Mysterious Electric Car Company Looking To Build $1 Billon Dollar Factory

[BK]

Re: Mysterious Electric Car Company Looking To Build $1 Billon Dollar Factory

Tesla is bankrupt. Wall Street is keeping the Tesla Motors floating crap game going because Wall Street can make lots of money off of it.

[dcarrigg]

Re: Mysterious Electric Car Company Looking To Build $1 Billon Dollar Factory

Musk is spending other people's $5B to build the largest factory for lithium batteries in the world. He's already purchased additional land to give him the space to make the factory the largest building in the world, much less the largest building for battery manufacture. Whatever we may think, he has big dreams and is channeling PT Barnum. We know he's selling snake oil but that's not the point; it's selling and with this massive capacity the price will drop. Forget about Tesla the car company as the main consumer of these batteries, countries who have over built solar and/or wind need to time shift energy consumption.

Once the factory is built, and that's about a year out, he'll have the capacity to produce about half the world output of lithium batteries. Does this make economic sense? Probably not but it will drive down the price. The scale of the enterprise will drive the market like the massive build out of silicon manufacturing a decade ago when solar energy finally subsumed the silicon wafer market. This example is a bit upside down since the market is not driving the build-out but I've no doubt that people will pay to time shift energy usage as the cost of traditional stationary and mobile energy moves up. Maybe not in time to save Tesla, but we will all benefit from this extravagance...including Honda.

If you're interested in how quickly this market for mobile energy is changing read GRG's excellent article last weekend regarding natural gas as a transportation energy source. It's obvious that coal is a dead energy source but two years ago no one would have said oil had a problem. I'm not so sure that's true today.

The boys over at MIT are saying increased production volume won't lead to very much price reduction at all.

Abstract

We conduct a techno-economic analysis of Li-ion NMC-G prismatic pouch battery and pack designs for electric vehicle applications. We develop models of power capability and manufacturing operations to identify the minimum cost cell and pack designs for a variety of plug-in hybrid electric vehicle (PHEV) and battery electric vehicle (BEV) requirements. We find that economies of scale in battery manufacturing are reached quickly at a production volume of ∼200–300 MWh annually. Increased volume does little to reduce unit costs, except potentially indirectly through factors such as experience, learning, and innovation. We also find that vehicle applications with larger energy requirements are able to utilize cheaper cells due in part to the use of thicker electrodes. The effect on cost can be substantial. In our base case, we estimate pack-level battery production costs of ∼$545 kWh⁻¹ for a PHEV with a 10 mile (16 km) all-electric range (PHEV₁₀) and ∼$230 kWh⁻¹ for a BEV with a 200 mile (320 km) all-electric range (BEV₂₀₀). This 58% reduction, from $545 kWh⁻¹ to $230 kWh⁻¹, is a larger effect than the uncertainty represented by our optimistic and pessimistic scenarios. Electrodes thicker than about 100 or 125 microns are not currently used in practice due to manufacturing and durability concerns, but relaxing this constraint could further lower the cost of larger capacity BEV₂₀₀ packs by up to an additional 8%.

Menahem Anderman, Lux, and a few others are saying Tesla will miss the price/range ratio on the Model 3 by as much as double. That is, if it's going to get 200 miles range, the cost is more likely to be about $50k-$70k than the $35k that Musk is advertising, and if it's going to be $35k, the range is likely to be closer to 100 miles. This would be par for the course, considering the original advertised price for the Model S was $45,000, then $50,000, and finally it came out at $71,000 stripped down and $80,000+ reasonably equipped. Overpromise and underdeliver is basically the MO of Musk's PR machine.

He'll tell you he's going to fly people to mars when all he has right now is the least reliable platform available on the international market for sending unmanned supplies into the very lowest part of low earth orbit. Even then, they've only got an 80% mission success rate, and they still cost more than a rock-solid Soyuz out of Kazakhstan with a 50 year track record of being much safer. He'll tell you he's going to build hypertubes and fly people around like Futurama for cheaper than it costs to build a train, principally because he doesn't count the actually expensive part of building a train in his calculations, namely purchasing land, bridges, and viaducts. The track and the cabin are not the pricy part. And he'll tell you he's reinventing the solar industry, when really he's just running around offering residential solar leases as a way for him to personally suck up the federal ITC and state net metering and REC incentives by putting his Chinese-made panels on other people's houses for no money down. The ITC tweaks in 2017, and the regular local solar contractors will survive, but Solarcity's model looks bust to me.

