8 ms·

>[Musk] hailed Tesla’s structural battery as a “revolution” in engineering—but for some battery researchers, Musk’s future looked a lot like the past. >“He’s e

by kevan 6y ago

>[Musk] hailed Tesla’s structural battery as a “revolution” in engineering—but for some battery researchers, Musk’s future looked a lot like the past. >“He’s essentially doing something that we did 10 years ago,” says Emile Greenhalgh, a materials scientist at Imperial College London Doing something under research conditions and doing it in a mass-produced commercial product are separate accomplishments. Both are important and impressive and should be celebrated.

throwaway894345 6y ago
> mass-produced commercial product To add to that, in a domain with life or death consequences.
- Animats 6y ago
  Remember how Tesla had to add a titanium skid plate to prevent battery fires caused by punctures from running over road debris? Batteries in body parts likely to be damaged in collisions would be a problem. Also, having the heavy battery down below axle height makes for a nice low center of gravity, making the vehicle much more stable.
  - KMnO4 6y ago
    That’s definitely true, but battery technology has advanced quite a bit. Cells can take a bigger beating without issue compared to early Tesla’s.
    - cellular 6y ago
      Just connect the airbag sensor to a resiStor load to dump the charge upon an impact. Pretty simple really.
      - Animats 6y ago
        Er, no. Dumping 75KWH as heat requires a big resistor bank. One of these[1] could dissipate the power from a fully charged Tesla battery in 45 minutes. That's probably about as fast as you could discharge one without it catching fire. And you'd need the battery cooling system working. [1] http://sikes-elec.com/Resistive-load-bank-450VDC-750VDC-100KW.html http://sikes-elec.com/Resistive-load-bank-450VDC-750VDC-100K...
        cellular 6y ago
        I meant for capacitor dumps.
  - ortusdux 6y ago
    My first though when I read about this was that it would be a mess for first responders. Fire depts across the country have had to retrain on how to handle electrical car fires. How are they suppose to use the jaws of life to cut someone out if the structural elements contain lithium batteries?
    - BlueTemplar 6y ago
      They wouldn't be lithium batteries, but I'm still wondering how these new kinds of batteries could safely deal with catastrophic mechanical failure without discharging all their stored energy in an explosion (or even just fire).
      - extrapickles 6y ago
        If they didn’t discharge, the frame of the car could be at 400-800 volts, making it hard to safely cut the frame to free someone from a bad wreck. These batteries would be much more useful for electric bikes/mopeds/motorcycles as they don’t have the same safety complications cars do.
        PeterisP 6y ago
        And if they did discharge, then that would unavoidably cause a fire by releasing (i.e. dumping to waste heat) a huge amount of stored energy quickly.
        ampdepolymerase 6y ago
        Depends on the circuit. Most batteries' voltage are <5 volts in default configurations. You can move the voltage boost/serial circuitry segment to the engine area. It will waste a lot of material and create redundant wiring but the overall structural voltage will be low. Low voltage does not mean it would not catch fire however.
        extrapickles 6y ago
