The science and technology of vastly better batteries can be very confusing. Lithium Metal and hybrid lithium batteries and many other battery chemistries. Nextbigfuture simplifies it. The batteries are getting a lot better and the technologies pursued by Tesla will be mass-produced in larger quantities and lower cost than current batteries. The batteries are improving faster than analysts have predicted in the past and improved batteries are not fully included in estimates of total terawatt-hours of battery production in 2030. The estimates of battery production are based on capacities of battery factories based upon current technology.
What does this mean?
Batteries will get over four times better in energy density and costs. Instead of 30-40% of new vehicles becoming electric by 2030, there will be 100% of new vehicles becoming electric before 2030. The performance and specifications will not just match combustion gas cars but will be vastly better.
The battery performance will be so good that new applications like large passenger planes will become electric with superior range. However, these projects for adapting and creating new technology that is borderline feasible will take longer.
Electric cars, bikes, buses and trucks are already being commercialized. There are already dozens of battery gigafactories. Some of gigafactories are Tesla and some are CATL, LG, Panasonic and others. There will be dozens of terawatt hour battery factories.
The Battery Technology
There is interesting new lithium metal and hybrid lithium metal battery technology from researchers allied with Tesla. These batteries could two to ten times the energy density of current lithium ion batteries. They could have 500 watt hours per kilogram to 2600 watt-hours per kilogram. There are also massive gains and improvements from changing the anode or having batteries that work without anodes. Tesla filed a patent for lithium metal batteries with anode-free cells. This has 75 charging cycles but could attain 2600 watt-hours per kilogram.
Here are the key points that I see.
These advances are primarily lithium based technologies. Previously, the advanced batteries that people imagined were lithium-sulfur or solid state batteries. Tesla is focusing on achieving battery gains with technologies that are more compatible with their factories and supply chain.
Tesla is spending about $1.34 billion on research and development. There does not seem to be a breakdown of how much is being spent on artificial intelligence, battery cell research and factory improvements. Tesla is spending a lot of research for critical development of improved batteries and battery management. This is likely far more than the $33 million for the DOE battery projects.
There are projections from Benchmark Minerals that lithium battery production could reach 6 terawatt-hours per year.
New Batteries with higher energy density would mean more electric vehicles with acceptable could be produced per ton of lithium. The current best drive trains and Tesla software enable 5 miles of range per kilowatt hour of battery storage.
Higher energy density can mean lighter battery packs which can convert to longer vehicle range with the same energy.
If four times the energy density batteries could be produced (over 1000 watt hours per kilogram) then this could increase the number of acceptable range vehicles that could be made with the same supply of lithium. This could mean the 2030 projection would be 24 terawatt hours of batteries per year. Let us assume that production ends up higher and the increased battery goes for utility storage and consumer applications.
This could also be combined with software, weight and drivetrain improvements that enable 8 miles of range per kilowatt hour of battery storage.
This would be 200 billion miles of electric vehicle range per year. This would be 1 billion 200 mile range vehicles or 500 million 400 mile range vehicles. However, there will be no compromise vehicles with superior range. 200 million vehicles with an average of 1000 mile range.
There are about 100 million new cars and trucks produced each year. Electric battery vehicles could replace all new vehicles even if the number of new cars and trucks per year doubled. There would be extra battery supply to replace semi trucks and buses.
The higher 1000+ watt hour per kilogram batteries would also enable highly competitive electric jet planes. The electric jet planes could fly at higher altitudes with less air resistance.
There would be electrification of trains.
SOURCES- Hyperchange, Casgain Academy, Benchmark Mineral Intelligence, Tesmanian, Cell Journal, Tesla
Written By Brian Wang, Nextbigfuture.com (Brian Wang owns shares of Tesla).
Brian Wang is a Futurist Thought Leader and a popular Science blogger with 1 million readers per month. His blog Nextbigfuture.com is ranked #1 Science News Blog. It covers many disruptive technology and trends including Space, Robotics, Artificial Intelligence, Medicine, Anti-aging Biotechnology, and Nanotechnology.
Known for identifying cutting edge technologies, he is currently a Co-Founder of a startup and fundraiser for high potential early-stage companies. He is the Head of Research for Allocations for deep technology investments and an Angel Investor at Space Angels.
A frequent speaker at corporations, he has been a TEDx speaker, a Singularity University speaker and guest at numerous interviews for radio and podcasts. He is open to public speaking and advising engagements.
