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What is Tesla's upcoming 'under your nose' announcement?

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There are of course other battery chemistries. Lithium Tritanate SCiB allows for charging at 8C, or 90% in 10 minutes.

The energy density is the issue though - replacing the Model S battery pack cells with SCiB would at best allow for a total capacity of around 30 kWh. (Even with such a low capacity, the battery could still be safely charged at 240 kW.)

Maybe Tesla has found some battery chemistry with high energy density and power density, but I doubt it.
 
There are of course other battery chemistries. Lithium Tritanate SCiB allows for charging at 8C, or 90% in 10 minutes.

The energy density is the issue though - replacing the Model S battery pack cells with SCiB would at best allow for a total capacity of around 30 kWh. (Even with such a low capacity, the battery could still be safely charged at 240 kW.)

Maybe Tesla has found some battery chemistry with high energy density and power density, but I doubt it.

That'd be the next generation of cells which will still take some years to go commercial. It also remains to be seen how silicon-air and lithium-air cells with nanostructured electrodes will fare. It can only get dramatically better, capacity and charging speed wise.
 
Maybe Tesla has found some battery chemistry with high energy density and power density, but I doubt it.
Tesla's strategy has always been high energy density and letting the power scale by size (so a larger capacity pack for more power). An SCiB pack is unlikely what Tesla will pursue. Tesla may be able to "push" the current cells to 1.4C (120kW for 85kWh pack) with some clever tweaks (pulse charging, aggressive battery cooling), but it'll be tough push it significantly higher.
 
I just don't see Tesla leaning this direction. The latest Supercharger we have heard about coming up is in Normal. The location for the charger is the top floor of a parking garage. There is no room for swapping infrastructure up there. Not only that, but Tesla never mentioned swapping to the city counsel.

Jeff, read last sentence in paragraph you quoted... covers these situations.
 
So you think Tesla is going to lease stores, service centers, supercharger locations AND swap locations? So you think it's either/or on superchargers? Because several of the current supercharger locations won't be able to support on site swapping.

I think that every swap location will also have a SuperCharger. The inverse of that statement is not true. It may be that folks who want to ride on the free SuperCharger Superhighway of the future will have to do so without the benefit of Burger King, and will have to do so while watching cars rapidly cycle through the swapper.

Step 1) Upsell
Step 2) PROFIT!!

To be clear, I expect to often use the SuperChargers, because I'm just cheap that way.
 
So you think Tesla is going to lease stores, service centers, supercharger locations AND swap locations? So you think it's either/or on superchargers? Because several of the current supercharger locations won't be able to support on site swapping.

Indeed, I think there will be some public rest stop SuperCharger locations that cannot accomodate the space of a SuperSwapper, or relevant state agency is unwilling to make the space available. So out of the 100 core SC locations that allow 150 mile spacing, Tesla may have to put some SuperSwappers as much as a few miles from the public reststop/SC location under a private arrangement just off the highway. I think this will be a minority. The space is quite likely to cost more than SC space in these situations, but I don't see it as a deal breaker. Again, by nature of it's purpose, these locations are in very low density areas... real estate cheap.
 
Indeed, I think there will be some public rest stop SuperCharger locations that cannot accomodate the space of a SuperSwapper, or relevant state agency is unwilling to make the space available. So out of the 100 core SC locations that allow 150 mile spacing, Tesla may have to put some SuperSwappers as much as a few miles from the public reststop/SC location under a private arrangement just off the highway. I think this will be a minority. The space is quite likely to cost more than SC space in these situations, but I don't see it as a deal breaker. Again, by nature of it's purpose, these locations are in very low density areas... real estate cheap.

Yes, and honestly, if they are going to be building a substantial structure anyways, they could leave room for an eventual quickie mart/mini-fast food franchise for when volumes increase later this decade.
 
I can see one possible use for battery swapping. What if Tesla developed a "super battery" that had long range but was far too expense to sell for Model S usage? Say 300k for car with this battery in today's value.


Maybe it makes sense to rent this battery out for road trips. Sort of like the redbox model. Enough rentals pays for the battery.
 
Yes, and honestly, if they are going to be building a substantial structure anyways, they could leave room for an eventual quickie mart/mini-fast food franchise for when volumes increase later this decade.

I was thinking they get a good deal because they drive sales to an existing quickie mart, but if there are cases as you suggest, it has the same effect... better economics for Tesla.
 
For those of you who *don't* think it's battery swapping... can you suggest anything else that would take only minutes to achieve yet yield a fully charged battery? Electrically, I don't think it can be done...

You are already assuming that a full battery swap can be performed in 5 minutes or less.

Let the data speak for itself. I don't think it can be done reliably that fast.

