Seems one of the Tesla operating system hackers has stumbled onto something; Tesla OS hacker points to upcoming Model S P100D in cryptic message to Elon Musk | Electrek Turning of the extra weight, that'd be enough extra energy to put the Tesla's range at more than Toyota's coal-burning hydrogen car ... not that the 2 cars are apples to oranges. .
Making H2 from coal would be gasification (clean coal) and not so bad as coal combustion IMHO. If it was me I would do more of that and less coal combustion.
How much does the balance shift if you are compressing or liquidifying the resulting hydrogen, and then shipping it out to refueling stations for cars? Does 'clean coal' still have the problem with fly ash?
It should be noted, lots of things can be found in the firmware code. Back in 2012 their were bits of code describing autopilot, parking sensors and other things that didn't yet exist. Sure, a 100kWh battery pack is very likely in the future. The question isn't "if" but "when". It could be announced tomorrow, it could be announced in a year or even two. This news isn't news.
AG is the expert. You still have ash but may be less problematic. In the case of CA, CA imports coal power I believe from the Navajo plants. So that's where one could consider a change of technology to a better process.
My cousin is actually an expert ;-), I'm just following the tech. In a modern gassification unit, most ash should be removed as slag. How little ash is a function of if its a design perameter, but GE has some units where almost all of the ash is captured. You can use petroleum coke, which has less ash, and produces less waste slag. IGCC or even coal gasification then some turbine fuel cell combo should have very low ash and Sulfur. Post gasification treatment is needed to remove NOx and Mercury. I assume if you are using the hydrogen in a fuel cell that would be required. Sometimes clean coal is simply a different process with more post treatment. California has no plans for any clean coal. They will continue to import power, but will divest from coal. Since the old coal plants are viable they will still be used to power the western grid. Its really a little of a shell game, until the plants are closed down. Toyota plans on a gasification/clean coal power plant in Australia for hydrogen production. Here the pollutants can be assigned to the electricity in Australia, and the hydrogen can be considered clean ;-) DOE was building a pilot plant to test this technology, but cancelled it. The big problem with clean coal is cost, as it appears to cost more than ccgt natural gas with today's coal and natural gas prices. This may be different in china and Australia. There are 2 clean coal plants being built in the US, and many more in china. Back to tesla - with 100 kwh and 100 mpge likely on a S 100d that is about 315 mile range. At $175/kwh with the gigafactories likely cost it will cost tesla about $17,500 for the battery pack versus $12,250 on a 70's battery pack. If tesla's cost really does drop as predicted with the gigafactory, there is no reason to have a 90kwh pack, and 70 and 100 should be the sizes. The model 3 is smaller and may not be able to have packs as big, which would be the only reason to go smaller than 100.
Much of the ash is captured in old coal plants too. It's why they have huge piles of the toxic stuff that they are trying to find uses for; like filler in school carpet fibers. It contains other heavy metals along with whatever mercury that didn't go up the stack. Capturing more of it is better than dumping it in the air to settle around the plant's neighbors, but the only way I think of lowering the amount is if the gasification power plant is more efficient than the older steam ones. People fear nuclear power, but the shear amount of the non-benign waste from a coal plant has its own, serious issues.
That sounds like rather awesome systems engineering on the part of Tesla! Define an advanced feature set early in the design cycle, design the software infrastructure to accept new features in the future, then focus on creation and validation of application modules in priority order!
Not huge, but for some, enough. Another 30-35 miles of range, and probably increased performance. I would guess more people will upgrade for the performance.
11% is nothing, but look where we have come since 2007, in 9 short years. Toyota and head of carb were saying you couldn't make a 300 mile (old epa) beV at a cost you could sell any. Toyota had a price of $1200/kwh that they said would not come down much. 2012 - 85kwh model S came out, with a battery that probably cost $300/kwh and hit that old 300 mile epa. 265 mile current epa. The battery probably cost $25,500 not the $42,000 toyota said it would cost less than 5 years earlier. Sell they did 31K in 2014, 50k in 2015. In 2016 so far the model S outsells every other plug-in the US and most other countries outside Japan. Progress isn't as great since then likely in 2017 100d model S with no fake grill and a battery that probably cost $17,500 with a likely 318 mile range and awd. This will cost a lot less to make than the 2012 model S that could go into lower prices or profits for tesla. The big story is the much more affordable model 3 that will probably sell in volume in 2018 with a lower but still good 215 mile epa range.
InsideEVs.com pointed out the other day that the S90 already had an EPA rating of 300+ miles on the highway which is where you typically care about that kind of range. Official EPA Ratings For Refreshed Tesla Model S - 90D Range Is 303.2 Miles Highway
i suppose progress will continue to be incremental, unless a battery breakthrough comes along. 200 miles is a big jump from current, but it has yet to be made by anyone. i'm not skeptical, i just prefer wheels on the ground to paper.
With Teslas fast charge stations thruout the country, driving across the country can be done AND Tesla is doubling the # of charging locations.
Battery breakthroughs are going to be just like transistor breakthroughs. They happen, but never in a fashion that excites anyone publicly. Nor do huge leaps in performance improvement occur, just the incremental improvements continuously adding up. I still have a 2001 Prius. Compare that to the 2016 Prius. The difference is staggering but each generation had incremental improvements.
what's the mpg increase in 15 years? not much in 12. i hope batteries improve faster, since they are at the beginnings of their technology cycle.
not a big deal - but it's at least a moderately nicer deal. One might consider looking at the 10% pack difference from a multi faceted view. Example; usable Leaf battery (presume 1kWh remains when recharging, & pack is brand new/no capacity loss) - your 20kWh quick charge will be fast, up until you're nearing the top 4kWh-5kWh from being completely full (turning on hot weather) - thus your QC will only be for maybe 15kWh's ... yielding ~ 55ish miles. a depleted 100kWh pack to 80% (nevermind for now, CHAdeMO @ 50kWh vs supercharger's 100kWh); yields a 79kWh QC or ~ or 238ish QC miles. ie, biggest pack yields more quick chargeable range. - you get the added ~ 30ish miles, AND 10% more miles rechargeable during QC. That might sound de minimis, but for those with ants in their pants it's the little details like that, that count. Similarly - way down the road, when you have 150k - 200k miles on the odometer & the traction pack has lost capacity, again, you will still have 10% more range, and 10% more QC speed. Additionally, your larger pack goes farther before needing its next refill. Ultimately it's the charge-discharge cycles that begin to age the pack. That means your pack will last 10% longer than the smaller packs, simply because they are not being cycled as frequently. Downsides - more costly ... at least $2k more ... & more weight means less Miles per kwh ... but pack power density /weight ratios keep getting better at least. .
