Model 3 Supercharging Capable Discussion

[EcoHeliGuy]

Well, if we are going to get technical, the 1st generation Volt is actually an Extended Range EV. Just like the BMW i3 REX. The gas engine doesn't actually drive the wheels, just provides power to the electric motor when the battery is depleted. A generator essentially. 2nd gen Volt works a bit differently and is closer to a plug in hybrid.

Hybrids power the wheels with both gas and electric.

This isn't the forum or threes for this discussion. I only stated that the pure EV's are at a disadvantage in the picture because Hybrids are using the chargers at a parkade. Often I see plug-in hybrids in EV spaces not even charging which is the worst ICEing move possible. If I was a Leaf owner I would be pretty pissed to see multiple hybrids sitting in stalls that I needed to utilize to get home.

But the first and second Gen volt does have a mechanical connection from the engine to the wheels when traveling at highway speeds and efficiency warrants. And if a car has two different energy sources it's a hybrid. They are either primarily gas or electric. With the other source assisting.

 

[Ben W]

I was meaning that every car they build dilutes the number of needed chargers. When they had 1000 Model S on the road they need more chargers per capita so to speak.

Also there are a lot of factors in the time spent charging vs distance traveled to next charger, not just battery capacity.

Less watts are required to move the car. Meaning less watts are needed to replace capacity to reach the next charger. If the 3 can travel the same distance as a larger battery S on less power. Then it doesn't need to stay connected to the charger as long. remember the superchargers are currently able to supply 120kwh. That's the non veriable at the moment, the model 3 will recover al large percentage of its battery (range) faster then a Model S. Chemistry could help this more but isn't necessary to achieve a quicker turn around.

if I need 150miles to the next charger, and can get 120kwh from the charger (at least for a portion of the lower end). The car needing less KW will finish charging first if both start at 0.

If the Model 3 is unable to use the full charge rate, then yes it will be slower.

It's true that at the very beginning Tesla needed more chargers per capita, because it's silly to build a SC location with just one charger, and also silly to build them more than ~150mi apart. But that ratio has completely stabilized. In early 2015 Tesla reached 2000 superchargers, with about 65,000 cars on the road; that's 32.5 cars per supercharger. Today there are 3,652 superchargers, with ~120,000 cars on the road. So that's 32.8 cars per supercharger, nearly identical. Tesla has recently stated they will double the number of superchargers in the coming year, though the fleet size will only increase about 80%. So the trend will actually reverse; by the end of this year there might be only 30 cars per supercharger. Some of this buildout is anticipating the Model 3 of course, but the meaningful impact of the Model 3 fleet is still 3-4 years off.

With a ~55kWh battery, the base Model 3 would have a hard time accepting 120kW above very low SOC, if at all. For comparison, the S60 could never handle 120kW at all; it topped out around 90kW, regardless of SOC. See for instance: http://i.imgur.com/J1GoBSn.gif Even my vintage 2012 P85 (with the 'A' battery pack) was limited to 90kW. So despite the higher efficiency, I doubt the Model 3 will charge any faster for a given range increase.

 

[R.S]

It's true that at the very beginning Tesla needed more chargers per capita, because it's silly to build a SC location with just one charger, and also silly to build them more than ~150mi apart. But that ratio has completely stabilized. In early 2015 Tesla reached 2000 superchargers, with about 65,000 cars on the road; that's 32.5 cars per supercharger. Today there are 3,652 superchargers, with ~120,000 cars on the road. So that's 32.8 cars per supercharger, nearly identical. Tesla has recently stated they will double the number of superchargers in the coming year, though the fleet size will only increase about 80%. So the trend will actually reverse; by the end of this year there might be only 30 cars per supercharger. Some of this buildout is anticipating the Model 3 of course, but the meaningful impact of the Model 3 fleet is still 3-4 years off.

