Musk says Leaf battery primitive.

You know I hate Musk, right? I can only think of a couple of people I've ever hated more. I don't even like being in the same room as the guy.

So this is his latest douchebag comment. I don't know how a guy gluing a bunch of laptop batteries together has any room to talk primitive:

http://earth2tech.com/2010/08/05/tesla-ceo-nissans-leaf-battery-is-primitive/

Nice to see the comments tearing into the story.

I would like Tesla, in some form, to succeed...even as just Toyota's EV branch. I like the S. I would love to see what they do for a 30k car.

That said, I don't like having thousands of laptop batteries running a car. That seems old school and outdated.

But I could be wrong. Time will tell, but....

It is interesting that Tesla, who thinks their tech is superior, offers such a awful warranty.

It might be time for them to stand behind bold words and up their battery warranty to match Nissan's.

Gavin

I think the words he was looking for were elegantly simple, clever, and affordable.

AESC seems to have really thought through the challenges of building something that meets the needs of a mainstream EV.

Wonder if Sumitomo has finished sorting out battery recycling/re-deploying for LEAF.

While I get that you hate Musk, he does raise interesting points.
The battery management system in the roadster is a wonder.
Is liquid cooling superior to air cooling?
And if so, what will that mean for battery longevity?

I still find what Nissan is attempting, bringing a very reasonably priced family sedan to the market, magnificent. But is part of the trade off going to be shorter battery life?

Frankly, I would be shocked if they could make a better battery pack in a ~$30,000 vehicle than in a ~$109,000 vehicle.

Zythryn said:

While I get that you hate Musk, he does raise interesting points.
The battery management system in the roadster is a wonder.
Is liquid cooling superior to air cooling?
And if so, what will that mean for battery longevity?

Click to expand...

If the battery longevity is a question would Nissan give 8 year warranty instead of Tesla's 3 years ?

I've seen people talk about the "wonder" of Tesla's Battery pack. I've always wondered, what is the wonder ? Looks like a simple cost no object, not for mass manufacturing design to me ...

Zythryn said:

While I get that you hate Musk, he does raise interesting points.
The battery management system in the roadster is a wonder.
Is liquid cooling superior to air cooling?
And if so, what will that mean for battery longevity?

I still find what Nissan is attempting, bringing a very reasonably priced family sedan to the market, magnificent. But is part of the trade off going to be shorter battery life?

Frankly, I would be shocked if they could make a better battery pack in a ~$30,000 vehicle than in a ~$109,000 vehicle.

Click to expand...

Well...history isn't very large or long for these big battery packs in modern cars...Was the Honda EV air cooled or the Rav4? One of them was and actually had a great record. We will obviously get more information over the next number or years.

I do know that Tesla is bragging on the battery tech and yet they only warranty it for 3 years / 36,000 miles. So they either don't have a huge amount of confidence or they just think they don't have to offer more to the rich people.

If they ever do make a 30k model car, they will have to up that warranty quite a bit to compete.

Nissan seems to think their battery will last a long time...others with more knowledge than me think, that if run right, the battery should last 150,000 miles easy. That would be nice.

Gavin

As for better, well better is different for certain applications....the Tesla battery pack has a much longer range than the Nissan. And could very well work better in extreme cold and heat. That said, the Nissan is MUCH more affordable...which to my income bracket makes it much better...and it could be that the Nissan battery actually has a longer life?

In a call with shareholders and analysts on Wednesday, Musk slammed Nissan’s battery technology and said Tesla does not believe the Japanese automaker will beat the company on cost-per-kWh.

Asked during Wednesday’s call whether Tesla is seeing competitors, and specifically Nissan, drop their battery costs faster than anticipated, Musk commented that the LEAF battery pack uses a “much more primitive level of technology” compared with the sophistication of even Tesla’s first prototype.

Click to expand...

Is he comparing the Leaf battery to the upcoming S battery or the existing Tesla ? Apparently S will have the next gen battery (Lithium Nickel Cobalt Aluminum Oxide) - which would indeed be better. But then, Leaf will have NMC in next gen too ...

I believe:

1. The main wonder is that the (approx.) 6800 cells actually keep working.

2. That cell chemistry, as used, requires cooling. It is not just a lifetime-extension "niceity".

3. With insufficient cooling, then local cell heating, ... and one can easily have a "burning-cell" type disaster, I think!

4. So, getting ALL the thousands of cells (and their over-13,000 high-voltage electrical connections) sufficiently cooled, with no "too-hot" spots, is quite an accomplishment.

5. For me, a less volatile cell chemistry is "much more better" to put around my loved ones, and me.

Gavin said:

...
As for better, well better is different for certain applications....the Tesla battery pack has a much longer range than the Nissan. And could very well work better in extreme cold and heat. That said, the Nissan is MUCH more affordable...which to my income bracket makes it much better...and it could be that the Nissan battery actually has a longer life?

Click to expand...

Excellent points. And you are right, history will be the final decider.
Perhaps we should just take the companies out of the discussion. Has anyone seen research on liquid cooled vs air cooled battery packs?
My understanding is that Ni batteries were less sensitive to temperatures? With Li, does better temp control give longer battery life?
If so, does liquid cooling give better temperature control than air cooling?

I am sure the batteries themselves also play a role. One type could be more or less sensitive than another?

I just find this an interesting topic and would love to discuss the science behind it rather than the personalities

1. If you NEED to cool, and all other things being equal, liquid generally transfers much more heat than air.

2. By "Ni", perhaps you mean standard "NiMH" cells. Yes and no, better than some, worse than others ... can be said of most all cell types. Small variations in cell chemistry and cell (and battery pack) construction can make a BIG difference.

