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Elon Musk: Boeing 787 battery fundamentally unsafe
171–180 of 253 posts
Re: Elon Musk: Boeing 787 battery fundamentally unsafe
#172Earlier 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? Competent, well-meaning people are due the benefit of the doubt. Also, your logic assumes what is in debate, ie you're using circular logic.
Pedant mode: we know the design is unsafe and faulty, so much so that the planes have been grounded. The question now is how much and in what way are they unsafe.
Regardless, I think my post was clear that criticisms which are well founded in solid engineering deserve to see the light of day, regardless of politeness. And even regardless of whether they turn out to be ultimately true. If they are solid criticisms they need to be rebutted with equally solid counterpoint arguments and/or evidence.
Failing to go about the process of safety openly and humbly is the sort of thing that costs lives. Especially now near the anniversaries of the 3 worst accidents in US manned spaceflight history I think encouraging a spirit of honest and open technological criticism is the right thing to do.
Re: Elon Musk: Boeing 787 battery fundamentally unsafe
#173While 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…
I'm going to disregard the bits about wings and the general engineering attitude at Boeing. It is simply not relevant.
Musk has one very important justification to make the statement he did: that battery caught fire. That alone is proof positive that he is right. If the charger should fail, is it then permissible that the batteries catch fire? If not then they are fundamentally unsafe.
For that reason alone this is a valid statement, and there are more justifications (such as BIG cells with LITTLE spacing which is problematic) for the use of the word 'fundamental'.
There is enough data available about the architecture for people with far more experience than you to make such statements, the amount of energy liberated from such a big cell should it go wrong is enormous and that alone is a reason to avoid big cells.
I'm sure Elon is picking up PR points here but you can't just discard what he is saying because he does not have engineering samples on his desk. The incident proves his point quite effectively, this design really does have problems.
Re: Elon Musk: Boeing 787 battery fundamentally unsafe
#174Earlier 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…
>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. Bollocks. Your analogies are crap too. Getting an FAA type certificate is a complicated, drawn out process, note, that doesn't make it a good process. I'm betting Musk has as much data about those batteries as Boeing, the FAA, or anyone else alive.
> I'm betting Musk has as much data about those batteries as Boeing, the FAA, or anyone else alive.
You're betting that, are you? Based on a couple of paragraphs in a news article, you're betting that Mr. Musk has as much data as anyone alive - including the Japanese designers and manufacturers of the battery?
If there were a viable way of determining the facts of the matter, I would be happy to bet pretty much any sum you cared to name against you.
Re: Elon Musk: Boeing 787 battery fundamentally unsafe
#175> Japanese inspectors have cleared the maker of the battery, GS Yuasa, of any defects before the unit leaves the factory. But both Japanese and US investigators continue to examine and test the batteries to understand why they failed after they were integrated into the 787 electrical system and operated on commercial flights.
So it's not the batteries but how they are integrated into the plane? How is this any different than how Tesla has packed their cells? Their cells looked pretty densely packed from my POV.
Re: Elon Musk: Boeing 787 battery fundamentally unsafe
#176They should switch to LiFePo4 chemistry which will not burn. My bike battery is made of that.
LiFePO4 and LiMn2O4 chemistries aren't magic, although they are less prone to 'rapid disassembly', there is always a possibility. LiCO4 does have advantages though, mainly related to energy density. For something like a car, or a plane, higher energy density in cells means greater efficiency for weight vs. energy potential. Also, it isn't like lithium cobalt is going to explode if you look at it wrong. Nearly all the risk can be prevented by proper cell management, via electronics.
LiFePO4 and LiMn2O4 have the advantage of larger output potential, which for your bike, allows a large amount of power to be put into the electric motor from a small battery. Electric cars/planes get around this by putting lots of cells in parallel, but requires quite a lot of regulation.
Re: Elon Musk: Boeing 787 battery fundamentally unsafe
#177While 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…
It does not matter if the you have the best engineers in the world as long management's primary concern is not flawless designs, from an engineering pov, but striking a balance between that and some unrelated economic measure.
When it comes to safety, such compromises are always /very/ dangerous.
I would think the people who designed the space shuttle's rocket boosters weren't clowns either. Didn't prevent http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Space_Shuttle_Challenger_disast... from happening.
Re: Elon Musk: Boeing 787 battery fundamentally unsafe
#178While 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…
But did Boeing design those or was it outsourced far away ? There was an article on how they misdesigned the building system, it might have been a integration hell, reducing chances of thorough testing.
I don't know a single thing about this domain, but SpaceX embeds the same kind of batteries in a much larger and complex constraint space, it's another point for Musk POV.
Too bad Boeing and SpaceX didn't work together, it could have been a very synergic, local partnership.
Re: Elon Musk: Boeing 787 battery fundamentally unsafe
#179While 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…
I find it amusing that you are one-sidedly complaining about appeals to authority when so many comments, on both sides, in this thread boil down to "my preferred expert is better than your preferred expert".
Re: Elon Musk: Boeing 787 battery fundamentally unsafe
#180While 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…
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 might well be called upon to explain these comments to an Ethics committee. Here is a snippet (from the IPENZ Code of Ethics) that I imagine is probably fairly representative of Professional Engineers' obligations:
11. Not review other engineers’ work without taking reasonable steps to inform them and investigate
(1) A Member who reviews another engineer’s work for the purpose of commenting on that work must take reasonable steps to—
(a) inform that engineer of the proposed review before starting it; and
(b) investigate the matters concerned before commenting.
(2) Subclause (1) does not apply if taking those steps would result in there being a significant and immediate risk of harm to the health or safety of people, damage to property, or damage to the environment.