With a ~55kWh battery, the base Model 3 would have a hard time accepting 120kW above very low SOC, if at all. For comparison, the S60 could never handle 120kW at all; it topped out around 90kW, regardless of SOC. See for instance: http://i.imgur.com/J1GoBSn.gif Even my vintage 2012 P85 (with the 'A' battery pack) was limited to 90kW. So despite the higher efficiency, I doubt the Model 3 will charge any faster for a given range increase.

At some point there will be more and more Teslas per SC, but I also do think that charging speeds will become higher in the future. That way they need less superchargers, for the same amount of cars than right now. And I also do think they will be able to handle 120kW, possibly even more.

JB Straubel, said in 2013, that he thinks that they will be able to get down to 5-10 minutes fast charging at some point.
Forget Battery Swapping: Tesla Aims to Charge Electric Cars in Five Minutes

I think they are still woking on achieving that, because faster charging eliminates the need of more range and more chargers per station. It ultimately even makes charging stations cheaper, because you only need 6, when you would have needed 12 slower ones. So I do think fast chargeability is a top priority at Tesla.

 

[Red Sage]

And another Tesla question from a fellow who does not have one yet.....Can a reservation be made at a SC? How does this task get done?

Sometimes I really get confused by Alphabet Soup... I thought you were speaking of Service Centers.

Since Superchargers are currently set up to be paired with A and B stalls, Tesla Motors would have to redesign the system entirely to properly accommodate requests to 'reserve' a charging space for the expected effect, allowing you to charge with no waiting and at full speed. If they were to, as some have suggested in times past, create mega Supercharger locations, with round 100 of them in place, that might be more suitable to making reservations as well. "Proceed to Section Q, Row 5, Space 22..." But really, knowing that for the foreseeable future, the majority of people will do most of their charging either at home or at work, I believe the current plans for Supercharger expansion, for Distance and Density, will be just fine.

 

[Red Sage]

What happens when the number of EV's on the road doubles, or triples, or quadruples? The California PEV Collaborative estimates that there have been a 407,000 PEV sales in the entire US since 2011. Tesla looks set to double that number in just a few years, and if they manage a 500K a year output as they intend, then you have to recognize that the infrastructure we are talking about, here, is not going to be adequate. Having four chargers at the San Diego zoo, as an example, is going to be a disaster if these numbers play out.

Though this may seem to be an alarming proposition, I am not worried about this in the slightest. See, the Plugin Electric Vehicles (PEV) you speak of include the half measures and also-rans that are on the market as compliance cars from traditional automobile manufacturers who prefer to sell gas guzzlers.

That is, low range fully electrics and plugin-hybrids that are barely 'electrified' at all. Tesla Motors doesn't build those. And honestly, neither do the traditional automobile manufacturers in any significant quantities.

Those cars with a plug and a battery capacity between 4 kWh and 24 kWh are simply NOT going to increase the installed base of plugin vehicles by multiples upon multiples throughout the United States at all within the next five years. No. Traditional automobile manufacturers will be perfectly satisfied with releasing on the order of 0.3% or less of what they intend to sell annually in the Great State of California as plugins, and keep selling gas guzzlers primarily. They use those cars simply to satisfy CARB regulations and provide ZEV Credits to erase the transgressions of their gas guzzling fleet by raising their CAFE numbers for the EPA.

You are correct, the existing charging infrastructure is not appropriate or adequate to handle annual sales of hundreds of thousands of wimpy, short range, weirdmobiles that must be plugged in every single time they stop. That's OK, because it never will have to be. No one is going to build enough of those cars to tax the existing infrastructure, and Tesla Motors' cars aren't going to need them most of the time. Because thanks to the Supercharger network, expanding for Distance and Density, and improvements in battery technology for greater range, and speedier charging for increased throughput, not to mention the fact that most people just charge at home anyway... Those ten, slow, 'fast' chargers at Sea World or the San Diego Zoo will remain as abandoned as ever before.

 

[AZ Desert Driver]

Sometimes I really get confused by Alphabet Soup... I thought you were speaking of Service Centers.

