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Issue #4 Battery Day Breakdown, What is L5?, and more...

Sep 28, 2020

Battery Day Breakdown

Battery Day held Tuesday Sept 22n’d left the internet in a world of excitement and controversy. Tesla fans and EV enthusiasts were intrigued by the new battery technology setting the pace for EV makers world wide, along with news of manufacturing efficiency efforts, and of the upcoming Tesla Model S Plaid. At the same time Wall St and short term shareholders were disappointed by the lack of tangible products and production promises.

To summarize the event, Tesla’s Drew Balingo and Elon Musk demonstrated the new tabless cell design which shortens the distance of electron travel in the cell while increasing vehicle range. Following the cell demo, we see that Tesla has found a way to cut cell costs by mining lithium here in the states and by using other higher performing cell materials at a reduced rate. According to Musk there is a bountiful supply of lithium deposits here in the states to solve the cell material issue and to convert every car in the US to electric.

Read Kyle Field’s Clean Technica article for more on the 4680 cell construction strategy.

Tesla discussed in detail their new single piece alloy casting design, which consists of a front and rear section of the vehicle. This design will hold the new cell technology making it part of the vehicles core infrastructure and will provide it with extra strength and support, while improving the vehicles handling due to the placement of the cell.

For more on Tesla’s new casting design see Tesmanian’s article by Eva Fox here.

Towards the end of the event we got a sneak peek of the Model S Plaid with an insane 0-60 time of less than 2 seconds and a whopping range of 520+ miles, it held a track time at the Laguna Seca track in California of 1.30.3 minutes. This model will be available in late 2021 with pricing starting at $139,990. Last but not least, Musk talked about continuing to pursue Tesla’s goal of building a $25,000 car by halving the kilowatt per hour cost by utilizing the new cell technology.

Read more about Model S Plaid in Fred Lambert’s article for Electrek

My take on the event is that Tesla has a working strategy in building the machines to make the cars and as they do the same for cell production, they will be miles ahead of their competitors. What Tesla is doing with this is increasing the range of their vehicles by 54% and reducing the cost of kilowatt hours by 56%, which will allow them to churn out more cars at a lower cost with an overall investment rate of 69% per kilowatt hour reduction. I believe we will continue to see exponential growth from this great company.

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Top 5 Global 0-60MPH EV Times

A quick look at 2020’s top 5 EV take off times show that Tesla and Porsche hold the highest 0-60mph time records this year. The interesting part is that all but 1 car on this list are road legal passenger cars. See the rest of the list here.

What is L5 Autonomy?

Level 5 autonomy better known has L5, is a vehicle’s ability to depend on an AI to navigate itself. When driving through the city there are a number of things that we pay attention to in order to stay safe, for instance we respond to stop lights/signs, oncoming traffic, other cars turning, objects in the road, pedestrians, and a lot more. As technology gets more advanced AI’s are getting smarter through exercising deep learning principles and are developing the ability to do this without our help.

At the moment there are several companies spending billions on this research to create vehicles that will no longer require a driver. Tesla is a manufacturer that is coming close to a vehicle with this ability. A Tesla has the ability to be summoned through a parking lot and can also be driven in a mode Tesla calls “Autopilot”, where the driver must maintain hands on the wheel, the car can steer, accelerate, brake, and even park itself. But the technology isn’t yet advanced enough to utilize the L5 concept. As time goes on we will see L5 become commonplace in transportation, for now it is till undergoing major experimentation.

California Aiming for all EV’s by 2035

Last week Governer Newsom of California issued an executive order that would ban the sale of light duty vehicles powered by gasoline or diesel by 2035. Another ban like this will be put in place for heavy duty trucks by 2045. Statistics show that fossil fuel driven vehicles are responsible for over have of the carbon pollution in California.

This is a step in the right direction to building sustainable transportation, however the argument that comes into play is the cost of electric vehicles. To solve this issue the state of California is laying the ground work in building a more pedestrian friendly infrastructure. By 2035 I expect we should see a huge advancement in EV technology and much lower costs on EV’s. I feel like a 15 year conversion plan seems very doable and hopefully other states begin to consider doing the same.

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