Model S can be recharged faster than filling a gas tank.

[serkol]

elonmusk twited: There is a way for the Tesla Model S to be recharged throughout the country faster than you could fill a gas tank.

How come?

His next twit: Don't forget the mystery announcement. Part 5 of the trilogy.

It's interesting that when I thought about the mystery announcement I came out with 2 things that I thought would be possible and would be interesting: autopilot and battery swap. 2 days later I read about Musk talking to Google about self-driving and autopilot... Today I read about recharging faster than filling a gas tank... Am I a prodigy or what?

I studied robotics in a college, wait, around 25 years ago so I thought that with the floor-mounted battery it would be so easy to swap it automatically.

But swapping is not recharging. Battery swapping would be great, but it looks like it requires the change of ownership. You would then lease the battery from Tesla instead of owning it.

So if it is recharging, how would this be possible?

When I first bought some Tesla stock right after the IPO I thought about having a large lithium battery and a small supercapacitor. I thought about charging the super-capacitor VERY quickly, and then the super-capacitor charges the main battery in the next hour or so. The problem with super-capacitors is that they lose the charge MUCH faster than batteries. But if it just charges the main battery instead of keeping that charge, it will not waste much charge. I even wrote about this on some forum, maybe I needed to patent this?

Any other thought about this mysterious fast recharging?

 

[TD1]

Tesla files Metal-Air Battery Patents | tsunster innovations
The Patent describes a Hybrid of the Conventional tesla Battery Technology combined with the Metal Air Battery, To "recharge" the Metal Air Battery you simply need to exchange the used up "Metal Air Casset" which would weight around 20lb and refill it with Water. That totally fits the "faster then you can fill a gas tank"

 

[Sacrament055]

elonmusk twited: There is a way for the Tesla Model S to be recharged throughout the country faster than you could fill a gas tank.

How come?

His next twit: Don't forget the mystery announcement. Part 5 of the trilogy.

It's interesting that when I thought about the mystery announcement I came out with 2 things that I thought would be possible and would be interesting: autopilot and battery swap. 2 days later I read about Musk talking to Google about self-driving and autopilot... Today I read about recharging faster than filling a gas tank... Am I a prodigy or what?

I studied robotics in a college, wait, around 25 years ago so I thought that with the floor-mounted battery it would be so easy to swap it automatically.

But swapping is not recharging. Battery swapping would be great, but it looks like it requires the change of ownership. You would then lease the battery from Tesla instead of owning it.

So if it is recharging, how would this be possible?

When I first bought some Tesla stock right after the IPO I thought about having a large lithium battery and a small supercapacitor. I thought about charging the super-capacitor VERY quickly, and then the super-capacitor charges the main battery in the next hour or so. The problem with super-capacitors is that they lose the charge MUCH faster than batteries. But if it just charges the main battery instead of keeping that charge, it will not waste much charge. I even wrote about this on some forum, maybe I needed to patent this?

Any other thought about this mysterious fast recharging?

I like it. So you would basically install a fully charged "charger" into your car that would allow you to drive away while your car charges on the road. Who knows what he's thinking but that does sound like a good idea.

 

[serkol]

@TD1: Thanks for the link!

Regarding water, I get it, mentioned in patent 20120041623.

I was lazy to read through all the patents. What does it mean "charging is much harder" that I read in any info about metal-air batteries? Harder means longer or what?

Again, Elon said "recharge", not replace. Maybe he thought that "replace with a recharged battery" is kind of "recharge"?

I just realized that I've posted this into a wrong thread. If the moderator reads this, please move my post to the general thread, out of the investor discussions.

 

[deonb]

When I first bought some Tesla stock right after the IPO I thought about having a large lithium battery and a small supercapacitor. I thought about charging the super-capacitor VERY quickly, and then the super-capacitor charges the main battery in the next hour or so. The problem with super-capacitors is that they lose the charge MUCH faster than batteries. But if it just charges the main battery instead of keeping that charge, it will not waste much charge. I even wrote about this on some forum, maybe I needed to patent this?