Since Superchargers are currently set up to be paired with A and B stalls, Tesla Motors would have to redesign the system entirely to properly accommodate requests to 'reserve' a charging space for the expected effect, allowing you to charge with no waiting and at full speed. If they were to, as some have suggested in times past, create mega Supercharger locations, with round 100 of them in place, that might be more suitable to making reservations as well. "Proceed to Section Q, Row 5, Space 22..." But really, knowing that for the foreseeable future, the majority of people will do most of their charging either at home or at work, I believe the current plans for Supercharger expansion, for Distance and Density, will be just fine.

Let me rephrase - how can I know if a supercharger installation is busy? I started with the though of "reserving" a spot, now just want to know if there is a waiting line.

 

[FloridaJohn]

Let me rephrase - how can I know if a supercharger installation is busy? I started with the though of "reserving" a spot, now just want to know if there is a waiting line.

Looks like there will be software to do this.

Elon Musk on Twitter

 

[ttupper92618]

Though this may seem to be an alarming proposition, I am not worried about this in the slightest. See, the Plugin Electric Vehicles (PEV) you speak of include the half measures and also-rans that are on the market as compliance cars from traditional automobile manufacturers who prefer to sell gas guzzlers.

That is, low range fully electrics and plugin-hybrids that are barely 'electrified' at all. Tesla Motors doesn't build those. And honestly, neither do the traditional automobile manufacturers in any significant quantities.

Those cars with a plug and a battery capacity between 4 kWh and 24 kWh are simply NOT going to increase the installed base of plugin vehicles by multiples upon multiples throughout the United States at all within the next five years. No. Traditional automobile manufacturers will be perfectly satisfied with releasing on the order of 0.3% or less of what they intend to sell annually in the Great State of California as plugins, and keep selling gas guzzlers primarily. They use those cars simply to satisfy CARB regulations and provide ZEV Credits to erase the transgressions of their gas guzzling fleet by raising their CAFE numbers for the EPA.

You are correct, the existing charging infrastructure is not appropriate or adequate to handle annual sales of hundreds of thousands of wimpy, short range, weirdmobiles that must be plugged in every single time they stop. That's OK, because it never will have to be. No one is going to build enough of those cars to tax the existing infrastructure, and Tesla Motors' cars aren't going to need them most of the time. Because thanks to the Supercharger network, expanding for Distance and Density, and improvements in battery technology for greater range, and speedier charging for increased throughput, not to mention the fact that most people just charge at home anyway... Those ten, slow, 'fast' chargers at Sea World or the San Diego Zoo will remain as abandoned as ever before.

Thank you - that was a thoughtful reply and something I had not considered.

 

[wdolson]

At some point there will be more and more Teslas per SC, but I also do think that charging speeds will become higher in the future. That way they need less superchargers, for the same amount of cars than right now. And I also do think they will be able to handle 120kW, possibly even more.

JB Straubel, said in 2013, that he thinks that they will be able to get down to 5-10 minutes fast charging at some point.
Forget Battery Swapping: Tesla Aims to Charge Electric Cars in Five Minutes

I think they are still woking on achieving that, because faster charging eliminates the need of more range and more chargers per station. It ultimately even makes charging stations cheaper, because you only need 6, when you would have needed 12 slower ones. So I do think fast chargeability is a top priority at Tesla.

I doubt it's a top priority today. The physics of the batteries currently in use prevent charging too fast. The faster you try to charge Li-ion cells the hotter they get and there comes a point where you damage the batteries as well as waste energy to heat while charging.

This page describes the Li-ion chemistries in common usage today and the pros and cons of each:
Types of Lithium-ion Batteries – Battery University

We probably will find some sort of chemistry that is better than the current Li-ion batteries we have today, but it's unpredictable when that breakthrough of the perfect chemistry will come about.

