NPR's business segment on Morning edition today reported: Boeing has been approved to make a test flight of one of its 787 Dreamliners, apparently so the engineers can study the Li-Ion batteries during and after flight. The item also said that one possible fix might be to increase the distance between the cells in the batteries. Nothing said about whether folks are thinking battery design needs to be changed in other applications (e.g., autos). I haven't been able to find a transcript of the program, so you have to go to the link below and either listen to the whole show or go to the Business segment (which has a headline NOT referring to the 787): Morning Edition : NPR
Haven't listened to the story, but should it matter so much? There's a fair amount of discussion on MNL (that I haven't followed closely as I don't care much ), but the Dreamliner uses lithium cobalt oxide batteries which apparently are very volatile. No EVs use them. The chemistry used by Tesla and the Rav4 EV (which has a battery pack and drivetrain from Tesla) is a little safer while everyone else uses much safer chemistries. See My Nissan Leaf Forum • View topic - Lithium ion batteries suspect in 787 fire and My Nissan Leaf Forum • View topic - Lithium ion batteries suspect in 787 fire. Ingineer (aka pEEf here) posted some pics of some of Tesla's "secret sauce" at My Nissan Leaf Forum • View topic - Tesla Model S. This might relate why Tesla has to worry so much about cooling w/the supposedly pretty volatile chemistry they're using.
When you say "no EVs use them" about lithium cobalt cells I think you meant none of the present generation EVs. The Tesla Roadster does use lithium cobalt cells. I think when you say "The chemistry used.... by Tesla is a little safer" you are referring to Lithium NCA for use in the Model S and Rav4. I think there is still some mystery as to exactly which cells and chemistry Tesla is using and whether the 3 different pack capacities in the S are using the same chemistry or not. The common speculation in the past was that Tesla was going to use Panasonic's Lithium NCA cells since those are the most advanced cells that Panasonic sold on a commodity basis for general use. However, Tesla has said they were using new cells specifically designed by them and Panasonic together for automotive use. Usbseawolf2000 found and recently posted a link to a recent battery technology presentation which seems to imply that Tesla's new packs (or at least some of their new packs) are using Lithium NMC. The same presentation implies that the Plugin Prius is using Panasonic/Sanyo NMC since the capacity and format matches what is used in the PiP. Unfortunately, neither Toyota or Tesla (or GM for the Volt) will directly say what detailed chemistry they are using but industry conference presentations like this seem credible. See slides 41 and 42: http://www.fkg.se/assets/Uploads/Andermanbatterytechnology.pdf
Because there's little connection. The answer is no. The Yuasa pack used has large tightly-packed cells. The Tesla Roadster design uses small, cylindrical cells with greater spacing.. It allows for effective cooling and avoids a very high energy event in case of a cell failure. Other manufacturers use different cells.
^^^we have several threads on this topic, but in another thread, Elon Musk comments about the Boeing battery issue is given. He feels the small cell approach is critical to success of the Li Co cells. Sounds to me, if Musk correct, there is not an easy fix for Boeing.
Re: various lithium ion chemistries, I stumbled across Types of Lithium-ion Batteries – Battery University from another article.
That slide presentation has a lot of very good information but the one mention of Tesla on slide 41 is apparently wrong. We now have a pretty definitive statement from Tesla's CTO that their custom Panasonic cells use NCA: Vehicle Electrification - SAE
