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Gigacapacitor?

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Time will tell I guess. To get Tesla to commit to another technology completely (I'm a little confused as to if we are now talking of a new battery chemistry that does not involve Lithium, or if we are talking about a Gigacapacitor) at this point in time will be very difficult. As you know they will break ground next month on the first site and expect to be producing double the current global production of batteries in Whrs perhaps already end of next year. So whatever technology you have in mind would have to be really mature.

3 years is the target for production unless that has changed. Things always take longer than planned, so the end of next year would be a real shocker if it happened.

I'm not limiting the technology possibilities to either batteries or capacitors, or maybe both types produce advances beyond Li-ion. But, given the amount of time Li-ion technology has been on the market, it's a mature technology and its days could very well be numbered. And, I would suspect that the Engineering Dept at UT has access to a lot of inside information, both within their labs and from outside companies they do consulting work for, that they can't release to the public.
 
Elon has said several times in recent interviews that they have been almost overwhelmed by how many companies have approached them with new technologies. There are startups with new anodes (silicon/graphite hybrids), new cathodes, electrolyte additives, etc.
 
You would be surprised how hard it can be to knock an existing, successful technology out of a dominant position. There are semiconductors other than silicon, such as germanium and gallium arsenide. Each has their own particular attributes, e.g. gallium arsenide is particularly good for high speed components. But every time someone makes a nice fast GaAs part, someone eventually figures out how to squeeze silicon into doing the same job. And silicon always ends up being less expensive because of the existing infrastructure, equipment, and huge investments in developing the technology.

My point is that sure, eventually lithium will probably be superseded as an energy storage technology; but nevertheless it will probably remain a dominant player in the market for quite some time. Suppose a new chemistry comes out, which has obvious advantages in energy density. But it will be a young technology and won't be optimized yet for power output, cycle life, temperature range, etc. So while they work to optimize it, there will still be plenty of resources going into improving the lithium chemistry. It will take time for the new chemistry to reach the same level of maturity, and until it does it is unlikely to catch up to lithium.

In other words, failing a miraculous crushing victory for a new chemistry, I doubt lithium will be obsolete any time soon.

And even if such a miracle occurs, no doubt the basic methods for assembling a cell will be similar to those for lithium chemistry. I sincerely doubt the plant will be rendered useless. At most it will need some retrofitting.
 
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Exactly. First, the factory building can house any process. Second, many of the line machines, maybe all, are chemistry independent. Mixing and laminating components for a battery cell or a capacitor are probably quite similar, though I don't know much about capacitor production. They are wound laminations inside a cylindrical container. Third, there is nothing to suggest a gigacapcitor is anywhere near approaching existing lithium ion chemistry, let alone surpassing it. Fourth, lithium ion chemistry is not what I would call a mature technology, I'd say we have just begun to scratch the surface and have not approached the theoretical density of many of the possible different chemistries. Fifth, what is Tesla supposed to do, build nothing and hope someone else comes up with a miracle battery/capacitor, and builds the factory for them? Frankly I'm rather puzzled by Professor Goodenough's comments.
 
This is one of the most intriguing developments I've seen lately in the supercapacitor field, and speaks to the way their design can be modified fundamentally to store more energy:

http://web.mit.edu/erc/spotlights/ultracapacitor.html

Although many analysts and pundits are worried about the threat these technologies pose to Tesla's business model, it seems like a smaller concern to me. Why couldn't the gigafactory simply allocate space to develop and assemble other new promising new energy storage technologies as they mature, and either incorporate them into conventional battery packs or offer them as higher performance aftermarket options to interested buyers who have enough money to be their early adopters?

The greater limitation in my mind has to do with instantaneous power delivery. Even at 135 kW, today's superchargers would need 40 minutes to fully charge an 85 kWh battery pack, even if there were no heating issues to contend with or taper in charge rate as the battery fills. If an ultracapacitor pack were invented that could store 85 kWh and charge in 5 minutes, it would need a 1 Megawatt or greater charger, which creates interesting cost and safety challenges of its own...
 
The link you provided isn't dated. I looked up the professors name and found he had written a research paper about this five years ago in the Proceedings of the IEEE. According to the abstract, the paper presents findings of energy storage capability versus ultra caps. Needless to say, if this research had gone anywhere, we would have heard more about it in the last five years.

http://ieeexplore.ieee.org/xpl/login.jsp?tp=&arnumber=5288612&url=http%3A%2F%2Fieeexplore.ieee.org%2Fxpls%2Fabs_all.jsp%3Farnumber%3D5288612
 
The greater limitation in my mind has to do with instantaneous power delivery. Even at 135 kW, today's superchargers would need 40 minutes to fully charge an 85 kWh battery pack, even if there were no heating issues to contend with or taper in charge rate as the battery fills. If an ultracapacitor pack were invented that could store 85 kWh and charge in 5 minutes, it would need a 1 Megawatt or greater charger, which creates interesting cost and safety challenges of its own...

I offer that we're already at that last point today. The issue really isn't the battery pack anymore - we've proven that these existing technologies are "good enough". There has been some behind-closed-doors speculation that the existing battery packs could indeed handle faster charging (in fact, I heard that there are some who believe Tesla could cut the Supercharging time on existing batteries to about 33% under the right circumstances with few tradeoffs... but don't quote me on that, I haven't fact-checked or considered it myself and I am not a battery scientist).

But that's no longer the limiting factor. The limiting factor is now the power density required for these chargers. Charging an 85 kWh pack in 30 minutes requires average of ~185 kW with assumed 10% overhead. Just 10 charging spots would then require nearly 2 MW of power packed very densely - something that today is reserved for things like data center buildings. If we expect massive EV growth ~2017ish with Model 3 and a broader EV ecosystem we'd better get working. :)
 
What you cite dr. Goodenough (what a name!) to have said though, that "by the time the build the factory, there will be a new battery technology" (by which I suppose he means ready for mass production, not just a white paper or in a lab), is more interesting.
Here we are three years later in the first year of a semi-operational Gigafactory and Goodenough claims his team tweaked a solid-state solution with up to 10x the density of lithium ion. Nowhere near proven, but funny if he ends up nailing it.

And excellent for TSLA as they could simply pivot to this tech in a couple years and speed adoption. Any more than a 1% chance this discovery is legit? If so, why is anyone talking about anything else?
 
No specified wh/kg number = nothing to talk about.

Goodenough reported that his new battery cell had achieved a 10-fold improvement in energy density—the amount of energy stored—in one case, and a three-fold improvement in another. In one experiment, Goodenough estimates a 30-fold improvement on the best density in a lithium-ion battery today—8,500 watt-hours per kilogram.
 
Goodenough reported that his new battery cell had achieved a 10-fold improvement in energy density—the amount of energy stored—in one case, and a three-fold improvement in another. In one experiment, Goodenough estimates a 30-fold improvement on the best density in a lithium-ion battery today—8,500 watt-hours per kilogram.
When they have a cell that is suitable to build up into a real EV pack, then we can talk about complete cell energy density and complete pack energy density. I am used to seeing theoretical Wh/g of electrode (anode or cathode) mass and worry that this is like that.
 
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Can't wait on breakthroughs or nothing gets done. Had Elon/Tesla waited on whatever this breakthrough was supposed to be, he/they would have absolutely nothing to show for it today instead of a partially built and newly operational Gigafactory.

When (and more importantly, if) it becomes real, Elon and company will shift accordingly.
 
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