Extent of Tesla's battery advantage

[flankspeed8]

GM may very well beat Tesla to market with the "affordable BEV" in the Bolt. But the real wild card in this scenario is the responsiveness by the dealers to sell the car. Will the salespeople know all there is to know about BEVs? Will they offer a free or discounted J1772 for home charging? Most people don't understand charging speed differential between a 110/15 and a 240/30. If the dealers' past is prologue, they will try to persuade their customers to buy an ICE, and thousands of Bolts will sit at the back of the dealers' lots gathering dust.

Unless GM provides a sizable incentive for the dealer to sell the Bolt, they will languish unsold, I believe. Perhaps a smarter approach for GM would be to try to sell the Bolt to municipalities and other fleet purchasers for starters. That will get the cars into the public awareness through visibility, and the employees who run their errands in them will have first-hand knowledge of their benefits.

BINGO! If, and that is a BIG IF, the dealers were to get on board, no reason the Bolt could not rival the M3. GM could create their own Super Charge network at the tens of thousands of GM dealers across the country. But there is absolutely no incentive for a dealer to buy into this. It has been said a million times, the biggest obstacle to the Volt/Bolt has and will be lack of dealer interest. Especially since there is so little potential for service revenue. You have to admit though, if there was DC charging in the convenient locations of GM dealerships, this could be a huge game change. Just do not see it happening though which is too bad.

 

[Beckler]

Doesn't mean that the those cars will be competition for a mid-sized, aerodynamic long-range BEV with a low-cost, coherent fast-charging network. For BEVs long-range != long-distance, and EREV != BEV.

True. The fact that Superchargers are approaching 400 in number (and might be what, 800 in 2 years?) is astounding and a huge plus. As is the fact that Model 3 isn't a Chevy. Who wants a chevrolet, after all.

 

[stopcrazypp]

GM could create their own Super Charge network at the tens of thousands of GM dealers across the country.

You can't build a supercharger network equivalent with just dealer chargers. Nissan already tried that. The problem is dealers don't tend to be in the right location for a road trip stop. Also, they tend to be only open during business hours and there is no guarantee of access (dealers can limit based on their actual customers, sometimes it is blocked by other cars, and they have little incentive to keep the charger maintained). If GM is serious about a charging network, they would have to spend money on locations as well as long term maintenance, similar to what Tesla has done.

However, most of the automakers are banking on the government and third-party charging network companies to handle most of the infrastructure (partially because they are using a standard that is not limited to only their own cars, unlike Tesla).

 

[flankspeed8]

You can't build a supercharger network equivalent with just dealer chargers. Nissan already tried that. The problem is dealers don't tend to be in the right location for a road trip stop. Also, they tend to be only open during business hours and there is no guarantee of access (dealers can limit based on their actual customers, sometimes it is blocked by other cars, and they have little incentive to keep the charger maintained). If GM is serious about a charging network, they would have to spend money on locations as well as long term maintenance, similar to what Tesla has done.

However, most of the automakers are banking on the government and third-party charging network companies to handle most of the infrastructure (partially because they are using a standard that is not limited to only their own cars, unlike Tesla).

I don't know where you live, but there are tons of dealers located right off of interstates. Even in the middle of no where. Who says they would need to be open? That would be the least of the problem. The Nissan dealer network pales in comparison to anything GM. That being said, if they had the will to do it, they could rival the Super Charger network. There is nothing that would prevent another company from duplicating except time and money IMO.

 

[techmaven]

In case you haven't seen this, you should:

The Charge of the Battery Brigade - Autoline This Week 1833 - YouTube

Note that the Mr. Patil represents LG Chem, the company that is part of the joint venture that is CompactPower that runs the battery plant in MI that provides batteries for the existing Volt and presumably future Volt and Bolt models as well as various Ford products. Note that LG Chem recently won a supplier agreement with Nissan as well as Volkswagen/Audi. It is likely that LG Chem's next generation NMC battery that provides the foundation for the next generation of BEVs from everyone that is *not* Tesla.

