3 ms·

Why are EVs considered small fish? Sure, they might have a minority of the car market, but they also have thousands of times the battery capacity of a laptop or

Why are EVs considered small fish? Sure, they might have a minority of the car market, but they also have thousands of times the battery capacity of a laptop or a smartphone.

Shivetya 10y ago
think of the sheer number of applications for batteries then just mass alone of all those supported devices should give a clue. while many longer range EVs will have 400kg or of batteries their numbers just aren't sufficient to matter; yet.
- Cthulhu_ 10y ago
  And yet, the battery production capacity is apparently nowhere near enough to supply companies like Tesla, making them become a battery manufacturer themselves. Which plays right into the parent comment - the battery business is huge, and Tesla could probably pivot from a car company to a battery / energy company easily enough. They kickstarted electric cars, the established companies are trying to catch up, but are doing so in part thanks to Tesla, their open patents, and soon enough, their hugely scaled battery manufacturing capacity.
  - Guvante 10y ago
    > the battery production capacity is apparently nowhere near enough to supply companies like Tesla All conjecture, but it could have just been a risk thing, not a capacity thing. Tesla isn't a problem, it is Tesla's ambitions that are a problem. There is sufficient supply for the Model S/X but not the Model 3 and they were likely having difficulty finding a partner willing to spin up enough production capacity for the later. If I were to hazard a guess everyone wasn't willing to take on the risk at the usual price so there was enough price difference (to cover the risk of problems) that it made sense for Tesla to spend the capital to build there own. Heck you might even be able base Tesla's expanding ideas of what to do with batteries on this. "What do we do if we can't sell the cars at the expected price point so we move fewer of them?" "Just make other products that can shore up demand". Again all baseless conjecture but depending on the quantities involved could make sense. If Tesla said "I guarantee I will by X but you need to be able to produce 5X in case I don't run into any issues" would you bite without compensation for that risk?

Why are EVs considered small fish? Sure, they might have a minority of the car market, but they also have thousands of times the battery capacity of a laptop or a smartphone.

Shivetya 10y ago

think of the sheer number of applications for batteries then just mass alone of all those supported devices should give a clue. while many longer range EVs will have 400kg or of batteries their numbers just aren't sufficient to matter; yet.

Cthulhu_ 10y ago
And yet, the battery production capacity is apparently nowhere near enough to supply companies like Tesla, making them become a battery manufacturer themselves. Which plays right into the parent comment - the battery business is huge, and Tesla could probably pivot from a car company to a battery / energy company easily enough. They kickstarted electric cars, the established companies are trying to catch up, but are doing so in part thanks to Tesla, their open patents, and soon enough, their hugely scaled battery manufacturing capacity.
- Guvante 10y ago
  > the battery production capacity is apparently nowhere near enough to supply companies like Tesla All conjecture, but it could have just been a risk thing, not a capacity thing. Tesla isn't a problem, it is Tesla's ambitions that are a problem. There is sufficient supply for the Model S/X but not the Model 3 and they were likely having difficulty finding a partner willing to spin up enough production capacity for the later. If I were to hazard a guess everyone wasn't willing to take on the risk at the usual price so there was enough price difference (to cover the risk of problems) that it made sense for Tesla to spend the capital to build there own. Heck you might even be able base Tesla's expanding ideas of what to do with batteries on this. "What do we do if we can't sell the cars at the expected price point so we move fewer of them?" "Just make other products that can shore up demand". Again all baseless conjecture but depending on the quantities involved could make sense. If Tesla said "I guarantee I will by X but you need to be able to produce 5X in case I don't run into any issues" would you bite without compensation for that risk?