Tesla is a Battery Company • Hacker News Board

Re: Tesla is a Battery Company

#111

Post by PinguTS » Thu, Apr 02, 2015, 12:29 PM UTC

eterm wrote: post #110

PinguTS wrote: post #106

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

The claim about leading JIT does seem a bit ridiculous, given JIT manufactoring grew out of the Toyata Production System[1] which encompases Kaizen, Kanban and similar. All of which was pioneered decades before Tesla existed. [1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Toyota_Production_System

I learned that as Toyotism.

EDIT: Another therm for that is "Lean manufacturing" http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lean_manufacturing

Re: Tesla is a Battery Company

#112

Post by threeseed » Thu, Apr 02, 2015, 12:34 PM UTC

PinguTS wrote: post #106

happertiger wrote: post #11

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…

It's stupid. Tesla manufactures a couple of cars with an insignificant volume in less than a handful of countries.

When they are building at Toyota volumes with their diverse product range then I will be impressed.

Re: Tesla is a Battery Company

#113

Post by minthd » Thu, Apr 02, 2015, 12:41 PM UTC

DenisM wrote: post #18

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…

With all those battery innovations(at the research stage) we keep hearing in the news, how can building a huge factory be considered a stable investment ? at some point in the future,won't something come that will need different manufacturing methods ?

Re: Tesla is a Battery Company

#114

Post by peterfirefly » Thu, Apr 02, 2015, 1:02 PM UTC

ridgeguy wrote: post #74

ferongr wrote: post #54

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.

I toured the Tesla factory in Fremont, CA last Monday. During the completely awesome 1 hour tour, our guide answered many detailed questions about their cars and manufacturing processes, including how Tesla instruments battery cells. We were told that they instrument every single one of the 7,000+ cells for temperature and voltage.

That's an overstatement. They do not have 7000+ temperature and voltage sensors per pack.

Each of the 16 modules is split into 6 blocks where the 70+ cells within a block are all wired in parallel -- so they are going to have the same voltage. The blocks within a module are wired serially and the modules are also wired serially.

Each module has a battery monitoring chip:

http://www.ti.com/product/bq76pl536a

It has seven voltage measurement inputs (between each block and before/after the outer blocks) so it can tell the voltage of each block. It can also control a bleed resistor per block (for balancing). There are two temperature sensors per module.

Each module also has an 8051 (C8051F530A) that talks to the battery monitoring chip and to the data network connecting the modules to the "global" battery management system which has a Altera CPLD and (probably) an ARM CPU.

http://www.teslamotorsclub.com/showthread.php/34934-Pics-Inf...

Re: Tesla is a Battery Company

#115

Post by cschwarm » Thu, Apr 02, 2015, 1:05 PM UTC

minthd wrote: post #113

DenisM wrote: post #18

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…

With all those battery innovations(at the research stage) we keep hearing in the news, how can building a huge factory be considered a stable investment ? at some point in the future,won't something come that will need different manufacturing methods ?

In my opinion, something like the Gigafactory only makes sense in the context of (expected) innovations.

The usual way to lower costs is to specialize, and to have a diverse network of suppliers. The Gigafactory is meant to do everything under one roof, so it's the opposite of specialization (and low costs).

The advantage of something like a Gigafactory, however, is the ability to coordinate actions in-house. Transactions costs are lower, and Tesla is able to "upload" innovations rather fast (compared to a diverse specialized network of companies).

Re: Tesla is a Battery Company

#116

Post by yogurt » Thu, Apr 02, 2015, 1:06 PM UTC

Tesla is no more a battery company than Amazon is a shipping company.

Re: Tesla is a Battery Company

#117

Post by yogurt » Thu, Apr 02, 2015, 1:06 PM UTC

Tesla is no more a battery company than Amazon is a shipping company.

Re: Tesla is a Battery Company

#118

Post by peterfirefly » Thu, Apr 02, 2015, 1:14 PM UTC

anon4 wrote: post #79

bs_bishop wrote: post #33

Interesting to consider --- is there enough lithium in the world to support this stuff? http://large.stanford.edu/courses/2010/ph240/eason2/

Can't lithium batteries be recycled?

Yes.

http://www.teslamotors.com/blog/mythbusters-part-3-recycling...

http://www.teslamotors.com/blog/teslas-closed-loop-battery-r...

Re: Tesla is a Battery Company

#119

Post by pdonis » Thu, Apr 02, 2015, 1:14 PM UTC

vonklaus wrote: post #35

pdonis wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The battery in a Tesla Model S is literally a huge array of Panasonic flashlight batteries. It is an off-the-shelf catalog item you can order from Panasonic. Um, no. Viewing the battery of a Tesla Model S as just a big flashlight battery misses the whole point of what Tesla is doing. A flashlight battery does one thing: it discharges energy until it's empty. Even an ordinary rechargeable household battery only does…

> The battery in a Tesla Model S, OTOH, is continuously computing whether to charge or discharge Is it? I would imagine the software does that. The battery really is a large array of commodity batteries made by panosonic. Tesla is doing the gigafactory for vertical integration and to bolster it's own supply. Obviously, they have done a lot of innovation around the pack in terms of heat distribution and cell construct…

> I would imagine the software does that.

Obviously the lithium-ion cells themselves aren't doing the computation; software is. But the software should be considered part of the "battery" as a system. Without the software the lithium-ion cells are useless for this application, and indeed for any application more dynamic than a flashlight. So the software development that Tesla has done is essential for making batteries viable in the sorts of applications that people want to use them for to help solve our energy problems.

Re: Tesla is a Battery Company

#120

Post by ridgeguy » Thu, Apr 02, 2015, 1:30 PM UTC

peterfirefly wrote: post #114

ridgeguy wrote: post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I toured the Tesla factory in Fremont, CA last Monday. During the completely awesome 1 hour tour, our guide answered many detailed questions about their cars and manufacturing processes, including how Tesla instruments battery cells. We were told that they instrument every single one of the 7,000+ cells for temperature and voltage.

That's an overstatement. They do not have 7000+ temperature and voltage sensors per pack. Each of the 16 modules is split into 6 blocks where the 70+ cells within a block are all wired in parallel -- so they are going to have the same voltage. The blocks within a module are wired serially and the modules are also wired serially. Each module has a battery monitoring chip: http://www.ti.com/product/bq76pl536a It has se…

Thanks for clarification and link to the teardown pix. Very interesting.