        High voltage battery packs are required due to the power required to move a car. A 50hp engine[1] needs ~37kW which at 5 volts, that is 7,500 amps of current, which requires comically large bus bars (~200x10mm) and conversion electronics. Even at 48 volts[2], you still need ~780 amps, which still requires very large conductors. At 400 volts, for the same motor, the wiring only needs to be sized for 100 amps, which is reasonably practical (think wire found on welders). [1]: Let assume that 50hp is the max required steady state output for a motor in a passenger car, and lets ignore any peak/dynamic loads and HVAC as this is napkin engineering [2]: 48v is generally accepted as the highest voltage before you really need to know what you are doing, though at these power levels, you still should know what you are doing as things like to weld, melt, become bad motors and/or explode.
  - pdm55 6y ago
    In Australia, there are plans to manufacture batteries [1]. This is a collaboration with Cadenza, who promote their battery cells as being housed in ceramic insulation, preventing fires [2]. Here's hoping. [1] https://www.pv-magazine-australia.com/2020/10/13/energy-renaissance-lithium-ion-gigafactory-breaks-ground-in-tomago-nsw/ https://www.pv-magazine-australia.com/2020/10/13/energy-rena... [2] https://cadenzainnovation.com/technology/ https://cadenzainnovation.com/technology/
  - ChrisClark 6y ago
    It's a good thing then that the article only mentions Tesla because they aren't doing this. Tesla is not building the battery into the body, they are taking the safe way out instead. Tesla is just removing a redundant casing from around the packs.
tachyonbeam 6y ago
Having worked with a lot of researchers, in general, my experience has been that if something isn't the latest research meme/trend/buzzword, they don't give a fuck. "Something that we did 10 years ago" means they already got a publication about this idea, and that was that, they've long since moved on. Actually deploying something into the real world, effecting real change, is the hard part, but most researchers are focused on getting the next publications accepted, and only that. Not every researcher is like that, but it's a problem. The researchers I worked with, also, unfortunately, had this idea that engineering is somehow beneath science. That's just worrying about the details. They think that the idea itself is the real advancement. They think of themselves as smarter and more important than engineers, and they don't like when engineers press them on how they would actually implement their ideas into something real. Sorry if I sound cynical, it's because I am.
- BurningFrog 6y ago
  The rule in academia is "publish or perish". So the publication focused scientists are only doing what they have to.
  - tachyonbeam 6y ago
    Yeah, but I think the problem is that you get a lot of "scientists" who are only optimizing to game the system and maximize the publication count. It leads to most of the published work following very safe and boring research directions that everybody else is already working on. There is less scientific progress as a result. Contributing something that is useful and novel is often not rewarded. Risking yourself exploring a new branch of your field is very dangerous for your career. In my own biased opinion, about 90-95% of published papers are contributing nothing new to the field.
    - BurningFrog 6y ago
      Just to be clear, I agree with all that. Science, in its current institutionalized form, is starting to look pretty broken to me. It's time for something new.
shobith 6y ago
It took ~10 years for flexible screens using OLEDs to be mass producible. 10 years seems to be the norm as of now for things produced under research conditions to enter mass production/usage, are there counter examples?
- Qwertious 6y ago
  "are there counter examples?" Solar, although to be fair I'm looking at "is financially worth producing" as I'm sure they technically could be mass-produced in the 1960s if they could somehow find a buyer.

