
Tesla’s electric man - pmcpinto
http://www.economist.com/news/technology-quarterly/21635332-jb-straubel-charged-more-electrifying-californian-carmaker-he
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skywhopper
Batteries are one of those technology bottlenecks that will pay off in a
_huge_ way when and if someone can create a major leap that allows a 10x or
100x improvement in capacity, cost, efficiency, whatever. For computing, for
transportation, for general energy usage, for third-world development, a
better battery will reap enormous societal benefits. It's amazing how far Li-
Ion cells have progressed, but we need more and better yet still. I'm glad to
see someone is pouring huge resources into this problem. Hopefully Musk is not
the only one.

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dnissley
What about hydrogen? Because of the energy required to isolate hydrogen it's
hard to consider it a true "energy source". But as a dense, portable source of
clean energy it seems like it could be poised to trounce existing battery
technology. The only problem, of course, being the explodey thing.

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NickM
The biggest obstacle to using li-ion for stationary storage is not density. It
doesn't really matter if the batteries weigh a ton if you're never going to
move them. And hydrogen is roughly on par with batteries in terms of
energy/volume.

Cost and efficiency are much bigger factors. Batteries completely destroy
hydrogen in both of these measures.

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MiguelHudnandez
I think the downside for hydrogen storage is the inefficiency of electrolysis.
Last time I looked at it, you lose about 50% of the energy when making
hydrogen. The plus side is that the fuel cell side is very efficient.

It'd be practical to have hydrogen split from water at a large scale at solar
farms or at existing power plants, and delivered to homes as backup power.
(like propane?)

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JoeAltmaier
The energy density of hydrogen might be very small? So inefficient to store
and move around.

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lkbm
> Not all the cells made by the gigafactory are destined for vehicles. Some
> will end up in the company’s Superchargers, allowing Tesla to cope with
> sudden bursts of demand should multiple vehicles need to recharge at once.
> Others will be used at Tesla’s assembly plants to store energy when it is
> cheap, typically at night, and release it when the price rises.

This surprised me, but Wikipedia says Li-Ion efficiency is 80-90%, so I can
see that being worthwhile.

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decasteve
I'll wager that JB Straubel will be Tesla's CEO in 3-5 years and Tesla will no
longer be a car company but a battery/infrastructure company.

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threeseed
Likely it will be just a battery company. The supercharger network is still
proprietary i.e. it isn't a standard and there is no evidence that car
companies are planning to adopt the Tesla connector. Especially with
governments rallying around standards and directly competing with Tesla.

And for me personally I am dubious about electric being the future solution.
The world can live without Tesla and even BMW. Far harder without Toyota.

~~~
drzaiusapelord
I'm starting to also question a lot of the pro-electric propaganda. Gas is
still too cheap and too plentiful and battery tech is still too terrible. All
the breathless Elon Musk PR pieces don't change that.

Even if the future is eventually electric, which I think it is - just when is
the question. Who is going to win? The guy selling pricey luxury cars or
Toyota, Chevy, and others who are already beating him on price today, let
along 5-10 years from now.

~~~
toomuchtodo
> Gas is still too cheap and too plentiful and battery tech is still too
> terrible.

Please don't get any ideas that this is the case. Most of OPEC requires
$100/barrel or more to balance their budgets. The only reason we're seeing oil
prices plummet is because OPEN is attempting to play chicken with US tight oil
("fracking") plays. Fracking in the US, in some cases, is profitable all the
way down to $42/barrel.

Several tight oil companies have already cancelled their dividends, and there
are concerns they won't be able to obtain financing to continue operations
(depending on the company).

This ignores the elephant in the room that is China, that is ramping up
filling their strategic oil reserves at these low prices.

Sidenote: Tesla adds 1-3 Superchargers to their network _per day_.

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ableal
(Interstitial advertisement: "[Wrist watch brand] values your time". Indeed.)

Nice piece. This is apparently the guy making things happen (at least) in the
battery front, while Musk takes care of the public dog and pony show.

A few technical, rarely mentioned, tidbits thrown in, too.

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butwhy
"..panels leased from Solar City, another company owned by Mr Musk" \- just
make it up as you go, I guess.

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josefresco
According to Wikipedia, Musk is not only chairman of Solar City but also
"remains the largest shareholder" \- so the line from the article while
lacking detail, is mostly correct.

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jkaunisv1
Well, the article also says that Musk & JB are cofounders of Tesla, so, you
know.. Not expecting much accuracy from the rest of it.

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SuperChihuahua
How do you define a co-founder? Tesla was just an empty shell before Musk and
JB arrived, so I think they are co-founders of Tesla, but not the only co-
founders.

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jkaunisv1
I'd say it was more than an empty shell. Eberhard got a lot of the way there
developing the product. From what I've read he wasn't the guy to grow the
company but he got it through the initial startup.

I'd agree with you and say they're all cofounders (as, Wikipedia tells me,
they settled out of court to agree on). But I think the media really
emphasizes Musk, and in this article Straubel, as the co-founders while
eliding Eberhard's contribution (ie. actually STARTING the company with
Tarpenning).

