enough to criticize, people need to deploy stuff like "virtually without meaning", or "will never do it". I mean, can't they just be like any other company that spins a bit with their product announ…
I do not hate Tesla. It's just a plain fact that their announcements don't carry information. They might do it, or they might not, and the press release gives us no additional reason to believe either way. But the specific form of this announcement is industry catch-up. Other makes already ship zero-rare-earth motors to the mass market, and Tesla did itself in the past.
Again, I just don't understand the discourse. By the same standards you are using one should never trust criticism of Tesla because it's likely to be phrased as ridiculous cherry-picked hyperbole (e.g. "some other company the guy owns is a moonshot brain thing ergo century-old motor technology will never happen" -- also in this subthread).
> But the specific form of this announcement is industry catch-up.
FWIW, this is just factually incorrect. Tesla has been shipping induction motors since the original Model S. They quite clearly led the EV industry in this particular technology. It wasn't until the Model 3 launched that they shipped their first permanent magnet drive train.
Why this is important: If successful, this contributes towards the reduction of national security risk around rare earth supplies and supply chain located in a possibly unfriendly nation state (major deposits are in Russia and China) and also means you don’t have to establish rare earth mines or supply chains in your own countries (capital and environmental concerns). It’s a big deal! Also, just as newer battery chem…
But battery research is ongoing from a century at this point, we can't possibly think that Tesla just came out of nowhere and thought a solution nobody considered before such as using less rare elements. It is most certainly a trade off and I'm not seeing where the cons are mentioned. Moreover, lithium-ion batteries have by far the most efficienty energy density, so what is tesla getting rid of, most certainly not li…
Iron nitride magnets are probably the most likely candidate, and they can actually have higher energy than rare earth magnets, and have particularly good high temperature coercivity compared to Neodymium based magnets, although not quite as high coercivity at room temperatures (but high temperature may be the limiting factor in existing motors).
So I don’t understand where this sad sack negativity comes from, because it most certainly doesn’t come from knowledge in the field. There are materials science improvements over time, and this is one such area. There can be a net improvement, not just a pure trade-off. Niron Magnetics is one such company trying to commercialize the material, and you can go to their location in Minneapolis and play with their iron nitride magnets if you like.
Tesla did use high energy cylindrical li-ion cells in their cars before others. Sometimes things improve, through the hard work of researchers.
Am I incorrect that rare earths are the only strong permanent magnets? If so how is this possible?
Why this is important: If successful, this contributes towards the reduction of national security risk around rare earth supplies and supply chain located in a possibly unfriendly nation state (major deposits are in Russia and China) and also means you don’t have to establish rare earth mines or supply chains in your own countries (capital and environmental concerns). It’s a big deal! Also, just as newer battery chem…
> If successful ... It’s a big deal! BMW already has a motor that doesn't use rare earths: https://interestingengineering.com/innovation/bmws-fifth-gen... https://www.motortrend.com/news/bmw-ix-m60-brushed-electric-...
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> Are any other manufacturers pushing as hard here? Why would they. Most of those things are not sustainable. You don't want alluminium wires in your car.
> You don't want alluminium wires in your car Why not? I^2*r says that running 75% less current will generate 94% less heat. Existing copper wires would be a disaster if cars ran on a 3V system. Aluminum at 48V will be fine, as long as it’s sized appropriately the same way copper is today.