With batteries there are many factors that need to be weighed: energy density, power output, safety, number of charges, fastest safe charge speed, how fast it degrades with each charge, and cost. The holy grail would be a battery that was ideal in all those categories, but the laws of Physics rarely hands anyone the ideal solution. Probably the biggest world-wide R&D effort of basic technology today is trying to find a battery that is much closer to the ideal than what we're using today. Whoever develops it will have a license to print money.

JB Straubel was speculating that someday we will have a battery chemistry that allows charging that fast but we don't have it today and Tesla is primarily focused on making the best with what we currently have rather than chasing rainbows.

 

[Jersey Shore Tom]

As I see it, for the Model 3, Tesla has three basic options:

1. Bundle free unlimited supercharging for life into the sticker price of each car. (The current Model S/X approach.)
2. Make SC a ~$2k a la carte option. (The original S60 approach.)
3. Make SC pay-per-use.

Option 1, as I've mentioned, is very likely not sustainable: Tesla won't be getting enough revenue per car to justify redirecting ~$2k from each sale toward the SC network.
Option 2 unduly punishes drivers who view SC as an occasional necessity but intend to use it very sparingly. Some buyers will cover the $2k SC cost by forgoing other high-profit options (e.g. premium audio). Some, particularly those on the fence in the first place, may decide that $2k tips the balance and opt to buy an ICE instead. And some, e.g. livery drivers, will actively profit off of it at Tesla's expense, by using it much more heavily than intended.
Option 3, in my view, is the best solution, both for Tesla and for its Model 3 customers. I've laid out my logic for this ad nauseam in previous posts, so I won't rehash it all here. But I'm just saying. Perhaps a combined approach (e.g. $500 upfront to unlock SC, plus a lower per-minute fee) would actually be best compromise.

Why do you think $2,000 per car is required? Look at this and show me where I went wrong.

For now Tesla has been calling Supercharger costs Marketing costs. Tesla isn't paying for any adds right now and won't need to for a long time. GM and the other big automakers spend about $1,000 per vehicle sale on ads. For now at least, not only is a Supercharger network more useful than advertising (sorry Don Draper), but it is cheaper than advertising.

BTW, I created the spreadsheet in Google Sheets. If anyone can tell me how to post it as a live spreadsheet, I will be happy to do so.[/QUOTE]

 

[Ben W]

Why do you think $2,000 per car is required? Look at this and show me where I went wrong.

For now Tesla has been calling Supercharger costs Marketing costs. Tesla isn't paying for any adds right now and won't need to for a long time. GM and the other big automakers spend about $1,000 per vehicle sale on ads. For now at least, not only is a Supercharger network more useful than advertising (sorry Don Draper), but it is cheaper than advertising.

BTW, I created the spreadsheet in Google Sheets. If anyone can tell me how to post it as a live spreadsheet, I will be happy to do so.

[/QUOTE]

Nice spreadsheet! It looks like you're assuming that Tesla is paying nothing for the land it's using. $3000/year for operating/maintenance seems unrealistically low to me, especially if valets get involved. If a single stall fails, that will probably eat up the $3k right there. Also, supercharger usage has risen to more like 15% of miles, not 8%, and is likely to climb even further with Model 3 (I'd guess 20% if not 25%, since more owners will be depending on it for local charging). Electricity prices in many regions are much higher; I doubt Tesla is getting electricity for less than $0.20/kWh in Los Angeles, for instance. Also consider that Tesla uses onsite batteries to balance the load on the grid, which can add further losses (~10%). Your assumption of charging 60% of the battery in 30 minutes only works if all cars start at 0% SOC and unplug at 60%; a lot of cars will be charging from e.g. 30% - 90%, or even trickle-charging to 100%. I'd guess 60% / 40 minutes on average. Your figure of "number of cars each supercharger [location] can support" of 648 seems overly optimistic; the current ratio is about 180, and already there is overcrowding in some places.