Sorry for the tardy reply. WANKEL engines are notoriously inefficient converters of petrol-energy to rotary power. However, as many a Mazda RX–7 noted, the relatively tiny Wankel engine produces a rather amazing amount of engine power for its tiny size. But the mileage is pathetic. Trade-offs, not in keeping with the vision, I'm afraid.
No… mutually opposed piston ("boxer") 2 cylinder ceramic-and-graphite diesel-and-generator units seem best. Still have to work out all the engineering to make a 100,000 'mile' reliable incarnation, but I'm betting between all the world's mechanical engineering university departments, there's a win there, somewhere. Just need 25 kW output, continuous.
Even when 'on freeway', most cars rarely need more than that at-speed. This would allow very slow-but-steady recharging of the onboard battery; around town, the same mo-gen would allow for MUCH higher recharging rates. Win, win, as far as I can assess.
I'd personally love a car with a 150+ mile 'all-battery' range, AND a 100 mpg efficient zero-maintenance diesel mo-gen and 5 gallon tank of fuel. Plug in at night, say. Destination-oriented in cabin mapping and smart-planning software to decide when to burn diesel to charge, or just wait to more-efficient, more-environment-friendly at-home, or supercharge station recharging. Works for me!
⋅-⋅-⋅ Just saying, ⋅-⋅-⋅
⋅-=≡ GoatGuy ✓ ≡=-⋅
Perhaps you are superficially right. Consider though the more nuanced ramifications of what I actually wrote in the 3 or 4 posts, above. The blocks put forth a quad of absolutely 'workable' alternaties, each with tradeoffs.
№ 1 — a LOT more supercharge stations, and 'universal' access to all brands of cars, at all supercharge stations. Just like petrol is universally applicable to almost-all cars.
№ 2 — Super-efficient, modestly low output hybrid 'on battery' charging. Diesel, ceramics, incredible efficiency, but not enough power to go from Sacramento to Reno on the motor-charger. So, a reasonably big battery too. 150+ miles worth.
№ 3 — MUCH larger battery capacity. 500+ miles worth. I just took the weekend trip from SF Bay area to Reno, and back. I got up there in my dinky Buick ICE car on one tank of gas, FULL to start, and 'smelling fumes' at the end. But, no fill-up anxiety… 10 minute fill-ups possible at dozens of roadside gasoline stations. Did it one shot! Woo-hoo. A much larger battery handles this exact trip.
№ 4 — Tesla's vision, Model S and 3 … 250 to 350 mile range, more than enough for almost-all drivers except for 'road trip'. Those can go find a supercharge station 'before the Sierras', and pause for a half hour or a ½ 'tank' recharge. Nice break, have lunch, relax, stretch.
Do try to come up with an objection that has more meat, could you?
⋅-⋅-⋅ Just saying, ⋅-⋅-⋅
⋅-=≡ GoatGuy ✓ ≡=-⋅
goat guy sounds like the guys who said the horseless carriage will never beat the convenience of a hayburner.
Technological progress can surprise.
Just sayin
Most people will not be regularly charging at something like a "gas station", although some will for sure. Some will be super-charger type stations which offer fast charging rates and have some amenities (like an automat-style restaurant) for people who need to wait while charging. A lot of them may be smaller stations located near shopping or restaurants so charging can be integrated into activities you would be doing anyway. I also imagine most workplaces having several charging spots for employees to use as needed. These can be free amenities for employees or they might make you swipe a card, depending on how greedy your boss is.
Not specifically related to your post, but when you mentioned “two hoses”, it made me wonder if it would be more efficient/effective to pump anolyte and catholyte (i.e. per liquid flow batteries) through hoses into the car – of course with return hoses coming back out. Still charging batteries, but delivering the energy electrochemically. Faster or slower – dunno. But the liquids might be used for cooling as well as energy delivery. Just a weird thought.
Yah, of course. Been hearing this story for some time now. My ‘spidey sense’ tingles though, at the thought of charging up cars … requiring 2 hoses, slogging in 200+ kilowatts, and nothing blowing up.
In the ‘old days’ of NiCad battery technology, the charge cycle was actually endothermic. With the first generation RC plane batteries, if you charged them up at a goodly rate, you could feel the cells getting colder. Cool! Ahem… literally.
