EV (electric vehicle) News and Discussion

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#2573085 23-Sep-2020 21:13

The Tesla "S" on a ractrack.

The "red ball" gauge is a "G" meter, and it's doing some serious jumping outside the one "G" range.

For comparison of 1:30, the fastest lap ever was a Honda racecar doing 1:10. A $1 million "street" car, the McLaren Senna, did it only a little faster at 1:27

Tesla Plaid Model S - 1.30.3 run at Laguna Seca - in car footage (full lap)

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#2573088 23-Sep-2020 21:20

kingdragonfly: The Tesla "S" on a ractrack.

Tesla Plaid Model S - 1.30.3 run at Laguna Seca - in car footage (full lap)

There's a fair bit of noise from the motors - and sounds like tire scrubbing too.

Watching the acceleration is just fantastic.

I wonder what the "mileage" is at race pace - could the S compete in a full race, or would it's juice run out too quick?

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#2573100 23-Sep-2020 21:45

wazzageek:

I wonder what the "mileage" is at race pace - could the S compete in a full race, or would it's juice run out too quick?

From what I saw on a youtube video take a Model 3 Performance to the Nurburgring expect 15% battery left after 4 laps (80km). Should start from 100% there's a Supercharger at the circuit. Laguna Seca is 3.6km so that's ~22 laps. Dunno how that'll convert to Plaid though.

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#2573269 24-Sep-2020 09:52

HarmLessSolutions:

frankv:

Whilst all those things are good, I'm not sure I like the idea that the battery is no longer protected from impact damage, but instead is expected to do absorb or transmit the impact forces. Is a crash going to buckle the battery and expose lithium to the air, starting a fire? Admittedly, this is probably less bad than a fire in a petrol-powered car.

I think you have some factual error there. Li-Ion batteries contain lithium as a salt rather than in its elemental form. FWIK the fire risk from Li-Ion batteries comes from short circuiting igniting the electrolyte liquid, usually in a 'thermal runaway' situation.

You may be right. But e.g. a video showing a fire starting by stabbing a (I assume) Li-ion battery. Perhaps the knife causes the short circuit that starts the fire?

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#2573304 24-Sep-2020 10:23

frankv:

You may be right. But e.g. a video showing a fire starting by stabbing a (I assume) Li-ion battery. Perhaps the knife causes the short circuit that starts the fire?

Sure... but if you puncture your petrol tank there's a very high chance of fire too, so at best that's a wash. There's probably even more data to compare now, but in 2018 statistics suggested combustion engine vehicles were about 11x more likely to catch fire than EVs.

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#2573515 24-Sep-2020 14:02

When a large battery extends near to the cars outer perimeter as almost all EV batteries do, being structural or not, doesn't necessarily protect it from damage in a serious crash. (in a small crash the battery is unaffected in either case). When the floor pan of the passenger cabin is going that far out of shape in an EV (and to a lesser degree in an ICE), you're talking about a pretty serious and hard to survive crash.

In either scenario I'd prefer/expect the battery to be somewhere further up the list of parts that are going to transmit the crash forces before the occupants body.

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#2573597 24-Sep-2020 16:09

SaltyNZ:

frankv:

You may be right. But e.g. a video showing a fire starting by stabbing a (I assume) Li-ion battery. Perhaps the knife causes the short circuit that starts the fire?

Sure... but if you puncture your petrol tank there's a very high chance of fire too, so at best that's a wash. There's probably even more data to compare now, but in 2018 statistics suggested combustion engine vehicles were about 11x more likely to catch fire than EVs.

Yeah, In the bit snipped I did say that it was less bad than a petrol tank puncture. But a petrol tank isn't structural, and is fairly well protected inside & underneath the chassis (although I did witness a (IIRC) Hillman Hunter which was rear-ended and within seconds spectacularly burst into flame). And I expect that batteries in EVs so far have been fairly well protected too, so not a data point for structural batteries.

Presumably the battery would be the car's chassis and designed so beefy that, before it failed, the crash wouldn't be survivable, so adding a fire to the crash wouldn't be too consequential. This does depend on the battery life exceeding the design life of the rest of the car, since replacing the battery would be effectively impossible. But of course the million-mile battery is on the way.

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#2573605 24-Sep-2020 16:17

These guys seemed to have their heads around today's Tesla announcement better than most. https://youtu.be/H7PnjSi3A4U

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#2573887 25-Sep-2020 07:05

The Verge: VW's sub-NZ $60K 250-mile ID.4 crossover dares Americans to go electric

Bringing electric vehicle technology closer to the tipping point at which the masses embrace it, Volkswagen today revealed the ID.4 crossover.

With the small SUV packaging modern car buyers can't seem to get enough of, a bright, modern look, available all- and rear-wheel drive options, and pricing set to dip into the low NZ $45s after tax breaks, the ID.4 promises to be a statement vehicle, both for VW and EVs at large.

...the ID.4 has been developed with the US market top of mind. in other words, a little bulgey and overweight

VW has gone back to its rear-motor roots with the RWD launch model, affixing an AC permanent-magnet synchronous motor with 201 horsepower and 228 lb-ft of torque at the rear axle.