The bigger problem with that one is that in order to get e.g. a 85kWh charge on that SuperCapacitor in 5 minutes, you'll need to charge at 2500 Amps. That's not gonna happen with any cable that you can move by hand.

Also, you're not going to be able to draw that much power across a public utility line meant for small businesses.

 

[CyberDutchie]

How big would that capacitor be (physical dimensions)? And would it be safe to handle, e.g. over the counter?

 

[kenliles]

The bigger problem with that one is that in order to get e.g. a 85kWh charge on that SuperCapacitor in 5 minutes, you'll need to charge at 2500 Amps. That's not gonna happen with any cable that you can move by hand.

Also, you're not going to be able to draw that much power across a public utility line meant for small businesses.

good point- maybe it's a connector instead; have to be some sort of receiver facility

 

[Longhorn92]

I think the capacitor would be very large and would have to be on location (likely at Supercharging stations), then it would drain quickly to the car; however, I seriously doubt that the wires in the car could handle it, much less the battery pack.

 

[Futurama]

It must be battery swapping. Maybe in future models?

http://www.betterplace.com/How-it-Works/battery-switch-stations

 

[raymond]

How big would that capacitor be (physical dimensions)? And would it be safe to handle, e.g. over the counter?

Same question for the metal-air batteries. How big? How heavy?

If I understand Metal-air electrochemical cell - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia correctly, it may only be 8 kgs (17 lbs) for 85kWh (theoretical limit).

Does anybody have any ballpark numbers on the price of metal-air batteries?

Still, I think this is not something Elon would "demo".

(edit: more likely to be 63 kg for 85 kWh)

 

[GSP]

elonmusk twited: There is a way for the Tesla Model S to be recharged throughout the country faster than you could fill a gas tank.........

Any other thought about this mysterious fast recharging?

I predict that Tesla will demonstrate even faster SuperCharging that refills to 60-70% SOC at a 4-5C rate using upgraded connector and cables. It will be fast enough to get CARB "fast refueling" ZEV credits without battery swapping.

CARB is going to do away with battery swapping as a qualifying technology, and Tesla likely wants to keep their "gold standard" for ZEV credits for the Model S.

GSP

 

[Soflason]

Some speculation to consider:
Rumors swirling about Tesla introducing Model S battery-swap facilities - brianstorms

 

[ShortSlaver]

Reading their Q1 SEC Filing you see this tidbit in the "Our future growth is dependent upon consumers’ willingness to adopt electric vehicles." section:

"our capability to rapidly swap out the Model S battery pack and the development of specialized public facilities to perform such swapping, which do not currently exist but which we plan to introduce in the near future;"

 

[jerry33]

You can fit battery swapping into the recharge category if you are looking at "recharging the car" rather than "recharging the battery". I don't see how the economics can work out because you'd need a high inventory (perhaps 50 per swap station) on holidays and a low inventory (5 per station) the rest of the time. The plug-in Li-Air sounds good but based on the Q1 SEC filing it's more likely to be swapping. I would rather have had the manpower and resources used to get the swapping stations going be used to speed up supercharger installations. My trip next week is going to be 26 hours each way rather than 12 hours each way--and that's only if everything works out well. Superchargers would have cut the time down to under 14 hours. I suspect that swapping stations will only be in most populated areas and there will never be very many of them.

 

[vgrinshpun]

Reading their Q1 SEC Filing you see this tidbit in the "Our future growth is dependent upon consumers’ willingness to adopt electric vehicles." section:

"our capability to rapidly swap out the Model S battery pack and the development of specialized public facilities to perform such swapping, which do not currently exist but which we plan to introduce in the near future;"

That would explain anecdotal evidence in some of the threads on this forum indicating that battery production has been operating 3 shifts, 7 days!

I can see a horrible next week for anybody still holding short positions. Are we going to breach $100 and beyond next week?

Looks like next week will be a week of tough decisions for longs pondering whether to sell or not to sell and at what level...

 

[vgrinshpun]

I suspect that swapping stations will only be in most populated areas and there will never be very many of them.

Yes!