Basically, when it comes to Musk, the whole game is kind of like Tinkerbell. You need lots of fairy dust and clapping and imagination, or she dies. If investors wake up tomorrow and realize Tesla is a car company that is functionally just an over-expensive electric BMW analogue (Model X; Model X, Model 3; 3-series, Model S; 5-series) that is bleeding money every quarter, then "poof." They stop thinking about it like a growth-tech stock. All of the sudden, a market cap at double Fiat-Chrysler doesn't make any damned sense. And I'll be honest...I'm the furthest thing from a Chrysler fan there could possibly be. But at least they have positive EPS.

PS: I think there's more promise in Natural Gas as a transportation fuel. Especially in trucking. In fact, the New England states are already talking about subsidizing it in one or more ways. They're convinced the switch, especially from Diesel->Nat. Gas, will be necessary to hit CO2 reduction targets in the next 15 years. There's no way to do that without natural gas displacing some oil in the transportation sector. There will be tax credits for this, unless some better idea comes along.

[GRG55]

Re: Mysterious Electric Car Company Looking To Build $1 Billon Dollar Factory

PS: I think there's more promise in Natural Gas as a transportation fuel. Especially in trucking. In fact, the New England states are already talking about subsidizing it in one or more ways. They're convinced the switch, especially from Diesel->Nat. Gas, will be necessary to hit CO2 reduction targets in the next 15 years. There's no way to do that without natural gas displacing some oil in the transportation sector. There will be tax credits for this, unless some better idea comes along.

Natural gas in the transportation sector works well in some applications and not very well at all others. "Return-to-base" fleet operations such as waste collection and school/public transit buses work extremely well on compressed natural gas (CNG) fuel. The capital investment in the equipment (compression, distribution pipe and filling hoses) is quite low because even a large fleet of vehicles can be filled slowly overnight from a single compressor and cascade storage system. The natural gas engines for these medium duty applications are well developed and produced in sufficient quantity that the prices are not a large premium to comparable diesel or gasoline engines. The drivers come back to base at the end of the shift or route, park the vehicle in an empty slot and it takes just a few seconds to connect the vehicle and fill hose. The rest is automated.

The heavy haul transport sector is an entirely different matter. There are engines that have been produced by Cummins and Westport for this application, but so far the reliability and the fuel efficiency have not come close to published figures. For example instead of an approximately 7% loss in energy efficiency compared to diesel the real world test fleet numbers are consistently in the high teens. Most of the test fleets have been trying to use liquified natural gas (LNG) which has a greater energy density per litre of carried volume compared to CNG. Unfortunately LNG is expensive to manufacture, store, distribute and handle because it is a cryogenic fluid at -160 deg C, and that offsets much of the energy density advantage. It also means the drivers refilling their trucks have to wear some specialized personal protective equipment including eye protection and insulated gloves...you can't let that stuff touch your skin. Both Cummins and Westport announced earlier this year they were abandoning their 15-litre gas engine programs. Here are some excerpts from the carefully worded announcements. This created a real problem for trucking contractors that had made a commitment to trying natural gas fuels as there is no replacement engine as their tractors mile out and need replacing. One of Canada's largest trucking contractors, Bison Transport, was working with Shell to test LNG fuels for their highway transports. When the engines were discontinued BIson shut the program down, reverted to pure diesel units and sold all the NG trucks to another firm which bought them for spares and future replacements to keep their own fleet of NG trucks still working. Shell also announced that it was abandoning the manufacturing of LNG for fuel in Canada, the USA and Australia.

An area to watch is locomotives. Trains can carry an LNG tender car behind the engine (like they did with coal tenders in the age of steam locomotives) and therefore have sufficient fuel for long distances. Refueling stations can be established along the mainlines, and the rail companies use enough energy to get to the volumes needed to make the economics work.

[jk]

Re: Mysterious Electric Car Company Looking To Build $1 Billon Dollar Factory

musk's battery factory, if it's built, will be used to make batteries. as with much of the dark fiber that was put in place by the likes of global crossings, the second owner will make money with it.

[touchring]

Re: Mysterious Electric Car Company Looking To Build $1 Billon Dollar Factory

Natural gas in the transportation sector works well in some applications and not very well at all others.

There was an NG trial in Singapore in the early 2000s with cabs and private cars. Private money went into the infrastructure, a couple of refueling stations were built and the government waived or lowered some taxes.

