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

[jerry33]

Battery swapping would not only solve "fast charging", it would also solve any "degradation" doubts that people have (this assuming that you don't need to come back to get your own battery back, that the swapped battery is just as good as it was when the car was bought).

Until they find out that the battery pack that they received only has ~180 miles range left rather than ~250. Sure, that won't happen on day-one, but it will happen.

 

[Royal TS(LA)]

Until they find out that the battery pack that they received only has ~180 miles range left rather than ~250. Sure, that won't happen on day-one, but it will happen.

I'm an electrical engineer, so I can quite imagine how they did it. I'd supersize the newly produced battery pack to e.g. 125% of nominal capacity to easily reach its intended use-case of 300 miles for the 85 kWh model and keep a safety margin to allow a "dry" Tesla car to reach the next recharge station anyways. While charging the battery, there's a record created of how much charge or energy was pumped into the pack. Then during normal driving operation, the amount of extracted energy or charge is being logged until a certain lower battery voltage is reached, precisely indicating the safe limit of energy extraction before deep discharge and thus damaging of the battery. By comparing effectively extracted energy with loaded energy it becomes easy to get a grip on how old the battery pack has grown. Older packs deliver less and less usable energy for the same amount of charge pumped into them, which can be easily measured.

So I think it is extremely unlikely that a user would discover a spontaneous loss of 70 miles, like in your example. The battery would have been invisibly disposed of quite some time before actual near-death.

 

[Mayhemm]

If the battery swap thing goes forward, I think it makes sense for Tesla to offer a leased-battery model.

Starting as of some arbitrary future date, you'll be able to purchase a Model S without a battery. This would remove the cost of battery purchase from the price of the car (perhaps making it truly $50k once again). In this case you would be required to sign a lease agreement either on a yearly plan or a pay-as-you-go arrangement (similarly to how the service plans currently work).

If you live in a remote area unlikely to be served by swapping stations or simply do not want the service, you can stick with the current model (purchase your battery with the car).

They may even introduce a program for current owners where you can donate your current battery in exchange for credit of some kind. This may be a prorated cash payout based on the condition of your battery or perhaps free battery-swapping service for the life of your vehicle. This would reduce the number of batteries Tesla would need to produce for the program and also provide an attractive opportunity for current Model S owners.

When a 60kWh owner signs up for the program, their battery would be recycled. All swapper batteries would be 85kwh in order to avoid having to store two types of battery.

Thoughts?

 

[JRP3]

Don't know how this might affect things: Battery Swapping may not count as fast charging with CARB

Minor modifications include clarifying the Section 177 state optional compliance path provision; defining how caps apply to a manufacturer’s requirements; and excluding battery swapping as a “fast refueling” technology.

 

[jeff_adams]

My issue with the battery swap theory is infrastructure. The current super charger locations would not work for swapping sites (imho). There is really no place for the equipment you would need there.


Using existing service centers doesn't work either, because those are in cities close to customers who would start with fully charged batteries, not in the inbetween areas that chargers are needed. So Tesla would have to open up new sites just for swapping.

 

[Royal TS(LA)]

I just wondered, did anyone weigh empty 60 kWh and 85 kWh models? I'm asking because I see a possibility that (like in many products nowadays) the battery packs could be all the same (i.e. all packs are 85 kWh packs) and there's just a firmware difference. Just thinking, just thinking..

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My issue with the battery swap theory is infrastructure. The current super charger locations would not work for swapping sites (imho). There is really no place for the equipment you would need there.


Using existing service centers doesn't work either, because those are in cities close to customers who would start with fully charged batteries, not in the inbetween areas that chargers are needed. So Tesla would have to open up new sites just for swapping.

Not necessarily. Elon gave a hint with "under your nose". Well, if you're sitting in the recharging spot with your car and look ahead, where is "under your nose"? Right, directly below the car's bottom. Must be some cloaked but prepared space underneath the parking slot.

 

[ShortSlaver]

If the battery swap thing goes forward, I think it makes sense for Tesla to offer a leased-battery model.

Starting as of some arbitrary future date, you'll be able to purchase a Model S without a battery. This would remove the cost of battery purchase from the price of the car (perhaps making it truly $50k once again). In this case you would be required to sign a lease agreement either on a yearly plan or a pay-as-you-go arrangement (similarly to how the service plans currently work).

If you live in a remote area unlikely to be served by swapping stations or simply do not want the service, you can stick with the current model (purchase your battery with the car).