So what did RC enthusiasts do? Charged faster and faster until the batteries overcame endothermic cooling with ohmic heating. Didn’t do any good for the life of the batteries, but boy could you kick a few amp-hours into those cells quick.
Since I don’t think there is a non-ionic fluid cooling mechanism for the cell-banks of a Tesla (model?) battery pack, I do kind of wonder whether those 200 kW are hitting the cells (assuming endothermic charging) well into their ohmic-loss region, heating the things. Perhaps rapidly.
Wouldn’t take too much heating for individual cells ‘on the edge’ to fall over the electrochemistry cliff. Fizzle, short, (and pop the per-cell fuses they have).
⋅-⋅-⋅ Just saying, ⋅-⋅-⋅
⋅-=≡ GoatGuy ✓ ≡=-⋅
First there need to be real cheap cars, do away the gizmo’s, Seccond there needs to be an infrastructure to support it, (community electric wires should be thick enough if we switch over to full electric, thats many years from now….) 3th, still you have to create all that energy …. (and be amazed how much losses there are in the comunity wire grid… i think at best you do slightly better then a normal car, however the chemical waste (batteries etc might be higer). And did we ever thought of recycling something ?…
Sure. ICE cars on-board energy a lot faster. And less efficient EVs will get less MPH recharging. And ICE cars refuel at 0 mph overnight in the garage, infinitely slower than an EV – but so what?
Zippy was saying it’d take 4 hours to load 400miles of range, and my point was that if we’re looking roughly 10 years out and at long-range (e.g. interstate) driving, that shouldn’t be the case.
Even for a loaded Model S, charging enough to drive 300 miles should typically take well under an hour on a V3 supercharger. Especially if you don’t insist on pointlessly over-charging when you have reliable trip-charge estimation software telling you that you only need 300miles of range (route-adjusted) to get home AND there’s a charging station along the way just in case the software turns out to be wrong, AND you know you will charge faster if you don’t charge much beyond what you’ll need.
I feel like your scenarios mostly go away with a high enough battery capacity. It’s a problem for a 200 mile car, but for a 500 mile car, I could drive around job sites through the working day and still have 350 miles to hit the road with right after work. Unless I’m driving when I should be sleeping, it’s not an issue. The only people who exceed 200 miles in a working day, even a killer day, are people in a specialty job. They know who they are and can invest in an ICE.
But… if I imagine I hit the road immediately after work for hours and then stay at a hotel without a charger, any average Joe is in trouble. Everyone at the hotel is going to hit the same supercharger by the breakfast joint, and it had better be ready for the demand surge.
Or maybe I visit the folks for a holiday, and they only have two chargers for their cars. They’ve got little economy cars with small ranges and were busy driving all day.
Yeah, I need a turbo switch so I can override the economy mode and get a little juice while I’m loading my car after work, and I call dad and tell him to hit turbo too so that when I get in at midnight we can swap spots in his charger. Of course, it’s also a major holiday and millions of people are all hitting the turbo button at the same time, so I hope the grid is ready for that, and we all know not everyone is responsible enough to call dad ahead of time.
Still… I think we’d manage it. A few growing pains.
Predictions are difficult; especially about the future. This is just a lot of speculation masquerading as facts. We’ll get there in the future, just not how everyone expects.
Your scenario is not typical. My suggestion would be to keep buying ICE vehicles.
I think with option No. 1 & going over mountains I would want to tell a small on board computer where I am going that day so it can look up the elevation gains & losses & run the generator accordingly. Eg; I start from somewhere British Columbia & head east to Calgary, on the Trans Canada. When I leave Golden (800 m a.s.l.) I want the battery charged enough to climb to the the top of Kicking Horse Pass (1600 m a.s.l about 80 km eastward) at 100 km/h with the generator running. So the computer would know to run that generator as I am coming down from Rogers pass even though it is not needed to keep me going 100 km/h while going downhill. That sort of smart charging would reduce the needed battery size.
There is an interesting case point, for people leasing an EV or using a share service, the lease includes access to a roaming recharger truck network that can roll up to publically accessible parking spots and use a power tentacle robot arm to recharge on-site. How far can you automate that is the rub though (self driving includes self parking, so positioning the truck shouldn’t be terrible, same with the robot arm benefiting from self driving related sensor packages).