I also don't think Tesla wants to invest in this massive infrastructure that is not only capital intensive (tesla factory robots are $500k each) and all the new mechanics needed.

Tesla wants to offer superior customer service. Good people are not cheap. But your average wrench is not going to be Mr congeniality. And you know that just one bad experience will have people pissing and moaning.

There more I think about it I become more convinced that Tesla will NOT invest in this massive endeavor.
 
Jiffy Lubes can't even change your oil in 5 minutes which is far, far simpler.

And the jiffy line type employee is exactly what you would attract.

Barely making minimum wage workers with very low skill levels.

Running 24/7 you have at least 5 two people teams.

This will present a new HR and people management problem they don't have today.

I just doesn't add up.
 
silly question, but if the inverter can pull out 320kWh in "rpms" when you slam the "go" pedal , why cant you do the opposite? charge at 320kWh? that'd charge the battery in 15 minutes....
Maximum charging and discharge rates are not symmetrical. Batteries can discharge much faster than they can charge. For example very quick charging batteries like the 6 minute (10C) a123, SCiB, altairnano can be discharged in 2 minutes or less (30+C).

The cells Tesla use have a max charge rate of ~1C (1 hour) and discharge of ~4C (15 minutes). You can push it a bit higher with aggressive cooling, but not very much faster.

The charging and discharge are two different chemical reactions.
 
Do we know this for a fact for the Model S (or even for the Roadster)?
Not a fact (we do not know the exact cells used), but similar cells (Panasonic NCR18650A) using the same NCA chemistry have similar ~1C charge rates. Nickel/Cobalt based batteries tend to have worse thermal stability and internal resistance (but great energy density) and those two points mean that they tend to heat up when charged quickly (the current^2 * internal resistance = heat). If Tesla had a way to remove the heat efficiently then they may be able to "push" the max number a bit higher (and there's other tricks like pulse charging), but not anywhere near the best chemistries (which can charge in well under 10 minutes with no tricks).

Batteries chemistries with great charging/discharge rates do not heat up significantly when charged or discharged quickly (like a123, altairnano). That's why people can get away with not even using a battery cooling system when they use those cells (something that's impossible with any of the chemistries Tesla has used so far).
 
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For those of you who *don't* think it's battery swapping... can you suggest anything else that would take only minutes to achieve yet yield a fully charged battery? Electrically, I don't think it can be done...

A car share program like the one already announced in Las Vegas. Forget swapping the battery, just swap the whole car.
 
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You are already assuming that a full battery swap can be performed in 5 minutes or less.

Let the data speak for itself. I don't think it can be done reliably that fast.

I also don't think Tesla wants to invest in this massive infrastructure that is not only capital intensive (tesla factory robots are $500k each) and all the new mechanics needed.

Tesla wants to offer superior customer service. Good people are not cheap. But your average wrench is not going to be Mr congeniality. And you know that just one bad experience will have people pissing and moaning.

There more I think about it I become more convinced that Tesla will NOT invest in this massive endeavor.

Factory robots move on three axis + time with extreme sub millimeter and microsecond precision, and do so while being designed to last through tens of millions of discrete operations. A SuperSwapper would be a rack with rollers that moves up and down on a single axis. When it reached the battery under the Model S it would engage a simple jig to remove the bolts and fittings.

Once the jig was engaged all of the bolts and fittings would be removed simultaneously. The rack would lower itself, leaving the jig in place. When the rack reached the proper level it would roll the battery onto a roller equipped shelf off to either side (and possibly front and back as well). When the battery was on its shelf, a different jig would do whatever hookups are needed (cooling and power most likely) in order to properly charge and maintain the battery.

The rack would move to whatever level it needs to in order to get the swapped battery, roll it onto the rack, and raise back up to the primary jig. When in place, all fittings and bolts would be replaced simultaneously, and then remove the jig and reset itself so that the car could leave.

I am fairly confident I could build a crude device to accomplish this with materials purchased at Home Depot. But for inventory control I'd need to steal one of their scanners since they don't sell them to the public at Home Depot.

Edit: Just to be clear, this is a simple design. There are more advanced ones that would be needed to get to swap speeds of under a minute. My Home Depot version might take 5 minutes.

Edit2: Also, it would be best with the Hope Depot version if the car was in the exact right spot. Otherwise I need to integrate some cheep sensors and hook it all up to a computer, with some simple programming. I also need to adjust the position of the battery at the top, but that might be accomplished with rollers. Certainly for an optimum solution you would want to do some actual engineering on a more sophisticated system.

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I guess if I wanted to be a real cheapskate and avoid buying sensors and moving the battery into position under computer control, I could just instead make sure the car was parked on rollers, then force it (gently) into the correct alignment with a jig.