They may even introduce a program for current owners where you can donate your current battery in exchange for credit of some kind. This may be a prorated cash payout based on the condition of your battery or perhaps free battery-swapping service for the life of your vehicle. This would reduce the number of batteries Tesla would need to produce for the program and also provide an attractive opportunity for current Model S owners.

When a 60kWh owner signs up for the program, their battery would be recycled. All swapper batteries would be 85kwh in order to avoid having to store two types of battery.

Thoughts?

I really like this concept. I have no idea how viable it is, but it's a great idea if at all possible. How these batteries are subsidized is beyond me and introducing a leasing mechanism where you more or less rent batteries and pay a yearly fee sort of sounds like buying gasoline. However, it lowers initial cost of ownership...

 

[jeff_adams]

I just wondered, did anyone weigh empty 60 kWh and 85 kWh models? I'm asking because I see a possibility that (like in many products nowadays) the battery packs could be all the same (i.e. all packs are 85 kWh packs) and there's just a firmware difference. Just thinking, just thinking..

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Not necessarily. Elon gave a hint with "under your nose". Well, if you're sitting in the recharging spot with your car and look ahead, where is "under your nose"? Right, directly below the car's bottom. Must be some cloaked but prepared space underneath the parking slot.

Doubtful. No one ever reported seeing the parking spaces being "dug up" during super charging construction. There are no hiden robots under the ground. To do swapping would require space equivalent to a "Jiffy Lube" structure. Current supercharger locations cannot support that kind of space. Think about the new superchargers going in at Normal. They will be located on the top of a parking garage. No way to mount anything underneath them. No available space nearby to store batteries. Swapping can't possibly be done at that site.

 

[JRP3]

I just wondered, did anyone weigh empty 60 kWh and 85 kWh models?

I believe the vehicle stickers show about 180lb difference.

 

[Royal TS(LA)]

Well.. that's what the stickers show. But is it true? (^^)

 

[SteveG3]

re recent ideas posted here

leasing some love it, some hate it. How to please everyone? let it be an option buy car for less money and lease, buy car and battery and store battery if you swap (Elon specifically mentioned storing for travel in the past).

expense of infrastructure I picked this up from another thread on the topic... make it part of the $1900/4 year service option that has recently become optional. I also could see it being offered as "service plus" for say $2,400 for 4 years. You can go not service plan, service, or service +. I've looked at the numbers and I think a 50% increase in people choosing service + would go a long way to covering expense. People who don't opt in could swap for a per use charge.

expense of swapping batteries charge something like $.20 per mile used of swapper system's batteries... this would pay for these batteries

60 kWh batteries they may have a different mass, but they are the same structure, so could be swapped for an 85kWh and stored. Tesla can make this fair to 85kWh owners by charging more to 60 kWh for use of swapped in pack... i.e. $.25/mile used

Infrastructure perhaps an issue at some SC stations, but the only one I saw (Newark, DE) could easily handle a big enough facility. I don't think it would take an amount of space larger than a typical gas station/mini mart. Some politics may have some states not so friendly to this, but in general, I think they'd get a lot of SC locations to do this, and where they can't, off nearest exit, set up the SuperSwapper (again, these will be between cities... cheap real estate)

Metal Air down the road this could be ready for gen III as a range extender, avoiding swapping system being swamped. this may be getting crazy, but it could even be an option for S/X on top of swapping in a few years... that way you don't have issues of overcrowded swappers during holidays, or showing up with 20 mile range left to find SuperSwapper super out of order.

 

[Thinker]

+1

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Hello, I'm still a newbie when it comes to batteries but based on what I read so far in this post I figured I would post my thoughts...worst that can happen people will think : "This guy is crazy and they'll have a good laugh". Either that or Tesla will take the idea and I'll regret not filling a patent before discussing it here. Anyways...
Here it goes. I think that swapping the main battery cannot be done in a matter of minutes. For multiple reasons already mentioned here, that would also be complex to manage. This said, swapping an extra (secondary and optional) battery could be done in a matter of minutes. Think of that extra battery as something about the size of current 12V batteries in cars today. The only difference is that they would be Metal-Air (getting back to that patent Tesla already filed). This wouldn't frustrate those who paid extra for the 85 pack and it would complement longer trips for that 1% of the time when you need it. There would be a cost for that extra battery of course and therefore those who are fine with their 60 or 85 pack could spend years without using that feature (i.e. not going back to the oil dependency paradigm). However for those who can't afford to wait, they can pay the premium, leave the empty one if any (that the SC would refill), take a new one and pop it in in less than a minute i.e. "faster than filling your gas tank"!

