7 ms·

Hopefully it'll be easy to repair. I'd hate to replace entire chassis because of light collision.

gmueckl 6y ago
If your fender bender short-circuited your battery and ignited it, you might need a wee bit more than just a new chassis. (This is not a claim that the batteries described in the article are a fire hazard - I don't know)
- bbarnett 6y ago
  A mechanic working on a car, with enough juice to fry him, and no way to separate the battery from car? I guess a full discharge first. But what about your accident, and the jaws of life? Will they conduct? Will the wrenched apart car have conductive edges?
  - shadowgovt 6y ago
    Interestingly, these are actual concerns that firefighters have regarding both Teslas and self-driving cars. The relevant companies put out explainers and training videos on how to do a rescue in these vehicles. In the Teslas, the power system is shunted through a single disconnect point... Cutting that line isolates the battery from the rest of the vehicle. In Waymo cars, firefighters needed to be made aware that high-power electrical conduit and liquid cooling channels go up through the pillars, which are usually empty of energized components or contain only low-power channels (for things like overhead lights).
    - bmurphy1976 6y ago
      That's interesting. I never considered this to be a problem but it makes sense. This could be quite challenging if every car manufacturer does something different, but I suspect over time just like with ICE cars they'll iterate towards some local optimum and things start to be very similar.
      - omegaworks 6y ago
        >I suspect over time just like with ICE cars they'll iterate towards some local optimum and things start to be very similar. This doesn't happen organically. Manufacturers were happily iterating toward a different optimum before regulation forced their hands. https://www.nytimes.com/2015/11/27/automobiles/50-years-ago-unsafe-at-any-speed-shook-the-auto-world.html https://www.nytimes.com/2015/11/27/automobiles/50-years-ago-...
        bmurphy1976 6y ago
        That's not really what I mean though. I'm well aware that without regulations short term incentives and optimization can lead to bad outcomes. What I mean is something along the lines convergent evolution where certain designs keep re-appearing because they just work better than the rest.
  - elihu 6y ago
    That's pretty much the status quo for EVs now; the batteries are hundreds of volts and you can't easily remove it. Draining it isn't an option either, as it damages the battery to be fully discharged. So, you have to work on the car with a live voltage source present. I'm not sure if most modern EVs have manual disconnect switches on the main power cables where they meet the batteries or if you're just expected to wear rubber gloves and use non-conducting wrenches to unbolt the cables. I'd expect any modern EV will at least have contactors to connect the battery to the motor controller (these are basically electrically actuated switches, like a mechanical relay), which will be disabled when the car is off. In general, though, I'd expect the main power cables to be something that doesn't need maintenance and mechanics can generally steer clear of.
- elihu 6y ago
  In the article, they say they're using a lithium iron phosphate chemistry. Those tend to be pretty safe. Or at least as safe as you can reasonably expect anything to be that can dump hundreds of amps across a closed circuit.
Frost1x 6y ago
My thoughts exactly. Load bearing structures tend to be permanent or not frequently changed (on the order of decades). Now someone wants to place a battery in that structure? I hope they develop a mechanism that allows exchange of the battery and can bear load without the battery with some sort of mechanical movement that can shift the load to a more permanent structure (not that this is necessarily a good idea either but proposing an option). Or, perhaps the battery never needs changed, and by that I mean the life of the product lasts as long as it would with a replaceable battery. They can't just redefine the life of the product as the life of the battery to get around this (unless the life if the product was already defined by the life of the battery for a long time before).
- accountofme 6y ago
  How about the structural problems with composites that occur with use ... Fractures from normal wear and tear (over years) in a composites will lead to catastrophic failure of the part
ud_0 6y ago
Repairability is guaranteed to be impossible if you have that level of integration, and I suspect that is a big part of the motivation behind adopting this.
- duckfang 6y ago
  Indeed. And having worked with a wide variety of batteries.... I would hate to see a 'load bearing battery under torsional stress'. Just ow.
  - stainforth 6y ago
    Explosion?
woah 6y ago
If you damage carbon fiber you generally won’t be repairing it. This doesn’t sound like it will be a very big limitation for similar use cases.
- hasmolo 6y ago
  carbon fiber repair is definitely a thing. i’ve had a few carbon bike frames break and had them repaired without any issues. there’s a few places that specialize in this
  - Gravityloss 6y ago
    Many ultramodern carbon fiber processes don't use an autoclave so one might be able to do production grade repairs in-place.
stjohnswarts 6y ago
I would like a very simple electric car, simple motor(s), simple electronics to repair, no GPS or phone home necessary (I want to download on my time, send me a text/email/whatever about critical downloads). I want something easy and cheap to repair, have the simplicity of electric motors, and run 20 years with very little maintenance. I don't 30 computers running on my computer. I just want to get from A to B and it not cost me 80-100k for a decent electric vehicle. Tesla and others are overengineered for what they do and that complexity adds to failure rate and cost of ownership.
- Afton 6y ago
  Aren't you describing a Nissan Leaf? I can't really speak to the repairability, because even though I've had it 2 years, I haven't had to do anything but charge it. Oh, once I had to put more air in the tires. Great little car, with about a 70 mile range on my 2017 model.
- waiseristy 6y ago
  You're not going to get around the 5-10 computers required for basic 21st century automotive safety. But, the rest of what you are describing is the status-quo for quite a few Chinese 'budget' brands. I'm betting once EVs start making their way into fleets, you'll find your 300k mile, low maintenance, minimal electronics American/German brand.
- elihu 6y ago
  One way to get what you're asking for is to do a conversion (or pay someone else to do it, or buy one that someone is selling). I'm in the middle of converting a Mazda RX-8. Just got the motor/clutch/transmission assembly (mostly) in place last weekend. It's kind of fun, but it's also a lot of work. It seems like a tremendously inefficient way to get the car I want: electric, no phone-home or over-the-air update capability, ability to control how everything works, easy to fix, manual transmission, modern safety features. I thought about buying a Model 3, but decided it was a lot of money for something that wasn't quite what I want. 200+ mile range would have been nice though; it's hard to get that in a conversion without making it unreasonably heavy.

