Next generation 2170 cell battery packs

[Cloxxki]

Hear me out now.

Apart from being cheaper to produce (/kWh) the new 2170 cells will allow for more capaciy in a given pack size. 40% more than the 2012 85kWh pack, according to JB Straubel. And that may well be without the extra utilization of 5mm head space through the longer cells. So, close to 50%. 125kWh-130kWh seems to very much be within the realm of possibility.
Already it seems the latest (last) 18650 pack upgrade to 100kWh seems to "pack" more capacity than the increase from 85 and 90 would suggest. No more overstated battery capacities for Tesla? That would be good.

Now there have been quotes by Elon that 100kWh would be the limit. But would that be referring to 18650's to keep comeptitors none the wiser? Surely the way Tesla seems to keep Model S and X high priced (really high margin, especially the long range specs), it would be a good thing to demolish the competition with a 125kWh car? Much harder for the competition to match that for range. Say if Mercedes were to offer a similar sized car, and not needlessly chique to at least sell more than a few, their higher cost/kWh not having theirr own gigafactory, would make it difficult or impossible to compete at the same price level without making a loss, while Tesla are actually at a high margin. Tesla COULD easily, if they pleased, offer the first 125kWh pack for the current 100kWh price, and not lose a dollar of margin, even be up on the change.

What advantage could limiting themselves to 100kWh hold?
In case of slow production, more cars to be build, no battery delays.
Perhaps having ample space around the cells for optimal cooling? Not going done to, say, 14 modules in stead of 16, but having 16 sub-maximum capacity modules?
Or, would they vastly under-claim the capacity so that charging takes places within very big safety margins to ensure the longuevity to the pack? They could they make extra range available at a supercharger (proper balancing) or when out of juice (bad weather, or stupid driver) for a nominal fee. Imagine you mess up and end up stranding your S100(2170). It would have 10kWh of extra capacity left to get you to a charger, in a valet/limping mode of sorts to ensure it works out and damages the battery to a minimum.
And if one would be facing a long SuC leap, or driving in high-consumption conditions (towing in case of X until S gets it), a maximum number of times per year a one-time upgrade could be allowed to charge to 15kWh extra. The 10kWh at the bottom being a separate "charge" possibly. Or making it a 125kWh for one, or for a day.

If supercharging becomes possible only to 80-90% of a nominal charge level to ensure people don't waste time occupying stalls (until cars can auto-park themselves after a snake disconnect), such a one-time payment could unlock maximum range, and SuC to that level, and well beyond.

All nice theory, but I doubt Tesla would stick 25% more cells in there then they really need. A 60(75) style arrangement seems more logical. 100(125) would be proportionate to that actually.

What motive would Tesla have to NOT offer a 430-440 mile EPA range Model S when technically and financially, they can? It's their agenda to prove to the world that BEV's don't limit the driver, right? And why not make the most out of the giga investment to make your own cells, let alone market leading ones, if you're not going to even explore their advantages beyond margin optimization?

Will 90 and 100 owners be pissed when the 125 is introduced, even at the old price level? Yes, but they could see it coming for years. As Tesla improves their Fremont throughput, not only for Model 3 fus also S&X, why not make the high margin cars as attractive as possible? Better sell an S125 than an extra Powerpack, surely? See how cheap Powerwalls are already with 18650 cells. 14kWh for $5500 including a converter. They can make a megarange BEV that demolished te competition 5-10 years into the future. Why wouldn't they?

Discuss!

 

[Garlan Garner]

There are a million "IF's" in your thread and that's just fine.

IF 125kWh becomes a reality...then great.

Will 100kWh folks be upset if a 125kWh option becomes a reality? As long as Tesla rolls it out the correct way....then No. If Tesla says...."hey folks, we found a way to allow our cars to have a 125kWh battery and we are releasing the option in 3 weeks. For those of you that recently purchased the 100kWh option you may keep it along with a additional one time 1mWh of free supercharging or swap it out for the new 125kWh".

Tesla now as a variable option that they can wave around in the air - with no cost to them called Supercharging Credits. And they can use these credits to balance scales and sales so that upgrades and changes won't seem as harsh to their customers.

 

[whitex]

1mWh of free supercharging".

