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SageBrush said:
Oils4AsphaultOnly said:
After about 200 million miles driven (extrapolating from anecdotal data and the cumulative total of 200,000 model 3's sold so far),
That would be 1000 miles per car

half of those were sold this year, so I under estimated their mileage. Seems I've screwed up the math.

So the model 3 might already have a better fire safety than even the leaf!
 
Oils4AsphaultOnly said:
SageBrush said:
Oils4AsphaultOnly said:
After about 200 million miles driven (extrapolating from anecdotal data and the cumulative total of 200,000 model 3's sold so far),
That would be 1000 miles per car

half of those were sold this year, so I under estimated their mileage. Seems I've screwed up the math.
So the model 3 might already have a better fire safety than even the leaf!

That was my thought too. The Model 3 fleet is accumulating about 200 E6 miles a month now and the fleet is growing at about 20k cars a month. By next year 400 E6 miles a month.
 
Oils4AsphaultOnly said:
GRA said:
Oils4AsphaultOnly said:
After about 200 million miles driven (extrapolating from anecdotal data and the culmulative total of 200,000 model 3's sold so far), there has been ZERO battery fires so far: https://teslamotorsclub.com/tmc/threads/no-model-3-battery-fires.141231/

It has a long way to go, before it can catch up to the Leaf's billion+ miles with only 1 fire, but it's on its way!
Good news. Does anyone know if Tesla added back some/all of the individual cell protection features to the 21700s that they had Panasonic remove from the 18650 cells on the Model S/X, to boost the specific energy/energy density and lower the cost?

No. Why should they? Individual cell thermal protection is redundant.

Of the 18650 cell fires (in a Tesla vehicle), I know of none that would've benefitted from isolating the thermal runaway to just the individual cells.
As the Model S/X have been experiencing thermal runaway at a much higher rate than other manufacturers, I'd think the justification for why they might want to add some protection back in, now that they're trying to be a normal, profitable car company, would be apparent.
 
GRA said:
Oils4AsphaultOnly said:
GRA said:
Good news. Does anyone know if Tesla added back some/all of the individual cell protection features to the 21700s that they had Panasonic remove from the 18650 cells on the Model S/X, to boost the specific energy/energy density and lower the cost?

No. Why should they? Individual cell thermal protection is redundant.

Of the 18650 cell fires (in a Tesla vehicle), I know of none that would've benefitted from isolating the thermal runaway to just the individual cells.
As the Model S/X have been experiencing thermal runaway at a much higher rate than other manufacturers, I'd think the justification for why they might want to add some protection back in, now that they're trying to be a normal, profitable car company, would be apparent.


Here's the evidence for the no individual cell protection (skip to the 9:30 mark for the pack breakdown, and the cell tear down starts at the 15 min mark): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2nhQw7iGukE
 
GRA said:
Unfortunately not closed-captioned and thus of no use to me, but thanks anyway.

My initial reaction was of disgust that you would turn down the reference out of shear laziness. Then it just dawned on me that you might be hearing impaired?!?!

Is that the case?
 
Oils4AsphaultOnly said:
GRA said:
Unfortunately not closed-captioned and thus of no use to me, but thanks anyway.

My initial reaction was of disgust that you would turn down the reference out of shear laziness. Then it just dawned on me that you might be hearing impaired?!?!

Is that the case?
Yes. Over the past 15 years or so I've progressed through moderate to severe and now profound hearing loss, and even with the extremely powerful and fancy hearing aids I have now it's a struggle for me to follow anything verbal, even one on one in a quiet environment. I don't use phones for anything other than texting anymore either, and am (finally) going to enter the 21st century and get a smart phone instead of my ancient flip phone, so I can hand the phone to others and use voice to text to make some sense of what they're saying (no doubt with the usual comical errors).

Many people here already knew about my crappy hearing and I thought you did too, so my bad; sorry for the confusion.
 
GRA said:
Oils4AsphaultOnly said:
GRA said:
Unfortunately not closed-captioned and thus of no use to me, but thanks anyway.

My initial reaction was of disgust that you would turn down the reference out of shear laziness. Then it just dawned on me that you might be hearing impaired?!?!

