Elon mentions how Daimler saved tesla from bankruptcy in 2009, Elon will save Daimler in return when it becomes
apparent they need help to survive.
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Long-Term Fundamentals of Tesla Motors (TSLA)
- Thread starter Robert.Boston
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- elon is an ass investing TSLA
Elon mentions how Daimler saved tesla from bankruptcy in 2009, Elon will save Daimler in return when it becomes
apparent they need help to survive.
jhm
Well-Known Member
I'd love to see Daimler do a big JV with Tesla and Panasonic to build a Gigafactory in Europe. When it comes time to save Daimler, that's what they'll need.
The disconnect is that you are comparing the volumetric density of new Roadster cells and Model S cells and concluding that Model S cells volumetrically denser. The weight data in 32no's table, however, are for the whole pack, not just cells. So gravimetrical density included in his chart is on the pack level, not the cell level.
So the fact that gravimetrical density of new roadster battery pack is better than that of the Model S, while volumetric density of the new Roadster cell is worth than that of the Model S cell could be explained by the fact that the weight of the pack without cells for the Roadster is lower than for the Model S. This is logical result, and the main contributing factors are:
- geometry of the pack (the weight of the box-type casing for Roadster is lower than for "matress-type" casing of the Model S)
- functionality of the pack - Model S pack is a stressed member of the car body, while Roadster pack is not
- required protection - Model S has large, 0.25 inch thick ballistic shield made from aluminum plate. I am not sure pack in Roadster has one, but if it does, the ballistic shield would be much smaller due to the shape of the Roadster's pack.
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Calculating the lag in years is an excellent way to have another visualization of the data presented in 32no's table, very simple and elegant.
This does not change the result in any significant way, but if one wanted to nitpick, the doubling of the density in ten years refers to the density of the cells, while the table includes density of the pack...
One mistake, however, is that i3 is not 8, but 9 years behind Model S: it went on sale in 2013, while model S went on sale in 2012 :biggrin:
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JRP3
Hyperactive Member
jhm
Well-Known Member
It seems in this age of over-the-air upgrades playing it safe by hanging back 8 years is not going to cut it. Tesla will shave 0.1 second off the 3.2 second 0-60 time with just an OTA upgrade at no cost. The pace of innovation for digital cars is just that fast.
RobStark
Well-Known Member
jhm
Well-Known Member
Rob, do you think that Tesla is taking on too much liability risk by moving so aggressively with new technology? It seems that telemetry and OTA updates has allowed Tesla to mitigate alot of this risk. OTOH ten years of using a bad ignition switch design did nothing to help GM avoid deaths and millions of recalled vehicles. Old technology is not necessarily safer technology.
RobStark
Well-Known Member
Tried and true technology is generally safer than new technology. You can update software overnight but you can't update battery chemistry overnight.
Tesla is fly by the seat of your pants company. So far it has worked out for them with the under armor battery plating being the only safety issue.
When you have an ASP of $106k you can overengineer products. Less so when you go down market.
Tesla chose tried and true off the shelf commodity cells for the roadster. And has made small safe adjustments as time has gone on.
When choosing battery tech, even fly by the seat of your pants Tesla has been very conservative when it comes to battery tech.
GM had a very safe design. Decided they needed to lower cost and went with cheaper design against the advice of their supplier. Supplier reluctantly built defective ignition switch to GM spec. If GM went with older design suggested by supplier there would have been no problem.
jhm
Well-Known Member
Well, Ok, if you're correct, then Tesla really has no risk of technological competiton. Suppose some group came up with a major battery breakthrough, say a battery pack with 180 W/kg and at least as good as Tesla's pack in every other way. So it will be another ten years befor any major competitor touches it. If Tesla has access to it then, it can run with it in 2 - 3 years. That would give Tesla 7 - 8 years of uncontested advantage. On the other hand, if this technology is captured by a competitor, that may deprive Tesla to run with it in a few years, but it would at least give Tesla 10 years to advance their own battery pack to 180 W/kg and cut manufacturing costs before facing competion.
I think this goes to reinforce an argument I made upthread. Specifically, If you are the one developing such battery advances, then you really want to work with Tesla. Waiting 10 years for tradition automakers to bring your innovation to market is really not a good business plan for a tech company. It's even a questionable investment for an automaker to capture this technology. They basically would have to pay a premium over what Tesla would pay for it, but the only benefit for ten years is keeping the tech from Tesla. That's a really longterm investment while from a marketshare point of view Tesla is too small to worry about.
But how much would the technology for a 20% density gain be worth to Tesla? Tesla is willing to spend $5B for 50 MWh per year capacity. This tech would add abot 10 GWh of capacity. So that ought to be worth $1B for the tech. Of course, Tesla wants more than just one gigafactory, so the scale is actually much bigger. Thus, Tesla may be willing to pay even more than $1B for a 20% density gain. At this kind of money even if the technology were captured by BMW or GM, the parent company would be foolish not to do a deal with Tesla.
I'm not quite following this line of reasoning. Tesla used a tried and true commodity cell, but in the Model S they went and stripped all the safety bits out of it that made it tried and true and safe, and then repackaged them with their own pack level safety.
