Hi Mike,
Is the general sense that this battery will become standard either for the X for for the S in the future (meaning the 85 and the current chemistry will go away)?
Listen to the 17 July 2015 conference call from 12:40
here. Yes it will become standard for S and X. They are waiting for EPA test results. Elon said they can't release EPA numbers before EPA tests the car. They did that before with the P85D. Tesla used to say "EPA estimated" range on the order page when they were selling P85D. Why not now? My guess is other car company lawyers must have contacted EPA to complain that Tesla shouldn't be allowed to sell a new model unless it is approved by EPA. That's why the 90 kWh is an option instead a different model. And that's why Tesla doesn't show an estimated EPA range for 90 models. But this is just temporary. When the range numbers are approved, the new models will appear on EPA website
here. Also it is clear that either we will see a 95 kWh in 2016, or if that doesn't happen we will see a 100 kWh in 2017. This is supported by Elon's blog post:
"On average, we expect to increase pack capacity by roughly 5% per year."
Source
[Update: it was not July 2014, it was Nov 2014, I corrected the link]
To have more perspective on this (particularly on lab level tests, small production tests etc.) I also recommend listening to Nov 2014 conference call from 17:25
here.
17:28: With respect to the cathode materials, there is a lot of technology improvements that we will be able to apply to the battery pack and the cathode, anode, separator, can production, the whole works. Some of these improvements are independent to others.
17:50: Whatever we build out for the Gigafactory has to work at least at the lab level, let's say this year because we are making monster investments in equipment and there is a certain amount of time, a year or two at least from working at the lab level to working at small scale production. Then at least a year or two after that you can go from small scale production to mass production.
In that conference call Elon gives this timeline for new cell tests:
- 1-2 years lab level tests
- 1-2 year small production tests.
- mass production
The reason why Elon talks about yearly upgrades is because the 95 kWh cells must be already in small production test stage right now. The 100 kWh cells must be in lab level test stage. On the 17 July 2015 conference call Elon explained this
here at 8:39. He said:
We are shifting the cell chemistry for the upgraded pack cell to partially use silicon in the anode. This is just sort of a baby step in the direction of using silicon in the anode. Still primarily synthetic graphite but over time we will be using increasing amounts of silicon in the anode. The physical size of the pack from the outside will look exactly the same.
In other words with this new silicon there is a new path to improve cells a few percentage every year. Different versions of those cells would need to be tested in parallel at different stages. Because the 90 kWh cells have entered mass production now, it is safe to assume 95 kWh cells are at small scale production tests. There is also the July 2014 conference call from 25:23 to 27:37
here where Elon talked about cell changes.