My bet is that part 4 of 5 part trilogy will consists of three parts:

-Dramatically increasing speed of deployment of SC per EM previous hints, possibly by partnering with a national restaurant chain with presence at the rest stops on interstate highways

- Increasing speed of charging from 90kW to 120kW, or possibly even higher using battery banks installed at SC locations to pump additional kWhrs into the car batteries in parallel with a supercharger.

- Adding robotic battery swap and storage stations at the high traffic SC locations. I believe that there also will be a fee for this service. This is absolutely brilliant thinking out of the box! This will demolish "takes too long to charge - not ready for prime time" notion and address potential charging bottlenecks at the SC locations in highly populated and travelled areas, all at a reasonable cost.

Tsunami comes next week.

 

[Nicu.Mihalache]

Yes!

My bet is that part 4 of 5 part trilogy will consists of three parts:

-Dramatically increasing speed of deployment of SC per EM previous hints, possibly by partnering with a national restaurant chain with presence at the rest stops on interstate highways

- Increasing speed of charging from 90kW to 120kW, or possibly even higher using battery banks installed at SC locations to pump additional kWhrs into the car batteries in parallel with a supercharger.

- Adding robotic battery swap and storage stations at the high traffic SC locations. I believe that there also will be a fee for this service. This is absolutely brilliant thinking out of the box! This will demolish "takes too long to charge - not ready for prime time" notion and address potential charging bottlenecks at the SC locations in highly populated and travelled areas, all at a reasonable cost.

Tsunami comes next week.

Points 1 & 2 have some chance to come true in some degree. Point 3 is at least 2-3 years in the future, if ever. Tesla claims they have no sales constrains, just production constrains. But they do not have any heaps of spare cash for such huge investment with dubious payback.

Related to that tweet, here was my reaction a few days ago on Traderhood (I will slightly edit in an effort to make it more intelligible):
I know it’s meant to sound like a huge advancement, but I think it’s about the 10 seconds needed to plug in when you get home. You gain 15 minutes 50 times a year compared to filling up an ICE (that is 750 minutes gain, or 12h30m). Then you lose 15 minutes 10 times a year during your 2 long trips when you super-charge (30 minutes compared to 15 minutes fill-up). Net gain of 10 hours per year. So over the life of the car, it’s [much] faster to “fill up” your Tesla than an ICE.

 

[NotTarts]

- Adding robotic battery swap and storage stations at the high traffic SC locations. I believe that there also will be a fee for this service. This is absolutely brilliant thinking out of the box! This will demolish "takes too long to charge - not ready for prime time" notion and address potential charging bottlenecks at the SC locations in highly populated and travelled areas, all at a reasonable cost.

I'm not entirely convinced on battery swapping. For the price of a single battery swapping station ($500,000 according to Better Place), you'd be able to install 10 supercharging stalls. Is battery swapping 10x faster than fast charging, and if so, will it still be in the future? It eliminates the time issue but it's not necessarily an improvement in terms of congestion.

 

[132]

I'm not entirely convinced on battery swapping. For the price of a single battery swapping station ($500,000 according to Better Place), you'd be able to install 10 supercharging stalls. Is battery swapping 10x faster than fast charging, and if so, will it still be in the future? It eliminates the time issue but it's not necessarily an improvement in terms of congestion.

With 25% margins 500k is cheap especially in a market with increasing numbers of Teslas. With no wait for a charger and quicker refill than gas, the skeptics last argument will be route choice is limited/directed.

5-7 mil to demonstrate how the model S can get from LA to NYC faster and cheaper than any ice car. The press will go crazy covering this. Ad campaigns for the Big 3 cost more than this.

 

[vgrinshpun]

To the skeptics on the battery swap, nothing is certain until it is certain, but I am planning to bet serious (for me) money on it. This is investment part of the Forum and power of leverage is well understood here. Elon Musk has proved that he is the Master when it comes to leveraging PR and driving the change in public perception. I think this is what battery swap is about. We will perhaps see 10 of them out of 100 SC to be deployed in near future.

I actually think that the swapping stations may fall by the way side in future, as people will realize that supercharging is great and all that really is needed, but it has potential for huge buzz now, with the consequences which is hard to overestimate.