by kevan 6y ago

throwaway894345 6y ago

> mass-produced commercial product To add to that, in a domain with life or death consequences.

Animats 6y ago
Remember how Tesla had to add a titanium skid plate to prevent battery fires caused by punctures from running over road debris? Batteries in body parts likely to be damaged in collisions would be a problem. Also, having the heavy battery down below axle height makes for a nice low center of gravity, making the vehicle much more stable.
- KMnO4 6y ago
  That’s definitely true, but battery technology has advanced quite a bit. Cells can take a bigger beating without issue compared to early Tesla’s.
  - cellular 6y ago
    Just connect the airbag sensor to a resiStor load to dump the charge upon an impact. Pretty simple really.
    - Animats 6y ago
      Er, no. Dumping 75KWH as heat requires a big resistor bank. One of these[1] could dissipate the power from a fully charged Tesla battery in 45 minutes. That's probably about as fast as you could discharge one without it catching fire. And you'd need the battery cooling system working. [1] http://sikes-elec.com/Resistive-load-bank-450VDC-750VDC-100KW.html http://sikes-elec.com/Resistive-load-bank-450VDC-750VDC-100K...
      - cellular 6y ago
        I meant for capacitor dumps.
- ortusdux 6y ago
  My first though when I read about this was that it would be a mess for first responders. Fire depts across the country have had to retrain on how to handle electrical car fires. How are they suppose to use the jaws of life to cut someone out if the structural elements contain lithium batteries?
  - BlueTemplar 6y ago
    They wouldn't be lithium batteries, but I'm still wondering how these new kinds of batteries could safely deal with catastrophic mechanical failure without discharging all their stored energy in an explosion (or even just fire).
    - extrapickles 6y ago
      If they didn’t discharge, the frame of the car could be at 400-800 volts, making it hard to safely cut the frame to free someone from a bad wreck. These batteries would be much more useful for electric bikes/mopeds/motorcycles as they don’t have the same safety complications cars do.
      - PeterisP 6y ago
        And if they did discharge, then that would unavoidably cause a fire by releasing (i.e. dumping to waste heat) a huge amount of stored energy quickly.
      - ampdepolymerase 6y ago
        Depends on the circuit. Most batteries' voltage are <5 volts in default configurations. You can move the voltage boost/serial circuitry segment to the engine area. It will waste a lot of material and create redundant wiring but the overall structural voltage will be low. Low voltage does not mean it would not catch fire however.
        extrapickles 6y ago
        High voltage battery packs are required due to the power required to move a car. A 50hp engine[1] needs ~37kW which at 5 volts, that is 7,500 amps of current, which requires comically large bus bars (~200x10mm) and conversion electronics. Even at 48 volts[2], you still need ~780 amps, which still requires very large conductors. At 400 volts, for the same motor, the wiring only needs to be sized for 100 amps, which is reasonably practical (think wire found on welders). [1]: Let assume that 50hp is the max required steady state output for a motor in a passenger car, and lets ignore any peak/dynamic loads and HVAC as this is napkin engineering [2]: 48v is generally accepted as the highest voltage before you really need to know what you are doing, though at these power levels, you still should know what you are doing as things like to weld, melt, become bad motors and/or explode.
- pdm55 6y ago
  In Australia, there are plans to manufacture batteries [1]. This is a collaboration with Cadenza, who promote their battery cells as being housed in ceramic insulation, preventing fires [2]. Here's hoping. [1] https://www.pv-magazine-australia.com/2020/10/13/energy-renaissance-lithium-ion-gigafactory-breaks-ground-in-tomago-nsw/ https://www.pv-magazine-australia.com/2020/10/13/energy-rena... [2] https://cadenzainnovation.com/technology/ https://cadenzainnovation.com/technology/
- ChrisClark 6y ago
  It's a good thing then that the article only mentions Tesla because they aren't doing this. Tesla is not building the battery into the body, they are taking the safe way out instead. Tesla is just removing a redundant casing from around the packs.

tachyonbeam 6y ago

Having worked with a lot of researchers, in general, my experience has been that if something isn't the latest research meme/trend/buzzword, they don't give a fuck. "Something that we did 10 years ago" means they already got a publication about this idea, and that was that, they've long since moved on. Actually deploying something into the real world, effecting real change, is the hard part, but most researchers are focused on getting the next publications accepted, and only that. Not every researcher is like that, but it's a problem. The researchers I worked with, also, unfortunately, had this idea that engineering is somehow beneath science. That's just worrying about the details. They think that the idea itself is the real advancement. They think of themselves as smarter and more important than engineers, and they don't like when engineers press them on how they would actually implement their ideas into something real. Sorry if I sound cynical, it's because I am.

BurningFrog 6y ago
The rule in academia is "publish or perish". So the publication focused scientists are only doing what they have to.
- tachyonbeam 6y ago
  Yeah, but I think the problem is that you get a lot of "scientists" who are only optimizing to game the system and maximize the publication count. It leads to most of the published work following very safe and boring research directions that everybody else is already working on. There is less scientific progress as a result. Contributing something that is useful and novel is often not rewarded. Risking yourself exploring a new branch of your field is very dangerous for your career. In my own biased opinion, about 90-95% of published papers are contributing nothing new to the field.
  - BurningFrog 6y ago
    Just to be clear, I agree with all that. Science, in its current institutionalized form, is starting to look pretty broken to me. It's time for something new.

shobith 6y ago

It took ~10 years for flexible screens using OLEDs to be mass producible. 10 years seems to be the norm as of now for things produced under research conditions to enter mass production/usage, are there counter examples?

Qwertious 6y ago
"are there counter examples?" Solar, although to be fair I'm looking at "is financially worth producing" as I'm sure they technically could be mass-produced in the 1960s if they could somehow find a buyer.