From a quick check of their income statement at Yahoo Finance, they’re losing about $800M per year. Given their annual R&D of $1.34B, they’re actually profitable before R&D expense. Building a commanding technology lead is almost certainly worth the short-term losses.
One thing that worries me even more: there are already queues
at gas stations when refilling is a matter of seconds.
What will happen when everybody has an EV, not a small minority,
since recharging is always a matter of minutes?
That’s me you speak of. I have the used, fully electric car already. That’s my daily driver. I also have three (currently) vintage sports cars in my stable. These are my adult toys. And I’m not even close to being an AARP card carrying member.
100cc Wankel engine. Or steam engine with ceramic cylinders and
steam as lubricant.
Do you, your friends, your neighbors, your relatives, everyone you know…all head out in the morning at the extact same time to fill up your gas tanks, whether you need it or not?
No you don’t.
We’re all content to go about our business with a 3/4 or 1/4 tank of gas and not worry about it until we need it. Electric cars are no different. Charging will take place mostly at night, when it’s cheap and other energy consuming endeavors are dormant. And like gas cars, we all won’t feel the need to leave home with a ‘full’ tank, everyone morning. So not *everyone* will be pulling from the grid at the same time.
People said the same thing about Amazon before their stock popped off. Amazon “never made money” on books, but here we are xD
We’re basically at the point where “Trans-Nats” and megacorps have overtaken countries and are all powerful, BladeRunner style.
You should also realize that Wall Street has a love affair with any company that is heavy into automation (not paying labor), Amazon and Tesla are at the forefront of automation. Tesla uses far less labor hours per car than any other car producer, Wall Street is in love with that automation. (No future pensions / healthcare costs is the big one)
Even in the hybrid-rechargeable car concept, there are 2 forks of reasoning.
№ 1 — very limited output turbo-diesel charger.
№ 2 — competent “prius grade” motor
№ 1 — all the efficiency virtues of constant RPM motor, high diesel compression, probably ceramic pistons and cylinder liners, to minimize gas-to-motor heat transfer. Likely ‘straight’ fuel-to-power conversion on the order of 100 MPG. The limitation being “good enough to continuously recharge battery stack while cruising, but pretty useless for acceleration or climbing mountain ranges”. The battery obviously would have to be sized accordingly. Whatever needed to climb the Sierras, as well as one’s nominal day-to-day commute requirements. 150 miles? Probably.
The second tho’ deals with all that by having a larger, heavier, less optimized motor with a much wider power band … and capable of getting the vehicle “over the mountain” entirely on its own. Prius. Prius with a much larger “commute optimized” battery.
Dunno. I like № 1. Emphasis on battery range, competence in the mountains, and the smallest, lightest weight, ultra-reliable recharging generator possible. Maybe a 3 gallon fuel tank. Maybe! 10ℓ !!! 10 to 20 horses. 100 cc engine, 2 cylinders, mutually opposed (boxer), for no vibrations. Dry graphite and ceramics for lubrication and anti-heat transfer. And zero maintenance for 100,000 miles. no catalytic converters.
Anyway,
⋅-⋅-⋅ Just saying, ⋅-⋅-⋅
⋅-=≡ GoatGuy ✓ ≡=-⋅
Yes with central dispatching the problem goes away entirely. Americans aren’t exactly amenable to those sorts of arrangements however. So more distributed grid batteries will have to be relied on.
Easily, yes. If batteries really become that cheap then having an extra grid connected pack is easily done – whether in the house or sized for a neighborhood. Total electricity energy demand would go up around 25%, which is also easily covered.
We are in a virtuous cycle. Increase battery production and sale provide increase R&D money to improve performance and lower cost, which leads to greater production and sale.
Almost all new motor vehicles will be electric by 2030. There will be a few old timers still driving model “T” cars burning gasoline to local car shows to show off.
“The battery performance will be so good that new applications like large passenger planes will become electric with superior range.”
Umm really? Show your work please.
Can anyone point me to something that explains what could possibly be meant by “anode free battery”?
That’s why I tend to think plug in hybrid is the way to go. Then most in city driving is on the battery, but you can still refill on a liquid fuel when you are going farther in a day than usual.
The biggest problem (alluded to in my other comments here) is that 90% of the time, our cars might sit all day in the communal parking lot, quite modestly sipping recharge juice at the best cost/efficiency rate, and no one would be the wiser.
10% of the time, the cars’ drivers have a real need to hop back in the car soon after getting to work, and zooming off to someplace else. More for some commuters, less for others. Averages are averages tho!
