
Tesla has a lab trying to build its own battery cells - Reedx
https://www.cnbc.com/2019/06/26/tesla-secret-lab-building-battery-cells-to-reduce-panasonic-dependency.html
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lawrenceyan
Quite a few of my chemical engineering friends at Berkeley have interned at
Tesla in their battery cell division. Their laboratory also regularly partners
with our Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory for various research projects.
It's a pretty robust operation actually, though I doubt most people would know
about it unless they were in academia or affiliated with the research
universities involved.

Happy overall that my friends don't have to choose between their morals or
making money working in the oil industry now that battery chemistry is the
more lucrative alternative.

~~~
dba7dba
One thing I learned while reading on HN is that there is never ever any kind
of job posting from battery companies. There is much much secrecy about what
the battery companies are doing (for obvious reasons). Due to this, they
contact Masters/Phd student directly for possible job offers based on research
papers and/or word of mouth.

They supposedly do not post any job postings.

~~~
lawrenceyan
Makes sense. Most people I know usually work during the school year / summer
as research assistants under a professor in their lab before going on to
intern somewhere. Unlike with computer science, with more hands on type of
sciences like chemistry, I'm sure having some lab experience is pretty
important if you want to be a meaningful contributor during your internship.

I don't know much about how job postings online work, but quite a few
companies come recruit during the school year, and all of the events are open
to everyone as long as you're a student. So I'm not sure it's necessarily as
closed off as you're making it out to be with having to be contacted on an
individual basis.

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new_realist
In addition to using Panasonic’s IP, Tesla has been using Panasonic as a
source of cheap capital for years. Now that Pana has shown reluctance to keep
investing in the Gigafactory, Tesla is going to try it themselves: like
insurance, shipping, auto body repair, seats, glass, software (where is
CarPlay?), inference chips, AI, motors, packs, tequila, sales, service, and
manufacturing in general. May this effort fare better than the poor
flufferbot.

~~~
cowmix
You don't really need Carplay or Android Auto in a Tesla. Those two systems
plug in holes in crappy OEM infotainment systems.

~~~
myko
I drive a Model S and I disagree. I'd prefer to have my own music and podcast
apps. Car Play and Android Auto are a lot better UX-wise.

~~~
amluto
Indeed. The Tesla system has a mediocre navigation app, a really pretty awful
audio app, and not much else of use. And Tesla’s voice commands are not very
useful.

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Zhenya
Of course they do.

Their 3 advantages are:

1) motors

2) batteries

3) continuing vertical integration (Elon points this out)

So this is 2+3.

~~~
makomk
Those are certainly the things they've been claiming as their advantages, but
the battery tech is mostly bought in and their original in-house motor tech
has basically nothing in common with the motors used in the Model 3.

~~~
stcredzero
_Those are certainly the things they 've been claiming as their advantages,
but the battery tech is mostly bought in_

The battery pack, control systems, and cooling systems are something you can
get really right, or quite wrong. The cells themselves are important, of
course. Given that they're a cost driver, a vertical integration move would be
to bring them in house. Even if Tesla ultimately fails at cars, it might still
have a future as a battery pack manufacturer.

~~~
m-ee
Cells manufacturing is a totally different animal, and I wonder if Tesla is
willing to burn money long enough to get as good as Panasonic and the other
big players. Being colocated with Panasonic at the gigafactory is a huge leg
up, but its still a very long term play that I'm not sure matches up with
Elon's patience or Tesla's cash reserves.

------
_ph_
In this context it is important to note that Tesla just bought Maxwell, which
have a very interesting dry electrode process which could make cell
manufacturing quicker and cheaper. Also, the cells themselves are improved by
the process.

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erikpukinskis
Tesla bears think the Maxwell acquisition is key to beginning their own
battery production. The idea being, the right time for Tesla to jump into the
cell market is during a price/performance discontinuity, and Maxwell’s dry
electrode production process represents one of those discontinuities.

Essentially: dry electrode will force the whole industry to re-tool, so Tesla
is at less of a disadvantage as a newcomer in that moment of the development
curve.

~~~
microcolonel
Also Maxwell's ultracapacitors are spectacular, and could enable a lot of high
end features and/or improve regenerative braking across the board. On the high
performance models, the motors already tend to move more power than warm
summer tires in the dry can even transmit; I'm not sure what the ratio of
regen to mechanical/heat braking currently is, but it seems like they could do
most non-emergency braking through the motors. Not sure if the batteries are
the limiting factor on that right now though.

~~~
kwhitefoot
Once the battery is warm most braking is already regenerative unless you are
driving quite aggressively and need to reduce speed very rapidly. At least
that's how it seems to be in my 2015 S 70D.

So ultra capacitors would have the most impact where people have short
commutes in cold climates. Would be handy for me and might make a significant
difference in the winter as the nearest thing I do to commuting is a 22 km
journey into town and the same coming back after the car has been sitting idle
for hours. It takes between 5 and 10 km for the battery to be warm enough for
regen to be effective.

But after that I can get 50 kW of regen which is plenty enough to slow the car
in normal circumstances.

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m463
I wonder if this is because of Panasonic scaling back its investment in the
gigafactory, or the cause of it.

~~~
rcMgD2BwE72F
Panasonic never "scaled back its investment". They already made the investment
to produce 35 GWh but haven't been able to reach this production level yet.
They'll invest more later, to reach the new 54 GWh target -- only when they
start hitting the 35 GWh mark. Investing too early is unnecessary.

>companies had already together invested $4.5 billion in the facility and had
been planning to expand the plant’s capacity to the equivalent of 54 gigawatt
hours (GWh) a year in 2020 from 35 GWh at present.

[https://www.reuters.com/article/us-tesla-gigafactory-
panason...](https://www.reuters.com/article/us-tesla-gigafactory-
panasonic/tesla-panasonic-to-seek-productivity-gains-before-new-battery-
investments-idUSKCN1RN117)

Note that today's 35 GWh capacity was a __2020 __goal, so they really are
ahead of their
objectives:[https://www.tesla.com/sites/default/files/blog_attachments/g...](https://www.tesla.com/sites/default/files/blog_attachments/gigafactory.pdf)

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dba7dba
Right as GigaFactory was being planned/announced, there was much
speculation/rumors on internet that Tesla was having talks with Samsung about
possibly working together to build the gigafactory. I wonder what happened to
it...

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drcross
I suspect you'd do something like this if you just had big results from the
lab research. Throwing Panasonic out of the process increases the chance that
the new battery chemistry doesn't leak.

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viburnum
Is going to be like The Boring Company, where they just buy Chinese parts and
pass them off as their own?

~~~
manicdee
I didn’t realise you could buy tunnels from China and import them so cheap!

------
new_realist
In addition to using Panasonic’s IP, Tesla has been using Panasonic as a
source of cheap capital for years. Now that Pana has shown reluctance to keep
investing in the Gigafactory, Tesla is going to try it themselves: like
insurance, shipping, auto body repair, seats, glass, software (where is
CarPlay?), inference chips, AI, motors, packs, and manufacturing in general.
May this effort fare better than the poor flufferbot.