Also note this article: Can the world Quartz
Which is backed up by Argonne National Labs/DoE status reports. This basically puts a cap on the expected gains on next generation NMC technology.

As for Tesla, this presentation is particularly interesting:
2014 Energy Storage Symposium - JB Straubels Keynote - YouTube

If you aren't familiar with the landscape when it comes to Tesla's battery handling, go through Tesla's old blog entries on their website. A lot of it is Roadster information but it provides a solid grounding of where Tesla came from and where they are going.

Also note that pretty much anyone that is a "battery industry expert" and puts out pay-for reports has been dramatically wrong when it comes to Tesla. McKinsley, IHS, and others have just been flat out wrong. Instead, pay attention to the people that actually run battery manufacturers, the scientists, and Tesla management.

 

[stopcrazypp]

I don't know where you live, but there are tons of dealers located right off of interstates. Even in the middle of no where.

I'm looking at a route like I-5. The optimal places for charger placement do not have dealers in them.

Who says they would need to be open? That would be the least of the problem.

The dealer says so. They have a large amount of inventory on their lots and they don't want people going there regularly off business hours (esp. people with no intention to buy from them). A lot of these chargers can't be used without dealer personnel unlocking it (and some dealers won't allow you to charge unless to bought a car from them previously). Keep in mind dealers are independent and they are the ones that decide how access to their particular charger is dealt with, not the automaker. That's the biggest problem with dealer chargers and why it's not viable as mission-critical road trip charging solution. The ones that have no such restrictions tend to be owned by a third-party charging network.

The difference with Tesla's chargers is that they are put near businesses that you are likely to visit, so there is incentive for the lot owner and businesses nearby to treat it well.

The Nissan dealer network pales in comparison to anything GM. That being said, if they had the will to do it, they could rival the Super Charger network. There is nothing that would prevent another company from duplicating except time and money IMO.

Yes, if they have the will, time, and money to do it they can probably do it (although I argue it won't be as simple as just installing chargers at dealers). So far they have no indication they want to do it, nor spend the time/money to do so.

 

[David99]

Regarding cell format and size. Tesla did a lot of research and came to the conclusion that using the small cylindrical cells is the best package design for the car they were going to build. They set up all their production for it. That was done many years ago. It doesn't mean it is necessarily true today or in the next few years.

I think comparing the Model S to other EVs is actually apples and oranges. The Model S is the only premium car, the only high priced one. It is aimed at a different market than all other EVs which are small and compact commuters and city cars. The concept and thus the resulting design of these cars is different. For Tesla, the battery can be expensive because they are selling a very expensive product that also needs top performance. The others are going for the lowest cost and bare minimum range and performance so the battery design is different. From that point of view it's not a simple as saying the Tesla battery is better than all the others. Tesla has a different product with different cost and performance requirements. It means they came to a different solution/conclusion in battery design. There is no 'one best solution' for everything that has four wheels and is on the road.

 

[scaesare]

I'm not annoyed about it. I'm happy. The next generation of PEVs could be the one that loses the price subsidies and creates a self-sustaining plug-in market. That'd still be a huge milestone.

Indeed.. the competition and technological leap-frogging and milestone-reaching is good for the EV market as a whole.

 

[RobStark]

There is no 'one best solution' for everything that has four wheels and is on the road.

Road car range is better than City Car range.

There is a better and a worse solution.

The issue is scaling to drive down the price.

 

[austinEV]

To quote Fluxcap (or was it citizen T?) show me your gigafactory or it doesn't really matter. Even if LG chem can get to cost/density parity they need to start building massive factories or all of the other OEM's will add up to an also-ran to TM.

 

[32no]

The Extent of Tesla's Battery Advantage

Warning: Link Barrage


I have been doing some research on this recently, including going through old posts. The best and most relevant threads by far are the ones by CapitalistOppressor. Here are two very good ones:

Model S Battery Pack - Cost Per kWh Estimate
Amazing Core Tesla Battery IP - 18650 Cell

Essentially, I think Tesla has an advantage on many levels. Tesla has over 100 patents on batteries on the cell, module, and pack levels. The four fundamental areas in which Tesla has an advantage are: Charging Rate, Battery Life/Safety, Energy Density, and Cost.