I suppose if one could just ‘tell the car’ of the heightened need-for-a-full-charge expectation, things would mostly work themselves out. OR (as today), if there number of super-duper recharge stations was at least as many as needed to competently service the last-minute partial-recharge need, again … buzzing to a SC and getting a 5 minute top-off might do the trick for almost all city-bound workers. Seriously, it would.
But that means a lot of 180+ kW charging kiosks.
And lots of cars capable of not being blown up when getting that energy density.
And a strengthened grid, to handle the peaking load.
All probably doable.
But not there, today.
⋅-=≡ GoatGuy ✓ ≡=-⋅
Nice. Except for us Tech Geeks, though, no “one at home” will be doing any assessments of the sort you envision. Ploy out the scripts:
№ 1 — Bliss comes home after a long day at work. She plugs in the snake and thinks no more about it. Won’t need it until the morning, 95% of the time.
№ 2 — Rocky has a full-day of driving around for meetings. He expects a full charge to cover it, but its a REALLY cold day, and the car heater is on full blast. His jalopy only nets 2 mi/kWh. About half-way thru the day, the fill-gauge is blinking red… Yep, Rocky has to get a significant charge! Same conditions for everyone. The car’s software helpfully finds a supercharge station 20 minutes off course. WTF!!!
№ 3 — Ping needs to shuttle her kids all over the place. Frikkin’ scorcher of a day, so lots of A/C to keep the interior of the eSUV cool. Like the million-mom army around her, everyone suffering the same 2 mi/kWh malady. Well, maybe 75 mi in 5 minutes is satisfactory! Where’s the super-duper-hyper-mega-colossal charger? 20 minutes away? NO WAY! WTF!
________________________________________
Even № 1 has a 5% need for “please recharge my car as quickly as possible, because I’m going after dinner to see my Mom and Dad, an hour away” likelihood.
Unless there’s a way to “tell the car” that, its software won’t be alerted to maximally step up non-cost-optimized charging.
See the problem?
⋅-=≡ GoatGuy ✓ ≡=-⋅
Seldom have wiser words been uttered.
The big question I have is, if you are driving like a maniac in a simulation of reality, should the virtual constables be handing out driving violations to the protoplasm bags that embody your simulation?
Erk, erk … ahem… who are you?
Sign here, sir. Your appearance before the Judge is set for August 23rd, 2 pm, blah blah blah.
Y’know what I mean?
⋅-=≡ GoatGuy ✓ ≡=-⋅
So, this is aimed mostly at Mr. Wang.
Batteries, batteries everywhere! Got it!
LITHIUM — Supply-side economics tho’ demands at least looking at whether the world-supply of lithium is up to meeting the huge increase in demand (let’s say it can). But there are other critical substances involved beyond limited supply lithium.
NEODYMIUM — then there are the permanent-super-magnet synchronous motors, to propel the cars / trucks / whatevers. How is the world-supply of this critical material holding up? Will its mining-refining-alloying-and-production be able to scale with the demand for new cars, trucks, busses and so on? Remember that Dear China has worked assiduously for the last 30 years cornering and monopolizing this very limited world resource. How’s that going to play out?
TANTALUM — already in short supply, and still critical for the manufacture of the itsy-bitsy capacitors that convert DC to AC (for the PMSMs above), and again, already under increasing world scrutiny due to it, and COBALT and NIOBIUM and other quite rare ore-minerals being dug from the ground in Congo by slave-child-labor … how is these resources going to scale?
I’m just pointing this out, because the availability of higher energy-density and higher real-capacity batteries, while apparently having a rosy future, also demonstrates a supply-chain problem for the industry as a whole. Of other stuff.
⋅-=≡ GoatGuy ✓ ≡=-⋅
“75 mi in 5 min”, is the same as “75 mi in ⁵⁄₆₀ hr”, which is the same as 75 × 60 ÷ 5 → 900 MPH … charging rate. Keep that in mind. 900 MPH.
The “up to” 75 miles is for a no-passenger Model 3 with high-pressurized tires on flat land cruising, which this article says Tesla is delivering 5 miles per kilowatt hour. Tesla’s Model S sedan, only gets 3 miles per kWh. Much heavier car, larger, wider tires at lower pressure. The Model S tho’ is NOT “inefficient”, per se. In physics, more-mass makes for more-power and more-energy to push it a given distance and speed. Frontal area and tire resistance. Big.
