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Investor Engineering Discussions
- Thread starter MC3OZ
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The first sets of cells have been, but I think that's what the new Austin building addresses.
The patent focuses mainly on the Anode and creating holes in the Anode for higher energy density and faster charging.
Using elemental metal rather than metal salts lowers costs, potentially avioding a separate doping step lowers costs.
I now think that that they probably covered off all of the forms in which Lithium metal could be delivered to tighten up the patent.
But one part talks about lithium foil undergoung a redox reaction, that suggests a lithium metal battery.
For a conventional cathode they still get most of the advantages above.
A metal cathode might need a better separator, since metal plates, but since discharge will typically be slower than charge, dendrites sre less of an issue.
Limiting Factor is going to do a much better job of analysing this.
I watched this video again yesterday and my thoughts were:-
- This seems like something that could be proven viable at bench scale (any issues at scale will only be found at scale)
- (from memory) The patent was lodged in December 2020 not long after Battery Day.
- If Tesla was confident it makes some sense to kick off the permitting process about the same time as lodging the patent.
- As indicted by the Nevada governor, Nevada is open for business.
- A lithium mine and processing plant near Sparks would be great, especially for the 4680 ramp.
Looking at pictures Nevada clay deposits seem to be in remote locations, they don't look like locations that are that suitable for farming or housing,
But there are always some plants and animals native to any environment.
The big question is if permitting has been started then why haven't we heard anything?
I'm not sure of the legalities, but Tesla may have formed a mining subsidiary and lodged the permitting request under than name. As long as a mine is 100% US owned, I doubt that the actual owner matters that much for permitting purposes.
If Tesla hasn't started on permitting or has given up on this clay extraction, that is an equally big mystery, in the video is seems straight-forward.
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The most recent patent I could find is:- (dated 25 February 2022)
US20220250562A1 - Wiring system architecture - Google Patents
A new wiring and power and communications system for an automobile that includes a plurality of devices, wherein the devices are connected to a backbone section that has an outer sheathing, a first conductor disposed within the outer sheathing, a second conductor disposed within the outer...
patents.google.com
Overall Tesla has lodged multiple patents starting 18 January 2018 up to 21 October 2022.
You need to dig into the patents to see how many have been lodged for example:-
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Latest patent that JPR007 was referencing:-
The patent in my post above this covers how the wiring harness is laid out within the vehicle body and how electrical components like folding mirrors, windows, lights and door handles are connected.
This patent talks about how camera and Radars exchange data with the FSD computer.
This statement in the first patent links it to the 2nd patent:-
IMO the is little doubt that the 2 patents are closely related, they are describing different aspects of the same wiring harness.
Benefits:-
US11479189B2 - High-speed-wiring-system architecture - Google Patents
A wiring system for an automobile connecting a processor and a plurality of devices, using one or more backbone sections. The processor and devices are connected to one another to form a first loop and a second loop, such that data may be transmitted along the first loop and data may be...
patents.google.com
The patent in my post above this covers how the wiring harness is laid out within the vehicle body and how electrical components like folding mirrors, windows, lights and door handles are connected.
This patent talks about how camera and Radars exchange data with the FSD computer.
This statement in the first patent links it to the 2nd patent:-
IMO the is little doubt that the 2 patents are closely related, they are describing different aspects of the same wiring harness.
Benefits:-
- Lower cost, - less copper faster to install.
- Reliability - redundant communication paths for critical FSD components.
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I now think HW4 might be partially related to the new wiring harness.
So of Model S/X are shipping with HW4 they have part of the new harness, This would not show up on any current teardown.
If the radar is included it is probably dormant, to be activated at a future date.
FSD needs to initially run the HW3 software on HW4. communications to/from the camera might be different but I think image processing and the NNs all need to be the same.
IMO HW4 and the wiring harness are firming as inclusions in Highland / Gen3.
I also think a future retrofit of high definition radar for HW3 cars with FSD can't be ruled out. if that is needed to make FSD work,
I hope that could simple replace the old radar in cars with radar, and for other cars they left a provision to easily add it in future if needed.
So of Model S/X are shipping with HW4 they have part of the new harness, This would not show up on any current teardown.
If the radar is included it is probably dormant, to be activated at a future date.
FSD needs to initially run the HW3 software on HW4. communications to/from the camera might be different but I think image processing and the NNs all need to be the same.
IMO HW4 and the wiring harness are firming as inclusions in Highland / Gen3.