Uhmmm.... 1 milli Watt hour? That's good for what, extending the door handles once?....
Ok, got that out of my system, now for the real comment, 1MWh is about $100 worth of electricity, why would that convince people? No matter what people will whine and complain. A much better strategy IMO would be to announce ahead of time that 125KWh option is coming at some increased cost ($20K?) and even let people confirm orders with the new option. If they are worried about losing short term sales, announce that 100KWh option will go away (so basically, new bigger battery is coming but price going out too) or at least the 100KWh price is going up. I'm betting there are a bunch of folks who would be happy to order the 100KWh batter vs 125KWh if that saved them $20K. Then when 125KW is actually in production, you end up with a whole lot of people who are super happy they got 100KWh battery before it went away (or went up in price), a bunch of pre-orders ready to manufacture with 125KWh, an nobody complaining how they didn't know.

 

[PtG62901]

If they say a new, better battery is coming at the same price, in 2 years, what will happen to sales? They will just drop it via twitter someday, without notice.

 

[bob_p]

Since the supercharger network is spaced to allow use by 60s, there are diminishing returns above 100s. With the 100 battery packs, it should be possible to keep charging below 80% at each charger, providing the fastest charging times.

For long distance trips, once you've got enough capacity to stay below 80% charge level at each stop, the only impact of the larger battery pack is on the first stop after an overnight charge. So a 125 would help on that first stop - but after that, the biggest impact is having a battery pack stay below 80% and always use the fastest charging times.

For shorter trips, a 125 would allow some road trips to be done without having to stop at a supercharger - but will that be enough benefit to justify the increased cost and weight of having a 125 battery pack?

What is likely much more important than increasing range beyond 100s is to get the prices down considerably. Next year, Tesla will hit the phaseout of the US $7500 federal tax credit, which will effectively increase the cost of Tesla cars by $7500. If Tesla introduces the 100D at a higher price than the 90D ($10K increase?), that's going to push the cost of a fully loaded 100D to $120-125K, which is too high.

Assuming a fully loaded Model 3 comes in around $55K - an additional $70K for a fully loaded Model S is too much - plus that pushes a 100D to cost much more than a fully loaded luxury ICE.

If using the 2170 batteries can bring the cost of the 100 battery packs down and reduce the cost of the Model S, that should be a higher priority than continuing to increase capacity - and cost.

There is a strong possibility that Tesla will introduce the 100D with a price increase, and we'll see the cost of the 100D come down over time as Tesla is able to reduce the cost of the battery packs.

 

[ecarfan]

Since the supercharger network is spaced to allow use by 60s, there are diminishing returns above 100s. With the 100 battery packs

There are significant market segments that would benefit from a much higher capacity pack than a 100.

• Owners who live in harsh climates where range takes a big hit in the winter, meaning those in Northern Europe and most of North America.
• Those who want to tow anything bigger than a 60 cu ft utility trailer.
• Those without ready access to charging at home or at work but want an EV and would buy one if they only had to charge it about once a week and get the range they need for a week of commuting a short distance.
• Those who want to drive at high speeds (80+) for hours at a time with having to stop to charge.
• As announced by Elon, in the future build an EV truck that will have adequate range even with sub-optimal aerodynamics.

I could go on.

What is likely much more important than increasing range beyond 100s is to get the prices down considerably.

WIth the new cells and massive Gigafactory production, Telsa can do two things at once:

• Offer a lower priced long range EV (which is what they will do next year with the 3)
• Offer higher capacity battery packs than they have in the past.

Of course they will still be production constrained even in four years or so when Gigafactory 1 is running at capacity. But they can do both those things at once, it's just a balancing act.

 

[scaesare]

... the new 2170 cells will allow for more capaciy in a given pack size. 40% more than the 2012 85kWh pack, according to JB Straubel.

Do you have a reference for this? I've seen similar written here a few times.

It would seem unlikely the physical format alone could account for such an energy density difference for the pack. If it were a chemistry change as well, then that would account for it, but that would be independent of cell size.

An increase of 40% would be a HUGE jump in capacity, when the last chemistry change was ~6% and the physical pack restructuring allowed for only an 11% jump.

I've heard Elon and JB refer to the new size format as being more ideal, but that seemed to be in the context of manufacturability, ease of integration/assembly, cooling requirements, etc... Nothing that seemed to indicate that physical format would allow for such an increase in density within a given pack volume.

I'd be interested in seeing the source for JB's comments on this you refer to....

Thanks.

 

[wycolo]

Lots of today's vehicles can go 400 miles on a tankful. Why is this, given that fuel stops abound?