Charging

Some of Tesla's Supercharging stations can charge at 135kw by bypassing the 10kw or 20kw dual chargers onboard. Meanwhile, most other electric cars have either 3.3kw or 6.6kw onboard chargers, and most "fast chargers" for these cars are around 24 kw. CHADEMO is capable of 62.5kw, but no car other than Tesla can handle that rate AFAIK (EDIT: the Kia Soul EV can apparently handle the 62.5kw rate of CHADEMO). Clearly, Tesla's charging rate is much faster than any other electric car. There are a few good reasons for this, the main one being that a larger battery can charge faster than a smaller battery because it can take more power. The other reason Tesla has achieved such a high charge rate is with an optimized BMS (battery management system) which is capable of controlling voltage to each cell.

Tesla has some very good Intellectual Property for their charging:

-Charge Rate Optimization Patent
-Low Temperature Fast Charge Patent
-Charging Efficiency Using Variable Isolation Patent
-Fast Charging of Battery Using Adjustable Voltage Control Patent
-Battery Charging Time Optimization System

Also, JB Straubel wants to get the charge time for the Model S down to 5-10 minutes.

Battery Life/Safety
Tesla has achieved very good battery life as well.

Here is some proof of the claim that Tesla has excellent battery life:
This is data from the Dutch and Belgian forums. LINK

This is data from the Plug In America survey for Model S battery degradation, I made the graph (excludes some data with cars over 265 miles of range). LINK

Also, here is some battery reports from the Roadster and Nissan Leaf from Plug In America.

Roadster Battery Degradation Report
Nissan Leaf Battery Degradation Report

Having a larger battery also helps here, since charging and discharging a 100 mile range car to cover 100,000 miles would take 1,000 cycles, while charging and discharging a 250 mile range car to cover 100,000 miles will only take 400 cycles. Therefore, a longer range car (due to a larger battery) will be able to achieve longer battery life. And again, Tesla's technology within the BMS (battery management system) and the design of the pack only helps. For example, Tesla was really paying attention to good thermal management with their cells, and they have incorporated module level thermal management material, intumescent goo to resist thermal runway, and even a battery coolant sleeve/jacket. Here is Tesla's related IP:

-Cell Thermal Runway Propagation Resistance Using Dual Intumescent Material Layers
-Method Of Controlling System Temperature To Extend Battery Pack Life
-Method And Apparatus For Extending Lifetime Of Stationary Energy Storage Devices
-Battery Module With Integrated Thermal Management System
-Battery Pack Directed Venting System
-Detection of Overcurrent In Battery Pack

Energy Density

Tesla achieved higher energy density and lower cost for their batteries by radically simplifying the battery cell. Since Tesla planned on stuffing a huge amount of these battery cells into a battery pack, it would be redundant and unnecessary to implement safety systems that can instead be implemented on a pack or module level, so they radically simplified the cell itself and moved the safety systems (including exterior insulation) to the module and pack levels. This makes the battery higher energy density, and makes the cells easier and cheaper to manufacture. Here is a diagram of a typical 18650 battery cell (Left) versus Tesla's simplified cell (Right).

The patent for this cell- "Cell Cap Assembly With Recessed Terminal and Enlarged Insulating Gasket"

So how much did this help with Energy Density on the pack level? It turns out a lot, because Tesla is the absolute leader on energy density. Here is my data and chart from the Long Term Thread:

Data

Chart (Red is 100% Tesla cars, orange is Tesla inside, and green is non-Tesla vehicles)

Sources:

