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The Atlantic:The Organic Battery From Japan That Could Spawn The Next Tesla

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The i3 (most efficient car in the USA) gets 81 miles EPA out of 18.8kWh (usable). If you scale that directly, you get 366 miles out of 85kWh usable, so I don't think 400 miles (EPA) is possible even with extensive weight saving and aero tweaks.

The i3 only has a 0.29 coefficient of drag. Being stubby and bumpy is not aerodynamic.

The GM EV1 managed a CD of 0.19 - it is entirely possible to do much much better than the i3. The look of small solid wheels or covered wheel arches may not be popular - but they would do the job.
 
The i3 only has a 0.29 coefficient of drag. Being stubby and bumpy is not aerodynamic.

The GM EV1 managed a CD of 0.19 - it is entirely possible to do much much better than the i3. The look of small solid wheels or covered wheel arches may not be popular - but they would do the job.

The frontal area of the i3 is quite small, even though its Cd is not impressive. If you make something similar in size to the Model S (with a few inches shaved off as you suggested), I doubt even with aero tweaks you can top 400 miles. I think you would be lucky to get into the 300-350 mile range.

Of course if you go to the extreme of the EV1 (or maybe even the XL1) you can stretch further, but I thought we were talking about a more practical car similar to the Model S.
 
The frontal area of the i3 is quite small, even though its Cd is not impressive. If you make something similar in size to the Model S (with a few inches shaved off as you suggested), I doubt even with aero tweaks you can top 400 miles. I think you would be lucky to get into the 300-350 mile range.

Of course if you go to the extreme of the EV1 (or maybe even the XL1) you can stretch further, but I thought we were talking about a more practical car similar to the Model S.

Reducing the weight dramatically allows much smaller and narrower wheels.
Removing the large flat battery pack and replacing it with something much smaller allows a practical car in many new revolutionary shapes.
The Model S is ridiculously and unnecessarily wide.

It is a whole new clean sheet of paper, even a bigger leap than the original Model S was by getting rid of the ICE drivetrain.
The biggest aerodynamic flaw of the Model S is the huge wheel wells. Get rid of those holes entirely.

The EV1 managed 161 wh/mile. A longer car - without a 1300 pound battery payload - could do better.
 
There needs to be done sth about the weight. Cars are ridiculously heavy for what their purpose is. Driving and Safety.
Even the i3 with his carbon fibre chassis isnt really an improvement(1250kg). My Seat Ibiza with 1100 kg weighs less. Even though it has a heavy ICE...etc.......tank................................................
Sometimes i wonder how engineering compartments at BMW or Audi are working against each other.
Chassis department: Oh yeah we have invented the new alu space frame which weighs only 230 kg for the A8. Drivetrain compartment: Now we can make it even heavier.
Truth is A8 weighs 2,1 tons. Desperate attempts.
If safety is so important why not use racing car frames? They are damn light but provide the highest safety standards.
Oliver Kuttner who has won the X prize with his Edison 2 hit the nail on the head. And they are planning to manufacture a 1000 lbs racing standard safe minivan.
Oliver Kuttner of Edison 2 Part 1 of 3 - YouTube
 
I read that batteries based on this technology could last up to 3,000 cycles. That's between 8-12 years, with 12 years being more likely assuming you do not drive as much on the weekends. I'd like to see a higher number though, perhaps in the supercapacitor area (25+ years)? You normally don't have to replace your engine every 12 years in an ICE vehicle, and I don't think you should have to replace your battery in your EV that often either.
 
Tesla's current battery pack last 8-12 years. This one would last much much longer for the average consumer.

A typical automatic transmission in an ICE care will last 200k miles/15 years before needing a very expensive rebuild.

It could last much longer if babied but so can a battery pack.

Plus things like oil changes,water pumps, alternators etc.
 
If there is anything to this it will gradually become obvious over years as the version rolls out for the highest price/performance niches first and gradually works it's way down to bulk applications like automotive and grid storage. Every laptop, phone and ipad would get these first at a much higher per cell price. Being able to charge a phone in a few minutes and not worry about capacity loss for 3000 cycles would be a killer feature worth a vast fortune. If these actually are cheaper to manufacture it would just mean huge profit margins for a long time but the per cell prices would stay very high until all the demand from high value uses was accommodated.
 
Color me skeptical. When figuring out how many charge cycles a battery can take, battery manufacturers often do fast cycle tests. ie. they charge/discharge in 0.5 hour. So the entire 3000 cycle test can be done in 2 months. They then publish these results. But this isn't even remotely close to real world, where the battery must last 8+ years (not two months). A better way to measure longevity is to do slow charge/discharge tests, each cycle over one day (like you would do in a car), but then you have to have very precise instruments to measure charge retention degradation over each cycle. Researchers have found that many batteries that had long cycle longevity when measured using fast cycle/discharge times had very, very poor cycle longevity when done with slow charge/discharge. It is postulated that this is due to bad parasitic chemical reactions that take place - reactions that need to time to occur.

Given that this startup has literally zero quantified published results (who knows how they did their cycle test, for instance), I'll only get excited when detailed specs are made public.
 
Researchers have found that many batteries that had long cycle longevity when measured using fast cycle/discharge times had very, very poor cycle longevity when done with slow charge/discharge. It is postulated that this is due to bad parasitic chemical reactions that take place - reactions that need to time to occur.
This is the difference between cycle life and calendar life. They are two different degradation mechanisms and when you cycle a cell it actually reduces the degradation from calendar life (which is based on electrolyte film growth).
(page 11)
http://www.nrel.gov/vehiclesandfuels/energystorage/pdfs/45048.pdf

That's why it's not an additive behavior (meaning you don't just take cycle degradation and add it to calendar degradation), but rather a "race" between the two. If you cycle the cell rapidly you will degrade the cell in a short amount of time. If you rarely cycle a cell, the calendar degradation dominates and you end up with a much shorter cycle life.
 
someone who can read the description?
PJP also has an office in San Fransisco.


Someone who can read this also? Very bizarre.

http://psychotechnic.net/ the creator of the logo art.

Just signed up to give you a translation (I've been searching more more info on PJP, too).
The description for the video just says that the artist was hired to make the entrance wall for PJP, a "sensational" next-gen materials company.

And the artists' page gives a domain error (so possibly the site was taken down), that's all.
 
I wondered if he was talking about a different carbon battery since 20% of Tesla's cells would put it around 50Wh/kg which is lower than the numbers from Power Japan Plus would suggest.

Elon said every month someone comes out with a press release touting a superior battery.

They call to sell them on the battery and Tesla ask for samples to test in their own labs.

So far no one has sent them samples to test.
 
Elon said every month someone comes out with a press release touting a superior battery.

They call to sell them on the battery and Tesla ask for samples to test in their own labs.

So far no one has sent them samples to test.

Yes, that was an amazing revelation by Elon. It's almost as if researchers cherry pick data to feed their hapless VC investors, but realize Tesla would just crap all over their batteries if they actually tested them. I actually spoke recently to a VC that had an investment in a battery startup. He kept urging them to to talk to Tesla, but so far they've resisted. Maybe that's a clue...