3. There are MANY different "Li" cell types, with WIDELY different properties. Generally, less extreme use and environment will give better life, with some cell types more than others. Lifetime is only one issue, "exploding" or "burning" type (safety) issues are even more important.

4. The "better" temperature control is the one that best matches the "needs" of the cells, considering how they are being used.

5. Yes, different battery cell chemistries produce different amounts of heat, and tolerate different temperatures.

It's apples and oranges. Tesla is still using cylindrical cells, which are terrible at disipating heat, while Nissan is using flat cell technology, which distributes the heat over a much larger surface area. Nissan "only" has 17 years of battery experience, while tesla is using a derivative of laptop battery design. My money is on Nissan.

This was a call to stock analysts, of course he has to bash the competition. There will be 10's of thousands of Leafs, and a handful of Teslas...

I just find this an interesting topic and would love to discuss the science behind it rather than the personalities

Click to expand...

Ha...good point...Heck I have never been in the same city as Musk, so I have nothing good or bad to say about him

I do take it that mwalsh does know him at least a little...but you are right, I would love to know more of the science....

I would love to know more about the honda vs toyota EVs...i'm almost sure one was air and one was water cooled...so that could give some insight, though once again the LI batteries are very different than the older EV1 type batteries...

And I thought Tesla needed the more aggressive cooling because laptop type batteries can catch on fire...the large cell batteries like Nissan uses, well the risk of fire is never zero with anything, but the large cell have a much less issue with spontaneous fire than the small laptop cells.

Gavin

Interesting stuff. I have to say I am impressed with the battery technology that Tesla have developed. The clever bit is the management system that strings it all together, combined with some very inexpensive battery cells. The price Tesla sell their replacement battery packs for works out at around $250/kWh, which is astonishingly low.

The construction of the Nissan battery pack is innovative and very clever. The size of each cell is relatively large - probably about twenty to thirty times the size of the cells in the Tesla. However, the mass is very low. It means that the cells should be less prone to high temperature issues which should help during heavy drain and heavy charging cycles. That's the theory, anyway.

I can believe that Tesla has the more advanced battery management system, but I would suggest that Nissan has the more innovative battery design. Two different ways to get to the same result. Which is the best? Who can say to be sure, but I think both solutions have merit and it will be interesting to see which direction electric vehicle manufacturers go in the future.

If one is concerned about the durability of the LEAF battery, you might wish to read this post on my blog.

While the topic is about the onboard charger, it refers to the six year real world use of a Nissan EV in one of the coldest climates on earth in a village of 38 with no Nissan provided maintenance. That with over 10 year old technology. I would think improvements have been made since then.

LEAFguy said:

If one is concerned about the durability of the LEAF battery, you might wish to read this post on my blog.

While the topic is about the onboard charger, it refers to the six year real world use of a Nissan EV in one of the coldest climates on earth in a village of 38 with no Nissan provided maintenance. That with over 10 year old technology. I would think improvements have been made since then.

Click to expand...

Good point, Leafguy. I think we should remember that Mr. Musk's job with Tesla at present is primarily, to function as a public relations/politician type person. His #1 goal right now is to establish a successful auto mfg company.
Otoh, I think we can safely say that Nissan is an established, successful auto mfg company. I wish Leaf all the best; but I don't understand why Mr. Musk feels the need to denigrate Nissan.

cool to see that Nissan surrounded by Norway snow...should help calm people wanting a leaf in Canada and northern US states.

Gavin

The team used the vehicle for 6 years in one of the northernmost settlements in the world. With 38 inhabitants and no Nissan dealership nearby, the Prairie received little to no maintenance. The battery performed flawlessly during this extended durability test.

Click to expand...

I would love to know more about how many miles it was run each day and all that...how many miles it had on it after the 6 years, any downtime at all? etc

I must admit, the one thing that still is a minor concern to be me about the Leaf is thermal management of the battery. It's been explained that, the way the battery cells are laminated together, near uninhibited airflow around individual cells still exists. What hasn't been adequately covered to my liking, and something we've yet to see field data from (the Arizona environmental testing for example), is what that means when the air moving around those cells is already very hot to begin with.

For some surprising reason Nissan seems less concerned by heat than cold...at least if initial roll out areas are looked at.

Phoenix (hotter than the freakin sun) is a roll out area, but there are no northern roll out areas.

Truthfully, that is maybe a moot point. They plan to sell throughout the US by the end of 2011...so I doubt they are making any battery changes from selling in Phoenix to selling in Maine or Montana.

So perhaps, with their 17-18 years of Li battery testing, Nissan just isn't that concerned, right or wrong, with heat nor cold with their battery system.

?

Gavin

garygid said:

I believe:

1. The main wonder is that the (approx.) 6800 cells actually keep working.

Click to expand...

Well, then for me, the wonder is why use so many cells that it is a wonder it works at all !

Perhaps they didn't have the prismatic batteries at that time. So, they are now making a virtue of a necessity.

In any case, given that this was in a financial analysts call - I'd not pay much attention to Musk's rants.

Gavin said:

For some surprising reason Nissan seems less concerned by heat than cold...at least if initial roll out areas are looked at.

Click to expand...

Yes - the plan seems to be to sell 2011 Leafs in warmer climates. I've wondered if they plan to make some changes in 2012 model.

The way Nissan explains this is - since the pack will be essentially maintained at the cabin temperature, if you are comfortable, so is the pack.