The point being, a different but equally plausible (IMO) set of assumptions can at least double the projected cost to Tesla per car. Obviously Tesla knows all the numbers and we don't, so this is a lot of pure speculation and guesswork. Still, it's fun to speculate!

 

[Jersey Shore Tom]

Nice spreadsheet! It looks like you're assuming that Tesla is paying nothing for the land it's using. $3000/year for operating/maintenance seems unrealistically low to me, especially if valets get involved. If a single stall fails, that will probably eat up the $3k right there. Also, supercharger usage has risen to more like 15% of miles, not 8%, and is likely to climb even further with Model 3 (I'd guess 20% if not 25%, since more owners will be depending on it for local charging). Electricity prices in many regions are much higher; I doubt Tesla is getting electricity for less than $0.20/kWh in Los Angeles, for instance.

Thanks. I wish I could post it a live spreadsheet so folks could substitute their own assumptions.

You're correct, I did assume Tesla's access to land was free, I've seen a couple of articles that imply that is normally the case. Tesla charging stations approved for New Jersey Turnpike rest areas

While I think valets will be few and far between, but the operating/maintenance could well be higher. What would you estimate?

I've seen nothing to indicate that Supercharger use has risen to 15% and I see little reason to believe that Model 3 owners will be less likely to have access to home charging.

 

[EcoHeliGuy]

Thanks. I wish I could post it a live spreadsheet so folks could substitute their own assumptions.

You're correct, I did assume Tesla's access to land was free, I've seen a couple of articles that imply that is normally the case. Tesla charging stations approved for New Jersey Turnpike rest areas

While I think valets will be few and far between, but the operating/maintenance could well be higher. What would you estimate?

I've seen nothing to indicate that Supercharger use has risen to 15% and I see little reason to believe that Model 3 owners will be less likely to have access to home charging.

I don't buy the whole idea that a large percentage of Model 3 users won't be charging at home. It isn't in best interest of stratas to denie value adding features, nor do they have much say in many jurisdictions that are requiring devoplers and homeowner associations to provide infrastructure for EV's. And we aren't talking about a car for the poor either.

Nissan Leaf owners are in the same price bracket and have no problems.

 

[Ben W]

Thanks. I wish I could post it a live spreadsheet so folks could substitute their own assumptions.

You're correct, I did assume Tesla's access to land was free, I've seen a couple of articles that imply that is normally the case. Tesla charging stations approved for New Jersey Turnpike rest areas

While I think valets will be few and far between, but the operating/maintenance could well be higher. What would you estimate?

I've seen nothing to indicate that Supercharger use has risen to 15% and I see little reason to believe that Model 3 owners will be less likely to have access to home charging.

The New Jersey Turnpike article states that there is "no expense to toll payers", which is not the same as saying there is no expense to Tesla. I agree that many locations are likely giving the parking real estate to Tesla for free, particularly in less populated areas. It's less obvious whether they will be able to continue finding such places in more heavily populated areas.

The 15% figure was from this article: Share of Supercharged Miles For Tesla Model S Increased From 5% to 8%

The headline mentions the 8% figure (from inception to date), but the body of the article mentions that the recent summertime rate was about 15%. Obviously Tesla knows the current rate and seasonal trends a lot better than we do. My sense that it will increase with the Model 3 fleet is partially based on knowing a few friends who put down deposits on the Model 3 that have no convenient way to install home charging. (due to street-only parking, etc.) Obviously that's only a tiny sample size. Tesla recently dropped the price of the home charger from $750 to $500, and I wouldn't be surprised if it drops even further when bundled with the Model 3, to encourage more users to find a way to make home charging work for them. More and more workplaces are starting to offer EV charging as a perk, and that will no doubt take some pressure off the superchargers as well. (Though it may be a while before workplace charging is ubiquitous.)

Operating/maintenance is anyone's guess. As a homeowner, I just know that it's very easy to underestimate!