To me, that's not conservative, that's either innovative (if it works), or crazy (if it doesn't).
So far it looks innovative...but remember all the sparks that were flying about this approach just after the fires. (yes, pun intended). BMW made a great effort to explain to the ActiveE folks that their batteries cannot catch fire (different way less energetic chemistry), and are "automotive grade" (whatever that means), and aren't at all like those crazy Tesla laptop batteries.
Sources for the chart:
| 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 |
JRP3
Hyperactive Member
I'm sorry that I am late to this party.
I am curious why the RAV4EV Wh/kg comes in so low compared to the Model S. Since the second generation drivetrains were provided by Tesla, I understood that they used Tesla batteries as well. This second generation BEV RAV4 launched around the same time as the Model S. I seem to recall that part of the reason Tesla and Toyota went their different ways was because there simply were not enough batteries to supply both Tesla and Toyota anymore. I assumed that you compared Wh/kg by using cell weight instead of pack weight. What am I missing?
Toyota's and Tesla's engineers were known to clash often. I wouldn't be surprised if Toyota's engineers created a less energy dense battery for another trade-off, perhaps cell based BMS or something along those lines.
roblab
Active Member
It was fairly often discussed that Tesla designed a higher powered, longer range vehicle that both Toyota and MB cut back because of cost and the idea that the "average" driver only needed 35 miles of range a day. An 80 mile range is sort of the balance point for most every EV between need, desire, and cost. Toyota and MB believed that people wouldn't buy an expensive EV. Plus, Toyota and MB wanted to make a decent profit. That raised the price even more.
On other threads, I see people trying to tell everyone that no one "needs" a 110 kWh battery in the S or the X. Many of us realize we don't "need" it, but we want it. My phone runs for two days. I hardly ever run it down to 50%, but there are times, there are times. And you don't want to have to go hunting for a charger. I pay for that privilege. Just like I paid a LOT for a car that goes more than 80 miles.
I used to own a car that went around 100 miles on a charge. After about 6 years of that, I was ready to save up and spend more. Glad I did.
But Toyota and MB have never driven EVs. Thus, they can never understand.
Thank you everyone for the clarification. I was waiting for the RAV4 EV to come out but I was seriously disappointed by the range and the fact that it couldn't be purchased in my state. I just assumed that they used fewer cells instead of inferior ones. No access to Superchargers and no dual charging was salt in that wound. I guess I'll just have to wait a bit longer for a vehicle like that.
jhm
Well-Known Member
IDK, but Adam Jonas thinks they'll sell 10,000 in 2015. So ramping from 0 - 800 Model X per week in 25 weeks gets you to 10,000.
chickensevil
Active Member
Yeah it wouldn't surprise me if 1200 of the EOY 2015 run rate is MS and 800 is MX and then they progress the final run rates upward to around 2500 giving a full 1200 for MS and MX with around 100 to float, maybe if demand continues to be strong they will fully push to 3k... But it is unclear if demand will be there to sustain that (I hope because that would be roughly 75k per model per year but trying not to get too ahead of myself)
adiggs
Well-Known Member
This is a question that I am intensely interested in answering - not so much the specifics of what demand for S & X might be in 2015, but what do we think worldwide demand for S&X will peak at prior to Gen 3, and the steady state demand post Gen 3.
The whole nature of evaluating a company that is constrained by its ability to produce its product, rather than being constrained on how much it can sell by how much the public wants to buy - I can't think of any other industry or any other company to use as a case study. The closest I can think of is Boeing / Airbus as each maintains a many-year backlog, but that seems to be the nature of building airplanes, rather than a "build every single plane you can, and expand manufacturing as fast as you can for 10 years" situation
Apple sees situations like this periodically for very short periods (release of new iPhone).
Anyway, one idea that we can use to start estimating theoretical demand is to understand worldwide demand for large luxury sedans. Presumably, the limit of Model S demand is the current worldwide demand for large luxury sedans. To achieve that level of demand, Tesla would need to take 100% market share from all other participants in that market. So that probably won't happen
We'd need to fudge the number down by the market share we believe is achievable. I would look at California and Norway, with probably California a better representation of the limit of demand (incentives in Norway are so outstanding it tilts things badly). What is Model S market share in California, and what would worldwide demand be at the same market share?Of course, then we'd need to subtract out demand for large luxury sedans from markets that aren't opened yet at a minimum, and we might be able to identify the markets that are unlikely to be opened by Tesla anytime soon (poor charging infrastructure, low expected demand for Model S, etc..).
And then we need to add into the demand Model S's apparently strong ability to pull buyers that wouldn't otherwise participate in the large luxury sedan market. I would really like to put a number on that, as it would help us have insight into future Model X (and Gen 3) demand.
Insight into theoretical Model S demand would also serve as an initial estimate into Model X demand.
I figure that the ideal data set will provide us make and model sales (registrations?) volume at the monthly (quarterly?) and country level of detail. The best data source I'm aware of today for this kind of data is goodcarbadcar.net - I'm trying to figure out if they have downloadable stats, or if I'm stuck pulling this stuff out car by car.
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