After the initial fanfare, the enthusiasm died down when people found it was too inconvenient to drive 20 minutes to a refueling station, and the NG cabs (converted from diesel) were breaking down faster due to the gas tanks which were too heavy, causing problems to the breaks and suspension, etc.

After that, government subsidies were removed and no one talks about NG any more.

At the end of the day, NG requires substantial investment on not just infrastructure, but the vehicles also need to be properly modified or even custom made for NG.

[Southernguy]

Re: Mysterious Electric Car Company Looking To Build $1 Billon Dollar Factory

Argentina has a long (decades) history of CNG for cars. It works well, mainly for taxi cabs.
But then, the country has built a history on producing the tanks, the valves, and the stuff needed. Cars are, usually double fuel: gasoline and CNG. CNG is cheaper there.

[dcarrigg]

Re: Mysterious Electric Car Company Looking To Build $1 Billon Dollar Factory

There was an NG trial in Singapore in the early 2000s with cabs and private cars. Private money went into the infrastructure, a couple of refueling stations were built and the government waived or lowered some taxes.

After the initial fanfare, the enthusiasm died down when people found it was too inconvenient to drive 20 minutes to a refueling station, and the NG cabs (converted from diesel) were breaking down faster due to the gas tanks which were too heavy, causing problems to the breaks and suspension, etc.

After that, government subsidies were removed and no one talks about NG any more.

At the end of the day, NG requires substantial investment on not just infrastructure, but the vehicles also need to be properly modified or even custom made for NG.

Singapore's the worst place on earth to own a car anyways, isn't it? Isn't the permit to purchase a car going for something like $70,000 now and every highway equipped with variable, ceiling-less tolls that are the most expensive in the world? I believe parking operates on the same principal.

If so, I don't think Singapore can count as any sort of real experiment. You've got to be a millionaire to own and operate a car there. Millionaires cannot be bothered with a time delay for fuel. But if there were savings, and if the PAP (All glory be to the Lee Family!) allowed middle class and working class people to own cars (or chewing gum...) then maybe it would have caught on a bit better.

Regardless, though, I never figured on little passenger cars doing most of the work here. But more busses, short-haul delivery trucks, UPS and friends, all that type of stuff...that I figure will get turned over as they turn the incentives up and try to hit carbon reduction targets.

Of course, the alternative is to do it Singapore's way. Ban the working class from emitting carbon, and beat them mercilessly with bamboo in the public square for showing any political dissent, and execute them for self-medicating. Then cut taxes for rich expats and let them own the traffic-free roads...

[thriftyandboringinohio]

Re: Mysterious Electric Car Company Looking To Build $1 Billon Dollar Factory

Natural gas in the transportation sector works well in some applications and not very well at all others. "Return-to-base" fleet operations such as waste collection and school/public transit buses work extremely well on compressed natural gas (CNG) fuel. The capital investment in the equipment (compression, distribution pipe and filling hoses) is quite low because even a large fleet of vehicles can be filled slowly overnight from a single compressor and cascade storage system. The natural gas engines for these medium duty applications are well developed and produced in sufficient quantity that the prices are not a large premium to comparable diesel or gasoline engines. The drivers come back to base at the end of the shift or route, park the vehicle in an empty slot and it takes just a few seconds to connect the vehicle and fill hose. The rest is automated.

The heavy haul transport sector is an entirely different matter. There are engines that have been produced by Cummins and Westport for this application, but so far the reliability and the fuel efficiency have not come close to published figures. For example instead of an approximately 7% loss in energy efficiency compared to diesel the real world test fleet numbers are consistently in the high teens. Most of the test fleets have been trying to use liquified natural gas (LNG) which has a greater energy density per litre of carried volume compared to CNG. Unfortunately LNG is expensive to manufacture, store, distribute and handle because it is a cryogenic fluid at -160 deg C, and that offsets much of the energy density advantage. It also means the drivers refilling their trucks have to wear some specialized personal protective equipment including eye protection and insulated gloves...you can't let that stuff touch your skin. Both Cummins and Westport announced earlier this year they were abandoning their 15-litre gas engine programs. Here are some excerpts from the carefully worded announcements. This created a real problem for trucking contractors that had made a commitment to trying natural gas fuels as there is no replacement engine as their tractors mile out and need replacing. One of Canada's largest trucking contractors, Bison Transport, was working with Shell to test LNG fuels for their highway transports. When the engines were discontinued BIson shut the program down, reverted to pure diesel units and sold all the NG trucks to another firm which bought them for spares and future replacements to keep their own fleet of NG trucks still working. Shell also announced that it was abandoning the manufacturing of LNG for fuel in Canada, the USA and Australia.

