mspohr
Well-Known Member
OMG! You're right! Tesla hasn't even thought about the materials that go into the batteries!
Quick! Someone tell Elon so he can avoid this big mistake!
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Tesla Gigafactory
- Thread starter domenick
- Start date
Quick! Someone tell Elon so he can avoid this big mistake!
JRP3
Hyperactive Member
In truth the initial GF production will be relatively low volume so it can likely start production using only existing established suppliers.
Nigel Tufnel
Member
Wow, what an important role this forum plays. I emailed Elon about all those essential elements and he responded with surprise and a big thank you! He thought Panasonic was in charge of all that. There IS a minor problem now, the Gigafactory will only be able to make 12 volt batteries for the first year of operation.
I have read that Tesla has been in negotiations with the suppliers for many months. I believe in at least some cases they have been negotiating with the mines. They will need to refine materials if that's the case. I'm not sure where that will happen.
MassModel3
Member
Back in the day when he first started talking about the Gigafactory, Elon had said that initially they would continue to use the existing suppliers. I'm confident that those suppliers are already scheduled to at least partially meet the needs of the GF. If nothing else, Tesla should be able to get the manufacturing equipment running and tested based on materials from current sources. And no doubt there are other suppliers in the running to meet the full needs of the GF.
But just because nobody's mentioned it, don't think it's not happening...
But just because nobody's mentioned it, don't think it's not happening...
One thing Tesla does well is logistics. That's a big asset in any major industrial start up making big tangible assets. The logistics of a boutique car business like Ferrari or Bugatti are not that difficult. They build a relative handful of cars and part of the price includes a lot of people hand holding each customer right through the process and watching over each car individually. If you want to mass produce cars, you need to build an effective logistic chain and then trust it to get your raw materials in and then your product to the right place at the right time. Bugatti recently built the last Veyron after 450 had been built over 10 years. You don't have to be terribly well organized if your production averages 45 a year.
Tesla is aiming to be a mainstream automaker as well as a serious contributor in other industries. Right now their production numbers are in line with a largish boutique car maker, but their infrastructure is designed from the ground up for mass production. They own a car plant that once produced 500,000 cars a year and their long term plans are to max out that plant again. The very fact the Gigafactory is even a thing is a testament to their long term logistical planning. Tesla currently uses 10% of the world's production of lithium ion batteries to make 20,000 cars a year. They need a huge factory to make enough to get to 500,000.
Toyota went with a different battery technology in their hybrids because they looked at the lithium ion market and saw there wasn't the capacity to utilize them on the kind of scale they needed. Tesla's approach was to first prove lithium ions did the job without some unexpected problem, then set about making sure there were enough made to fill their needs.
One of the big criticisms for electrics is the charge time and short range. Tesla stepped in with the superchargers to alleviate the long charge times when traveling and while the Model S still doesn't quite have the range on a charge of an ICE car, it's getting there. I have read about a new lithium ion manufacturing process invented by an MIT professor which reduces wasted space from 35% to 8% and dramatically reduces manufacturing time per cell from over 24 hours to about 10 minutes. I think the article was here on the forum a few weeks back. I haven't seen anything about Tesla talking to them or investigating that technology, but I would be shocked if they weren't looking seriously at that technology. Being able to pack the batteries about 27% tighter would allow them to up the KWh of the batteries without making them any bigger. And a drop in production time like that would vastly increase the Gigafactory's output as well as costs.
Established car makers tend to rely heavily on subcontractors to supply all the pieces and then their job is to put it all together. If the supply for something that might be desirable isn't there, they are more likely to not go that direction. Tesla's answer is to make that thing happen rather than accept that what they want isn't there.
Tesla's future isn't guaranteed, but it is probably the best managed car start up in history. If the world does end up switching mostly to electric vehicles, it will largely be thanks to Tesla and they will likely remain at the center. By the time other automakers acknowledge that the future really was electrics all along, Tesla will be as entrenched in that niche as Amazon, Ebay, or Google in their niches today.
Tesla is aiming to be a mainstream automaker as well as a serious contributor in other industries. Right now their production numbers are in line with a largish boutique car maker, but their infrastructure is designed from the ground up for mass production. They own a car plant that once produced 500,000 cars a year and their long term plans are to max out that plant again. The very fact the Gigafactory is even a thing is a testament to their long term logistical planning. Tesla currently uses 10% of the world's production of lithium ion batteries to make 20,000 cars a year. They need a huge factory to make enough to get to 500,000.
