Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Panasonic to begin mass producing new 4680 Tesla battery by March 2024

reuters.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

141–150 of 172 posts

Re: Panasonic to begin mass producing new 4680 Tesla battery by March 2024

#141

Post by _ea1k »

gameswithgo wrote: post #60
_ea1k wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Model S and X use 18650s manufactured in Japan. Maybe this is some long term plan to transition some unannounced vehicles to 4680?

The model Y in Austin is supposed to use the 4680. Remains a question if the high horsepower cars can work with the bigger cells.

Of course, but the 4680 Y in Austin is being manufactured this year, possibly even right now. The cells aren't provided by this plant in Japan, they are currently being provided by Tesla's own equipment in CA.

I'm just guessing as to how they might use these cells that won't be produced in volume for at least two years. To me, new vehicles that haven't yet been announced are the most likely candidates. That could easily turn out to be wrong, of course.

Re: Panasonic to begin mass producing new 4680 Tesla battery by March 2024

#142

Post by cma »

Armisael16 wrote: post #132
cma wrote: post #91

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why not use two size tiers of cylindrical cells, smaller ones to fill in the gaps? With only one size the empty space ratio is the same.

It definitely isn’t the same. The square packing in the first picture uses pi/4 ~ 79% of the space; the second uses pi/(2*sqrt(3)) ~ 91% of the space. They don’t bother with smaller secondary batteries because the extra manufacturing cost and operational complexity isn’t worth it for a 5%-10% bump in volumetric energy density.

I didn't mean to say the two packings were the same. 90% is better than I thought circle packing was though, I've mostly seen multi-scale packing used in thermal pastes and stuff and it is probably a bigger difference in 3d sphere packing.

Re: Panasonic to begin mass producing new 4680 Tesla battery by March 2024

#143

Post by _ea1k »

rebelde wrote: post #86

Does anybody know why the range of a Tesla, such as the Model 3, is not increasing every year? I would expect more advances in battery capacity.

There are several valid answers, IMO.

One, they have increased to some extent. The base Model 3 was announced as a $35k vehicle with 215 miles of range. Today, the closest trim to that has risen in price from ~38k a year ago to ~45k today, but also to 270 miles. The LR was RWD at launch and ~325 miles. It has since grown to AWD and ~350 miles.

Beyond that, they've really focused on margin expansion more than range expansion. The current LR vehicles are remarkably practical for the majority of their use case, especially as the supercharger network has continued to expand to allow charging at the most optimum times in most cases. They seem to have a realization that consumers will tend to choose the highest range, even when its past the real needs for their use case and have slowed range expansion as a result.

They aren't totally wrong. I do think they will resume expanding range once competitors really start to push them to do it. I think that situation is still 2-3 years away, though.

Re: Panasonic to begin mass producing new 4680 Tesla battery by March 2024

#144

Post by scottyah »

oblio wrote: post #69

Somewhat off-topic, but maybe someone knows. There's one thing that worries me about EVs: local pollution. So, ICE cars release CO2 + they release local pollutants (NO, CO, etc), particulate matter, that kind of thing. EVs obviously don't directly release CO2 nor do they release those local pollutants. However, EVs are on average much heavier (probably 200-400kgs heavier), which means that they probably need bigger t…

It turns out that EVs are not much heavier when compared to the similar priced luxury market. Model 3's are 3,648 to 4,250 lbs where as BMW M3's are 3,840 to 3,990 lbs. Model S is 4,561 to 4,766 lbs and BMW m7 is 4,244 to 4,855 lbs.

Re: Panasonic to begin mass producing new 4680 Tesla battery by March 2024

#145

Post by snovv_crash »

konspence wrote: post #57
Gravityloss wrote: post #3

This cylindrical form factor might make sense for batteries that have thermal runaway potential, to keep the unit size small so that the whole battery doesn't go into thermal runaway, only one cell. But for LFP or iron based batteries which don't have such issues, the blade design should be cheaper, more maintainable, more space and weight efficient etc. There's no glue so you can actually just switch individual blad…

How would a cylindrical shape isolate thermal runaway to one cell?

During fire they vent from one end, not in the middle. So this directs any flames away from adjacent cells.

