Tesla Battery Day

Tesla Battery Day

There were many groans when Elon Musk did not come forward with a big blockbuster announcement like the 500 Wh/kg battery at under $100/kWh capacity.  But that reaction misses the point.  Tesla has made a number of substantial pivots in its battery design that are setting the stage to reach the blockbuster stage faster than most expect.

When Tesla announced its Nevada Gigafactory (>1 GWh in the capacity of the batteries produced per year), my immediate reaction was:  “Oh no, his factory will be obsolete the day it opens”.  That was because he chose a battery size, electrolyte type, and chemistry that were solidly conventional (with all its flaws) on the day the announcement was made but overlooked how fast battery technology was improving.  In the three years, it took to get the Gigafactory humming, much better batteries were becoming available.

Here was what I missed:  Tesla did not know much about building batteries.  They had to learn and took a low-risk approach by building a well-known battery with dozens of suppliers to support it.  In doing so, it could avoid making battery packs the limiting item in EV production.  Turns out that was brilliant.  And it allowed them to do some other stunts like the PowerWall. 

Now that Tesla has learned the battery-building process (in record time probably), it can step out and build the next generation of batteries and battery packs faster (and better) than anyone else.  Most people at Battery Day likely didn’t appreciate this advance.  The downside for Tesla is that they likely bought millions of dollars of equipment they now don’t need.

One example was the initial use of the spiral-wound, sort-of-AA size batteries.  Tesla was eloquent about how that was the right solution when anybody in battery R&D knew that was baloney.  The spiral-wound battery was a holdover from its use in zinc (acid) and nickel (alkaline) cathode batteries.  Li-ion batteries have much less conductive material and so have a lot of internal resistance, leading to heat build-up during charging.  The result is the slow charge and discharge rates of Li-ion batteries (such as 1/6th of the battery capacity per hour).  Other battery shapes mitigate this problem, but Tesla disregarded those.  

Musk announced they are now moving to a much larger cylindrical battery (the size of the old dry cells with screw posts on the top—am I the only one who remembers these?) without the single tabs.  Instead, Tesla has come up with windings that look like overlapping shingles and have multiple connection points.  They call them “tabless” cells.  These have significantly lower internal electrical resistance so that they generate much less heat leading to lower cooling requirement.  And they have higher power density and faster recharge rates.  Now Musk says that anyone that does not use this format will not be competitive in EVs.  So much for the little batteries being the ideal choice.  Head fake!

Among other changes were:  

  • Substituting dry powder electrolytes for the conventional wet paste, cutting manufacturing costs, and reducing processing steps substantially.
  • Eliminating processing of raw materials for the cathode
  • Using a nickel cathode for higher capacity
  • Redesigning the structure of the battery pack and the vehicle frame to reduce weight and complexity

The net result of all the changes is an expected 56% drop in cost/kWh in battery capacity and an increase in factory output to 1 TWh per year (making it a Terafactory rather than a Gigafactory).  They hope to reach 200 GWh per year by 2020.  Tesla’s target is to have a $25,000 EV with a good range in three years, leveraging all they are achieving.

If you want to learn more, here’s a good article and a short YouTube video.  And the whole presentation via YouTube is here.

We had blogged on even bigger advances Tesla has underway for its batteries, but for now still in the shadows.

Thomas Hall

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Gary Simon is the Chair of CleanStarts Board. A seasoned energy executive and entrepreneur with 45 years of experience in business, government, and non-profits.

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Community Engagement Key with Underserved Communities

Community Engagement Key with Underserved Communities

At our latest MeetUp on September 29, we focused on how Clean Tech must connect with Underserved Communities and discussed tools available to startups. Brian Keane, President of DC-based non-profit SmartPower, made a compelling case that the best way for clean tech companies to sell into disadvantaged communities is to organize campaigns using local residents as trusted “ambassadors” and to provide benefits to the community as a whole.  This contrasts fundamentally with the approach of trying to convince people of just the benefits to them as individuals.  Keane used the example of a utility boldly claiming that its $1000-per-family incentive payments would get more signups for rooftop solar than SmartPower’s campaign which offered a package that involved cleaning up local parks and installing solar on local schools if a certain number signed up.  The SmartPower campaign secured a multiple of the sign-ups that the utility managed to do, demonstrating the power of the community engagement approach.  Keane urged more companies to adopt the SmartPower approach.

His message was amplified by Parwanna Ayub of the Greenlining Institute in the Bay Area. Greenlining is working to advance economic opportunity and empowerment for people of color, offsetting the historic bias against investment in low-income communities, undoing the damage done by Redlining.  Ayub highlighted how companies need to integrate social equity in their goals to be competitive and profitable. In particular, she pointed to all the ways that government agencies are awarding extra points in the evaluation of funding applications if those applications involve aspects that benefit disadvantaged communities.  She had two key examples:  The CalSEED grants (about which we have blogged a number of times as offering up to $600,000 in non-dilutive funds to early-stage companies) have a scoring system that makes it difficult to win unless the applicant has a plan for involvement in disadvantaged communities.  That involvement could be in siting a manufacturing facility, employing and training workers from disadvantaged areas, partnering with minority-owned companies, or putting pilot installations there.  That has been evolving as a more important factor over the past few years.  Second, AB 523 (2017) now requires that 25% of all the funding available through EPIC be used for projects in disadvantaged communities.  This means that any cleantech company looking for government assistance needs a strategy to become involved in disadvantaged communities.