Car	Battery Weight Source	Battery kWh Source
BMW i8	98 kg	7.1 kWh
Volkswagen E-Golf	318 kg	24.2 kWh
2011 Chevy Volt	198.1 kg	16 kWh
Nissan Leaf	294 kg	24 kWh
BMW i3	233 kg	22 kWh
Chevy Spark	474 lbs/215 kg	18.4 kWh
Fiat 500e	272 kg	24 kWh
Kia Soul EV	660 lbs/281 kg	27 kWh
2016 Chevy Volt	183 kg	18.4 kWh
Mercedes SLS AMG EV	1208 lbs/548 kg	60 kWh
RAV4 EV	840lbs/381 kg	41.8 kWh
Mercedes B-Class	660 lbs/299.4 kg	36 kWh
Tesla Roadster (2008)	450 kg	53 kWh
Tesla Model S (2012)	1323 lbs/600 kg	85 kWh
Improved Roadster	(same package as 2008)	70 kWh

The next best battery pack in terms of energy density is on the Mercedes SLS AMG Electric Drive (which costs $435,000). Its energy density is 30% lower than what Tesla had in 2012 and 40% lower than the recently upgraded Roadster. Also, Tesla's energy density seems to be improving at a steady rate of about 4.7% per year.

Battery Cost

Tesla has the lowest battery cost in the electric car industry currently, the only question is how much lower are Tesla's costs. Estimates range from $200-$300 for Tesla's battery pack, and they range from $160-$200 for Tesla's cells. Here are some sources for estimated battery costs:

-Lux Research estimates $274/kWh for the battery pack
-Navigant Research estimates that Tesla pays $180/kWh for their battery cells
-JB Straubel - Battery costs less than 1/4 of the price of the car (August 2013)
-Anderman Tesla Battery Report estimates $221/kWh cells in 2013, $172/kWh cells and $220-$260/kWh for the battery pack

Based on these sources, I believe that it is reasonable to narrow down Tesla's current costs to $240-$275/kWh for the battery pack. I come up with the low end of that range by taking the $180/kWh cell level estimate and assuming that it is 75% of the cost of the battery pack. For the high end, I am using a mix of estimates. In August 2013, as JB Straubel stated, the battery costs 1/4ths of the car's sale price. The Model S starts at $71,070, and 1/4th of that is $17,767.5 for the 60 kWh battery pack, which is $296.125/kWh. Assuming this has declined at about 5% over the last year and a half (which is conservative, since the estimated improvement every year in energy density and/or cost is 7%), the current price would be about $274/kWh, which is in line with Lux Research and Anderman's projected cost of $260/kWh in 2016 for the high end.

Here is Navigant's estimates for other electric car batteries (2013 estimates and 2015 projections look good, but I would take the 2020 projection with a HUGE grain of salt):

Essentially, Tesla has a battery pack cost of about $240-$275/kWh, and competitors who use large format lithium ion batteries have a cost of about $400/kWh currently, which puts Tesla in the lead by more than 30%.

Conclusion

To insult or joke about Tesla's batteries (something Tesla bears love to do) is absolutely silly. Also, its silly to believe that Tesla's batteries is all Panasonic. Tesla, together with Panasonic is undoubtedly the leader in EV batteries currently on multiple parameters. Tesla is trying to stay ahead by building the Gigafactory, planning on manufacturing a larger cell, continuing to invest in batteries (especially stationary storage), and adding to their patent portfolio (despite their open sourcing). At this point, even a breakthrough in battery technology that is exclusive to other auto manufacturers will not put them ahead of Tesla. It will take a significant amount of time before any other battery technology can beat Tesla's batteries on all of these various fields, especially since Tesla is moving the goal post at a very high speed. All I can say is, good luck to the other auto manufacturers.

 

[Matias]

GM may very well beat Tesla to market with the "affordable BEV" in the Bolt. But the real wild card in this scenario is the responsiveness by the dealers to sell the car. Will the salespeople know all there is to know about BEVs? Will they offer a free or discounted J1772 for home charging? Most people don't understand charging speed differential between a 110/15 and a 240/30. If the dealers' past is prologue, they will try to persuade their customers to buy an ICE, and thousands of Bolts will sit at the back of the dealers' lots gathering dust.

Unless GM provides a sizable incentive for the dealer to sell the Bolt, they will languish unsold, I believe. Perhaps a smarter approach for GM would be to try to sell the Bolt to municipalities and other fleet purchasers for starters. That will get the cars into the public awareness through visibility, and the employees who run their errands in them will have first-hand knowledge of their benefits.