Toyota went with a different battery technology in their hybrids because they looked at the lithium ion market and saw there wasn't the capacity to utilize them on the kind of scale they needed. Tesla's approach was to first prove lithium ions did the job without some unexpected problem, then set about making sure there were enough made to fill their needs.
One of the big criticisms for electrics is the charge time and short range. Tesla stepped in with the superchargers to alleviate the long charge times when traveling and while the Model S still doesn't quite have the range on a charge of an ICE car, it's getting there. I have read about a new lithium ion manufacturing process invented by an MIT professor which reduces wasted space from 35% to 8% and dramatically reduces manufacturing time per cell from over 24 hours to about 10 minutes. I think the article was here on the forum a few weeks back. I haven't seen anything about Tesla talking to them or investigating that technology, but I would be shocked if they weren't looking seriously at that technology. Being able to pack the batteries about 27% tighter would allow them to up the KWh of the batteries without making them any bigger. And a drop in production time like that would vastly increase the Gigafactory's output as well as costs.
Established car makers tend to rely heavily on subcontractors to supply all the pieces and then their job is to put it all together. If the supply for something that might be desirable isn't there, they are more likely to not go that direction. Tesla's answer is to make that thing happen rather than accept that what they want isn't there.
Tesla's future isn't guaranteed, but it is probably the best managed car start up in history. If the world does end up switching mostly to electric vehicles, it will largely be thanks to Tesla and they will likely remain at the center. By the time other automakers acknowledge that the future really was electrics all along, Tesla will be as entrenched in that niche as Amazon, Ebay, or Google in their niches today.
dgpcolorado
high altitude member
And that plant is pretty much on top of a major earthquake fault. I'd be more comfortable if they had a second assembly plant somewhere else or the new Gigafactory might be reduced to producing Powerwalls only for a very long time. Does Tesla have earthquake insurance?
roblab
Active Member
Of Course they have earthquake insurance.
Those of you who think earthquakes are scary, consider that there is more property damage done by high winds and flooding. There are many more deaths due to high heat and humidity. Buildings here are built with earthquakes in mind, and there is VERY minimal damage due to earthquakes, unless you live in Mexico City in a concrete block building with no rebar.
The factory is quite a ways from the "major" earthquake fault, although the area is filled with faults. I live a few miles from Calistoga in Napa Valley, where they have 35 earthquakes every DAY. We never feel them.
Just a reality check.
I agree. I've been through two major earthquakes: 1971 Sylmar and 2001 Seattle. All in all the damage done was less than that done by major hurricanes or even tornadoes. I'm kind of a geology geek, so I was more fascinated than scared by the 2001 quake. I was just a small kid for the first one, the scariest thing about the 1971 earthquake was the closet doors making a huge racket as they shook away on their tracks. In the 2001 earthquake my house shook for 5 minutes, but there was no damage at all. The worst thing that happened was a oatmeal container fell off a shelf and broke open.
Neither earthquake had much of a death toll. More people have died from tornadoes in the US in the last few years than in the last 60 or 70 years from earthquakes in the US. Counted among the death toll for earthquakes are those who die from heart attacks.
Fremont is on the Hayward fault, which is a fairly major fault. The Hayward fault is better known for continuous creep than major ruptures, though there have been some major earthquakes on the fault. The USGS predicts a maximum earthquake on that fault would be around a 7, which is pretty big, but significantly smaller than the March 2011 Japan earthquake. The Richter scale is logarithmic.
The Tesla factory was built after the Hayward fault was pretty well studied, so it probably had seismic stability built into it. California was one of the first places in the world to have seismic related building codes after the 1933 Long Beach earthquake. What suffers the most damage in earthquakes are the older, unreinforced buildings built before the building codes.
The factory may shut down for a short while due to a major earthquake, but I doubt it would suffer severe damage. The building did make it through the 1989 Loma Prieta quake and I haven't heard of any damage it suffered then.
Neither earthquake had much of a death toll. More people have died from tornadoes in the US in the last few years than in the last 60 or 70 years from earthquakes in the US. Counted among the death toll for earthquakes are those who die from heart attacks.
Fremont is on the Hayward fault, which is a fairly major fault. The Hayward fault is better known for continuous creep than major ruptures, though there have been some major earthquakes on the fault. The USGS predicts a maximum earthquake on that fault would be around a 7, which is pretty big, but significantly smaller than the March 2011 Japan earthquake. The Richter scale is logarithmic.
