Tesla's battery technology discussion

@James Kirk , Ive probably been guilty of taking this thread off topic by discussing the merits of electric cars rather whether shorting Tesla is a good or bad thing. Here is a good synopsis of the shortcomings of batteries, renewable energy etc written by an MIT technologist and engineer Mark P Mills, its written in plain english not techno jargon so is easy to understand if you are interested

41 Inconvenient Truths on the "New Energy Economy" | Mark P. Mills

Storing the energy equivalent of one barrel of oil, which weighs 300 pounds, requires 20,000 pounds of Tesla batteries ($200,000 worth).
fee.org

The topic of this thread whether it is correct to short Tesla, obviously not because the market loves it.
But that does not mean that Tesla will put oil companies out of business with the "green revolution", we will be consuming alot more hydrocarbons in 2040 than we are doing today. Hopefully you will understand by reading the above.
 
Even if there is a big switch to electric vehicles there will not be a reduction in the use of fossil fuels, demand will continue to increase. The utility companies will not invest money now to build big power stations anymore, maybe just some gas plants. They will invest large sums on wind and solar farms, however there will still be a large gap between supply and demand because of intermittentcy of renewable sources but also because the total demand will increase alot. So what will this gap be replaced with, you guessed it, industrial generators. So we will end up with an inferior electricity grid like africa and india consisting of loads of industrial generators . Industrial generators are very inefficient and can only burn highly refined fuel like diesel oil. Burning diesel in generators will be alot more expensive than conventional oil or coal fired power stations.
 
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joe sod said:
Here is a good synopsis of the shortcomings of batteries, renewable energy etc written by an MIT technologist and engineer Mark P Mills, its written in plain english not techno jargon so is easy to understand if you are interested

41 Inconvenient Truths on the "New Energy Economy" | Mark P. Mills

Storing the energy equivalent of one barrel of oil, which weighs 300 pounds, requires 20,000 pounds of Tesla batteries ($200,000 worth).
fee.org
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Worth noting that the Manhattan Institute, of which Mark Mills is a Senior Fellow, was included in a list of 32 organisations denounced by US Senators in 2016 for spreading climate change denial and having links to fossil fuel interests. fee.org is a partner of the Charles Koch Institute and funded by the Koch brothers, who are notoriously pro-fossil fuels and anti climate science. The article is just a list of statements that may be factually accurate, but are mostly irrelevant and designed to mislead readers in a pretty obvious direction.
 
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joe sod said:
The point is that alot of CO2 is released to generate electricity and electric cars are not zero emmissions
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The EPA recently recommended that you carry your children if walking near busy roads in Ireland to keep them a little further from the exhausts of cars - which I find an astounding thing for a government organisation to be saying and for there to be so little reaction. The reality is that just as there are much worse things coming out of cigarettes than nicotine, CO2 is just one problem with burning fossil fuels. We're now realising that NOx and particulate matter emissions are killing tens of thousands of people early and causing all sorts of illnesses (asthma etc) and electric vehicles reduce these emissions to zero in the case of NOx and vastly reduced in the case of particulate matter. These emissions are highly localised, so even if you emit them from a power station down the country away from people it has a hugely beneficial effect on the population.
 
Zenith63 said:
Worth noting that the Manhattan Institute, of which Mark Mills is a Senior Fellow, was included in a list of 32 organisations denounced by US Senators in 2016 for spreading climate change denial and having links to fossil fuel interests.
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but its also the case that companies behind the renewable energy industries, governments, billionaires like George Soros and others are funding the "climate change" agenda and publicity. There is an awful lot more money funding that side and a full balanced debate is not been given to the public. Regardless of what you think of the mesengers Mark Mills is a senior Physicist and technologist, therefore the "41 inconvenient truths" are correct. I think its a case of if you dont like the message ,shoot the messenger
 
I see a bit of controversy over the safety of tesla cars and the batteries. A tesla car crashed in Texas killing 2 people, there was no one in the drivers seat, the suspicion is they were using the auto pilot feature inappropriately in that there should always be someone in the drivers seat. However the main issue is the fire hazard associated with the batteries, the fire was so intense it took a 100000 litres of water to finally extinguish the fire. I think lithium as well as being rare is also a highly flammable element.
 
joe sod said:
there should always be someone in the drivers seat.
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Sage advice for any vehicle in-fairness, Tesla or not.

There's no doubt fires in electric vehicles are fairly intense, the good news is they're not at all common and will become even so as battery technology improves further. For reference Tesla's data shows 5 fires for every billion miles traveled in an EV, compared to 55 per billion miles travelled in petrol/diesel cars, both small numbers.
 
joe sod said:
I see a bit of controversy over the safety of tesla cars and the batteries. A tesla car crashed in Texas killing 2 people, there was no one in the drivers seat, the suspicion is they were using the auto pilot feature inappropriately in that there should always be someone in the drivers seat. However the main issue is the fire hazard associated with the batteries, the fire was so intense it took a 100000 litres of water to finally extinguish the fire. I think lithium as well as being rare is also a highly flammable element.
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I know the conversation is about Tesla but any car that is used in an inappropriate manner is potentially unsafe. This is not a Tesla specific problem. Lithium isn't only used in Tesla cars. Teslas do well in the NCAP safety tests due to their technology.

Is the controversy due to an actual issue with Teslas or just clickbait because the story is about Tesla? Would it get the same response if it was about a Hyundai Kona?

Not a fan boy or shareholder.
 
joe sod said:
I see a bit of controversy over the safety of tesla cars and the batteries. A tesla car crashed in Texas killing 2 people, there was no one in the drivers seat, the suspicion is they were using the auto pilot feature inappropriately in that there should always be someone in the drivers seat. However the main issue is the fire hazard associated with the batteries, the fire was so intense it took a 100000 litres of water to finally extinguish the fire. I think lithium as well as being rare is also a highly flammable element.
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As I understand it, the problem was that they were using water. I think lithium ion fires creates oxygen so water isn't the appropriate suppressant.

At least that's what I picked up from a quick discussion about the case
 
EmmDee said:
As I understand it, the problem was that they were using water. I think lithium ion fires creates oxygen so water isn't the appropriate suppressant.

At least that's what I picked up from a quick discussion about the case
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Yes but that raises an even bigger issue, maybe the fire services are not equipped to deal with electric car fires if they cant use water. This is the scenario they get a call about a "car fire" thats it if a car is on fire how is anybody to know it is an electric car its just a car on fire. If it is the case that every fire engine needs to be equipped with specialised fire extinguishing equipment , who will pay for that?, maybe a levy on the purchase of electric cars for this.
 
joe sod said:
Yes but that raises an even bigger issue, maybe the fire services are not equipped to deal with electric car fires if they cant use water. This is the scenario they get a call about a "car fire" thats it if a car is on fire how is anybody to know it is an electric car its just a car on fire. If it is the case that every fire engine needs to be equipped with specialised fire extinguishing equipment , who will pay for that?, maybe a levy on the purchase of electric cars for this.
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Fortunately not an issue. Though additional water requirements are common -

Hybrid and EV fires do not require special equipment for fire suppression / extinguishment.
No data was collected to alter this recommendation

Use water or other standard agents for vehicle fires.
No data was collected to alter this recommendation. All suppression tests were sufficiently suppressed with water applied with standard hose lines and nozzles
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From the 233 page report “Best Practices for Emergency Response to Incidents Involving Electric Vehicles Battery Hazards: A Report on Full-Scale Testing Results” from the US Department of Energy

 
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