 

[R.S]

I doubt it's a top priority today. The physics of the batteries currently in use prevent charging too fast. The faster you try to charge Li-ion cells the hotter they get and there comes a point where you damage the batteries as well as waste energy to heat while charging.

This page describes the Li-ion chemistries in common usage today and the pros and cons of each:
Types of Lithium-ion Batteries – Battery University

We probably will find some sort of chemistry that is better than the current Li-ion batteries we have today, but it's unpredictable when that breakthrough of the perfect chemistry will come about.

With batteries there are many factors that need to be weighed: energy density, power output, safety, number of charges, fastest safe charge speed, how fast it degrades with each charge, and cost. The holy grail would be a battery that was ideal in all those categories, but the laws of Physics rarely hands anyone the ideal solution. Probably the biggest world-wide R&D effort of basic technology today is trying to find a battery that is much closer to the ideal than what we're using today. Whoever develops it will have a license to print money.

JB Straubel was speculating that someday we will have a battery chemistry that allows charging that fast but we don't have it today and Tesla is primarily focused on making the best with what we currently have rather than chasing rainbows.

I guess the engineers at Huawei would disagree.
New smartphone battery can charge to 48% in five minutes

Not that I do think we will see 5 minutes to 50% in an EV very soon, but 15 minutes to 80% seems even possible vor Porsche, so at least that should be possible for Tesla, too.

And before someone starts talking about "too much current through cable", open an excel sheet, search for the conductivity of copper and start calculating how much current you could press through a cable, with 1cm diameter, 2 times 1.5m in length, before you would need 500W of cooling power. (more than 800 Amps)

 

[wdolson]

I guess the engineers at Huawei would disagree.
New smartphone battery can charge to 48% in five minutes

Not that I do think we will see 5 minutes to 50% in an EV very soon, but 15 minutes to 80% seems even possible vor Porsche, so at least that should be possible for Tesla, too.

And before someone starts talking about "too much current through cable", open an excel sheet, search for the conductivity of copper and start calculating how much current you could press through a cable, with 1cm diameter, 2 times 1.5m in length, before you would need 500W of cooling power. (more than 800 Amps)

The chemistry for electronic devices and car motors are optimized for different things. The application for a smartphone battery requires a small WH rating, low voltage, and the rate of discharge is going to be slow. On the other hand, an EV needs a high KWH rating, high voltages, and the rate of discharge can be quite fast at times.

I recommend reading this:
Types of Lithium-ion Batteries – Battery University

It describes many of the popular Li-ion chemistries and the trade-offs each one has. Tesla uses a chemistry that has one of the highest energy densities, but one of the trade-offs they have to deal with is a slower charge rate than some other common chemistries.

 

[EcoHeliGuy]

I guess the engineers at Huawei would disagree.
New smartphone battery can charge to 48% in five minutes

Not that I do think we will see 5 minutes to 50% in an EV very soon, but 15 minutes to 80% seems even possible vor Porsche, so at least that should be possible for Tesla, too.

And before someone starts talking about "too much current through cable", open an excel sheet, search for the conductivity of copper and start calculating how much current you could press through a cable, with 1cm diameter, 2 times 1.5m in length, before you would need 500W of cooling power. (more than 800 Amps)

The chemistry for electronic devices and car motors are optimized for different things. The application for a smartphone battery requires a small WH rating, low voltage, and the rate of discharge is going to be slow. On the other hand, an EV needs a high KWH rating, high voltages, and the rate of discharge can be quite fast at times.

I recommend reading this:
Types of Lithium-ion Batteries – Battery University

It describes many of the popular Li-ion chemistries and the trade-offs each one has. Tesla uses a chemistry that has one of the highest energy densities, but one of the trade-offs they have to deal with is a slower charge rate than some other common chemistries.

Cell-wise high voltage doesn't matter. Every cell is between 1.2-1.8 volts. Wheather it's a cell phone battery, AA, lead acid car battery, or Tesla pack. Adding all the series cells together in the Battery gives total battery Voltage.

