Electric vehicle battery costs rapidly declining, Tesla cited as leading • Hacker News Board

Re: Electric vehicle battery costs rapidly declining, Tesla cited as leading

#211

Post by patrickk » Wed, Jun 08, 2016, 7:03 AM UTC

synaesthesisx wrote: post #188

sremani wrote: post #18

caution. 1. a tesla accessory site. 2. the report is full of projections and hard to understand what is wishful and what is not. 3. GM: $145/kw Oct 2015 - Tesla $100/kw in 2020, how is Tesla killing it?

Purely speculating here, but once the gigafactory is operational they'll unveil the massive trick up their sleeve - Musk will announce new custom cells based on high density sodium-ion technology. Tesla will become a world leader as an energy company rather than an automative one.

Musk has said before they monitor battery developments, but that he hasn't seen anything to catch his eye so far. Even Musk would be insane to switch the Gigafactory to a new, unproven battery chemistry. Plus, sodium-ion batteries are heavier than lithium-ion, so they're (probably) unsuitable for cars. Possible for Powerwalls though perhaps or a hypothetical Tesla truck where weight is less of a consideration.

Re: Electric vehicle battery costs rapidly declining, Tesla cited as leading

#212

Post by tajen » Wed, Jun 08, 2016, 7:11 AM UTC

pmarreck wrote: post #181

Tesla is going to be a gigantic company one day. Disclaimer: I own one (Model S P85+, about 2 years old). And everyone I let drive it (yes, I am crazy enough to do that... As a fan who pushes the bleeding edge, it's important to share the experience in order to change minds... Anyway, my insurance covers me even when I'm a passenger!) cannot stop talking about it afterwards. I actually think Tesla's market is limited…

How do you deal with the 8-year limited lifetime? I evaluate a Tesla at 4x the cost of a normal car: I can get a new car for €15k lasting 15 years with a lively second market, Teslas are ~€30k, with free supercharger network, and 8 years warranty but no road license after that, and no second-hand market for spare pieces. Have you calculated the total cost of ownership (including insurance and free petrol) and how did it compete with other cars?

Re: Electric vehicle battery costs rapidly declining, Tesla cited as leading

#213

Post by tirant » Wed, Jun 08, 2016, 7:37 AM UTC

walrus01 wrote: post #76

narrator wrote: post #17

I find it amusing to see so many people questioning why Tesla didn't release a cheap Tesla sooner. The answer is: They don't have the batteries to do that. That's why they are building the GigaFactory. People don't get that, on a large industrial scale, you actually have to think about supply. They think you just spend money and supply shows up because they are used to thinking on a household scale where supply is ge…

Energy STORAGE is a huge bottleneck issue for anyone that follows renewable energy news as well... Solar power itself has been cheap enough to be viable for a long time, 330W 72-cell panels for roofs have been $0.64/watt for several years now. You can quite economically cover the roof of a building in enough high-efficiency 60 or 72-cell panels to generate far more kWh in a year than the building will consume in the…

we have two options here: We either improve the power grid all around the world, so whenever it's dark in one side of the planet, the other side, sunny, feeds the darker part; or we start investing heavier on other renewable sources not depending on the sun, to provide the required energy for those nights and cold evenings in the the winter months.

Re: Electric vehicle battery costs rapidly declining, Tesla cited as leading

#214

Post by dovdov » Wed, Jun 08, 2016, 8:11 AM UTC

If people pay $35k for a compact car, why would you sell it cheaper? Now Tesla introduced the Model 3, I'd bet we'll see a $25k Leaf next year with better range. It's business, don't blame it on the sub-par 25 year old technology batteries.

Re: Electric vehicle battery costs rapidly declining, Tesla cited as leading

#215

Post by gambiting » Wed, Jun 08, 2016, 8:51 AM UTC

audleman wrote: post #178

outworlder wrote: post #92

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I find it amusing to see so many people questioning why Tesla didn't release a cheap Tesla sooner. The answer is: They don't have the batteries to do that. That's why they are building the GigaFactory. Interestingly (for me), when I leased my leaf the sales guy was talking about how Nissan could make a car with a much better range, but chose not to. It was amusing hearing it from a (otherwise backwards) dealership.…

> Interestingly (for me), when I leased my leaf the sales guy was talking about how Nissan could make a car with a much better range, but chose not to Wait, what? How did he justify that? That sounds like saying Apple could easily make a laptop with much better battery life but chose not to. Why would they ever do that?

