101–110 of 173 posts
Musk has previously said in an interview that Li-Ion batteries were at $600 / kwh, but when he looked at the component and manufacturing costs they were at $100 / kwh. Somehow the entire supply chain has piked up a lot of overhead, and he realized it would be possible to reduce that. At those prices, Model-S battery pack costs are between $36k and $51k! When I realized that, I came to conclusion that Tesla Motors cou…
Earlier quoted context omitted.
As Apple has never made hard drives, calling them a hard drive company makes zero sense. The hard drive in the iPod was never the most interesting component, or the differentiator from the rest of the market. Tesla's battery is. The hard drive in the iPod is like the wheels on a Tesla. It's useless without them, but they're a completely replaceable commodity and has no bearing on the success of the product
The battery in the Model S is an array of commodity Panasonic cells.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
The cells themselves are COTS Panasonic NCR18650A without built-in protection circuits.. The management circuits are probably developed by Tesla but are external to the batteries, most likely a circuit per array of parallel cells. Having a protection circuit per cell would be wasteful and also result in quite a bit of power loss and complexity in wiring them up.
They aren't really COTS. They were for the Roadster, but for the Model S they use a specialized chemistry as well as removing the protection circuit. [Source]( https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpage&v=9c... )
I can't see Musk trying to build a battery company as his primary focus. That's not exactly a world-changing life goal (well, for him. I'd be happy with that). That's like saying that Apple is a chip company because their chips are central to efficiency. The battery might currently be the most important single component of an EV, but there is no guarantee that will be true in five/ten/twenty years. The car is more th…
An order of magnitude or two improvement of current battery technology will fundamentally change the world in ways we can hardly imagine. A cool electric car is nothing in comparison.
Also, wasn't Musk going to do a phd studying batteries before deciding that the internet was a better move for him at the time?
Didn't know about this. Source?
http://evworld.com/pdf/eberhardvmusk.pdf
According to court documents he has never had any association with Stanford university, and, contrary to public statements, among them SEC filings, has no degrees beyond a Bachelor of Science in Economics from PennU.
If Tesla executes, they are going to be the leading company in a number of industries, of which battery technology and manufacturing is one of them. They are also leaders in direct sales, JIT manufacturing, motor design, any one of which is a disruptive innovation channel they could monetize, all in the service of building electric cars. Tesla is an energy company, a battery company, a car company, etc, just as GE or…
Do you know how manufacturing takes place at all those other car companies in Germany, Japan, and South Korea? I can not talk about the Asian-based companies, but I know for sure that the manufacturing plants in Germany are very ahead. Because they produce different models at same time on the same track. Each and every car is different in every aspect. In Europe it is very common that you order your car they way you like it and do not buy the one that dealer has in its parking lot. You order to your specification and the option lists are huge compared to the one from Tesla.
Tesla is having only one Model with limited different features and many same parts from Ford, Audi, Mercedes, Bosch and others and still is unable to keep up with delivery as you can see from their latest IR reports.
BTW, the Tesla plant is build with German technology by German companies. Just to remind you.
If Tesla executes, they are going to be the leading company in a number of industries, of which battery technology and manufacturing is one of them. They are also leaders in direct sales, JIT manufacturing, motor design, any one of which is a disruptive innovation channel they could monetize, all in the service of building electric cars. Tesla is an energy company, a battery company, a car company, etc, just as GE or…
I hope Tesla succeed though.
We need someone out there to run this opportunity and encourage competitors in this space.
If Tesla executes, they are going to be the leading company in a number of industries, of which battery technology and manufacturing is one of them. They are also leaders in direct sales, JIT manufacturing, motor design, any one of which is a disruptive innovation channel they could monetize, all in the service of building electric cars. Tesla is an energy company, a battery company, a car company, etc, just as GE or…
In what sense is Tesla a leader in JIT manufacturing? Do you know how manufacturing takes place at all those other car companies in Germany, Japan, and South Korea? I can not talk about the Asian-based companies, but I know for sure that the manufacturing plants in Germany are very ahead. Because they produce different models at same time on the same track. Each and every car is different in every aspect. In Europe i…
All of which was pioneered decades before Tesla existed.