 

[stopcrazypp]

Cell-wise high voltage doesn't matter. Every cell is between 1.2-1.8 volts. Wheather it's a cell phone battery, AA, lead acid car battery, or Tesla pack. Adding all the series cells together in the Battery gives total battery Voltage.

It is more like 3.6-3.7V for the chemistry that most EVs use. Voltage does matter in general because low voltage cells are lower energy density (same Ah delivers less energy). Lithium Titanate cells like Altairnano and SCiB are 2.3V, but lower energy density. Lithium Iron Phosphate like A123 are 3.3V. These are all low energy density because of the lower cell voltage.

In a cell phone battery, voltage actually matters more because they are single cell devices (not practical to fit a BMS in a cell phone to put cells in series). In multi-cell batteries you can chain in series to build up a higher voltage pack, but you still lose the energy density regardless.

 

[wdolson]

The voltage of a battery is dependent on the electrochemical potential of the anode and cathode. It just happens that the electrochemical difference between the anodes and cathodes used in most older batteries were in the 1.2 to 2.0 V range.

Lithium has a very high negative potential (it likes to give up electrons), when combined with a material that likes to accept electrons, it can produce a big potential (ie high voltage). There is talk of using calcium for anodes someday as calcium ion have an even greater potential than lithium, but nobody had figured out how to make a workable battery, or at least not one that has other drawbacks.

Another thing that you have to contend with when charging batteries is heat. A car's battery pack has a lot of batteries all packed into a tight space, and even with active cooling, there will come a point where you are trying to push energy into the batter too fast and the batteries will overheat.

It sounds like this chemistry for the potential cell phone battery may have a higher thermal runaway temperature. When a li-ion battery goes into thermal runaway, you've permanently damaged the battery if not destroyed it. If the thermal runaway temp was higher, you could push the charging more aggressively without damaging the battery. However, that chemistry may now be well suited to high current applications.

I was just watching a video of a talk Elon Musk gave in Norway yesterday and someone asked a question about battery tech. He started his response by saying battery advancements were probably the most difficult technological challenge facing humanity today. We're able to chip away and get a little more energy density and a bit cheaper prices every year, but it's a massive effort just to do that.

When solving a problem, the more variables you have, the more difficult the problem. And the problem doesn't get more complex linearly, it's usually exponentially more difficult. That is three variables isn't three times more difficult, it's more like nine times more difficult. And I can think of about 8 variables with battery chemistry off the top of my head and I know I'm missing some.

If you look at the basic characteristics of possible battery materials, there are some tantalizing promises for the future, but while it may be theoretically possible, and there are a lot of people working on the theories, we're a long ways from having anything usable in the real world. Once someone figures out how to make something in a lab, then someone else has to figure out a way to make it on a mass scale. Some things are so complex to make, that transition from lab to the production line is very difficult. In some cases, something that can be made in the lab isn't practical for production. For example technically silver makes a good cathode material. It has a high electrochemical potential. However it would make batteries that are staggeringly expensive.

Fluorine gas has a very high positive electrochemical potential , but that's also one of the most reactive materials in the world and is extremely dangerous.

A good number of the best minds in Chemistry and Chemical Engineering are currently focused on the next gen battery problem. Whoever cracks it will become staggeringly rich, but thus far the only progress has been small, incremental steps along the path with no big breakthroughs. Beware of any claims of some super battery that doesn't have the academic community also talking about Nobel prizes. There are a lot of snake oil salespeople pitching claims of super batteries that never play out.

 

[ImEric]

That doesn't appear to be much cheaper than using gas/diesel though.

Sure it is. At that rate, it would cost you about $1000.00 to go around 27,000 miles on superchargers, assuming you can get about 4 mi/gallon in the Model 3. In an equivalent 35 mpg ICE, it would cost you closer to $2,300.00 to go the same distance, which is more than twice as expensive, assuming gas stays around $3.00/gal.