Is that the case?
Yes. Over the past 15 years or so I've progressed through moderate to severe and now profound hearing loss, and even with the extremely powerful and fancy hearing aids I have now it's a struggle for me to follow anything verbal, even one on one in a quiet environment. I don't use phones for anything other than texting anymore either, and am (finally) going to enter the 21st century and get a smart phone instead of my ancient flip phone, so I can hand the phone to others and use voice to text to make some sense of what they're saying (no doubt with the usual comical errors).

Many people here already knew about my crappy hearing and I thought you did too, so my bad; sorry for the confusion.

Sorry for my rudeness earlier.

I'll try to find something from Jack Rickard that's CC'd, but you'll just have to take my word for it that the 2170 cells for the model 3 also do NOT have any individual cell protection circuitry on them.
 
Oils4AsphaultOnly said:
Sorry for my rudeness earlier.

I'll try to find something from Jack Rickard that's CC'd, but you'll just have to take my word for it that the 2170 cells for the model 3 also do NOT have any individual cell protection circuitry on them.
No problem. You don't need to look for anything CC'd either - if that's what he says, that's what he says. Going offline soon, and probably won't be back until Sunday (I'm in Solvang and have been doing some biking, but my buddy had some cramping issues this afternoon so we bagged it for the rest of the day, and I'm using a computer at the public library). My time's almost up.
 
Well, my time got extended for 30 minutes (twice), so thought I'd add this link via ABG:
Tesla says single battery module caused car fire in Shanghai

No systemic problem, automaker says, though it pushes out a software update
https://www.autoblog.com/2019/06/28/tesla-says-single-battery-module-caused-car-fire-in-shanghai/

. . . The company said in a statement posted on its Weibo social media account that a joint investigation team had analyzed the battery, software, manufacturing data and vehicle history.

Initial results show that this fire, which was captured on video, was caused by a single battery module fault located at the front of the vehicle, Tesla said.

The company has revised the charge and thermal management settings on Model S and Model X vehicles via an over-the-air (OTA) software update, to help further protect the battery and improve battery longevity, the statement said.
And that's all for me today.
 
GRA said:
GRA said:
Well, my time got extended for 30 minutes (twice), so thought I'd add this link via ABG:
Tesla says single battery module caused car fire in Shanghai

No systemic problem, automaker says, though it pushes out a software update
https://www.autoblog.com/2019/06/28/tesla-says-single-battery-module-caused-car-fire-in-shanghai/

. . . The company said in a statement posted on its Weibo social media account that a joint investigation team had analyzed the battery, software, manufacturing data and vehicle history.

Initial results show that this fire, which was captured on video, was caused by a single battery module fault located at the front of the vehicle, Tesla said.

The company has revised the charge and thermal management settings on Model S and Model X vehicles via an over-the-air (OTA) software update, to help further protect the battery and improve battery longevity, the statement said.
And that's all for me today.

For the Tesla novices, a model S/X battery module is a brick unit composed of over 400+ cells. There are plenty of teardown videos showing that every battery pack is made from 12 to 16 of these modules.

Having a module fail doesn't tell us anything about whether having the cell protection circuitries would've done anything to help. Much like how the iPhones, Samsung Galaxy phones, and the Boeing 787's all had cell overcharge/discharge circuits in place, yet didn't prevent them from going into thermal runaway.
 
GRA said:
The company has revised the charge and thermal management settings on Model S and Model X vehicles via an over-the-air (OTA) software update, to help further protect the battery and improve battery longevity, the statement said.

That would potentially provide more of an effective preventative approach than future circuitry modifications, given the problem of thermal runaway.
 
Oils4AsphaultOnly said:
For the Tesla novices, a model S/X battery module is a brick unit composed of over 400+ cells. There are plenty of teardown videos showing that every battery pack is made from 12 to 16 of these modules.