Jose Bodipo-Memba of SMUD made the definition of where those communities are in the Sacramento region with a multi-layer mapping of all the features that make communities disadvantaged—not just income, but the quality of schools, availability of EV charging stations, condition of housing, and on and on.  SMUD’s data makes it very apparent where the communities with which to get involved are.  Following Keane’s suggestion that cleantech companies mount community engagement campaigns and combine things like rooftop solar or community solar installations with the upgrade of community facilities, installation of more EV chargers, building decarbonization, and installer training, Jose urged cleantech companies with an idea for that kind of approach to contact him directly.  He welcomes unsolicited proposals and SMUD has a history of dealing creatively with small businesses.

We had a pretty big crowd for this session and that means we will likely have another one around this topic in the future.  It is popular.  Copies of the presentations are HERE

On October 29 and December 3 we will turn our attention to the future of the grid and the incorporation of a growing number of microgrids.  Mark your calendars and be sure to watch for the details.

Thomas Hall

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Gary Simon is the Chair of CleanStarts Board. A seasoned energy executive and entrepreneur with 45 years of experience in business, government, and non-profits.

CleanStart Sponsors

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DAE Technologies goes from Battery Innovation to Production

DAE Technologies goes from Battery Innovation to Production

There is a strong drive to create batteries that store more energy (more watt-hours), charge more quickly and safely (higher power), and cost much less. Davis-based Advanced Energy Technologies, dba DAE Technologies, founded by Dr. Linghong Li is a battery company that is focusing on making better batteries.  It is using an innovative hybrid battery/supercapacitor technology. Their supercapacitor technology was closest to commercialization, and for the past five years they have been manufacturing and selling a variety of products based on it.  Compared to other supercap technologies such as that marketed by Maxwell, Dr. Li’s innovative supercapacitor stores much more energy and costs much less. DAE Tech is currently manufacturing their supercapacitor products in China. Their products include small component cells and modules as well as integrated products like jump-starters and booster units for EVs that provide bursts of high-power for acceleration. They also have energy storage systems for power grid stabilization that are critical for smart grids as more and more wind and solar energy and charging EVs become harmful to our current grid system. 

Building upon their success in supercapacitor technology development, they have turned their attention back to developing a new generation of battery technology that they believe is superior to existing batteries including the new battery Tesla is working on. DAE Tech has received CalSEED funding for this project and is participating in the CleanTech Open. They are currently raising funds to establish marketing and manufacturing capacity in California and to expand their R&D efforts in collaboration with UC-Davis.

Their main effort focuses on batteries that can be recharged quickly and safely (high power and safety), provides sufficient energy (watt-hours) for longer running time or driving distance, and are inherently safe. They believe this goal can be achieved through an integrative power system that intelligently incorporates the advantages of supercapacitor (high power) and advanced batteries (high energy). “An analog to this concept is the relentless innovation in computer CPU/memory architectures”, explained by Bob Gregory, Chief Business Officer of DAE Tech. “We are focusing on both system level and battery level innovations to deliver the highest power (SuperCap) and highest energy (CFx battery) solution to demanding environments”. 

The key chemistry of this battery is the two smallest and yet most active elements in the Periodic Table, lithium and fluorine. The primary battery of this chemistry uses carbon monofluoride material (CFx) as cathode. Of all the solid cathode materials people know of today, CFx has the highest energy capacity (> 800 mAh/g), approximately 2-3 times higher than the cathode material used in Tesla’s battery. 

Primary CFx batteries are not new. Companies like Panasonic, Ultralife, Tadiran, and Eagle Pitcher are currently making them mainly for defense applications. Their products suffer from extremely high costs and lack of pulse power, which is critical for wireless devices such as smart meters and remote gas or vibration sensors. Primary CFx batteries developed by DAE Tech, currently under trial production for third-party validation and customer testing, have overcome those obstacles and will provide an ideal solution for IoT terminal devices such as billions of wireless sensor nodes (WSNs) currently in use.

Most rechargeable batteries were developed from primary battery technologies.  Similarly, in principle, a primary CFx battery can be developed into a rechargeable one. DAE Tech is the first in the world developing a novel rechargeable CFx battery. More importantly, it uses carbon materials on both electrodes (no Co or Ni or Mn on the positive electrode) and thus is inherently safer and cheaper than lithium ion batteries. It is safe to say it will bring revolutionary changes in the battery world and enable the dream of Electrification of Everything come true!  

Dr. Li’s recent presentation of this technology with more detail is available as a recording here.  He is a Fulbright scholar with 30 patents and has an impressive team locally.  Definitely would be worth taking a closer look if you are interested in batteries.  See their website https://www.daetech.us/ for more information.

DAE Tech’s technology is one of many advancements in battery technology about which we have written.

Giovannie Smith

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Giovanni Smith is currently a junior going to Sacramento State University. Working towards his BA in mathematics with an emphasis in statistics and a minor in computer science. He wants a career using his knowledge in mathematics and coding.

"I’m excited to be working with CleanStart to learn more about the energy space and apply my mathematics to help solve real-world problems." - Giovanni Smith

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