nmdhqbc wrote:Mike4 wrote:ReformedCharacter wrote:It depends what you call marginal I suppose:
https://www.theverge.com/2020/9/22/21449238/tesla-electric-car-battery-tabless-cells-day-elon-musk
RC
None of that makes any sense to me. Claiming five times the energy capacity by fiddling with the connections seems unlikely, but claiming this makes the battery six times more powerful illustrates technical illiteracy on the part of the author. Firstly dimensional analysis is ignored, and secondly LiFePO4 batteries already have approaching zero internal resistance so can deliver power (the integral of energy) in megaWatts when attached to a suitable load, don'tcher think? Finally, I'd have thought the five-fold increase in battery capacity as stated would deliver a five-fold increase in range, not just an extra 16%.
So, I think the improvement in the connections is more likely to be bringing a 16% improvement. Granted more than marginal, but it's hardly "new battery technology" that will free us from the need to charge every 300 miles or thereabouts, yet.
The 16% range increase being mentioned in these posts are from "cell design" only. The other improvements announced make a total of 54% range increase as you can see in the diagram from the Battery day presentation. More important to me is the 56% cost reduction. Maybe they can put a bit of that cash into quality improvements...
Notwithstanding all this, Tesla are still making incremental changes to wring better performance and lower costs from existing battery technology (LiFePO4) as opposed to implementing a new battery technology, e.g. aluminium air or something else that hasn't been around already for 30 years - which is the statement I was taking issue with.