An area to watch is locomotives. Trains can carry an LNG tender car behind the engine (like they did with coal tenders in the age of steam locomotives) and therefore have sufficient fuel for long distances. Refueling stations can be established along the mainlines, and the rail companies use enough energy to get to the volumes needed to make the economics work.

+1

To your point about locomotives, some years ago Ballard Power Systems was pushing the idea of a fuel cell powered locomotive for those very reasons.
Unlimited volume and weight for the fuel cell system and fuel. More recently BNSF made a splash about one.

[BK]

Re: Tesla - of 1920 - Steinmetz Electric

https://news.google.com/newspapers?n...,1900093&hl=en

TeslaISSteinmetz.jpg

[thriftyandboringinohio]

Re: Tesla - of 1920 - Steinmetz Electric

https://news.google.com/newspapers?n...,1900093&hl=en

[ATTACH=CONFIG]5735[/ATTACH]

Nice, BK.
There is truly nothing new under the sun.

[BK]

Re: Tesla - of 1920 - Steinmetz Electric

I didn't know if I should laugh or cry when I found this story. You have Wall Street and newspaper pumping up a company because the CEO is a genius, he will make a better electric, they own patents.......a can't lose investment.

95 years later people are just as dumb or optimistic??

[touchring]

Re: Mysterious Electric Car Company Looking To Build $1 Billon Dollar Factory

Singapore's the worst place on earth to own a car anyways, isn't it? Isn't the permit to purchase a car going for something like $70,000 now and every highway equipped with variable, ceiling-less tolls that are the most expensive in the world? I believe parking operates on the same principal.

If so, I don't think Singapore can count as any sort of real experiment. You've got to be a millionaire to own and operate a car there. Millionaires cannot be bothered with a time delay for fuel. But if there were savings, and if the PAP (All glory be to the Lee Family!) allowed middle class and working class people to own cars (or chewing gum...) then maybe it would have caught on a bit better.

Regardless, though, I never figured on little passenger cars doing most of the work here. But more busses, short-haul delivery trucks, UPS and friends, all that type of stuff...that I figure will get turned over as they turn the incentives up and try to hit carbon reduction targets.

Of course, the alternative is to do it Singapore's way. Ban the working class from emitting carbon, and beat them mercilessly with bamboo in the public square for showing any political dissent, and execute them for self-medicating. Then cut taxes for rich expats and let them own the traffic-free roads...

You're right to say that car owners in Singapore are usually more well-off when the permit to buy a car costs $70,000 or so, and that permit is time limited - only for 10 years. But a large percentage of car owners are not millionaires. According to government statistics, there are 600k cars in Singapore, and there are 157k millionaires - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Millionaire - so at least 3 in 4 car owners are not millionaires.

As for Familee, their support is stronger than ever.

[GRG55]

Re: Mysterious Electric Car Company Looking To Build $1 Billon Dollar Factory

There was an NG trial in Singapore in the early 2000s with cabs and private cars. Private money went into the infrastructure, a couple of refueling stations were built and the government waived or lowered some taxes.

After the initial fanfare, the enthusiasm died down when people found it was too inconvenient to drive 20 minutes to a refueling station, and the NG cabs (converted from diesel) were breaking down faster due to the gas tanks which were too heavy, causing problems to the breaks and suspension, etc.

After that, government subsidies were removed and no one talks about NG any more.

At the end of the day, NG requires substantial investment on not just infrastructure, but the vehicles also need to be properly modified or even custom made for NG.

The experience of Singapore, an inconsequential tiny speck in the south Pacific, is irrelevant.

There are a great number of successful NG & LPG vehicle program examples dating back decades all over the world. These include developed markets such as Italy, and well advanced EM nations such as Turkey. If in the year 2000 Singapore was not using readily available light weight composite cylinders (type 3 are aluminium liner carbon fibre wrapped, and type 4 are plastic liner carbon fibre wrapped) for the NG trial, then it missed the boat...probably because it was trying to protect some wealthy, influential Singapore industrialist who was supplying old style heavy steel cylinders.