If Tesla can offer a similar range comfort zone for whatever extra cost I assume they will do so. Especially since they know full well that there are gaping holes in their SuperCharger network. Many of us will give our left nut for significantly more miles.
--

 

[Troy]

I'd be interested in seeing the source for JB's comments

JB actually said 40% from Roaster to Model S and 30% from Model S to Model 3 (Source). It is still a lot and more than the previously announced 10-15% but that doesn't mean the battery capacity will increase beyond 100 kWh when the Model S switches to 2170 cells. In fact, I predict that it won't. It will stay at 100 kWh for a while until they are ready to increase the battery capacity of the Model 3. Initially, I think the Model 3 will be launched in 55 and 75 kWh versions. Then after a year, they will increase it to 80. That's when the Model S capacity will increase from 100 to 105.

However, when the Model S switches to 2170 cells, it will reduce the weight by 20-25%. Therefore even though the capacity doesn't increase, the range will increase slightly. For example, the S100D might have 343 mi EPA rated range and the new S100D with 2170 cells might have 355 mi rated range. Tesla regularly updates the EPA rated range of different models whenever it improves. For example, the S60 had 208 mi rated range. Now it has 210 mi. The rated range of S90D was initially 288 mi. Now it's 294 mi.

 

[JerrySkywalker]

Guys, when do you think they'll ditch the 1865 format for good and start using 2170 in Model S & X? In other words, when do you think they will launch an S 100D with 2170 cells and what range do you think it will have?

 

[scaesare]

JB actually said 40% from Roaster to Model S and 30% from Model S to Model 3 (Source).

I don't understand Spanish, and can't hear the underlying original words... but both what you say and that chart are discussing energy density improvements in car models. Given the ~8% annual improvement JB and Elon have discussed from a chemistry standpoint, that accounts for the change in density between those models introductions.

Clearly we haven't seen that continuous increase, it appears Tesla is conservatively implementing new chemistries in incremental steps.

But again, those are chemistry improvements. They can be implemented in wither 18650 or 21700 cells (or any other size for that matter). The overall energy density is the same regardless of cell packaging. There may be some improvement in logistics of arranging the cells in the pack casing, or reduction in cooling overhead, but I sincerely doubt a 40% volumetric improvement for a given set of pack dimensions. Remember, larger cells means less of them.

I'm trying to figure out if there is a legit Tesla source that suggests the model 3 is going to have 40% more energy density for a given pack size?

However, when the Model S switches to 2170 cells, it will reduce the weight by 20-25%.

Again, I must ask for a source. There will be some savings in cell cam material, no doubt, but up to %25?

Unless you are suggesting that 21700's are new chemistry, and thus they will be able to cut the overall amount of cell material for a given power capacity rating.. in which case I'm interested in that source (my comments above).

Thanks.

 

[Troy]

@scaesare,
I don't understand Spanish either but I have no problem hearing JB's words. JB didn't say 40%. He said 30% from Model S to Model 3. The OP misremembered. I corrected his error in my previous message by clarifying that it was 30%, not 40% from Model S to Model 3.

My 20-25% weight reduction guess is based on JB's 30% number from the Model S to Model 3. Here is a transcript. If you ask for a source again, I will add you to my ignore list.

JB Straubel: Batteries are steadily improving every single year. Maybe around 5% improvement in their energy density, their ability to store energy in a given amount of mass. That's probably one of the key metrics we worry about. And when we went from the Roadster to the Model S, it improved by about 40%. And when we were designing the Model 3, another 30% better. And that improvement just continues on every single year in the background. Source video 40:10 to 40:41

 

[Cebe]

Lots of today's vehicles can go 400 miles on a tankful. Why is this, given that fuel stops abound?

If Tesla can offer a similar range comfort zone for whatever extra cost I assume they will do so. Especially since they know full well that there are gaping holes in their SuperCharger network. Many of us will give our left nut for significantly more miles.
--

ICE vehicles going 400 miles on a tankful is more of a "I don't have to go to the gas station twice a week" than road trips.

I do agree that more range would be nice though. The pain and trade-off is that you carry around the extra weight all the time, for those few times that you need it. If there was a bolt-on option where you can drop extra 20-30kWh in the frunk (the trailer towing should be taken care of by the trailer itself having an additional battery), and that bolt-on would otherwise be a part of your home battery solution, now we're talking...

 

[scaesare]

@scaesare,
I don't understand Spanish either but I have no problem hearing JB's words. My 20-25% weight reduction guess is based on JB's 30% number from the Model S to Model 3. Here is a transcript. If you ask for a source again, I will add you to my ignore list.

Quote, JB Straubel: Batteries are steadily improving every single year. Maybe around 5% improvement in their energy density, their ability to store energy in a given amount of mass. That's probably one of the key metrics we worry about. And when we went from the Roadster to the Model S, it improved by about 40%. And when we were designing the Model 3, another 30% better. And that improvement just continues on every single year in the background. Source video 40:10 to 40:41

@scaesare,
I don't understand Spanish either but I have no problem hearing JB's words. My 20-25% weight reduction guess is based on JB's 30% number from the Model S to Model 3. Here is a transcript. If you ask for a source again, I will add you to my ignore list.