This said, this doesn't answer the "charging" piece of riddle since it's just a swap... What I think they have in mind and that I haven't seen posted anywhere is that the extra battery could/would be used to charge the main 85 (or 60) battery while you drive. It's like having an extra regen (almost like an onboard electricity generator) while you drive and even when you're completely stop your mileage would still go up due to that energy transfer. This Metal-Air thing has a limited capacity and an extra cost of course (around between 30-50$ for 500 miles transferred) but keep in mind that this is only when you need that extra range. Might sound like a crazy idea but it's the only thing I can see that makes sense with the riddle. I hope that I'm not stealing Tesla's thunder but this would be quite revolutionary and worthy of being one of the last announcements of the trilogy...

+1

 

[jeff_adams]

re recent ideas posted here



Infrastructure perhaps an issue at some SC stations, but the only one I saw (Newark, DE) could easily handle a big enough facility. I don't think it would take an amount of space larger than a typical gas station/mini mart. Some politics may have some states not so friendly to this, but in general, I think they'd get a lot of SC locations to do this, and where they can't, off nearest exit, set up the SuperSwapper (again, these will be between cities... cheap real estate)

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.

 

[zax123]

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...

 

[brianman]

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...

Technically, Elon didn't say it could be done without causing significant degradation. I don't think he meant in a damaging way, but the door was left open in his phrasing.

 

[Johan]

Technically, Elon didn't say it could be done without causing significant degradation. I don't think he meant in a damaging way, but the door was left open in his phrasing.

The laws of physics cannot be twisted, even by Elon. The cable would be thicker than anything you've ever seen and there would have to be a connector the size of an elephants schlong for this to work (which there is not on the car as far as I know).

 

[CapitalistOppressor]

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...

The regulators at CARB have regulations anticipating sub 15 minute charging. They wouldn't have done that unless there were technical studies saying it was possible. That said, I don't recall Tesla ever promising anything other than 30 minute charging with the Model S. Then that turned into 30 minutes for a half charge. In contrast, they always promised battery swapping.

And as Johan said, even if you could do ultra fast charging and not destroy the battery, there are severe physical constraints. Even an elephant schlong connecter needs to get the energy from somewhere. I'm not an electrical engineer, but I suspect that the only places we see that kind of draw on the grid is at large commercial buildings and industrial sites. SuperChargers in the middle of nowhere pulling that kind of juice might be a stretch. Electric Utilities probably would want to charge a lot of money to do it.

 

[Royal TS(LA)]

Hmm.. let's do some math, shall we?

Be t=60s for 85 kWh. That's 85*3.6*10^6 Joule / 60s = 5.1MJ/s = 5.1 megawatts. For 60 seconds. If you wanna see your car explode into a poisonous fireball, I'd recommend this procedure :love: .

 

[brianman]

Hmm.. let's do some math, shall we?

Be t=60s for 85 kWh. That's 85*3.6*10^6 Joule / 60s = 5.1MJ/s = 5.1 megawatts. For 60 seconds. If you wanna see your car explode into a poisonous fireball, I'd recommend this procedure :love: .

Since you guys are keen on the math...

What's the theoretical maximum charging rate (for the 85 kWh, if that matters) if you aren't concerned about "somewhat reasonable" degradation in capacity but don't want it to explode/melt/become-unusable-for-driving? I'm curious how far you have to stretch "fuzzy numbers" on the time to make Elon's quote possibly speak to a charging situation. Thanks.

For argument's sake, let's also assume you're parked literally at the power plant so that issues of distribution of such power across the grid is a non-issue.

 

[Royal TS(LA)]

Since you guys are keen on the math...

What's the theoretical maximum charging rate (for the 85 kWh, if that matters) if you aren't concerned about "somewhat reasonable" degradation in capacity but don't want it to explode/melt/become-unusable-for-driving? I'm curious how far you have to stretch "fuzzy numbers" on the time to make Elon's quote possibly speak to a charging situation. Thanks.

For argument's sake, let's also assume you're parked literally at the power plant so that issues of distribution of such power across the grid is a non-issue.

Usually, 0.8 C to 1.0 C is recommended to get 99.9% of reachable capacity while keeping the Li-Ion packs cool during charge. The announced 120 kW, IIRC, are probably stretching this and indicate over-sized battery pack design. So, to protect the battery, the 85 kWh pack should be around 120 kWh in reality. But that's good engineering practice. 120/85 is about sqrt(2) or 1.412 . Elon is such a nerd , there should be much more people like him.