[GRG55]

Re: Mysterious Electric Car Company Looking To Build $1 Billon Dollar Factory

+1

To your point about locomotives, some years ago Ballard Power Systems was pushing the idea of a fuel cell powered locomotive for those very reasons.
Unlimited volume and weight for the fuel cell system and fuel. More recently BNSF made a splash about one.

You will already know all of this thrifty, but for others in our iTulip community:

That requires replacing the fleet, which is not going to happen quickly. Unlike the passenger car fleet, locomotives can remain in service and last for decades.

The dual-fuel (also called bi-fuel) systems are going to be the next step. A few firms, all USA based, are at the forefront of applying this technology in heavy horsepower applications. CAT is the leading OEM supplier now, with at least 5 other USA firms offering aftermarket options. These systems are retro-fitted to existing large diesel engines used for oil drilling rigs, frac pumpers, electricity generation, gravel crushing, and other high horsepower applications. They allow the displacement with high-methane natural gas of up to 70% of the diesel fuel used by the engines. The displacement percentage is a function of engine load. At idle and at full load the engines are running on pure diesel. In the 30% to 80% load range the computers introduce natural gas in proportions that vary, but maintain the full rated output of the engine so there is no performance compromise. Only a blend of natural gas and diesel is possible in a heat ignition (diesel cycle) engine because there has to be enough diesel in the mix to act as the igniter for the fuel blend.

Pure natural gas engines require a spark ignition. The problem with pure natural gas engines is that they have to be a great deal larger and heavier than a comparable diesel engine to produce the same output. This is a problem in mobile applications such as drilling rigs. Hence the attraction of the bi-fuel alternative.

Turning to locomotives, here's an excerpt from the General Electric site regarding their work applying this same technology to their locomotives. My expectation is that the introduction of OEM NG-diesel bi-fuel engines, as well as OEM supported retrofit kits (or complete drop in engine/fuel train replacement options) for the existing fleet of locomotives is going to open the door to widespread use of NG as a railroad transport fuel in the USA and Canada.

Dual Fuel Locomotive Is Friendly to the Environment

Inside GE’s multimillion dollar single-cell test rig, scientists are working on advanced combustion and engine studies for the locomotives of the future. One of the principal programs is development of an engine that can run on both natural gas and diesel fuel. By incorporating natural gas as an engine fuel, the opportunities to reduce emissions and save on fuel costs are tremendous. The estimated fuel savings for dual-fuel locomotives running on diesel piloted NG could be as high as $300,000/year/locomotive—a substantial figure that’s sure to benefit customers in a meaningful way.

Aside from the cost savings, there are the environmental benefits. With LNG, NOx and particulate matter (PM) emissions are lower, thus providing an alternate path to attain Tier 4 standards set by the federal government. GE engineers are currently testing a fuel mixture that is 80% LNG, and 20% diesel using existing engine hardware.

GE engineers continue to address several challenges as they work to refine the dual-fuel technology. Knock detection and mitigation strategies will be key to engine implementation, as will the need for enhanced combustion modeling. Different experimental and analytical tools are enabling GE engineers to learn more about how NG and diesel interact in a dual-fuel combustion scenario so advances can be made to optimize engine performance. Taken together, the wealth of information gathered through this phase of the research could enable faster deployment of new systems and expanded use of dual-fuel on new engines. GE’s single-cylinder test cell will be a critical proving ground in this process.

GE is expected to test dual-fuel engines and conduct trial runs through 2015, with full production targeted for 2016.

[sunpearl71]

Re: Mysterious Electric Car Company Looking To Build $1 Billon Dollar Factory

Pure natural gas engines require a spark ignition. The problem with pure natural gas engines is that they have to be a great deal larger and heavier than a comparable diesel engine to produce the same output. This is a problem in mobile applications such as drilling rigs. Hence the attraction of the bi-fuel alternative.

New solutions are coming up to address this issue, but are at an early stage of commercialisation/market acceptance.

Pulstar Spark Plugs use a patented internal capacitor, developed with the help of a US Department of Energy laboratory, to store and compress energy delivered by the ignition coil prior to spark formation; forming a 5MW nanosecond pulse upon ionization of the gap. Pulstar's capacitor releases a high-intensity electrical pulse that ionizes the gaseous air-fuel mixture, forming highly excited plasma. This excited plasma is extremely beneficial to fuel combustion, resulting in instant ignition and a rapid burn.

http://pulstarnatgas.com/