No matter tho! 900 MPH charge rate.
Comparing oranges-to-oranges, for an equally light weight, optimized ICE car getting nominally 45 MPG on the same flat-track, constant speed, no passenger cruise, well … I timed it just yesterday. The 12.5 gallons needed to fill the tank (550 mile range) was pumped in exactly 2.7 minutes. 550 mi • (60 ÷ 2.7) → 12,200 MPH.
How about that! Gasoline recharges at well over MACH 18, compared to Tesla’s best yet, at just over Mach 1.6. (Hey, it may seem like mixed metaphors, but the numbers ARE comparable!)
Run-of-the-mill gasoline pumps have a 12× to 15× advantage, today, over the most exotic electricity delivery systems yet presented. Today.
Change that, and everything becomes possible.
⋅-⋅-⋅ Just saying, ⋅-⋅-⋅
⋅-=≡ GoatGuy ✓ ≡=-⋅
I am curious when Tesla will be profitable. Never made a dime yet the stawk is going for $1544. Step right up.
Norway is a coastal mountain range where the prevailing winds blow the sea air up until it rains (or snows) at high altitude. As the water flows back down they are able to generate electricity from it. The country’s ability to generate electricity cheaply (and greenly) make it an edge case, rather than a vanguard in this discussion.
I agree with future of electric cars but I think that the electricity will more likely be produced onboard than from storage.
More than half of new cars sales in Norway are electric. Electric upgrades are expected to cost $1.3B through 2040, if everyone just charges when they get home.
$1.3B over 20 years over 5 million people = $12 per year per person to pay for the upgrades, if all costs were paid upfront, not finances.
Or next to nothing, if they manage charging times. There are lots of easy ways to manage charging, lots of companies already deploying systems that do it.
https://www.reuters.com/article/us-norway-autos-electric-power/electric-vehicle-push-in-norway-could-add-1-3-billion-to-power-bills-by-2040-study-idUSKCN1T81Y0
Depends on the country. For exaple Spain has an oversized powerplant pool and grid that is able to satisfy the demand if every car is turned into electric. A problem luckily turned into a solution.
short answer would be no?
daytime charging usually needs to occur at work parking lots. Otherwise, you timeshift to night. If you try to charge at night, your previous dip in grid power demand cranks up to grid average at least, but all the nighttime power generators will love you for consuming (as that allows them run baseload unthrottled). The killer is if overnight demand exceeds
1. local line limits or susbtation limits
2. transmission line limits
3. local/remote grid capacity
it appears the base load generation capacity is partially throttled at night currently, so we have some margin there to run at full power all day and night. transmission line limits may factor in during evening consumption, but if your EV has some intelligence and can communicate with the charger and the utility, it can schedule the recharge for deep in the night when evening demand tapers off, based on knowing your regular usage schedule. But local line limits will be problematic. At least with charger-utility comms, there can be some negotiation to reduce charging rates as appropriate.
Tesla V3 superchargers are supposed to charge at “up to” 75miles in 5 minutes. Adding 400 miles would likely take under half an hour. By 2030 we might hope to see most Tesla interstate superchargers be V3.
Superchargers tend to be spaced about 150 miles or less apart on the interstates. So if you added just 300 miles, you’d probably have plenty to get home, but if not your car should warn you in time to stop at the supercharger half-way home. There are still some areas of interstate with wider separation, but Tesla is filling in gaps.
The point is that on days where people are mostly at home during the day (Saturday and Sunday), the grid will handle the air conditioning load. Therefore, it would handle a similarly-sized load of recharging cars.
That being said, there will probably be places where the network won’t handle it, then the electric company gets to send some dude to fix up a road transformer until the current capacity is up to code. And also I highly doubt that people will throw away their ICE cars before 2030; it’s possible that 100% of new cars being sold will be electric, but it will be fifty years before it is rare to see a gasoline car on the road.
I agree that this technology has absolutely disturbing implications for human freedom.
I also doubt 100% adoption so quickly.
In non-coronavirus times, not a lot of people are home during the day, are they? I expect those air conditioners in every home (every?) are not running when people are not home. So I wonder how instructive that comparison is.