If your fender bender short-circuited your battery and ignited it, you might need a wee bit more than just a new chassis. (This is not a claim that the batteries described in the article are a fire hazard - I don't know)

bbarnett 6y ago
A mechanic working on a car, with enough juice to fry him, and no way to separate the battery from car? I guess a full discharge first. But what about your accident, and the jaws of life? Will they conduct? Will the wrenched apart car have conductive edges?
- shadowgovt 6y ago
  Interestingly, these are actual concerns that firefighters have regarding both Teslas and self-driving cars. The relevant companies put out explainers and training videos on how to do a rescue in these vehicles. In the Teslas, the power system is shunted through a single disconnect point... Cutting that line isolates the battery from the rest of the vehicle. In Waymo cars, firefighters needed to be made aware that high-power electrical conduit and liquid cooling channels go up through the pillars, which are usually empty of energized components or contain only low-power channels (for things like overhead lights).
  - bmurphy1976 6y ago
    That's interesting. I never considered this to be a problem but it makes sense. This could be quite challenging if every car manufacturer does something different, but I suspect over time just like with ICE cars they'll iterate towards some local optimum and things start to be very similar.
    - omegaworks 6y ago
      >I suspect over time just like with ICE cars they'll iterate towards some local optimum and things start to be very similar. This doesn't happen organically. Manufacturers were happily iterating toward a different optimum before regulation forced their hands. https://www.nytimes.com/2015/11/27/automobiles/50-years-ago-unsafe-at-any-speed-shook-the-auto-world.html https://www.nytimes.com/2015/11/27/automobiles/50-years-ago-...
      - bmurphy1976 6y ago
        That's not really what I mean though. I'm well aware that without regulations short term incentives and optimization can lead to bad outcomes. What I mean is something along the lines convergent evolution where certain designs keep re-appearing because they just work better than the rest.
- elihu 6y ago
  That's pretty much the status quo for EVs now; the batteries are hundreds of volts and you can't easily remove it. Draining it isn't an option either, as it damages the battery to be fully discharged. So, you have to work on the car with a live voltage source present. I'm not sure if most modern EVs have manual disconnect switches on the main power cables where they meet the batteries or if you're just expected to wear rubber gloves and use non-conducting wrenches to unbolt the cables. I'd expect any modern EV will at least have contactors to connect the battery to the motor controller (these are basically electrically actuated switches, like a mechanical relay), which will be disabled when the car is off. In general, though, I'd expect the main power cables to be something that doesn't need maintenance and mechanics can generally steer clear of.
elihu 6y ago
In the article, they say they're using a lithium iron phosphate chemistry. Those tend to be pretty safe. Or at least as safe as you can reasonably expect anything to be that can dump hundreds of amps across a closed circuit.