The Tesla factory was built after the Hayward fault was pretty well studied, so it probably had seismic stability built into it. California was one of the first places in the world to have seismic related building codes after the 1933 Long Beach earthquake. What suffers the most damage in earthquakes are the older, unreinforced buildings built before the building codes.
The factory may shut down for a short while due to a major earthquake, but I doubt it would suffer severe damage. The building did make it through the 1989 Loma Prieta quake and I haven't heard of any damage it suffered then.
dgpcolorado
high altitude member
I guess I disagree that the Hayward fault isn't a "major" one, but that's semantics. I think that a 7 quake with an epicenter near Fremont would stir up the contents of the factory pretty well, although I wouldn't expect a modern building to collapse. I would be interested to know what happened to the plant as a result of the Loma Prieta quake. Perhaps you are right and a 7 quake would have little effect on the Tesla plant and it would be back up and running in days or weeks.
For the record, the biggest one I have experienced was the '71 Sylmar quake, from the relatively safe distance of Pacific Palisades. Even there it was quite a jolt.
I work for one of the vendors who will be a supplier to the internal build and they are a little behind schedule. We have been waiting to have the official order passed down (from the sub contractor) for about 3 weeks. The Tesla engineers are still deliberating on the materials they want. I don't see how they can be on schedule or ahead of schedule.
That largely depends on whether or not your scope is on the critical path. Unless you've seen the complete P6 schedule, there's no way of knowing if they are ahead or behind.
The lithium is probably coming from Bolivia. There is a high altitude dry lake there that has an extremely high concentration of lithium salts. I believe it is the best deposit of them in the world. They have just scratched the surface of it metaphorically.
mspohr
Well-Known Member
roblab
Active Member
...a 7 quake! Let me see, that was about 1989, right? Well, golly, what if we have a solar flare and Fremont burns off the map?
This is why insurance companies use actuarial tables, based on the chances anything might happen.
I'm just saying, that while you may be genuinely concerned, being located in Fremont may not be as debilitating to Tesla as you might think.
The chances of drowning in your bathtub is about ten times higher than being killed in an earthquake. Luckily, Tesla isn't making bathtubs.
Trying for a reality check, obviously not making it.
They may initially use that then, but from what I have read to significantly step up lithium battery production, Bolivia's lake will have to be tapped. The Chinese have already tried to buy it all, but the Bolivian government has retained control. When that is tapped Bolivia stands to become the 21st century's Saudi Arabia.
Tesla tries to source things from within the US as much as possible. Ironic that the car made with the most American parts is the one everyone in the car industry hates or dismisses. (Currently Tesla isn't the most American car, but it is expected to supplant the Ford F-150 when the Gigafactory opens and all their batteries are 100% American made.)
Tesla tries to source things from within the US as much as possible. Ironic that the car made with the most American parts is the one everyone in the car industry hates or dismisses. (Currently Tesla isn't the most American car, but it is expected to supplant the Ford F-150 when the Gigafactory opens and all their batteries are 100% American made.)
I lived in Hayward for 30 years. I was there during the time of Loma Prieta, and watched the live footage of it having collapsed the Oakland Cypress Structure freeway, significantly damage the Bay Bridge and stop the World Series, despite them being 75 miles away form the epicenter. I have been in, or on, those structures countless times. In addition to those high-profile cases of serious damage, there were countless other concrete structures that were structurally compromised.
The Fremont factory is only 10 miles from Hayward, and its fault line actually extends South directly through Fremont, roughly along the line of the Hayward Hills that are just East of it. Having been there in Fremont where the factory is, I'd estimate the actual distance from plant to fault may be as little as 2-5 miles.
I don't think the "death" analogy is the real issue here. It's the damage to structure, equipment, utility infrastructure, and phyiscal access to the plant that might compromise production if a 7.0 (or greater) quake hit there.
I'm not an alarmist, and so don't really really about this for Tesla's well being, But dismissing the impact of an earthquake of that magnitude in that proximity to the plant with some hand-waving about the chances of dying in your bathtub are to ignore the real implications of what the situation would likely be if that happened.
(with that I'll not derail this Gigafactory thread any further)
JRP3
Hyperactive Member
I'm fairly certain that Chile still has plenty of excess capacity, not to mention a number of untapped sources right here in the US.
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