When the frame-mounted 12-module 82-kWh battery is fully charged, the rear-driven ID.4 1st Edition will travel up to 250 miles (400 km) on the EPA cycle, VW estimates. more than the distance between Auckland and New Plymouth.

A 302-hp all-wheel-drive model will follow the RWD to market later in 2021....

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#2574113 25-Sep-2020 11:22

Do we have an actual nz price announcement or is it via europe price and a currency conversion website....

(Queue comments like I won't buy until can drive auckland to Wellington without stopping pulling a horse float or a boat.of which I have neither currently)

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#2574134 25-Sep-2020 11:48

According to Stuff, VW is preparing to bring it to NZ late 2022 with no pricing given - so I'd assume any pricing seen is via conversion. At that point, the Model Y (the ID4's competitor) will likely have been here for a year.

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#2574254 25-Sep-2020 14:18

frankv:

This does depend on the battery life exceeding the design life of the rest of the car, since replacing the battery would be effectively impossible.

This is actually a really important point. At the moment the only thing stopping you from performing a mid-life battery replacement on any EV - even a Tesla - is the difficulty of getting your hands on the cells. If the batteries are an integral part of the structure and can no longer be removed, this might seriously impact the sustainability advantage of an EV.

However, nothing I read indicated that the cells weren't removable. As far as I can tell the only difference is that there are no vertical supports between the top and bottom plates of the cell pack, just the cells themselves, with perhaps a tweak to their outer shape to make them more amenable to being used as struts. It sounded to me like they would come out when the bottom plate was removed.

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#2574400 25-Sep-2020 16:42

SaltyNZ:

frankv:

This does depend on the battery life exceeding the design life of the rest of the car, since replacing the battery would be effectively impossible.

This is actually a really important point. At the moment the only thing stopping you from performing a mid-life battery replacement on any EV - even a Tesla - is the difficulty of getting your hands on the cells. If the batteries are an integral part of the structure and can no longer be removed, this might seriously impact the sustainability advantage of an EV.

However, nothing I read indicated that the cells weren't removable. As far as I can tell the only difference is that there are no vertical supports between the top and bottom plates of the cell pack, just the cells themselves, with perhaps a tweak to their outer shape to make them more amenable to being used as struts. It sounded to me like they would come out when the bottom plate was removed.

From my watching the stream, I thought that @frankv is correct.
It seems to me that Tesla is describing a battery structure where the top and bottom cover plates are bonded to the cylindrical cell walls. If that's not the situation, I don't see how you could get the stiffness benefits they described (being able to make a convertible as stiff as a conventional ICE sedan).

But between the 'million mile battery' and the full-circle battery material recycling system they forecast, it might not be a problem.

I must say what impressed me most was a 14% $/kwh improvement just from changing the cell format from 2170 to 4680 and going from 'tabbed' to 'tabless' construction. That is an extraordinary gain from a relatively simple change - the other changes seem a lot more complicated to engineer. And Tesla are big enough to make that a new standard for cell size!

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#2574681 26-Sep-2020 15:50

Obraik:According to Stuff, VW is preparing to bring it to NZ late 2022 with no pricing given - so I'd assume any pricing seen is via conversion. At that point, the Model Y (the ID4's competitor) will likely have been here for a year.

The video says a basic US$35k model coming in 2022.

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#2574695 26-Sep-2020 16:12

PolicyGuy:

From my watching the stream, I thought that @frankv is correct.
It seems to me that Tesla is describing a battery structure where the top and bottom cover plates are bonded to the cylindrical cell walls. If that's not the situation, I don't see how you could get the stiffness benefits they described (being able to make a convertible as stiff as a conventional ICE sedan).

But between the 'million mile battery' and the full-circle battery material recycling system they forecast, it might not be a problem.

I must say what impressed me most was a 14% $/kwh improvement just from changing the cell format from 2170 to 4680 and going from 'tabbed' to 'tabless' construction. That is an extraordinary gain from a relatively simple change - the other changes seem a lot more complicated to engineer. And Tesla are big enough to make that a new standard for cell size!

It is kind of logical that a lesser number of bigger cells would be cheaper to manufacture.

Tesla always has been some what of an outlier, using very small cells in an automotive pack. Initially they used 18650 (18mm dia x 65mm tall). They then, starting in 2017 moved to 2170 (21mm dia x70mm) cell. Anouther set upwards in size is not that surprising.

18650 are commodity cells, extremely common in (non slim) laptop batteries. My assumption is that they went this route to avoid the need for their own supply chain of a custom cell in the early days, and to allow them to take advantage of R&D breakthroughs of others as the came to market.

However they quickly got to the scale where having their own supply chain was both desirable and necessary, and as such they needed to have skin in the R&D game. My guess is that 2170 was about as far as they could alter the cell size without having to rethink and start from scratch on everything from pack design to cooling.

The 4680 (46dia x 80mm) cell is likely at the point where the pack design & cooling needs to be done from scratch. Not really an issue in 3 years time - sounds like a pack redesign to make it a load bearing part was on the cards anyway.

Should note that other EV's use much larger (rectangular or pouch cells) in the interest of cost & complexity savings (amounts other things).

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