Frost1x 6y ago

My thoughts exactly. Load bearing structures tend to be permanent or not frequently changed (on the order of decades). Now someone wants to place a battery in that structure? I hope they develop a mechanism that allows exchange of the battery and can bear load without the battery with some sort of mechanical movement that can shift the load to a more permanent structure (not that this is necessarily a good idea either but proposing an option). Or, perhaps the battery never needs changed, and by that I mean the life of the product lasts as long as it would with a replaceable battery. They can't just redefine the life of the product as the life of the battery to get around this (unless the life if the product was already defined by the life of the battery for a long time before).

accountofme 6y ago
How about the structural problems with composites that occur with use ... Fractures from normal wear and tear (over years) in a composites will lead to catastrophic failure of the part

ud_0 6y ago

Repairability is guaranteed to be impossible if you have that level of integration, and I suspect that is a big part of the motivation behind adopting this.

duckfang 6y ago
Indeed. And having worked with a wide variety of batteries.... I would hate to see a 'load bearing battery under torsional stress'. Just ow.
- stainforth 6y ago
  Explosion?

woah 6y ago

If you damage carbon fiber you generally won’t be repairing it. This doesn’t sound like it will be a very big limitation for similar use cases.

hasmolo 6y ago
carbon fiber repair is definitely a thing. i’ve had a few carbon bike frames break and had them repaired without any issues. there’s a few places that specialize in this
- Gravityloss 6y ago
  Many ultramodern carbon fiber processes don't use an autoclave so one might be able to do production grade repairs in-place.

stjohnswarts 6y ago

I would like a very simple electric car, simple motor(s), simple electronics to repair, no GPS or phone home necessary (I want to download on my time, send me a text/email/whatever about critical downloads). I want something easy and cheap to repair, have the simplicity of electric motors, and run 20 years with very little maintenance. I don't 30 computers running on my computer. I just want to get from A to B and it not cost me 80-100k for a decent electric vehicle. Tesla and others are overengineered for what they do and that complexity adds to failure rate and cost of ownership.

Afton 6y ago
Aren't you describing a Nissan Leaf? I can't really speak to the repairability, because even though I've had it 2 years, I haven't had to do anything but charge it. Oh, once I had to put more air in the tires. Great little car, with about a 70 mile range on my 2017 model.
waiseristy 6y ago
You're not going to get around the 5-10 computers required for basic 21st century automotive safety. But, the rest of what you are describing is the status-quo for quite a few Chinese 'budget' brands. I'm betting once EVs start making their way into fleets, you'll find your 300k mile, low maintenance, minimal electronics American/German brand.
elihu 6y ago
One way to get what you're asking for is to do a conversion (or pay someone else to do it, or buy one that someone is selling). I'm in the middle of converting a Mazda RX-8. Just got the motor/clutch/transmission assembly (mostly) in place last weekend. It's kind of fun, but it's also a lot of work. It seems like a tremendously inefficient way to get the car I want: electric, no phone-home or over-the-air update capability, ability to control how everything works, easy to fix, manual transmission, modern safety features. I thought about buying a Model 3, but decided it was a lot of money for something that wasn't quite what I want. 200+ mile range would have been nice though; it's hard to get that in a conversion without making it unreasonably heavy.