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Elon Musk: Boeing 787 battery fundamentally unsafe

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Re: Elon Musk: Boeing 787 battery fundamentally unsafe

#191

Post by asmithmd1 »

simonh wrote: post #181
willvarfar wrote: post #139

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 involve…

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.

Re: Elon Musk: Boeing 787 battery fundamentally unsafe

#192

Post by andyjohnson0 »

fnordfnordfnord wrote: post #126
robomartin wrote: post #68

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…

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 h…

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.

Re: Elon Musk: Boeing 787 battery fundamentally unsafe

#193

Post by InclinedPlane »

zb wrote: post #180
InclinedPlane wrote: post #117

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

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 mig…

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.

Re: Elon Musk: Boeing 787 battery fundamentally unsafe

#194

Post by jzwinck »

niels_olson wrote: post #101
robomartin wrote: post #93

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 cl…

> 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 l…

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).

Re: Elon Musk: Boeing 787 battery fundamentally unsafe

#195

Post by josefresco »

AndrewKemendo wrote: post #27

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...

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

Re: Elon Musk: Boeing 787 battery fundamentally unsafe

#197

Post by hermannj314 »

pdonis wrote: post #112
willis77 wrote: post #83

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Re: Elon Musk: Boeing 787 battery fundamentally unsafe

#198

Post by jzwinck »

jessaustin wrote: post #79
joezydeco wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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-dri…

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

Re: Elon Musk: Boeing 787 battery fundamentally unsafe

#199

Post by temphn »

robomartin wrote: post #68

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…

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.

Re: Elon Musk: Boeing 787 battery fundamentally unsafe

#200

Post by RyanMcGreal »

ecaron wrote: post #129
InclinedPlane wrote: post #117

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

> 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.
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