Re: Panasonic to begin mass producing new 4680 Tesla battery by March 2024

#146

Post by oblio »

scottyah wrote: post #144
oblio wrote: post #69

Somewhat off-topic, but maybe someone knows. There's one thing that worries me about EVs: local pollution. So, ICE cars release CO2 + they release local pollutants (NO, CO, etc), particulate matter, that kind of thing. EVs obviously don't directly release CO2 nor do they release those local pollutants. However, EVs are on average much heavier (probably 200-400kgs heavier), which means that they probably need bigger t…

It turns out that EVs are not much heavier when compared to the similar priced luxury market. Model 3's are 3,648 to 4,250 lbs where as BMW M3's are 3,840 to 3,990 lbs. Model S is 4,561 to 4,766 lbs and BMW m7 is 4,244 to 4,855 lbs.

They don't scale down, though.

VW id.3 weight:

1,812 to 1,935 kg

VW Golf weight:

1,302 to 1,630 kg

That's 18% to 38% heavier, it's a huge difference.

And most cars are not luxury cars, across the world. Nor are they SUVs.

I fear we're both going to wreck roads much faster and affect air quality, at least for the next 5-10 years, until we improve battery capacity and reduce their weight :-(

Re: Panasonic to begin mass producing new 4680 Tesla battery by March 2024

#147

Post by hinkley »

Goz3rr wrote: post #13
colejohnson66 wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Assuming this image I found online is of 4680s, there’s quite a bit of wasted space: https://www.teslarati.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/01/tesla-4...

The actual arrangement of cylindrical cells is staggered: https://cdn.motor1.com/images/mgl/XkV66/s1/tesla-model-y-468...

I suspect the original picture is from either the end of the assembly line or a shipping facility. Your first clue that it’s not in a pack is the lack of connections between the batteries. Nobody makes an all parallel pack. 3V at how many amps would be too hot. They wire a bunch in series to triple digit voltages and then comment those packs together in parallel.

You could probably ship them staggered, but I’m betting they are at a weight limit anyway so making them more dense doesn’t save you anything.

Re: Panasonic to begin mass producing new 4680 Tesla battery by March 2024

#148

Post by hinkley »

Armisael16 wrote: post #132
cma wrote: post #91

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why not use two size tiers of cylindrical cells, smaller ones to fill in the gaps? With only one size the empty space ratio is the same.

It definitely isn’t the same. The square packing in the first picture uses pi/4 ~ 79% of the space; the second uses pi/(2*sqrt(3)) ~ 91% of the space. They don’t bother with smaller secondary batteries because the extra manufacturing cost and operational complexity isn’t worth it for a 5%-10% bump in volumetric energy density.

Didn’t someone prove about 15 years ago that there’s an oval shape that packs tighter still? Given the hollow core that could probably be done, but cylinders are probably easier for the assembly line to handle. So then it comes down to whether that space is being utilized (for cooling, or weight per cubic inch of the support structure).

Re: Panasonic to begin mass producing new 4680 Tesla battery by March 2024

#149

Post by hinkley »

luxurytent wrote: post #11

As a Canadian who's currently driving a 9 year old Mazda 3, I'm waiting for the day it decides to call quits so I can move to an EV (9 isn't that old, so I'm hopeful at least another 2-3 years) That said, I wish there was a site that simply told me now's the right time to buy an EV. With supply chain issues, long waits for a new car, government rebates, and the influx of new inventory/models, it's hard to keep up whe…

I have a similarly aged car. If not for the pandemic and the lousy mpg of vehicles I might have bought one earlier. I had my eye on the Ioniq until I saw the EV6, but it’s about 15% more expensive than I thought it was going to be (probably got my wires crossed between the 2 vehicles) and you have to buy the high end one to get a sun roof, so now I’m not sure what I’m gonna do.

Re: Panasonic to begin mass producing new 4680 Tesla battery by March 2024

#150

Post by hinkley »

hwillis wrote: post #23
luxurytent wrote: post #11

As a Canadian who's currently driving a 9 year old Mazda 3, I'm waiting for the day it decides to call quits so I can move to an EV (9 isn't that old, so I'm hopeful at least another 2-3 years) That said, I wish there was a site that simply told me now's the right time to buy an EV. With supply chain issues, long waits for a new car, government rebates, and the influx of new inventory/models, it's hard to keep up whe…

Just for the record- it only takes about 21k miles of driving (a year or two for most people) to release as much CO2 as the production of the battery for a long range Tesla Model 3. The standard range Model 3 comes in just under 16k miles. It seems to me like most people expect more. Also, I don't think EV prices have really changed that much. Chip shortages haven't really affected it. High gas prices and inflation a…

There was a time where the embodied energy of efficient vehicles was much higher than bad ones and it made the objective math a lot fuzzier. Maybe things have gotten better.
Post reply on HN