I also think a future retrofit of high definition radar for HW3 cars with FSD can't be ruled out. if that is needed to make FSD work,
I hope that could simple replace the old radar in cars with radar, and for other cars they left a provision to easily add it in future if needed.
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This is more of an academic engineering question entirely unrelated to Tesla.
Do you think traction might allow electric planes to reach take-off speed faster, and hence have a shorter runway?
I think any fans or propellers that will drive the plane after take-off are also running at top speed, the aim is to reach take-off speed ASAP.
I am basing this in part of on the Tesla Semi.
On landing, the wheels could also assist with slowing down via regen.
IMO traction seems useful, but it only exists on the ground.
I don't think a sudden loss of the acceleration due to traction after take-off matters, the propellers/fans provide the thrust that is needed, momentum is retained, drag is the main force that needs to be overcome.
Do you think traction might allow electric planes to reach take-off speed faster, and hence have a shorter runway?
I think any fans or propellers that will drive the plane after take-off are also running at top speed, the aim is to reach take-off speed ASAP.
I am basing this in part of on the Tesla Semi.
On landing, the wheels could also assist with slowing down via regen.
IMO traction seems useful, but it only exists on the ground.
I don't think a sudden loss of the acceleration due to traction after take-off matters, the propellers/fans provide the thrust that is needed, momentum is retained, drag is the main force that needs to be overcome.
To quickly evaluate what is patented, go to the end of a patent and look for the “claims.” Most of the claims are dependent on other claims, for a quick eval, just look at the independent claims, especially the first claim.
The first claim is to mix Li metal and carbon for one of the electrodes, presumedly the anode. That is what is being protected by the patent. From skimming the rest of the document, it seems that this is a less expensive way to deliver the Li required to produce a cell.
I hope Jordan at The Limiting Factor does a deep dive video on this.
GSP
So do I...
I identified the benefits as best I could, but we need an expert deep drive.
From what I was able to determine, I think this patent is very significant.
In fact, all of the patents I covered here in the last week or so seem significant. I would describe that as Tesla having an arsenal of patents that they may be able to unleash at short notice.
Catapult.
Though I'm thinking inital acceleration energy is minor in the overall flight. One mile of full thrust to takeoff, X minutes of climb thrust (80%?) to reach altitude, hundreds of miles at cruise thrust (60-80%) to maintain speed.
JRP3
Hyperactive Member
Plus consider the added weight of the motors which must be carried 100% of the time. Wheeltug was working on a hub motor system for taxiing purposes but it never really took off, (pardon the pun of course).
While wheel hub motors (or motors inboard through a shaft and right angle gearbox / diff?) would potentially be useful as part of an overall architecture to reduce emissions in the immediate area around an airport, I don't think you'll ever get enough power through them to significantly affect the power requirements for take-off.
Some googling ... an example
TL;DR : For a 4-hour flight and specifically for a 737-800 (obviously, your "mileage" will vary by aircraft type, flight profiles, weather, payload and fuel loading, etc etc...), 19% energy usage on takeoff and climb to altitude, 79% on cruise, and 2% on descent and landing. In terms of energy-per-minute, clearly take off and climb dominates the energy usage, so offloading that energy use somehow would certainly be a worthy goal.
I haven't found so far anything breaking down takeoff and climb though, so not sure how much you could save by using a catapult as @mongo suggests. For aircraft carriers they're more about space efficiency (short take off area) rather than energy efficiency. Though considering carriers are generally nuke-powered, I imagine that even if you build a full runway length carrier to compare with, that you'd get better "MPG" from the catapult assisted takeoff than without, even including the energy of the catapult system etc...
However, trying to operate a catapult system at a busy airport would be a nightmare, even if you do a lot of work to reduce costs through mass manufacturing (a lot more runways than there are carriers), different engineering optimizations, etc.
While a fully BEV aircraft would be most ideal, probably anything at large scale (i.e. beyond regional, perhaps including regional) is likely going to be some time in the future with much more technical advancement - see here. But a hybrid approach could certainly be viable. There's active small scale hybrid work, also hydrogen fuel cell based systems (where a fuel cell and hydrogen supply along with a smaller battery than would be needed for pure BEV weight quite a bit less than the full size battery), and some proposals for larger aircraft where for example a dedicated (and emissions equipped) jet turbine are integrated into the main fuselage and the wing-mounted props are purely electric - in the linked example they calculate it requires an extra 0.6% fuel but reduces NOx emissions by 95%, which is not bad.
