LG vs. Panasonic vs. Samsung battery race

[Erleichda]

So, reading a ton about the LG/GM Bolt pack battery approach and permanent magnet drive. Lots of great and not so great debates going on about which battery configuration, which drive will win out. Will other manufacturers want the LG battery/drive unit to swap into their vehicles. How this impacts each companies ability to use ZEV credits.

Panasonic is far and away the leading battery manufacturer. Are they hamstrung by Tesla to the right or wrong approach? Cells as configured by Tesla have been the secret sauce for some time. Is the low cost of LG batteries for Chevy real or negotiated? Is the pack density really that bad?

I realize we don't yet know what the GF will be making exactly, but I'm beginning to think the winner between the car companies may rely on the battery company for sure.

Anyone with more insight/knowledge?

 

[mspohr]

So, reading a ton about the LG/GM Bolt pack battery approach and permanent magnet drive. Lots of great and not so great debates going on about which battery configuration, which drive will win out. Will other manufacturers want the LG battery/drive unit to swap into their vehicles. How this impacts each companies ability to use ZEV credits.

Panasonic is far and away the leading battery manufacturer. Are they hamstrung by Tesla to the right or wrong approach? Cells as configured by Tesla have been the secret sauce for some time. Is the low cost of LG batteries for Chevy real or negotiated? Is the pack density really that bad?

I realize we don't yet know what the GF will be making exactly, but I'm beginning to think the winner between the car companies may rely on the battery company for sure.

Anyone with more insight/knowledge?

I'd be interested to read what you have been reading... links?

 

[Erleichda]

Browse the Seeking Alpha comments on the Bolt....hostile but interesting.

Chevy Bolt dazzles in road test

 

[mspohr]

Browse the Seeking Alpha comments on the Bolt....hostile but interesting.

Chevy Bolt dazzles in road test

I can't read Seeking Alpha... too many stupid people.
Is there somewhere a reasoned, informed discussion of these issues?

 

[Erleichda]

I can't read Seeking Alpha... too many stupid people.
Is there somewhere a reasoned, informed discussion of these issues?

That is so true. I try hard to grit my teeth as I read, but do so just so I'm not totally brainwashed here!

 

[Erleichda]

Other sources
LG Chem To Overtake Panasonic?
Samsung and LG Have a Battery Problem
How LG Chem Can Dethrone Panasonic as the World’s Leading EV Battery Supplier

Interesting that Volt touts no battery degradation "under warranty"; but they are hiding it by only using 70% of the Battery. The Bolt appears to be using 98%...

 

[Saghost]

For my money, Tesla's battery approach is actually the strongest/smartest of the bunch.

It's effectively RAID - it can tolerate failure of individual cells with minimal impact of the overall pack, and is able to use more aggressive chemistries as a result, which is how they can get higher energy densities and part of the lower costs.

This also means they don't need to worry as much about massive investments in quality control and low yield rates, further decreasing costs. Any of the large format packs goes into a limp mode if a cell fails - and a short in a cell will likely mean a fire for them.

The assembly of small form factor cells also lets them tailor the pack geometry to different applications more easily.

The obvious downside is packing efficiency - a tesla pack is physically bulkier than a pack with the same amount of plate area made of prismatic cells, especially with the cooling paths between the cells. However, it seems like Tesla made some interesting innovations on this with the P100D if the tidbits we've been given are correct - it'll be very interesting to see one of those packs torn down.

 

[miimura]

For my money, Tesla's battery approach is actually the strongest/smartest of the bunch.

It's effectively RAID - it can tolerate failure of individual cells with minimal impact of the overall pack, and is able to use more aggressive chemistries as a result, which is how they can get higher energy densities and part of the lower costs.

This also means they don't need to worry as much about massive investments in quality control and low yield rates, further decreasing costs. Any of the large format packs goes into a limp mode if a cell fails - and a short in a cell will likely mean a fire for them.

The assembly of small form factor cells also lets them tailor the pack geometry to different applications more easily.

The obvious downside is packing efficiency - a tesla pack is physically bulkier than a pack with the same amount of plate area made of prismatic cells, especially with the cooling paths between the cells. However, it seems like Tesla made some interesting innovations on this with the P100D if the tidbits we've been given are correct - it'll be very interesting to see one of those packs torn down.

I don't think you're right about redundancy and lack of QC and padding the yield. I don't actually know anything about Tesla's actual procedures, but I would guess that they're aging and binning every cell for performance so that they can put like cells together in a module and put like modules together in a pack. Of course, you can bin cells across a relatively wide range of performance and call them all nominal, but I think the battery pack system works better if the cells are relatively closely matched. Now, when a single cell fails in the field, the redundancy certainly helps a lot.