Leave it to the free market, and the problem vanishes. Let the price per kWh reflect the price to generate, and deliver it on a second to second basis. Give the customer(his computers) continuously updated pricing information, as well as a pricing forecast. Pretty soon, customers will look to the supply/demand curve to decide when to charge their car/home batteries, and at what price points.
Poof, problem vanishes, paid for by those who will not adapt to the needs of others, which is what a market is. Gotta love Ludwig Von MIses.
Batteries this cheap in terms of $/kWh, whether lithium, or sodium ion would destroy the legacy utility business model. As the smart money started buying their own generating capacity, the utilities rates would need to go higher as they lost customers. This positive feedback loop would soon result in the same situation you see now with landline phone service, but more so.
It can’t come too soon for me, but then, I won’t have any problem sizing, installing, and maintaining panels, battery banks, and inverters unlike the unlearned majority. The average electrician, or electrical contractor will need to learn a lot to handle this. At some point, it will be impossible to maintain transmission infrastructure to rural areas, and small towns at any reasonable rate. At least EMP, and geomagnetic storms will become less problematic.
To be fair, their Tesla Powerwall is basically a UPS for your whole house.
If an area can handle people running their air conditioners during the day, then that area’s grid should have no trouble with vehicles charging at night. A typical central air system in an American home will draw 3.5kw to 5 kw during a hot summer day. A Tesla Model X, that was driven 50 miles earlier in the day (to use a rather large vehicle & longer than average commute), would need 17.5kw-hr of electricity to top off; over say 6 hours that works out to a 2.91 kw draw. The key of course is to get everyone to have their vehicles wait until late at night to start drawing power, rather than charging as soon as they get home.
8.) Drouds.
Well OBVIOUSLY there will need to be simulated experience generators that your “mandatory for public safety” government supplied recording and tracking units are inserted into so that they think they are getting your data, but are really just getting the simulated stuff.
That should go without saying.
I mean, it’s already the case in those locations where big brother interrogates your car’s computer to find out if you’ve been a bad boy. Sensible people have the computer that goes to the good citizen tracking and recording service, and the real computer that they drive around with 364 days a year.
And then there’s the people who will happily download the brain-puter equivalent of ticktock or twitter. But some people want to be controlled and dominated, so that’s really their choice.
It becomes less an issue as capacities get higher (eg. 1000 miles), but time to re-fuel is still very important to people who aren’t confined to a big city environment…If you find yourself, 300 miles from home, with only 50 miles left “in the tank”, you aren’t going to want to wait 4 hours to add 400 miles to the batteries. Yes, I said 400 miles. Who wants to risk using more than projected, and get stranded on the highway? I wish the article had touched on this issue just a little bit, because I do think that will play a big part in whether we get near 100% adoption.
H cars are electric too.
Not without some serious upgrades. If everybody on my block had electric cars, the lines would probably catch fire. There’s a big difference between all the houses having 200 amp service, and all of them USING 200 amps at the same time.
When you stare into the internet abyss, the internet abyss stares back.
Consider that Neuralink could be used by others to read you.
We will need plenty of batteries for cars, planes, robots,… Tesla correctly wants to remove rare earth metals from its motors, batteries,… They could also improve ultracapacitors a lot.
Of course batteries are improving faster than analysts have predicted, since Tesla forced other car makers to move into electric cars and invest into battery development. Finally more money into that tech.
I am curious what Tesla will show at battery day.
But will electrical grids be able to keep up with the recharging demand?
A bit off-topic, but Elon Musk has tweeted an update for Neuralink for August 28th. He said, “If you can’t beat em, join em” is the Neuralink mission statement alluding to the goal of promoting symbiosis between humanity and AI.
Neuralink is perhaps Elon Musk’s most exciting company in the long-run. It will be many years before we start to see the full consequences of the Neuralink (if it even works out) but eventually you would have:
1.) New treatments or cure for neurological/psychiatric conditions.
2.) Cure for paralysis and blindness/deafness.
3.) Matrix-like full-immersion virtual reality.
4.) Being able to record/read memories from yourself or other people and then relive them from 1st-person POV.
5.) Even being able to record/re-experience emotions from other people.
6.) More rapid learning of skills.
7.) Perhaps a HUD-like “display” rendered over your FOV providing needed information during certain situations (like performing surgery, navigating a disaster zone, etc.)
Tesla should go after the UPS market.
Make them expandable, with existing tech using self-diagnosing hot-swappable modules.
I think they would slay APC.