Quote, JB Straubel: Batteries are steadily improving every single year. Maybe around 5% improvement in their energy density, their ability to store energy in a given amount of mass. That's probably one of the key metrics we worry about. And when we went from the Roadster to the Model S, it improved by about 40%. And when we were designing the Model 3, another 30% better. And that improvement just continues on every single year in the background. Source video 40:10 to 40:41

I appreciate the references... I'm not taking issue with what you are providing, but perhaps the context for what I'm asking for is unclear. People are tying an energy density jump to the cell format size:

the new 2170 cells will allow for more capaciy in a given pack size.

My point, which I believe your references to JB comments support, is that the increases he is referring to are due to chemistry, not cell format. Energy density increases due to chemistry changes could be realized with any cell format, 18650's included.

Thus what I'm asking for (not necessarily from you), is if there has been some statement from Tesla that states the 2170's are going to be more energy dense than the current 18650's?

 

[wycolo]

> Why is this, given that fuel stops abound?

My rhetorical question.

> The pain and trade-off is that you carry around the extra weight all the time, for those few times that you need it. [Cebe]

In virtually all of my trips from home I DO need it. Life in the 'empty quarter'.
--

 

[David99]

Tesla has been upgrading the car quite a few times in the last 2 years. While it is great for the company, it is getting frustrating for owners as their car gets outdated quickly.
For example look at the short amount of time they went from P85D - P85DL - P90DL - P100DL. If you wanted the best you were "screwed over" 3 times within less than 2 years.

I believe when Elon said 100 will be the top for a while, it's just a marketing statement to make people feel confident about buying the 100 now. There is not a single doubt that Tesla will introduce a better battery as soon as they can. There is no advantage to holding back. The old cell is more expensive to make and has a lower capacity.

 

[HebrHmr]

Tesla has been upgrading the car quite a few times in the last 2 years. While it is great for the company, it is getting frustrating for owners as their car gets outdated quickly.
For example look at the short amount of time they went from P85D - P85DL - P90DL - P100DL. If you wanted the best you were "screwed over" 3 times within less than 2 years.

I believe when Elon said 100 will be the top for a while, it's just a marketing statement to make people feel confident about buying the 100 now. There is not a single doubt that Tesla will introduce a better battery as soon as they can. There is no advantage to holding back. The old cell is more expensive to make and has a lower capacity.

I agree mostly but I think "as soon as they can" won't be as soon as these increases were made. He unlocked a lot of demand by breaking the 300 mile range mark and releasing the next gen of AP hardware in order to help hit his marks for this year. Now they have to shift focus to getting the model 3 to market in huge numbers. I don't think it's a matter of holding back so much that they need to allocate resources elsewhere.

 

[Garlan Garner]

Uhmmm.... 1 milli Watt hour? That's good for what, extending the door handles once?....
Ok, got that out of my system, now for the real comment, 1MWh is about $100 worth of electricity, why would that convince people? No matter what people will whine and complain. A much better strategy IMO would be to announce ahead of time that 125KWh option is coming at some increased cost ($20K?) and even let people confirm orders with the new option. If they are worried about losing short term sales, announce that 100KWh option will go away (so basically, new bigger battery is coming but price going out too) or at least the 100KWh price is going up. I'm betting there are a bunch of folks who would be happy to order the 100KWh batter vs 125KWh if that saved them $20K. Then when 125KW is actually in production, you end up with a whole lot of people who are super happy they got 100KWh battery before it went away (or went up in price), a bunch of pre-orders ready to manufacture with 125KWh, an nobody complaining how they didn't know.

Its over twice the offering of 400kWh which equates to 1000 miles.

I'm suggesting a coupon for 2000 extra miles.

What's the problem? Really?

 

[Garlan Garner]

If they say a new, better battery is coming at the same price, in 2 years, what will happen to sales? They will just drop it via twitter someday, without notice.

I believe Tesla is going to eliminate that immediate change notice stuff. Or at least I hope so.

 

[Garlan Garner]

Lots of today's vehicles can go 400 miles on a tankful. Why is this, given that fuel stops abound?

If Tesla can offer a similar range comfort zone for whatever extra cost I assume they will do so. Especially since they know full well that there are gaping holes in their SuperCharger network. Many of us will give our left nut for significantly more miles.
--

Hey...there are women here too. Lets be respectful.