I guess he meant that Nissan could just put more battery cells in the car, at the expense of space. Fill the boot with batteries, that kind of thing.

Re: Electric vehicle battery costs rapidly declining, Tesla cited as leading

#216

Post by davej » Wed, Jun 08, 2016, 9:01 AM UTC

venomsnake wrote: post #116

mtgx wrote: post #97

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's what I'm afraid of. That China will push a "race to the bottom" not on just prices per se, but on lower prices with poorer quality batteries that hold much fewer charges and degrade faster, making you want to dump your EV battery after 3 years. But everyone will be too focused on their promotion of "cheap long range EVs" to notice.

Revolutionary idea ... make batteries replaceable. We had it back in the days. You could just remove the old batteries and put the new ones.

Tesla tried this and it didn't seem very popular (albeit low sample size): http://fortune.com/2015/06/10/teslas-battery-swap-is-dead/

Re: Electric vehicle battery costs rapidly declining, Tesla cited as leading

#217

Post by goldenkey » Wed, Jun 08, 2016, 9:18 AM UTC

notJim wrote: post #120

disposeofnick9 wrote: post #66

Can't wait to buy the plastic battery holder grids for Tesla-sized cells. My first 18650 pack is made from 4 laptop batteries and is capable of about 63 A at 0.2C.

Just out of curiosity… whaaat does this comment mean? Are you building some kind of railgun or something?

Just curious, how much damage could a domestic terrorist do with a railgun made from consumer parts?

Re: Electric vehicle battery costs rapidly declining, Tesla cited as leading

#218

Post by simonh » Wed, Jun 08, 2016, 9:39 AM UTC

melling wrote: post #68

mikeash wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Worldwide production of lithium-ion batteries in 2013 was around 35GWh. The current rate is somewhat higher, I can't quite find how much. Tesla is currently producing around 100,000 cars/year. Each car has about 80kWh of battery on average (the options right now are 75 or 90), so that's about 8GWh. If they meet their goal of 400,000 Model 3s produced in 2018, assuming 55kWh of battery for those cars, that's 22GWh, no…

Tesla hasn't sold 100,000 cars in their entire history. Last year they did sell 50,000 cars. Think they'll double that this year? http://www.fool.com/investing/general/2015/11/18/how-many-ve...

Do their sales in the first 5 months of 2016 somehow not count?

Re: Electric vehicle battery costs rapidly declining, Tesla cited as leading

#219

Post by nl » Wed, Jun 08, 2016, 9:42 AM UTC

Yaggo wrote: post #208

nl wrote: post #197

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Flow Batteries[1]! They work (as in: are being used in Africa & South America to power mobile networks). Also my (office) building is powered by one. They don't cost much more than lead-acid They last much, much longer than lead-acid or lithium* There is no limit to the number of power cycles(!!) and they can be deep-discharged. They do have disadvantages - they aren't suitable for cars, and are currently fairly nois…

Interesting, haven't heard about such batteries being commercially sold. Any idea who sells those for private consumers in Europe?

I believe Redflow will have a consumer offering this year, (under another brand). Not sure about European availability.

Re: Electric vehicle battery costs rapidly declining, Tesla cited as leading

#220

Post by nl » Wed, Jun 08, 2016, 9:45 AM UTC

mavhc wrote: post #210

nl wrote: post #197

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Flow Batteries[1]! They work (as in: are being used in Africa & South America to power mobile networks). Also my (office) building is powered by one. They don't cost much more than lead-acid They last much, much longer than lead-acid or lithium* There is no limit to the number of power cycles(!!) and they can be deep-discharged. They do have disadvantages - they aren't suitable for cars, and are currently fairly nois…

167 Wh/l = 167kWh per cubic metre, say 16 hours of no sun, 16kW output at night, seems reasonable

Yep. Next time someone claims base load means renewables don't work do that math. Also point to the experience in developing countries where they don't have reliable base load, yet have similar uptime.