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Can anyone explain (or hazard a guess) why Tesla uses cylindrical cells verses the 'scalloped potatoes' approach of Apple's newer laptops?
by ethagknight 10y ago
Can anyone explain (or hazard a guess) why Tesla uses cylindrical cells verses the 'scalloped potatoes' approach of Apple's newer laptops?
- lykron 10y agoCheaper to buy standardized cells at scale, due to production capacity?
- lsaferite 10y agoWith the giga-factory coming online I wonder if that will change the equation in favor of flat cells instead.
- MR4D 10y agoMy understanding is that the sheer size of Tesla's battery pack is too large to take a layered approach - at least across the whole size. That forces the designers to go with a segmented approach, in which case the cylindrical is tried and true. From a safety perspective, it also has many more years of data/research behind it. It would be more tolerant to defects. Trying to create small sheets that are then rolled up is easier than creating big sheets, just like smaller silicon processors have better production rates than ones of equal complexity but larger surface area.
- URSpider94 10y agoFlat cells are great if you're trying to build a flat product, where z space is much more critical than x and y. However, flat cells have an unfavorable effect on specific capacity (both weight and volume) since you need two flat sheets to package the display top and bottom, sandwiching a relatively thin active cell, instead of a single cylindrical package wrapped around a larger volume.
- neolefty 10y agoIn another comment [1] in this thread, owenversteeg says that Tesla batteries are not space-constrained, but rather weight-constrained, and that the cylindrical shape is only suboptimal in its space efficiency, not any other important design parameters. [1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13482273 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13482273