I am curious where the crossover point would be for doing something between that last example (turbine generator powering electric motors) and a full BEV approach would be, where you might optimize for perhaps having enough battery for typical cruise conditions, and enough fuel for take off and emergency extra power needs, would be. Use the generator during take off to provide all or most of the power needed for that energy intensive period, then batteries scaled for cruise (incapable of discharging enough for takeoff). If necessary, generator can be run again to top off the batteries during flight, and to run the motors at higher power during landing (if merely operating them in a regenerative manner is insufficient to slow down, and you need to use actual power and thrust reversers - though depending on engine design, such as props vs electric ducted turbines, maybe you can simply run them backwards instead of having reversers).
However, there might not even bee a crossover point at all for larger aircraft until batteries get significantly higher Wh/kg, since the mass of batteries needed for even just the cruise portion is likely an order of magnitude higher than the max take-off weight... so perhaps the best we can hope for in the near future are series hybrids with a small battery (or supercap?) buffer for quick power changes and perhaps a bit of regen on descent, and an extremely efficient (likely single optimized speed operation) and emissions equipped onboard generator. Would be interesting if you could handle all taxi requirements to and from the runway just on battery power, perhaps using wheel hub motors instead of using the fans to push the aircraft? Between reducing generator runtime on the ground to takeoff / climb out only, and emissions equipment on it, would see a huge change in emissions around airports, probably (even though the total power requirements would not change much, at least it would reduce a little and the rest would have any kind of emissions controls at all versus none)
I thought @mongo may have been merely citing catapult as an example of maintaining momentum.
My suggestion was more based around trying to reduce space at airports by having a shorter take-off area.
And also because it may be a more energy efficient way of acquiring some initial momentum.
When I researched I found that a large plane like a 747 roughly needs an airspeed over the wings of 240 kph (200 mph). A smaller plane only needs 100 kph (60 mph).
My recollection is at a fully loaded Tesla Semi can accelerate 0-60 mph in 20 seconds, but the wheels and tires are very different to a typical plane.
Large planes like 747s are very efficient at cruising. Air travel is expensive, one reason is that the planes and maintenance are expensive, the other reason is fuel. While I was initially interested in saving a bit of fuel on take-off, not much is gained in terms of money savings for additional weight and complexity.
Now my main interest in STOL planes that can potentially replace jets for shorter flights of say 1-2 hours. These would be smaller planes, and they assist a take-off by having larger wings. In this case the electric plane is carrying batteries anyway, the real question is if driving the wheels in addition to the propellers is more efficient, allowing a shorter runway and/or smaller wings.
IMO there is likely to be an ideal form factor for these STOL planes which is the right combination or size, weight, cost, cargo/passenger capacity and runway length.
I agree with most of what you posted, these STOL planes might need an energy density of 500 Wh/kg to be viable. And you have added some interesting information, thanks for responding in detail.
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petit_bateau
Active Member
A few years back the Royal Navy (that is, the British one) had an open call out for things to substitute for catapults on their carriers. The rather obvious reason was to launch light and medium UCAVs, plus (big hope of theirs) also enable 'standard' catapult-dependent aircraft of the weight of an F35. There are all sorts of reasons behind this which can be debated endlessly, but the underlying reaso is that the RN deliberately built their two aircraft carriers without catapults. And now they'd like to have a catapult-like capability without ripping the decks completely open and installing eith steam catapults or the electromagnetic rail gun version (EMALS) and all the associated gubbins. Needless to say many folk said "just use a Roadster skateboard". I've no idea what has become of that call for ideas.
In the civilian world many people have looked at all sorts of ways of integrating electrics with aircraft, either at the wheels, or at the prop/fan/jet. Everything I have seen failed ciritical parts of the adoption equation, so far. It is a very small window to climb through.
Yeah, catapult to impart inital momentum without significant mass/ complexity penalty, beyond landing gear strengthening.
petit_bateau
Active Member
JRP3
Hyperactive Member
Much of this topic has been discussed in the Electric Planes thread
teslamotorsclub.com
Electric planes
Um, "huge drones capable of carrying large and heavy armament" (like a Predator, for example) are not electrically powered. They have conventional fossil propulsion. The thing that makes it a "drone" is the fact that there is no human pilot on-board. It is remotely piloted and not autonomous, in...
teslamotorsclub.com
JRP3
Hyperactive Member
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