Having a module fail doesn't tell us anything about whether having the cell protection circuitries would've done anything to help. Much like how the iPhones, Samsung Galaxy phones, and the Boeing 787's all had cell overcharge/discharge circuits in place, yet didn't prevent them from going into thermal runaway.
Correct me if I'm wrong, but ISTR that those all involved LiCoO2 cells. I'm pretty certain the battery cargo fire that caused the crash of UPS Flight 6 involved LiCoO2 batteries, and led to restrictions on all Li-Ion battery shipments by air, e.g.
2019 Lithium Battery Guidance
Document, Revision 1
Transport of Lithium Metal and
Lithium Ion Batteries
https://www.iata.org/whatwedo/cargo/dgr/Documents/lithium-battery-shipping-guidelines.pdf

DOT Issues New Rule for Air Transport of Lithium Batteries
https://www.lexology.com/library/detail.aspx?g=dd81f41b-8e3e-4e6c-9a20-5932a12ee4e7

Battery University https://batteryuniversity.com/learn/article/types_of_lithium_ion says of both LiCoO2 (Roadster) and LiNCA (Model S et. seq.):
Thermal runaway 150°C (302°F) typical, High charge [Full charge for LiCoO2] promotes thermal runaway
LiNMC, which everyone else seems to be using now except maybe some Chinese companies, is safer:
Thermal runaway 210°C (410°F) typical. High charge promotes thermal runaway
The LEAF originally used LiMn2O4, which is safer yet:
Thermal runaway 250°C (482°F) typical. High charge promotes thermal runaway
Finally, LiFePO4, which AFAIA no one except maybe some Chinese companies is using now (the MY 2013 Spark had them), is the safest of all (except LTO used only in the Fit EV), albeit having the lowest specific energy (NCA is the highest):
Thermal runaway 270°C (518°F) Very safe battery even if fully charged
So, Tesla presumably decided to use the batteries with the highest specific energy and energy density, but also the highest chance of thermal runaway, because they needed to set themselves apart from the rest of the manufacturers, as BEVs are their whole business. The mainstream car manufacturers had no need to take such risks, because their profits aren't tied to BEVs which are a small niche for them, and they have no desire to risk liability for the company by accepting the higher chance of thermal runaway. Both of those decisions make sense.
 
GRA said:
The company has revised the charge and thermal management settings on Model S and Model X vehicles via an over-the-air (OTA) software update, to help further protect the battery and improve battery longevity, the statement said.

Ah yes, they say they know the answer, but still no discussion about what the answer was, or what "charge and thermal management settings" were changed.
 
WetEV said:
GRA said:
The company has revised the charge and thermal management settings on Model S and Model X vehicles via an over-the-air (OTA) software update, to help further protect the battery and improve battery longevity, the statement said.
Ah yes, they say they know the answer, but still no discussion about what the answer was, or what "charge and thermal management settings" were changed.
Yup. I expect we'll have to wait for owners to post on TMC to find out what effect the changes have. Presumably it will slow charging and/or up cooling, and at least the first will make owners unhappy.
 
GRA said:
Yup. I expect we'll have to wait for owners to post on TMC to find out what effect the changes have. Presumably it will slow charging and/or up cooling, and at least the first will make owners unhappy.

Or turn down battery cooling to reduce condensation.
 
Discussion centers on thermal runaway while charging, but the Model S fire in Shanghai occurred while parked (car not on and not plugged in). I hope we learn the true cause and get some explanation of how changing the charging and cooling parameters will prevent similar fires in the future.
 
On a different subject, I drove from Los Angeles to Bay Area on I-5 last week, saw a bunch of trucks hauling M3s in the other direction, I didn't count but it felt there were at least 20 I saw.
 
Latest experience of a Tesla Model 3 LR charging at a V3 Supercharger:
24 kWh in the first ~ 7 minutes, average ~ 200 kW
37 kWh in 12 minutes, average 185 kW

I had estimated in earlier posts that a person could jump from Supercharger to Supercharger and average 175 kW charging. Glad to see that the Supercharger agrees with me.

https://youtu.be/PLbV0-VPwoU
 
SageBrush said:
Latest experience of a Tesla Model 3 LR charging at a V3 Supercharger:
24 kWh in the first ~ 7 minutes, average ~ 200 kW
37 kWh in 12 minutes, average 185 kW

I had estimated in earlier posts that a person could jump from Supercharger to Supercharger and average 175 kW charging. Glad to see that the Supercharger agrees with me.

https://youtu.be/PLbV0-VPwoU

Yes, the tech is there, i.e. very impressive! Thanks
 
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