Why wouldn't dealers want to sell electric cars? The sell cars to make money. If they can make money by selling electric cars, of course they want to sell them.

 

[jerry33]

Why wouldn't dealers want to sell electric cars? The sell cars to make money. If they can make money by selling electric cars, of course they want to sell them.

Dealers make their most money on service, plus their margins are better on ICE cars. If you've ever tried to purchase an electric car (or even a hybrid) from a dealer, you'd know that they will try to talk you out of it. In some cases, they won't even talk to you.

 

[Cattledog]

Warning: Link Barrage


I have been doing some research on this recently, including going through old posts. The best and most relevant threads by far are the ones by CapitalistOppressor. Here are two very good ones:

Model S Battery Pack - Cost Per kWh Estimate
Amazing Core Tesla Battery IP - 18650 Cell

Essentially, I think Tesla has an advantage on many levels. Tesla has over 100 patents on batteries on the cell, module, and pack levels. The four fundamental areas in which Tesla has an advantage are: Charging Rate, Battery Life/Safety, Energy Density, and Cost.
...

Best post this year. Thank you.

 

[ScepticMatt]

CHADEMO is capable of 62.5kw, but no car other than Tesla can handle that rate AFAIK.

The Kia Soul EV can handle it.

 

[Crowded Mind]

Great post, 32no. You should consider submitting it to seeking alpha.

 

[scaesare]

Very nice post 32no... my comment below is only intended to perhaps clarify one point:

Tesla was really paying attention to good thermal management with their cells, and they have incorporated module level thermal management material, intumescent goo to resist thermal runway, and even a battery coolant sleeve/jacket.

If I recall correctly, there was much discussion about this in CapitalistOpressor's thread, and although there are patents describing the use of intumescent goo, it didn't appear that it was actually used in Model S pack construction. Pictures of the cells themselves within the pack, as well as folks who have done tear downs, don't reveal any such coating currently.

 

[JRP3]

There are a few good reasons for this, the main one being that a larger battery can charge faster than a smaller battery because it can take more power. The other reason Tesla has achieved such a high charge rate is with an optimized BMS (battery management system) which is capable of controlling voltage to each cell.

It's really just the pack size, and active cooling. Individual cell voltage, (actually parallel groups of cells since they share voltage), doesn't come into play until the pack is nearing higher states of charge, and by that time current is already tapering down. It's important to remember that the C rate of the NCA chemistry is not particularly high, so another company using a higher C rate cell could potentially equal or surpass Tesla's charge rate even with a smaller pack.

 

[32no]

The Kia Soul EV can handle it.

Thanks, will edit.

Very nice post 32no... my comment below is only intended to perhaps clarify one point:

If I recall correctly, there was much discussion about this in CapitalistOpressor's thread, and although there are patents describing the use of intumescent goo, it didn't appear that it was actually used in Model S pack construction. Pictures of the cells themselves within the pack, as well as folks who have done tear downs, don't reveal any such coating currently.

Thanks for the kind words. As for the intumescent goo, I think the conclusion was that it is a clear goo. Here is a link to a post from CapitalistOppressor in which he clarifies it (the intumescent goo seems to be there according to pictures).

It's really just the pack size, and active cooling. Individual cell voltage, (actually parallel groups of cells since they share voltage), doesn't come into play until the pack is nearing higher states of charge, and by that time current is already tapering down. It's important to remember that the C rate of the NCA chemistry is not particularly high, so another company using a higher C rate cell could potentially equal or surpass Tesla's charge rate even with a smaller pack.

You might want to check this patent out. It seems to imply a faster charge rate due to the adjustable voltage control.

 

[JRP3]

I don't see anything particularly advantageous during the actual "fast" charging stage, which is the initial CC stage. All they are claiming is a fast charge during the initial constant current stage, which is standard, then going to a constant voltage stage, which means reducing current, and charge rate, then going back to another constant current stage for a bit, then back to constant voltage to finish off. Seems like a pretty basic step charging profile, with only moderate potential to speed charging, and only after the initial fast charging stage is over.